Boston Globe Cathy Young
THE BOMBINGS in London on July 7, which killed 53 people and injured many more, were a powerful reminder that terrorism remains a clear and present threat in our cities. But they were also, to me, a reminder of something else. As annoying as I frequently find the right these days, with its cynical partisanship, its arrogance of power, and its politics of religious zealotry, my discontent with conservatives will never send me into the liberal camp — because the response to terrorism even on the moderate left remains an egregious moral muddle.
Perhaps the starkest illustration of this mindset is the fact that, only a couple of days after the bombings, the British Broadcasting Corporation reverted to its policy of avoiding the use of the word ”terrorist.” According to BBC guidelines, the T-word ”can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding,” and ”careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments” ought to be avoided.
Here in the United States, the initial wave of sympathy and outrage was quickly followed by attempts to pin the blame on the West, and on America in particular. In a letter to The New York Times published on July 9, one New Yorker proudly described his comments to a Dutch television news crew which interviewed him on the New York subway immediately after the bombings. When asked if he believed New York would be attacked again, he replied in the affirmative. Why? ”Because the US is hated now more than ever. Even some of our allies sort of hate us.” And why is that? ”We invaded Iraq, which has never attacked us or declared war on us.”
Seeking to understand an event by understanding the context and environment in which it occured is not “muddled”. It is this author’s deliberately obtuse approach that is “muddled”. No one disputes that the taking of innocent humaan life through acts of terrorism is evil. Ms. Young however wants to end the discussion prematurely right at this point without further investigation of why some people turn to evil.
Ms. Young is like a person saying that dry brush in the forest fire burns, and that is all you need to know – people who want to explore the role of carelessly thrown lit matches in the forest are muddled and overly sympathetic to trees.
The fact is that one segment of Islam preaches an extremely militant ideology and pursues a hostile agenda towards the non-Islamic world that is very dangerous because it rationalizes acts of terrorism against innocent people as legitimate tools for combatting perceived abuses against Muslims.
The correct and logical response to such a threat would be to hunt down and eliminate the most dangerous members of this ideology’s terrorist organization, while advancing a broader message of peace and reconciliation with the more moderate majority of the wider Islamic world in order to discredit the paranoid statements of the militant minority.
Instead of doing this however the Bush administration allowed the most dangerous members of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization to slip away in Afghanistan and instead launched a bloody, unncecessary war of aggression against a peaceful soveriegn state that inflamed the moderate majority of the wider Islamic world and appeared to give credence and validity to the the paranoid statements of the militant minority.
Yes, evil exists. But instead of extinguishing it with the weapons of peace that Christ taught us, we have poured satan’s gasoline on the fire.
Re #1,
“No one disputes that the taking of innocent humaan life through acts of terrorism is evil.”
You might want to read a little about Ward Churchil. There are people who argue that taking innocent human life through acts of terrorism is not evil.
Steve’s point is right on. The Islamic militants don’t see terrorism as evil.* The inability of almost all progressives and many liberals to understand this fact what constitutes the “muddle” and the specious ideas that result from it (such as suicide bombers are motivated by a rage against their poverty, the London bombings were the result of the Iraqi war — disregarding the 9/11 completely, etc.)
I’ve argued for years that the left does not really believe evil exists. For that reason, whenever evil is perpetrated against America, the only possible explanation is that America must have provoked it.
*Killing children is even sanctioned in jihad. The threat to America and other civilized countries is that they may massacre children like they did in Beslan. These are horrible possibilities but they must be considered.
Note 3: But the Republicans are also arguing for a deterministic attitude towards terrorism, Father Hans. Don’t the Republicans state that terrorism is caused by oppressive governments? You know – win the war on terrorism by spreading freedom.
Tyranny causes terrorism, according to George Bush. If you spread democracy in the Middle East, then you end terrorism.
According to the leftists, poverty and hopelessness causes terorrism.
Pick your poison, either way the culprit most certainly can’t be just old fashioned Islam, can it? At least, not according to either the Republican or Democratic Parties.
Of course, as I said in an earlier post, if Bush were right then Muslim populations living in Western Democracies should be peaceful and well-adjusted. After all, France and Britain do have representative Democracy, don’t they?
But, these populations AREN’T well-adjusted. The Republicans are refusing to even deal with this fact while running amok in the Middle East attempting to plant Democracies.
The terrorists in London were, quite likely, responding to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. I have no doubt that was high on the list of items that got them recruited. What they did was wrong. It was evil. It was the deliberate killing of innocents for political aims. Whether practiced by state or non-state actors, such actions are EVIL.
Muslims, of course, can be recruited to kill for many other reasons in the complete absence of an ongoing American occupation of a Muslim state. I make no bones about that. However, the current carnage in Iraq is certainly making it easier to find bodies to strap on suicide vests. Combine that with literally limitless immigration from Muslim countries to the West, and you have a recipe for what just went down.
Don’t talk to me about the left, ladies and gentlemen, and its blind spots until the Republicans get their own head in order. The left is out of power and is flailing around uselessly. The Republican Party is in charge, and it is their failed policies on immigration, Islam, and Wilsonian nation-building that are at issue here, not whether or not Teddy Kennedy is a drunken imbecile who can’t recognize evil when he sees it daily in his bathroom mirror.
