Re: Christian Justification for War L3! Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 19:53:25 -0400, JDG wrote The creation of the United Nations following World War II crystalized a concept of international peace and security that was in the collective interest of nations. The United Nations was not formed to prosecute wars, but to resolve conflicts as peacefully as possible -- to avoid war. it now becomes ever more conceivable that the US could use the extraordinary imbalance of power in its favor on behalf of human rights where it does not have an immediate strategic interest. Yes, the Pax Americana idea -- we could use our military power to bring peace to the world. But being led by humans, odds are we won't. The idea that power corrupts isn't just a cliche. I see history telling us again and again of the arrogance of power, even in societies that were created from fine principles. And not just nations, but churches, businesses, and virtually any human institution is vulnerable to hubris and corruption. And we should trust that one nation with extraordinary power, including nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, won't misuse them? No, thanks. I'd rather involve other parties in the decision-making. Sunlight is a powerful disinfectant. This logic, however, would preclude a country intervening against a government conducting a genocide against its own people. Please, please, please, you, Gautam and anybody else tempted to make this reductio ad absurdum argument. Cut it out. There is an enormous spectrum of possibilities between war and non-intervention. Of course, a more concrete example, comes from the original application of the Clinton Doctrine in Kosovo. As near as I can tell from following the subsequent discussion, you have argued that what I would call the Kosovo War was not a war at all, but a police action. I am hoping that you can perhaps expand upon this distinction. Certainly. The kind of collateral damage we're seeing in Iraq is unacceptable in a police action. Police, even SWAT teams and such, operate under very different rules. They target only the perpetrators. They don't destroy the infrastructure of the country. They don't replace local authority unless it is criminal. It is crime-fighting, not nation-building. So, to return to the original question, if one interprets Saddam Hussein as an aggressor under Catholic Just War theory But one cannot. By the Pope's own words, as well as by any reasonable interpretation of a just war. If we're going to talk about this from a Catholic perspective, we can hardly ignore the Pope's pleas for us to refrain from making war on Iraq, can we? I see endless war in our future if we do not at least listen to the voices of our friends (and now former friends) around the world and make some effort to build multinational support for such extreme measures. Otherwise, we're a nation built on checks and balances that has none at the international level. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Christian Justification for War L3! Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
Nick wrote: Certainly. The kind of collateral damage we're seeing in Iraq is unacceptable in a police action. Police, even SWAT teams and such, operate under very different rules. They target only the perpetrators. They don't destroy the infrastructure of the country. They don't replace local authority unless it is criminal. It is crime-fighting, not nation-building. Not that I don't agree with most of your post but didn't we target Bosnian infrastructure - bridges, power plants etc. with the bombing. I thought the only thing we tried to avoid was civilian casualties. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Christian Justification for War L3! Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not that I don't agree with most of your post but didn't we target Bosnian infrastructure - bridges, power plants etc. with the bombing. I thought the only thing we tried to avoid was civilian casualties. -- Doug A good friend of mine was on the targeting team for Kosovo and says that we were attacking everything we could think of within about 48 hours after the first raids, because we had pretty much destroyed all of Serbia's purely military assets by that point, and we had to do something. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Christian Justification for War L3! Re: The Other Christianity(was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
Nick, At 11:04 PM 4/9/2005 -0700, Nick wrote: The creation of the United Nations following World War II crystalized a concept of international peace and security that was in the collective interest of nations. The United Nations was not formed to prosecute wars, but to resolve conflicts as peacefully as possible -- to avoid war. That is true, but the United Nations also gave itself the authority to use war as a means to maintain international peace and security. Under the definition of just war theology that you provided, the US was *not* justified in launching Gulf War I to liberate the Emirate of Kuwait from occupation by Saddam Hussein.Presumably you would want to update your definition of just war theology to also justify wars like the First Gulf War and the Korean War. Of course, there are other problems with your definition of just war theology, as I (and others) have pointed out that it would preclude a country like the United States from intervening against a government conducting a genocide against its own people. You have claimed that this is a reductio ad absurdum argument, and pointed out that there is an enormous spectrum of possibilities between war and non-intervention. I think that you are missing the point, however. I don't think anyone is suggesting that other means short of war should be pursued whenever possible. In fact, I at least have specified that the exhaustion of other means is a *requirement* for just war under Catholic theology. The question before us, however, is would war *ever* be justifed on the part of the United States to put a stop to a genocide being conducted by a government against its own people? Your description of just war theology, however, would say that such a war would *never* be justifed, as a country like the United States would neither have been attacked, nor in imminent danger of being attacked. I find such logic very unsatisfying. I also find it somewhat disappointing that you did not respond to my point about police action requiring legitimate authority. Instead, you seem to be offering a semi-definition of police action based upon the level of force involved. What I think you are missing is the fact that in domestic affairs, governments have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, abd usually a true monopoly on heavy weaponry. In most countries, individuals are not allowed to maintain such things as tanks, anti-aircraft guns, and other heavy weaponry. This difference in capabalities is what defines the level of force used to resolve a problem. Thus, I think that trying to define the difference between police action and war on the basis of force ends up being a tautalogy. In