The head of the Catholic Church in Libya says his people are sick and
tired of NATO's bombing campaign.
Meanwhile, there are signs of growing
discontent in several of the countries whose governments have committed
themselves to the operation.
“I hope that everyone’s good will prevails in order to stop this
war,” said Bishop Giovanni I. Martinelli, Apostolic Administrator of
Tripoli, “because we are tired of the bombing.”
“Even last night there were several,” he told Fides news agency on
June 16. “Frankly we are all fed up.”
As in past weeks, Bishop
Martinelli's comments echoed Pope Benedict XVI's desire for a cease fire
and a negotiated solution to the country's crisis.
Earlier in the week, the bishop told Fides that the war seemed to
have “become uninteresting” to Western observers, and been “put in the
background” in favor of other events.
But growing criticism of the war, from the U.S. Congress and other
Western countries, may be bringing the conflict back to the forefront.
A bipartisan group of 10 lawmakers is suing President Barack Obama
over his decision to join the war without consulting Congress. House
Speaker John Boehner warned the president on June 14 that he would be in
violation of the War Powers Act if he continued to involve the U.S. in
Libyan “hostilities” past June 19 without consulting Congress.
The president insists he does not need Congress' approval due to the
non-traditional nature of the Libyan war. A White House report released
to lawmakers on June 15 noted that “U.S. operations do not involve
sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor
do they involve U.S. ground troops.”
One of the 10 plaintiffs challenging Obama's legal authority,
Representative Dennis Kucinich (D – Ohio) says he will push to defund
U.S. operations in Libya.
“This administration brought our nation to war without congressional
approval or the support of the American people,” Kucinich said in a June
17 statement.
In England and Italy, two other countries that have joined forces
against Colonel Gaddafi, there are similar concerns about the
practicality of a prolonged Libyan war.
Admiral Mark Stanhope, Britain's top naval officer, said on June 14
that the British government would have to “request the government to
make some challenging decisions about priorities” if the war stretched
past September, according to the Associated Press.
Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said on June 15 that his
country's parliament should block funding for the Libyan war. Agence
France-Presse quoted Maroni as saying that “Italy and other European
governments should put the money into developing democracy, not bombs.”
Maroni went on to point out that the bombings were causing a refugee
crisis for his own country.
“As long as there are bombs, refugees will
arrive and they will need assistance,” he noted.
“We've had more than
20,000 refugees arrive from Libya.”
Bishop Martinelli, who has criticized the coalition's “humanitarian
intervention” since its beginning, says it's time for Western
governments to stop fighting a war based on unrealistic assumptions.
“I remember,” he told Fides last week, “that an important Western
politician, a month ago, said that Gaddafi's fall is a matter of hours. I
do not know how long those hours are.”
“Whoever thinks that things can be solved with bombs is wrong,” the bishop stated.