Note 4: Glen you are correct in your assessment of the Republicans, but they are in a bit of a pickle. I’m uncertain as to how they should acknowledge publicly that Islam and its ideologies are responsible for terrorism while simultaneously attempting to appeal to moderate and liberal Muslims to assist us in the war on terror.
In any rate, I think history informs us that neither tyranny nor poverty cause terrorism just as wealth and freedom do not prevent it. Timothy McVeigh is a testimony to that.
I’d draw a distinction between conservatives and Republicans just as I have between progressives/liberals and Democrats. I’m not sure a Buchanan like isolationism is any answer, since I don’t believe that the Islamic threat is necessarily a response toward American and European action at its core. Arguments can be made against intervention in Iraq, but isolationism or appeasment don’t speak to this threat except in the most superficial, and historically naive, terms.
Fr. Hans writes: “I’ve argued for years that the left does not really believe evil exists. For that reason, whenever evil is perpetrated against America, the only possible explanation is that America must have provoked it.”
I think we need to make an important distinction here. One definition of an “evil” act is that it is an act in which the perpetrator refuses to acknowledge his proper moral standing with respect to the victim. In a terrorist attack, for example, the victims are considered to be nothing more than props that can be used to make a political point. By extension, we would say that the perpetrator of an evil attack is an evil person.
The term “evil” characterizes the nature of the act, but it does not explain the reason for the attack. Terrorists (or other perpetrators of evil acts) do things for reasons; they have strategies, grievances, plans, and goals.
In the past, when you have used the term “evil” it seems to me that you believe both that it describes the nature of the attack, AND the reason for the attack — in other words that the perpetrator of an evil attack has no reason for the attack other than that he is an evil person. But we know that terrorists do in fact have reasons for their attacks, and it is important to understand those reasons in order to understand the nature of the threat. Our own home-grown terrorists, Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudpolph, certainly had reasons for what they did.
Thus, I think in your view, to acknowledge that terrorists have reasons for what they do, and to try to undertand those reasons, somehow constitutes a denial of evil. But I don’t see that at all. One can certainly condemn an act as evil and still try to understand the reasons and motivations behind the attack.
Not really. There is plenty of useful work done by analysts that recognize the presence of real evil. My argument is that the denial of the reality of evil (most often found on the hard left) makes the necessary analysis almost impossible because it doesn’t properly recognize the true nature of things and events.
If all events and things have only a rational basis, then in the end all things can be justified — suicide bombings of London subways or Tel Aviv bus stations abroad, or dismembering unborn fetuses at home (events that are more related than they first appear). Every one has a justification for these crimes of course, and some of the justification may even employ reasons that, when divorced from the crime, are just.
The danger is that the inability to recognize this dimension of human existence will inevitably lead to a capitulation to the evil doer, because the necessary moral reserves — sobriety, courage, intellectual clarity — to combat the evil won’t be present. This is one reason why the hard left is so quick to appease, and why they, like the Islamic terrorists, fundamentally see Western culture as the cause of the world’s ills.
During World War II American and British bombers flew over Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo and dropped enough ordinance to incinerate over 100,000 people in each of those cities. The US Air Force also totally obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Atomic weapons. Overwhelmingly, the people who were burned to death, or slowly killed with radiation poisoning, were innocent civilians going about their own business.
Robert McNamara reports that after the fire-bombing of Toyko, General Curtis LeMay who planned the attack, turned to him and remarked, “We better win this war Bob, or else we will be tried as war criminals” (from the movie “Fog of War”)
Was the destruction of German and Japanese cities during WWII evil? (I think so)
Can we ever rationalize the taking of innocent human life?
Are all rationalizations for taking of innocent human life subjective, or can there ever be an objective justification?
Dean, before we start defining evil, what do you mean by “objective” and “subjective”? How do you define these?
Dean, there was a recent program on the History Channel that dealt with non-atomic weapons of mass destruction. One significant segment was on incindiaries. The incindiaries used in Germany and Japan were specifically designed to destroy as much civilian lives and property as possible in order to “break the morale” of the enemy. That is a pretty good working definition of terrorism. We drew up a list of the the 128 most populous cities in Japan and were going to fire bomb each one of them. We only got to 64. The excuse was that the Japanese had military industrial production distributed in cottage industry fashion through out many of these cities, but we all know that that was just an excuse. IMO the fire bombing was worse that the atomic bombing. Yes, the fire bombing campaign was evil. Unfortunately, when one fights evil, one tends to take on evil. I am sure that is a major reason behind Our Lord’s command, “Resist not evil…”
Not to change the subject, but if you want to see the real “Moral Muddle on the Left” read some of the speculation by liberal commentators this morning on whether Supreme Court designee John Roberts will rule to overtun Roe v. Wade.
I just shake my head in disappointment and disbelief at statements that frame the issue solely in terms of “privacy” while ignoring the innocent human life about to be terminated. This is the true moral failing of the political left that makes it fall short of the true Christian “consistent ethic of life” that should be the standard for evaluating the morality of any political agenda.
Note 3: “The Islamic militants don’t see terrorism as evil.”
