Yesterday, the US pulled combat forces out of the cities of Iraq, according to the timetable negotiated between the Iraqis and US last year. The Iraqis called this “sovereignty day,” which is hyperbolic, but it is an important step in the process. US combat troops remain in Iraq, and are not scheduled to leave until August 2010, with complete withdrawal not scheduled until the end of 2011.
Still in all, this seems like a reasonable time to reflect on war. I'd like to set aside this particular war, since the basic facts of this war are likely to be in dispute, which makes rational discussion all but impossible.
This could be a stepping off point for the more abstract question, “Is there such a thing as a just war?” Moral theorists have debated this for a long, long time.
I'd like approach this from a different direction. As Christianity grew and expanded, it changed. Indeed, within three hundred years, it changed from a religion that confronted the injustices of Roman Empire into the official religion of that very empire. Now, Rome changed too, the accommodation was mutual.
It seems to me that the theology of a just war is a linchpin in this mutual accommodation. After all, empires grow and sustain themselves through war and the threat of war. Christianity became a religion of emperors and soldiers, and nations were conquered by troops carrying the banner of the Prince of Peace.
And I believe that Christianity diluted itself in the process, and lost much of its distinctiveness in God's plan. We should stand as witnesses against the violence of war.
Peace
21 comments:
No, I'm totally in favor of war.
There are seven main criteria of a just war.
I'd enumerate them but I'm too lazy.
Nothing else will ever get N. Korea out from under the juggernaut of Kim Jong-Il. To do nothing can be evil, too.
If you know the kid next door is being sexually assaulted, you have to take the father out. Not yourself, but via the police.
The father may go down shooting, but you have to do it.
It's evil not to do it.
Evil can be an act of commission. It can also be turning your head the other way, and doing nothing.
Saddam was an evil man. We did the right thing to take that asshole off the face of the earth.
We did the right thing to take Hitler off the face of the earth.
A few other assholes who need to go:
Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe, the heads of Myanmar.
There is a problem in your equation. You think the Christian must only render unto God, perhaps, but we must also render unto Caesar.
Government without soldiers won't work.
Soldiers without God won't work.
You need both poles, and a recognition of both, or else you get tyranny every time.
I'm reading Hayek.
I think that the difference is that I would distinguish between belief in God, and perhaps even in Jesus, from followers of the way. The later is a much more demanding path, which I think few today follow. Just to be perfectly clear, I don't think that I follow in the stronger sense that I'm describing, but I'm trying.
This goes back to my post "Plurality." It seems to me that we have a lot of weak witnesses to Christianity today, and might be better served by many good God-Fearers, and a few very strong Christian witnesses.
Indeed, maybe what we actually have today is many good God-Fearers who call themselves Christians, and too few real Christians.
I'm reading "God and Empire," by Crossan.
I'm terrified I might one day become the kind of Christian you describe. I want to remain a Sunday Christian to the extent that I'm able. I'm afraid to lose my marbles entirely if I become THAT kind of Christian that you describe.
Johnny Appleseed may have been the kind of Christian you describe.
The problem is beginning to think that you embody holiness, so whatever you do is holy. Ginsberg went that route. Appleseed did, too. Ultimately, it involved children.
Waco lies that way, too?
That's what scares me about THAT kind of Christian.
Kirby,
Your conflation is both inaccurate and ascriptural.
Jesus was constantly saying "not me but the Father." It's Koresh and Ginsberg who confuse themselves with God, not Jesus and His followers.
And Kirby, was it worth bombing children to get rid of Saddam?
Doesn't Paul specifically say that governments were instilled by God?
Why then should we remove them?
There are bad governments. Locke's four criteria is a good guide to what's good and bad in a government. Good ones protect the life, health, liberty, and property of their inhabitants. Bad ones don't. Evil ones actively attack the four rights.
It's the basis of the notion of human rights enshrined in the UN codes.
Fathers and priests are also part of the three orders, but they can go bad, too. When they do, we have the right to remove them.
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing (or something like that).
Who proposed doing nothing?
Non-violent resistance isn't doing nothing. And it has some notable successes, Jesus vs. the Roman Empire, Gandhi vs. the British Empire, Martin Luther King, Jr. vs. the Old Confederacy, and others.
The problem, of course, is that non-violent resistance requires time and sacrifice to work. The notion that we can overcome evil by violence is based on the hope that we can succeed quickly and with minimal sacrifice. It is an illusion.
How much have we spent on Iraq? I good trillion dollars?
If Saddam was so evil, couldn't we have offered him 100 billion dollars to go somewhere like Switzerland or Argentina and never bother anyone again?
Or put a 100 billion dollar price tag on his head?
Why did we have to kill children to oust him?
Please explain that Kirby, reconciling it with Matthew 19:14, if possible.
Well, that would enable other dictators, G.M. It would set up an incentive to be a dictator. It's like paying a kidnapper. You don't do that. You have to shoot them, because it sets up an expectation that if you kidnap your head will come clean off when the SWAT team sets up. That's better for society in the long run that there is a fear of punishment.
