this
blog will be pretty short on my analysis, but heavy in quotes so you
can infer and synthesize the information for yourself to understand
what i am getting at.
from the catechism of the catholic church, paragraph 2309:
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 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 modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the
"just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral
legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have
responsibility for the common good.
as you can see, the current war in iraq does not pass no. 3 or no. 4.
and if you doubt that conclusion i drew listen to the pope himself.
even from the beginning of the invasion it was opposed by pope john
paul II. so he's up there with obama and kucinich in terms of having
open eyes. he's already more liberal than clinton! haha ...
"When war,
like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is even
more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that
only peace is the way of building a more just and caring society," he
said.
The Pope, in a speech to employees of Catholic television
station Telepace, added: "Violence and weapons can never resolve the
problems of man."
The Pope led the Vatican in a diplomatic
campaign to avert war, putting the Holy See on a collision course with
Washington and its backers in the Iraq campaign.
JPII was also quoted as saying that the war in iraq is "a defeat for humanity."
as for pope benedict XVI, whom many of you are quick to jump on the joke bandwagon and call him a nazi, he stated:
"All I can do is invite you to read the Catechism, and the
conclusion seems obvious to me…" The conclusion is one he gave
many times: "the concept of preventive war does not appear in The
Catechism of the Catholic Church."
Even after the war, Cardinal Ratzinger did not cease criticism of U.S.
violence and imperialism: "it was right to resist the war and its threats
of destruction...It should never be the responsibility of just one nation
to make decisions for the world."
Yet perhaps the most important insight of Ratzinger came during a press
conference on May 2, 2003. After suggesting that perhaps it would be necessary
to revise the Catechism section on just war (perhaps because it had
been used by George Weigel and others to endorse a war the Church opposed),
Ratzinger offered a deep insight that included but went beyond the issue
of war Iraq:
"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq.
To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible
destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking
ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'."
so the war in iraq IS unjust. michael novak and various neo-con
catholics tried to appeal to the vatican and say that iraq was a just
war but this was denied.
I agree that we should never have gone into Iraq, but I think that there are causes where premepitive war might be a good idea. For example, say Iran creates nukes and moves the lauchers to with striking distance of Isreal. Would you not be in favor of a premepitive strike?
Imagine a man is pointing a gun at your head, but you can shoot him first. Would you wait for him to shoot?
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WACCBAD: part II - just war theory blog