I think the Al Quaeda would disagree. They would probably also say that terrorism is in fact evil. Terrorism is a slanted word. It describes evil. I don’t believe the Al-Quaeda considers itself to be terrorists. They consider themselves to be righteous warriors. According to themselves, they’re the good guys. That’s why they are so popular.
The U.S. has also seen itself as righteous warriors. When the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb over Japan, the action seemed justified since Japan attacked the U.S. first. They hit first, and we hit back harder. Still, many innocent people and children perished in the nuclear attack. Certainly, for many Japanese this was an evil act of terrorism.
You have to shake off the notion that because a terrorist is self-justifying, his terror is not really evil. Put another way, terrorism is objectively evil, even if the terrorist is convinced his terrorism is justified. This is the same perceptual problem the BBC keeps displaying, and why several years ago the Minneapolis Star and Tribune banished the word “terrorist” from their reporting for a time. They are intellectually bound by their moral relativism.
As for the dropping of the atomic bomb, it avoided a land invasion of Japan that would have resulted in many more deaths — Japanese, and especially American. The world was weary of war, and ending it by dropping the bomb, as horrible as it was because war is horrible, prevented the destruction of even more life. It’s a loser’s bargain, but war often limits the parties to only that choice.
Calling this terrorism, just because some Japanese might think so, in the end erases all moral distinctions so that all war, all armed conflict, is terrorism. Terrorism, in other words, ceases to exist as a workable distinction in any discussion about war. That puts you on the side of the pacifist (a philosophically tenable position for an individual but not for a nation), or the appeaser.
BTW, Al Queda is not “popular.” They terrorize their own as well.
Actually, Father, the Japanese had already been trying to surrender for months before the bombs were dropped.
“Although the British codebreakers obtained the whole series, the British government has only recently confessed to their existence and even then — in a fit of limited openness — recently only two of those telegrams revealing Japan’s surrender attempts, those dated July 24 and 25, 1945, to the Public Record Office, where they can be found in Class HW.1. The fact that Whitehall was aware of Japanese surrender attempts ever since July 13 is still concealed from British researchers. As though unaware of them, on July 26 the British and Americans issued from Potsdam a proclamation calling on Japan to surrender unconditionally. They threatened: “The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”
Only two days later did Joseph Stalin pass on to his Allies across the Potsdam conference table the Japanese surrender offer. “It was the personal desire of the Emperor,” Stalin accurately quoted, “to avoid further bloodshed. Our answer of course will be negative.” A deadpan Harry S Truman — to whom all this was known from the codebreakers anyway — said merely, “I appreciate very much what the Marshal has said.”
If Japan had been at the height of its power and threatening its neighbors, then nuke weapons would have been legitimate. As Japan was clearly beaten and trying to surrender with minimum conditions, the major one of which (retaining the emperor) was eventually agreed to anyway AFTER the bombing. So much for a million U.S. casualties in a ground invasion.
A leftist government of the United States, riddled through and through with communist sympathizers (as we now know thanks to Joe McCarthy, who was right) decided to incinerate thousands of Japanese, even though their government was trying to negotiate a way out of the war.
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s son, in a recent book, admitted that his father knew that literally dozens of German generals were seeking a way to surrender to the Americans in a bid to open the way to Berlin for American troops and prevent the Bolshevik occupation of Germany. Eisenhower refused to cooperate, stating that such behavior was tatamount to “conditions” and the policy of the United States was “unconditional surrender.”
“Unconditional surrender” leads to useless bloodshed. It prolonged the U.S. Civil War. It prolonged WWII, and did nothing to head off the Cold War that followed. “Unconditional surrender” is our mindset at the moment. After all, anything else is “appeasement.” Selling out Czechoslovakia in 1938 was wrong and stupid. Bombing a defeated Japan or refusing to work with a defeated Germany in heading off the Soviets was both WRONG and STUPID and EVIL.
Occupying Iraq and utilizing heavy weapons in urban areas is both wrong and stupid as well.
Not everything the U.S. government has done in the past 60 years was a good move, nor was it moral. Negotiations are not always a bad thing, especially if you give up something that is more trouble than its worth anyway. For example, Britain gave India independence because it wasn’t worth the blood to keep it.
Negotiations are bad from a position of weakness or fear. From a position of strength, you can frequently get what you want without resorting to war. Sun Tzu said the best battle was that which strength made unnecessary.
The Chinese get this, I wish we did.
Note 15. What source are you quoting?
“You have to shake off the notion that because a terrorist is self-justifying, his terror is not really evil.”
Yes, of course Al Quaeda is commiting evil, and indeed, they are terrorists. Their self-justification doesn’t change or diminish this. However, America also relies heavily on her own self-justification. We can argue that dropping nuclear bombs will save more lives than it will ultimately destroy. A terrorist can argue that their terrorism will do the same. In fact, abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolph just did this.
War ultimately seems to aim at a desired form of peace. The world understands peace as being in a position of power. Both America and Al-Quaeda seem to share this view. However, it is elusive. That peace involves one group being in a position of power over another. The Church, rather, seems to teach that real peace can only come from the warfare of avoiding worldly power and seeking after Christ.
