H
HagiaSophia
Guest
These are some of the comments which Weigel brought up re the war in Iraq::
"…The terrorists who hijacked and then drove fuel-laden jetliners into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were not “tragic” actors, any more than were the German infantry who attacked the U.S. First Army in December 1944 in the Battle of the Bulge. The terrorists were combatants; those who trained, paid for, equipped and provided them with logistical support are combatants. And what we are engaged in is a war.
Which means that the appropriate moral categories in which to think through our policy, post-September 11, are the categories of the just-war tradition. This will require a serious intellectual effort by scholars, military leaders and public officials. For while the just-war tradition once evolved amid the anarchic politics of the Middle Ages, just-war theory, like every other way of thinking about international affairs for the past three centuries, has long assumed that the state is the only significant “unit” in world politics.
The smoldering ruins in lower Manhattan have made unmistakably clear that non-state “actors” – like terrorist organizations – are crucial units-of-count in the world. States are not all there is.
The just-war tradition needs to be “stretched,” or developed, to deal with this new reality. In confronting terrorism, “just cause” cannot be limited to repelling an “aggression already under way” – as some current Catholic thinking has it. When facing terrorist organizations, pre-emptive military action is not only morally justifiable but morally imperative. How to articulate the moral case for pre-emption without turning the world into a free-fire zone is something much in need of discussion.
Given the nature of terrorism, the contemporary tendency to think that the U.N. or some other transnational agency is the “legitimate authority” for sanctioning the use of armed force must also be revisited. If someone is making war on us, as the terror network surely is, we do not require the permission of others to defend ourselves or to take the war to the enemy in order to defeat him. Allies in that enterprise are welcome. Their approbation, while prudentially desirable, is not morally necessary. But here, too, is an important subject for debate.
Just-war thinkers are also going to have to reconsider what we mean by “last resort.” Terrorists, by definition, do not play by the rules, diplomatic or otherwise. I can’t see how it makes moral sense to argue that one must first attempt to negotiate with people who regard negotiation as weakness, who think of the “other” as vermin to be exterminated, and for whom acts of mass murder are deemed religiously praiseworthy. Yet again, a thorough sorting-out is needed.
The Christian realism of the just-war tradition has tried to bring reason into the realm of the terribly irrational since the days of St. Augustine. We have neglected it, intellectually, for too long. Its development will be crucial in the decades of struggle ahead."
"…The terrorists who hijacked and then drove fuel-laden jetliners into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were not “tragic” actors, any more than were the German infantry who attacked the U.S. First Army in December 1944 in the Battle of the Bulge. The terrorists were combatants; those who trained, paid for, equipped and provided them with logistical support are combatants. And what we are engaged in is a war.
Which means that the appropriate moral categories in which to think through our policy, post-September 11, are the categories of the just-war tradition. This will require a serious intellectual effort by scholars, military leaders and public officials. For while the just-war tradition once evolved amid the anarchic politics of the Middle Ages, just-war theory, like every other way of thinking about international affairs for the past three centuries, has long assumed that the state is the only significant “unit” in world politics.
The smoldering ruins in lower Manhattan have made unmistakably clear that non-state “actors” – like terrorist organizations – are crucial units-of-count in the world. States are not all there is.
The just-war tradition needs to be “stretched,” or developed, to deal with this new reality. In confronting terrorism, “just cause” cannot be limited to repelling an “aggression already under way” – as some current Catholic thinking has it. When facing terrorist organizations, pre-emptive military action is not only morally justifiable but morally imperative. How to articulate the moral case for pre-emption without turning the world into a free-fire zone is something much in need of discussion.
Given the nature of terrorism, the contemporary tendency to think that the U.N. or some other transnational agency is the “legitimate authority” for sanctioning the use of armed force must also be revisited. If someone is making war on us, as the terror network surely is, we do not require the permission of others to defend ourselves or to take the war to the enemy in order to defeat him. Allies in that enterprise are welcome. Their approbation, while prudentially desirable, is not morally necessary. But here, too, is an important subject for debate.
Just-war thinkers are also going to have to reconsider what we mean by “last resort.” Terrorists, by definition, do not play by the rules, diplomatic or otherwise. I can’t see how it makes moral sense to argue that one must first attempt to negotiate with people who regard negotiation as weakness, who think of the “other” as vermin to be exterminated, and for whom acts of mass murder are deemed religiously praiseworthy. Yet again, a thorough sorting-out is needed.
The Christian realism of the just-war tradition has tried to bring reason into the realm of the terribly irrational since the days of St. Augustine. We have neglected it, intellectually, for too long. Its development will be crucial in the decades of struggle ahead."