domestic affairs, the government has a monopoly on the use of heavy weaponry, and so a lighter level of force is used in police actions. In international affairs, there are no such monopolies, and indeed only a few limitations on the use of force, and thus the heavier use of force, warfare is used in international affairs. Suffice to say, that while the NYPD may be New York's finest, the NYPD is not capable of putting a halt to state-sponsored genocide, nor to the sort of ethnic cleansing that occurred in Kosovo. And as Gautam and others have pointed out, even if we were to agree to your distinction between police action and warfare based on the size of force deployed, the size of force deployed in Kosovo much, much, more closely resembles warfare than it does a police action. Again, as noted earlier, in the Kosovo Action we destroyed every bit of Yugoslavia's infrastructure that we could, used heavy aircraft and cruise missiles, and targeted Yugoslavian government buildings without absolute assurance that everyone connected to them, or even in them, was a perpetrator of ethnic cleansing. Therfore, using the definition you seem to be proposing, our actions in Kosovo would seem to constitute a War and do not Meanwhile, I find it amazing that you can continue to suggest that the US [did] not at least listen to the voices of our friends... and make some effort to build multinational support for such extreme measures.The United States spent well over a year attempting to build support for the Iraq war. He sent Colin Powell to the United Nations, and various officials on trips to Europe. The US did *not* rush into war without listening to the voices of our friends. Indeed, let's consider a reasonable definition of the US's friends as being those countries with which the US has a formal Alliance (excluding the largely defunct Rio Treaty.)Of the 32 or so of these countries, at least 22 of them supported the Iraq War (I gave you the benefit of the doubt on any country that I was not quite sure of). Is this not multinational support and listiening to the voices of our friends? If not, then what is it? (And please remember that support for the Kosovo Action was not unanimous either, and was vigorously opposed by
Christian Justification for War L3! Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 05:23 PM 4/6/2005 -0700,Nick wrote: Are you saying that war is the only way to get rid of an evil dictator? Or war was the only way to get rid of this one? Am I mistaken in believing that in almost every other case, our policy has been not to go to war for that reason? Is removing an evil dictator justification for this war? For what it's worth, there is no major religion that accepts such a justification. There are two great religious traditions with regard to war -- pacifism and just war theology. The latter never allows for a pre-emptive war. Virtually every major religious body in the world (the one notable exception being the Southern Baptist Association) urged us not to undertake it, before it began, which means before we even knew for sure that Iraq was no threat to us. Very aggressive inspections by an international force more like police than military, indicting the leader in a world court and other pressure could be brought to bear in such situations. Well-developed policies and plans for such intervention, backed by international agreement, would go a very long way toward peace. And so would many things that I have a direct part in -- consumption of oil and other scarce resouces, more diverse voices in the media, a more intelligent national discussion of issues and values... Nick Nick, You ask if removing an evil dictator is justification for war. I answer *yes* to that question, and further believe that yes it was the only way to get rid of this one. We spent 12 years trying all sorts of sanctions, air strikes, no-fly-zones, and funding for opposition groups, all to no avail in Iraq.As an amateur geologist, I surely agree that nothing lasts forever, but the experience in places like Cuba, the DPRK, and now Zimbabwe all suggest that this could be a very, very, long time in coming. Thus, I believe that the evils perpetuated by the Iraqi regime for ia reasonably long lifespan into the future under the status quo must be considered in evaluating the justness of the Iraq War. Anyhow, you go on to suggest that there are two great religious traditions with regard to war - pacifism and just war theology.I think that your statement is a little Christian-centric, perhaps intentionally on your part. But even within the Christian milieu, I think that one of the reasons for the lack of a more robust tradition regarding war is the fact that Christian theology has not quite caught up with a post-Holocaust, cum-United Nations, post-Clinton Doctrine, single hyperpower world. I would point out that the Catholic Catechism phrases this criteria regarding just war, as merely that the war must be waged against an aggressor, and that 'the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.' (As an aside, the other criteria for just war in the Catholic Catechism are the exhaustion of other means (12 years in this case), serious prospect of success (not really a question in this case), and the use of arms must not produce greater evils (i.e. you can't justify a war to stop the execution of one innocent man, since war would result in the death of other innocents.)I know that you are not a Catholic, so I will respond to your definition of a just war first, but I want to make sure that you are aware of the different frame of reference from which I will be operating. In the past, war was essentially a geo-strategic event. Countries conducted wars to expand their power or influence at the expense of other countries. After the horrors of the Holocaust, it became suddenly at least conceivable that it could be desirable to conduct a war for moral reasons, rather than for strategic reasons. The creation of the United Nations following World War II crystalized a concept of international peace and security that was in the collective interest of nations. These ideas were more-or-less put on hold during The Cold War, however, until Bill Clinton formally made it a policy that the US would, when it could, make war on another country principally on humanitarian grounds and in defence of universal human rights. In a world with a single hyperpower, it now becomes ever more conceivable that the US could use the extraordinary imbalance of power in its favor on behalf of human rights where it does not have an immediate strategic interest. Anyhow, in my interpretation, the only update to just war theology required for the modern world, would be to consider a regime like Saddam Hussein's as being an aggressor based upon its crimes against humanity, its past history, and the reasonable consideration of its future actions, particularly with its hands on WMD's.But more on this later Under your interpretation just war theology requires imminent self-defence (or perhaps even *immediate* self-defense) as a pre-condition for just war.This logic, however, would preclude a country intervening against a