Again, the notion that because contradictory self-justifications exist, all justifications are therefore suspect, while perhaps tenable in the abstract, does not play out that way in practice. Real life is more complex, not privilege to the certainty of abstraction, and, most important, cannot afford the distancing that your implicit moral relativism would require — unless, of course, you choose to become either the pacifist or the appeaser.
One definition of peace would be the restraint of evil doers against law abiding peoples. We pray for it every liturgy — “for peaceful times…” One day when the peace of Christ reigns in the hearts of all men, the world will know that peace better than it does now. Given that it doesn’t, war becomes a tragic neccessity and we are faced with difficult situations and choices.
Are all wars just? No, of course not. Are some wars just? Yes. Again, if you are a pacifist (a morally tenable and philosophically coherent position — but only for the individual pacifist; pacifism cannot be imposed on a society), these distinctions need not apply. If these distinctions are obliderated for other reasons, you would join the ranks of the appeaser.
Note the difference. The argument is not that people cannot have honest differences about the justice of a particular war. The argument is that by rejecting outright that some war is just, the distinction between just and unjust war collapses and you will end up siding with the appeaser convinced that it will bring greater peace when in fact it brings even greater instability.
As for seeking worldly power, again, we pray for our leaders every liturgy. We even mention the armed forces in our prayer at the conclusion of our worship. Some of these leaders are people in our parishes, as are the men and women in the armed forces. I prefer to have able men and women aspire to leadership that lead well, rather than cast the entire enterprise as negative and see it as a sullying of the hands. It’s a prayer, IOW, I pray with particular intention and seriousness, particularly since our nation is facing such grave problems.
Source for my information on Japanese surrender attempts was “The Facts: The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth” by Gar Alperovitz.
Of course, I could just as easily have quoted the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (1946) which concluded that, by mid-summer of 1945, “The Japanese leaders had decided to surrender and were merely looking for a sufficent pretext to convince the die-hard Army Group that Japan had lost the war and must capitulate to the Allies. The entry of Russia into the war would almost certainly have provided this pretext…”
Or I could quote Eisenhower:
“During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…”
– Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
“…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
– Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63
Or, how about Chief of Staff Admiral Leahy: “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
Of course, there is also MacArthur: “MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed.” He continues, “When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.
But hey – all those guys could have been just panty-waisted losers who didn’t understand the real situation. Or, then as now, perhaps the Generals had a better idea of the situation than the man with no combat experience sitting in the White House.
Or, it could be historical revisionism, of the kind we see about Roosevelt wanting to see Pearl Harbor bombed, etc. etc. Better to examine these claims apart from tendentious assertions like “panty-waisted losers” I think.
Also, I found the website you drew your information from (http://www.doug-long.com/index.htm). That reference would have helped too.
Note 18: Fr. Hans,
It is important to pray for our government and military. If the ruler of our nation was even Adolf Hitler, I believe we would especially pray for him and the Nazi military. The Church believes that authority is from God and accepts that ruling authorities are instituted by God. If we were living in Nazi Germany as Orthodox Christians, it wouldn’t mean that we would have to agree with Hitler. Sure, in that situation we would likely be called to civil disobedience, but even so, we would still be earnestly praying for Adolf Hitler in the liturgy and in the prayers.
I love the example of St. Nicholas of Japan, who as bishop of Japan during the Russo-Japanese war had to pray for the Japanese military who were fighting against his Orthodox homeland. I suppose from St. Nicholas’ position, it would be pointless for him to try to figure out whether or not that war was “just”, and whether or not he supported it. Rather, it was understood as his duty to pray for the stability of the church in Japan and for the civil authorities which God had instituted to protect it.
I do wonder what St. Nicholas would have thought of the U.S. dropping a nuclear bomb on Japan. Would he have said, “Well, we had it coming…”, and/or would he have denounced this as an evil act of terrorism? Perhaps he would have also said “let’s forgive, be thankful the war is over, and move on….”
True, a defensive military is accepted by the Church. We pray for a military whose aim is to stop or prevent war. We pray for war’s restraint.
It seems to me that the problem with focusing on whether or not a war is “just” is that it misses the point. The point is not to have war. Any war could be argued to be “just”. Any war could be argued to be “defensive” or “aiming to prevent”. Perhaps even genocide could be argued to prevent a whole race of people from starting a war. For example, “Let’s wipe them all out before they start a war first!” The focus of having a “just” war intrinsically seems to employ moral relativism. There is no justice in war. The focus should be on stopping and preventing war by any means necessary. And yes, this often does and can entail the use of force and military means.
…yes, this often does and can entail the use of force and military means, … but there is only justice in not having war.
Stephen, you’ve got to think this through more. If you argue that all war is unjust, then you will not be able to discern when fighting a war is necessary.
Think of killing for example. We should not kill. If killing is ever justified, then anyone can kill for whatever reason he might dream up, correct?
Well, actually, no. There are times when killing is necessary and just — taking out a person shooting up a MacDonald’s for example (which actually happened). Or how about taking down a hijacked civilian airliner if it were say, headed for another skyscraper. These are horrible situations, but they happen and we have to be able to think with some measure of moral clarity about them.
So to argue that some was is just, is not to say that war is not horrible, but it sometimes is inevitable. When it comes, we have to be able to think clearly about it, and merely concluding all war is bad is not thinking clearly enough.
