War and peace are major themes in this edition of Networthy ND as the websites of CNN and NPR recently featured commentary by Notre Dame faculty members on the fighting in Libya and Afghanistan.
In an essay posted at the CNN website, Mary Ellen O’Connell, Notre Dame’s Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law, criticizes the Obama Administration’s narrow definition of U.S. involvement in Libya, which she argues seems calculated to avoid the jurisdiction of the War Powers Resolution.
Writing at the NPR blog, Princeton professor Benjamin Kleinerman and Notre Dame professor of political science and law Victor Phillip Munoz critique a proposal by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton that would streamline cooperation between Congress and the presidency over war powers. Such streamlining is not a good thing, they argue.
On the CNN website, David Cortright, who is director of policy studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, says President Obama’s drawdown of troops in Afghanistan was a step in the right direction, but an even better step would be to negotiate a complete end to the U.S. military action, replacing U.S. forces with international peacekeepers.
The recent “rapture-that didn’t happen” is the takeoff point for Professor Gary Gutting’s philosophical musings in his New York Times “Opinionator” blog post on the nature of knowledge and why evangelical Christian minister Harold Camping couldn’t say anything about the rapture with certainty, despite his claims.
Finally, read a review and see film clips and a trailer of The Elect, a documentary by Notre Dame undergraduates Erin Zacek and Dan Moore. Their short film was selected from more than 5,000 entrants for screening at the prestigious Los Angeles Film Festival, which ran from June 16 to 26. The 20-minute documentary offers a glimpse into everyday life in the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, known for its anti-homosexual demonstrations at the funerals of U.S. war dead.