Says you. Other very sensible people, such as George Weigel, disagree, and make a much better case for their position than merely being dismissive.
Please prove the truth of this assertion. I want actual, verifiable documentation of some sort that shows clearly and unquestionably that had the U.S. not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq the world would be safer and that the problems of terrorism would be better.
I’m not demeaning our troops so relax. It’s just halarious to read the spin that you guys put out to continue to support an unjust war.
I note that none of the people taking this line have enough military experience to tell a baseplate from a bourrellet.
You do not have the military expertise to judge this war.
Perhaps he does have some expertise… if he was in the calvery decades ago… not the mountie, the mounted.
You’re not paying any attention to what I said. I never denied that leaders have their roles in making decissions. What I am denying is that the decission making of solely their priority. When you tell me that the government tells us we have to go to war and all the power to make that decission justifiable lies in the hands of the state then you remove the possibility for me to act as a moral agent in the situation. This is the Nazi defense. I think anyone with the slightest understanding of morality would reject such a claim. To say that war is just simply, because the state says so is to admit that one is merely a servant and a tool of power, but it is never a moral justification. Every person is required to make moral judgments according to his/her understanding, and this will sometimes require that you do not submit to systems of power like governments. Again, to use our attack of Japan with nuclear weapons as an example, the government, no matter how powerful it is, cannot justly call an attack or a war against unarmed civilians just.From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
[2309](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2309.htm’)
The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good. (My emphasis)
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.
Clearly, only the National Command Authority can evaluate the data (because they alone have access to it.) The role of the Church is to set forth the criteria for just war (as Paragraph 2309 does). But the Church does not maintain an intelligence system that can second guess and back stop all the national intelligence systems. Nor can the Church adequately evaluate the strategic conditions leading to the decision to go to war.
I don’t know who George Weigel is and since you didn’t present his argument I don’t have anything to say about him. Now obviously, I didn’t present an argument as to why I think our reasons for going to war are an embarassment, but this is not to say I think you are justified in asking me for one, because I think reasons are obvious. Also, you jump the gun when you say he presents a better case than me since I never gave said why I think its an its an embarassment. In fact, I don’t think you should take my case I think you should make your own. That is to say, I don’t think you should believe what I say or what George Weigel says. I think you should be asking “what are the facts” and checking them out so that you can make your own decission. Nonetheless, I will now give you some of the reasons why the war in Iraq is an embarassment. Remember our initial reason to go into Iraq was WMD, but that can’t be the real reason because there were 40 other countries with the capability to make WMD 30 of which were closer to having WMD than Iraq. As soon as it was pretty much universally accepted that there were no WMD in Iraq suddenly the story switched to spreading democracy to the Middle East by democratizing Iraq. This story can’t be believed either since the Palestinians have wanted democracy for years. The U.S. could easily work to supply it in a peaceful manner, because of its influence over Israel. In fact when Avrum Berg (one of the people that helped draft the Geneva Accords), came to my school he said that the Palestinians are the only Muslim group that wants anything like a western style liberal democracy. And of course, there are all these background reasons like Sadam murdered his own people, which can’t be believed because we supported through that and gave him the arms to do those things. There is also something that was not stated outright at the beginning of the war but was something you were supposed to believe, and that is that there was a 9/11 connection to Iraq. There is in fact a terrorist connection now that we invaded Iraq, because a lot of the terrorists we were fighting went to Iraq to help resist the invasion. The list of reasons goes on and on, and I could go on in much greater detail, but I will stop here, because I don’t want to give somekind of huge report. In fact, this is probably the last post I’ll do, because I don’t like typing. What I suggest the people who think I’m wrong do is listen to some lectures by social/political thinkers like Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Ronald Takaki. There are people I could mention, but if you are serious about wanting to know about this stuff you’ll be able to figure it out. Another suggestion I have for you is to read newspapers and journals from other countries. Sadly, only people with the capacity read other languages will be afforded this opportunity. It is important for us to know how the rest of the world views ours actions. The information you need to be able to make reasoned moral judgments about our actions is available if you want to spend the time researching. As for the second part of your question I don’t have the sources with me (most of my material is at school), but that the Iraq war has made the world more dangerous was a statement put out by the Vatican and I’m sure you can find it on the internet, not mention the fact that it is largley a fraction of Americans with no perspective on reality that disagree with this claim there is sufficient documentation of this claim elsewhere (I’m sure you can find that on the internet as well).