There is a tradition of thought that examines precisely these questions, highly developed in Roman Catholicism, less developed in Orthodoxy (or at least less systematized). So when the questions come up, we examine the traditions and teaching to try and reach a conclusion to the best measure that we can. And yes, there are times when a war has to be fought, and when war is just. Fr. Alexander Webster started this examination in his book “The Virtue of War.” Two reviews: The Ecumenical Councils of War, and Why Some Horrors Must Be Stopped By “Just War”.
Fr. Hans writes: “So to argue that some war is just, is not to say that war is not horrible, but it sometimes is inevitable. . . . There is a tradition of thought that examines precisely these questions, highly developed in Roman Catholicism . . .”
As far as I know, Fr. Webster’s book was written in the context of the current Iraq war, and as a response to the Orthodox Peace Fellowship and other peace movements. The problem is that for at least the first 300 years of Christian history, there is utterly no support for Christian involvement in warfare; in fact, for the earliest Christians participation in war was utterly unthinkable.
Also, the “just war” theory is often misused. In Catholic theology — in particular for the most recent two popes — a “just war” is a fairly rare thing that could be brought about by only extreme circumstances; it is a very high standard that is seldom met. By contrast, for many neoconservative Christians, it seems that the just war standard is more of a casual checklist under which virtually any war could be seen as “just”:
“In the past few years, Catholic neoconservatives have been attempting to develop a new philosophy of just war which would include preemptive strikes against other nations, what might be called a “preventive war.” George Weigel has published major articles defending this position since 1995. First Things magazine published his articles and editorially agreed with this point of view. The present Bush administration has used these writings to defend the strike against Iraq. Shortly before the war began, through the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, President Bush sent Michael Novak to go to Rome to try to justify the war to the Pope and Vatican officials. . . . Novak did not succeed in convincing Church leaders-in fact, some commentators reflected that his efforts might have had the opposite effect. Novak’s credibility in this argument was perhaps undermined by his employment at the American Enterprise Institute, heavily funded by oil companies, some of whom began advertising in the Houston Chronicle for employees to work in Iraq even before the war began.”
http://www.cjd.org/paper/jp2war.html
Concerning war in general but in the context of Iraq, John Paul II said that “It is always a defeat for humanity… War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations. . . War cannot be decided upon — except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations.”
(Note here the great reluctance to endorse war; even a “just” war is “always a defeat for humanity.”)
Other Vatican officials also opposed the war in Iraq: “In the weeks and months before the U.S. attacked Iraq, not only the Holy Father, but also one Cardinal and Archbishop after another at the Vatican spoke out against a ‘preemptive’ or ‘preventive’ strike. They declared that the just war theory could not justify such a war. Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran said that such a ‘war of aggression’ is a crime against peace. Archbishop Renato Martino, who used the same words in calling the possible military intervention a ‘crime against peace that cries out vengeance before God,’ also criticized the pressure that the most powerful nations exerted on the less powerful ones on the U.N. Security Council to support the war. The Pope spoke out almost every day against war and in support of diplomatic efforts for peace.”
The new pope was of the same mind: “As talk escalated about a U. S. attack on Iraq, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, began stating unequivocally that ‘The concept of a “preventive war” does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.'”
While the just war theory rejects total pacifism, properly understood it also offers no support to the more bellicose among us who would reach quickly for the sword, or casually extoll the “virtue” of war.
Did you read David B. Hart’s piece in Touchstone The Ecumenical Councils of War? It addresses some of the strengths and weaknesses of “The Virtue of War.”
As for the Vatican, there appears to be some internal debate on Iraq, given that the Vatican shifted course after the articles you cited were released.
There is a measure of accuracy to your point however, that Fr. Webster wrote the book in response to OPF and others. Regardless of where one stands on the war in Iraq, the misconception that the Orthodox moral tradition is pacifist needed to be challenged, and the reasoning the OPF employed in their stand against that war provided the opportunity. (Hart makes essentially the same point about pacifism and Orthodoxy.)
War is always a defeat for humanity. Unfortunately, it is not always unavoidable.
I live in New York where now the police presence frequently enough means “Hercules Units” who wear body armor and carry machine guns strapped to their chests. Its a bit unsettling, and honestly, seeing them doesn’t make me feel safer. However, I have to have faith that their desire is the same as a pacifist – not to have war. The police presence is supposed to be there to pacify violent conflict. I pray that this is their aim. Of course, sometimes the police presence provokes war. When this happens, the police are not doing their job, and they are accountable for this.
The pacifist would say that war is wrong. The police officer should also say that war is wrong. Of course, the methods are sometimes different, but the moral aim is the same. It is true that a pacifist cannot force a whole city or nation to also be pacifist. That would go against the nature of pacifism. However, a pacifist can expect and encourage the armed forces to seek the end of violent conflict as according to their means.
The aim should always be to stop and end war. A good and well-trained police officer can often pacify violent conflict without the use of violence. When the strength of that training is exhausted, then they must resort to their own weakness by using it. The focus shouldn’t be on trying to figure out whether or not the violence is then “justified”, but rather to focus on acting in a way that will end the violence. Focusing on “just” war theory seems rather to introduce a slippery slope into violence.
Using force is not necessarily a weakness. And not all force is violent, although sometimes it needs to be. For example, if a person is killing others, than stopping him with a greater force — a greater but controlled violence actually — is entirely appropriate. This is not a resort to weakness. It is the restoration of public order and safety.
Applying force — controlled violence — in this way requires standards, procedures, safeguards. The force has to justly applied, lest it becomes a destructive violence of the kind it has been commissioned to confront. The factors that determine under what conditions and circumstances the application of force are just, are extremely important in helping the officer commissioned with public safety make the correct decision when he confronts the violence of others.
Thus, considerations of justice, whether in this example or in war, don’t introduce a slippery slope into violence but do exactly the opposite. They prevent the descent of warfare into the worst kinds of self-justification, which creates even greate instability and contribues to even more war. You’ve got it backwards, Stephen.
“The aim should always be to stop and end war. A good and well-trained police officer can often pacify violent conflict without the use of violence. When the strength of that training is exhausted, then they must resort to their own weakness by using it. The focus shouldn?t be on trying to figure out whether or not the violence is then ?justified”, but rather to focus on acting in a way that will end the violence. Focusing on ?just? war theory seems rather to introduce a slippery slope into violence.
Comment by Stephen ? July 23, 2005 @ 1:30 pm”
IMO, Mr. Stephen wrote a decent paraphrase of Romans 12: 9 – 21:
9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.[c] Do not be conceited.
17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d]says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e] 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
The Romans passage you quote applies to conduct in the Church. It does not address how to deal with an agressive enemy (the current context of the discussion).
The scriptural warrant in dealing with agression is not to return evil for evil. This is a difficult thing to do in real life because evil has a way of corrupting the good. That is why standards of justice are necessary.
Real life has real evil, and people are commissioned to confront and subdue that evil such as police officers, the military, etc. When confronted by evil, there needs to be an appropriate and measured response, lest the evil create even more destruction. This is so obviously apparent that I am surprised it has to be said.
I don’t buy that argument. “Anyone”, “everybody”, “everyone” vs 17-19 seems to me (and my Ortho Study Bible commentary) to mean just what it says and what any reasonable reader would think it means.
A not very strong “salt of the earth” argument you’re putting up here.
Or you think Christians have a license to kill whenever it suits us?
Mike, the heroic levels of charity I think you are recommending are laudable when confronting evil committed against oneself, but I’m unsure that the same actions (or non-actions) are required when the same evils are being committed against others. It’s one thing to lay down one’s life rather than retaliate, it’s another to refuse aid to those who cannot defend themselves it would seem. The former is charitable and brave, the latter is cowardice.
However, the idea that any of the Church Fathers or saints would have “packed heat” is pretty laughable. I’m unsure why belonging to the NRA has been equated with some form of Godliness.
Mike: Christianity sets peaceful non-violence as an ideal, but does not require a level of passivity so rigorous and demanding that is excludes any attempts at self-preservation and is tantamount to one’s cooperation in their own death, and the deaths of their family, neighbors and fellow citizens. That would be seeking suicide, not peace.
Christian love for our fellow human beings requires sacrifice, and not just of time, money or effort, but sometimes the sacrifice of our very lives in struggle against those who seek to inflict suffering, violence, death on others. Those US servicemen who died in Afghanistan attempting to destroy the terrorist training camps that launched so many attacks against innocent civilians demonstrated were not warmongers, but true Christians in the sense that they made the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow human beings.
While I strongly opposed the misguided invasion and disasterous occupation of Iraq, I continue to support all efforts to eradicate the membership and leadership of Al Qaeda, which as demonstrated again this weekend in Egypt, employs the mass murder of innocent civilians as part of a deliberate and systematic strategy to advance their political and religious agenda.
Note 30. You are making the same mistake Stephen made above. You assume that setting standards on violence opens the door to unrestricted violence, when in fact it does just the opposite. If we take your approach and categorize all violence as evil, then in fact you have rendered yourself powerless against evil. (Evil is defined out of existence, that is to say, evil is no longer recognizable as evil. When evil is not recognized for what it is, you won’t employ the right tools to fight it and may ultimately be overcome by it.)
Not all violence is wrong. Sometimes it is even desirable. A knife thrust into a person is a moral crime. A scapel cutting into a person during surgery can bring healing. Both experiences, however, can be equally traumatic to the body as you may know.
A man shooting another man is a moral crime. A police officer shooting a man in order to protect the lives of potential victims can be honorable.
The controlled violence (the scapel or police officer for example) is performed, regulated, and judged by a set standard of guidelines and recommendations. The world isn’t perfect and mistakes, even tragedies, happen (like the shooting of the innocent Brazilian in London last week). But these failings in no way negates the neccessity to sometimes meet force with force as responsibly as possible.
If you were ever in a situation where your life was threatened, you would appreciate the power and authority the police have to stop the evil doer. You might even recognize the necessity for it.
Dean is right about the soldier too. Sometimes it’s the soldier who lays down his life for his friend, and thus exemplifies the sacrifice of Christ.