If you are saying that a war is just or not, and to enter into such a war is just or not, you need to know all the facts possible before making the decision. An individual not privy to top secret information would not have the knowledge base to make such a determination. For example, the President knew the UN was being bribed, while the Vatican did not. So the Vatican was in error when it was pressing the US to wait for the UN to act. The Vatican thought it would be OK to liberate Iraq if the UN said it was OK. We knew the UN would never say that as long as they were being bribed. In this case the Vatican could not make a good judgement on the question: ‘if liberating Iraq was just’, because they did not have all the information.
Peacemonger said:
If you did, you arguments would be considerably more Catholic, and bear more weight.( he helped JPII write his autobiography, and wrote the only authorized biography.)
and outside of the NYT, the LA Times and various European papers(and even with some posters on this board, and others) I haven’t found any FACTS at all, that support your arguments; just anecdotal evidence. That may work well for inflaming the masses, but I don’t think that it flies when empirical evidence is called for.
Just War.
WMD were one reason why we went to war against Saddam Hussein. The fact the we haven’t gone to war against other terrorist nations (i.e., North Korea or Syria) doesn’t invalidate the any of the reasons for going to war against Saddam Hussein. Unless, of course, you think that war is always the answer.
The story wasn’t switched. From the get-go, another one of the reasons for going to war against Saddam Hussein was to remove him from power and establish a more-or-less democratic government in his place.
Nonsense. The current leadership of the Palestinians has stated time and time again that they don’t want democracy. Instead, they want two thing: a Palestinian homeland, and the complete destruction of the state of Israel.
You have the U.S. confused with the French and Russians. Regime change in Iraq has been a consistent goal of U.S. policy since the first Gulf War.
The Bush administration never said Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. What the Bush administration has said, and was completely correct in saying, was that Hussein’s regime was a criminal regime that aided and abetted terrorists on an international scale. This is undeniably true, and even the 9/11 Commission has admitted that there, yes, there were even links between Hussein’s regime and Al-Qaeda.
Given your consistent inability to relate facts, your instinct to stop typing is a good one.
I didn’t ask for a vague reference to an opinion piece published by a Vatican talking head. I asked for hard facts, which so far have been noticeably lacking in your responses. One more time: I want actual, verifiable documentation of some sort that shows clearly and unquestionably that had the U.S. not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq the world would be safer and that the problems of terrorism would be better.
You said that you never distinguish between the war being unjust and the actual acts inside the war being condemnable. While that may be your policy, it is not the policy of Church teaching. Further, you then proceeded to cite an example that contradicts your own policy. Many could rightly condemn the actions in Japan during WW II and some in the Church have done so. However, this did not make the US involvment in WW II unjust. Here is an example where the condemned actions are distinguishable from the determination of the war being just or unjust.
It is sad to see you continue to act like the solid arguments presented here that the war was just do not exist even as your produce no contrary argument. You can say the same thing 1,000 times and still be wrong.
We are not saying that a war is just simply because the state says so. We are saying that the Church does not declare a war just or unjust and to say that the Church does this is being disingenuous or ignorant of how the Church operates.
THAT’S what has me scratching my head at anti-war folks all the time!!!
I know. It can be frustrating. However, someone somewhere may be listening - which is why it is always necessary to be confront bad ideas with good ones.
That’s so true. A lie travels halfway 'round the world before the truth gets her boots on. Or something like that. If we gave up and didn’t engage these propagandists and fisk their claims, we would surely be paying for it down the road.
It’s because they’re having fun. They enjoy playing holier-than-thou.