Father Hans,
No problem from my side on setting standards on violence. The Theory of Just War as first exposited by the Blessed Augustine has, more or less, been adopted by the Patriarchate of Moscow. I see absolutely no reason to dispute the MP’s logic in doing this. Violence is inevitable in a fallen world, and we need to try and set a limit on that violence.
My precise difference with many is that these limits on violence are never, ever applied to the United States. The debate on the A-bomb dropping on Japan may be historical revisionism. Or, the authors may be dead on. Certainly, as the quotes I posted attest, many military leaders such as McArthur and Eisenhower had deep reservations about wholesale slaughter from the air.
Anyway you cut it, the dropping of the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the deliberate targeting of civilian population centers for the express purpose of breaking an enemy’s will to resist through the infliction of mass casualties. There was no military significance to either target. In fact, the previous campaign of B-29 strikes had leveled any military targets worth hitting.
The following quote comes directly from the Moscow Patriarchate, “During war civilians will be protected against direct hostilities. Even in the defence from an aggression, every kind of evil can be done, making one’s spiritual and moral stand not superior to that of the aggressor. War should be waged with righteous indignation, not maliciousness, greed and lust (1 Jn. 2:16) and other fruits of hell.”
Okay – now you’d argue that the deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki SAVED lives. We now move into the realm of ‘killing some to save others.’ “While the targeting of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki may appear to violate the rules of Just War as accepted and laid down by the Fathers,” many will say, “it is okay since it was necessary for the greater good.”
How does this reasoning differ from that of the Fallen and Satanic World? How is ‘Just War’ in such a case any different than the ‘Total War’ a NAZI Regime would fight?
Is it better to kill 100,000 people to save a different 100,000 people? Is it better to kill 100,000, on the chance that we might save more than that – or, then again, we might not? Can righteous ends justify foul means? Well – not according the Fathers anyway who said that inappropriate means render an otherwise Just War into an Unjust one.
Father Hans, you said, “When confronted by evil, there needs to be an appropriate and measured response, lest the evil create even more destruction.” But I don’t ever see you actually outline any of those limits in regards to U.S. policy. A few military contractors get killed, and the U.S. levels an entire city using AC-130 gunships in Fallujah. No limits, no sense of proportionality. The U.S. loses a few thousand at Pearl Harbor, we roll Japan back to its home islands and then nuke two cities causing casualties on a scale only dreamed of by Attila the Hun.
Sorry, but I just don’t see a whole lot of ‘limits’ on us nor much adherence to ‘Just War Theory.’
My question would be how many lives, civilian and military, would be lost with a land invasion of Japan? You can argue an invasion was not necessary, but one historian and a few quotes does not prove the point.
Let’s say that an invasion would have been necessary to defeat Japan (the historical consensus). How, then, do we weigh the deaths? Numerically? Civilian and/or military? And who dies? Americans or Japanese? These are very difficult questions but many of them were unavoidable in WWII. This is not an apology for Hiroshima, but is there really any substantive difference between the deaths by a nuclear bomb or a death by bullets? I’m not so sure. Death is death.
I of course don’t want to see any of this happening at all. But wishing war away won’t make it go away.
I also take issue with the rather blanket assertion that no rules of restraint apply to America. Why do you think the German civilians were clamoring to surrender to Americans rather than Russians?
Breaking Bushido for Good or What would Constantine have done.
The Japanese military followed the code of Bushido, a very intense, self-sacrificing, aggressive military code of conduct. Bushido needed to be broken and irretreivably smashed to smithereens to prevent its resurgence in post-war Japan. Remember that the Japanese did not immediately surrender after the first atomic strike, they waited for several days until the second atomic strike. The Japanese were fully prepared to retreat to mountain enclaves and to turn the entire population into a guerilla army resisting occupation.
For a book on American treatment of German and Japanese prisoners of war see
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=br_ncs_/104-9542372-3655915
Father,
You are up against more than a single historian. Again, I quote Eisenhower, “In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment, was I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.”
I could go back through the list of military leaders from MacArthur and on to Admiral Leahy who also had no stomach for this. If the need for killing 180,000 civilians at a pop was so blindingly obvious, then why did men whose entire lives were devoted to killing the enemy fail to see it?
As for the difference it makes – the deliberate targeting of civilians is intrinsically evil. So say the Fathers. I believe them. An invasion of Japan would have targeted the military. Civilians killed would have been as a by-product, not the goal of the endeavor. Death is not just death, not by a long shot. If that were the case, then why bother with the rules of ‘Just War’ anyway? Why not wage unrestricted warfare in the most brutal manner to ‘get it done fast.’ Why not? Why doesn’t the Pope say, “Wars should be ended as quickly as possible by any means necessary, even if it means incinerating helpless civilians.”
Civilians are to be guarded from harm as far as possible. When we stoop to mass murder, it sullies us and leads down the path of perdition. Eisenhower felt that, and he was right to do so.
Would it be right to line up 10,000 babies and shoot them, if it would end a war and save lives? Would you do it? Of course not. You couldn’t. That is the way we Americans are. We can’t kill babies face to face. We can’t shoot little kids up close. We can’t murder prisoners of war like the Soviets did. We don’t gang rape women like the Soviets did either. We can’t do such things. They’re wrong, and we know it. Up close and in person, Americans are some of the most decent people the world has ever known.
But back up a few thousand feet, and we have no problem incinerating tens of thousands of babies from the air. As long was we have distance and technology to provide a buffer, we Americans can support mass murder on a collossal scale. The same people who would fight to the death in person to defend a baby, no matter its color or nationality, will cheer as the bombs drop and the kids fry.
In training at Little Creek Amphib Base, we were discussing a military problem of dealing with a village that was probably infested with enemy. In addition to possible enemy combatants, there were probably many civilians as well. We discussed various options. Finally, my Vietnam veteran Master Gunnery Sergeant said something I will never forget. “No one,” he said, “Is ever court martialied for calling in an airstrike.”
What he was saying was this. If you hit the village hard, shoot it up, and find out that there were no enemy soldiers – then you have committed a war crime. You are likely to find yourself in the stockade, facing charges for every civilian you killed. If you go in quietly, and the village is full of enemy troops, then they will ambush you and you are toast. But if you call in an airstrike and blow the entire place to Hell – then you are clear and so is the United States Marine Corps.
That is the American way of war. That is how things worked in WWII, and that is how it works today in Iraq.
The Fathers said that deliberate targeting of civilians was wrong. At least in the village combat exercise, there was a chance that calling in an airstrike was necessary and that all those civilians wouldn’t die needlessly. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the entire endeavor was to kill as many civilians as possible at one time.
No deliberate targeting of civilians is a moral absolute. To apply contextual morality to this is to deny that moral absolutes exist. That is a path we shouldn’t go down.
I believe that the rigorous strictures of Just War Theory should be applied to the actions of the United States the same as to any other country. While a citizen of this country, I am first and foremost bound to the Kingdom of God. To do otherwise, to automatically excuse any and all actions simply because they were undertaken by the United States, is to have a massive blindspot in moral outlook that is every bit as grievous as the one possessed by the Left.
JK #31It?s one thing to lay down one?s life rather than retaliate, it?s another to refuse aid to those who cannot defend themselves it would seem. The former is charitable and brave, the latter is cowardice.
The historical question is how many lives would be lost if an invasion of Japan was necessary (civilian and military). Arguing that such an invasion was not necessary is an important historical question, but the historical concensus is that Japan would not surrender and fight an invasion force to the last person standing. Again, a quote here and there and the thesis of one historian doesn’t prove the point.
As for establishing the principle that no civilians should be targeted in wartime, yes, I fundamentally agree. That this prohibition was violated by the dropping of the atom bomb however, doesn’t address the historical question and thus does not shed any light on the practical considerations that went into dropping it, ie: how many Americans and Japanese civilians would die if an invasion occurred.
These are the questions historians ask, and asking them does not necessarily imply an approval of a particular policy. On the other hand, in our generation moral approbation is freely dispensed without any understanding of historical circumstances and all too often serve to defend specious ideas and failed policies (appeasment disguised as moral virtue for example). I am naturally suspect of self-proclaimed moralists who are directed by their feelings of moral outrage and make little effort to establish any intellectual clarity. (I’m not implying you fit into this category. Your arguments are generally sound and cogent IMO, even when I disagree with them.)
where’e my comment go?
Note 40. I had to take out the quoted part. The extraneous ascii code was messing up the database (WordPress uses MySql). Repost it but clean it up a bit.
Of course, I certainly understand that we must judge historical decisions in their context. That includes both the historical and social context as well, and it is imperative to resist the urge to project backwards.
Owning slaves, for example, does not indicate that a 17th or 18th Century American was somehow evil or reprehensible. The Bible did not prohibit slavery, neither did the Church. The idea that slavery was morally wrong developed over time, and the mores of a later era are not automatically applicable to an earlier place in time.
Some things are timeless, however. I understand the American decision to drop the A-bomb on Japan. Being president, I may have done exactly the same thing. However, given the fact that a moral teaching concerning such an action preceded the event, I think it is fair to say that questions concerning the morality of the decision are fair game.
This is especially important at the current time when U.S. soldiers and Marines are committed to an occupation of a foreign nation. The U.S. military exemplifies the same kind of mentality that led to the Atomic bombings. As I said earlier, Americans are fundamentally decent people IMHO, on a face-to-face basis.
However, something bizarre happens when technology is thrown into the mix. While our soldiers and Marines will blanche from knowingly killing civilians in face-to-face engagements, they won’t hesitate to rely on 88MM mortars or AC-130 gunships to level suspected rebel strongholds. Our emphasis on force protection and our inability to see a connection between high tech strikes and dead civilians combine to make our occupation a dangerous affair for the Iraqis on the ground.
It’s important, I think, for Christians to speak to this predilection and emphasize the teaching of Just War concerning the protection of civlians. When I was trained as a Marine, I didn’t get moral instruction of this caliber, and I know that they aren’t getting it now. We mostly just assumed that since we were the good guys, then we would always do the right thing. Such assumptions lead to trajedy. I’d prefer to start from a standpoint of, “Here are the rules according to the teaching of the Church Fathers. Deviating from them puts your soul in peril. You may be right to do so. But then again, you may be hopelessly wrong. Proceed with extreme caution. Pure goals won’t save you from bad acts. Your American nationality doesn’t guarantee that you are on the side of the angels in all that you do.”