I know, I know, it's a drag.
But you're dealing with psychotic bullies. People like Kim Jong-Il are not reasonable. You give them a hundred billion, and all they're going to do is buy more nukes with which to threaten Japan.
Kim Jong-Il's dad shot the mother right in front of the son. This sort of person isn't normal. You can't deal with them like you can a normal person.
I think many people think everyone is the same.
But there are odd people who decide they can bully and hurt others with impunity. They get away with it, and go further and further and further. They are a little bit like mad dogs.
They HAVE to be put down, even if they surround themselves with children (which they often do). It's one of the problems of our world, GM.
But you haven't answered why we have to go to war.
Why not put a bounty on their heads?
What purpose does conquest serve?
Or rather, whose purpose does conquest serve?
Putting a bounty on someone's head is illegal. Just war tradition argues that theonly legitimate war is one that is legally declared, by a nation, against another nation.
Putting a price on someone's head is vigilante justice, and can't be countenanced.
At least that's what I think.
You have to think about long-term consequences of doing something that is unprincipled even if it's for pragmatic reasons.
Have you read Jean Elshtain's book Just War Against Terror? It will explain some of the deep structural elements involved in neo-liberal thought that were behind the Bush doctrine. Elshtain teaches I believe at the U. of Chicago.
I can't do justice to the book in this comment box. I think her book might be the key to opening up this question for both the blogmeister and the commentators.
She's arguably the best thinker in the Bush camp who wasn't actually in the Bush camp. She was raised Lutheran, but I believe doesn't attend.
So a "just war" where children are blown up in their beds is better than an "illegal" assassination?
So WWII was a better result than if someone had just shot Hitler at Munich?
Kirby --
I've just ordered Eshtain's book -- it's next in line on the Kindle. But I'm not expecting a lot.
Here are a few issues that I think are relevant.
1) Undertaking war for the purpose of regime change is illegal. If you want to understand why the US invaded Iraq, forget about 9/11, which had nothing to do with Iraq, and consider instead 4/13/93 -- the attempted assassination of GHW Bush by Iraqi intelligence. That Hussein was a terrible dictator, someone who murdered and raped his own people without constraint, and permitted his sons and supporters to do likewise, is given. Unfortunately, it hardly makes him unique. And it appears that the cost to the Iraqi people (here I'm talking about civilian causalities) of removing Hussein are somewhere between 1x and 5x the number of casualties that he would have induced over the remainder of his lifetime. Getting rid of Hussein was a positive consequence of the Iraqi war, but it does not come close to balancing the ledger. This war was a strategic blunder, criminally justified, with grossly inadequate post-war planning. Note that post-war administration was not, and should never have been conceived to be, a military issue. The screw-ups were entirely political.
2) I expect that the costs of taking out Kim Jong-Il would be orders of magnitude greater than taking out Saddam Hussein. A major consideration is that North Korean nukes make tactical concentrations (amphibious assaults, and even breakout and exploitation) suicidal, reducing the US's operational options more-or-less to a broad frontal assault, which given the terrain and the investment that NK has made in its artillery arm (quantity, quality, positioning, hardening, registration, etc.) would make Okinawa look like a cake-walk. Absent national mobilization here, we'd run out of troops before they would. Our best strategies are longer term.
3) Taking out Mugabe would be relatively easy, and if attempted, could be done with African Union and United Nations support. The problem here, of course, is that it is not politically feasible in the US -- the R's would dearly love such an opportunity to argue that Obama is more interested in African issues than American issues. And since there's no money to be made in knocking off Mugabe, don't expect the R's to do it if/when they regain power.
4) 9/11 was the work of Islamic extremists, but here's something to think about -- why did they attack us? The historical relationship between the US and Israel certainly made it easier for bin Laden to recruit, but the real issue was US bases in Saudi Arabia post Gulf war, which had the effect of making civil war in Saudi Arabia tactically impossible, and there is little doubt that that's bin Laden's next major objective en route to recreating the Caliphate.
But those bases are really at the heart of modern US imperialism. We're not a territorial empire, but we are most definitely a military empire with world-wide scope, and a big part of our current policy is in acquiring bases world-wide, and especially in areas where we want increased strategic leverage, like the mideast. From bin Laden's point of view, the failure of the earlier Khobar Towers attack to result in a withdrawal of US forces from Saudi Arabia forced him to escalate, with 9/11 as the result.
It is certainly possible to argue, and I think it's true, that bin Laden's 9/11 attack failed to meet its central strategic objective, and therefore, we've achieved a Pyrrhic victory in that we've remained in Saudi Arabia. Still, I have to wonder why we're taking casualties and spending treasure as a proxy in a nascent Saudi Arabian civil war, especially given that it seems like a war that the Saudi government is perfectly capable of winning without our direct intervention.
Eshtain is quite good. I think she occupies a high ground, and is very articulate. I think you are going to like her. Meanwhile, I'll reread the book so it's fresh when we get around to discussing her.
Thanks.
To GM -- you have to follow the rules of war. Collateral damage is going to be part of that. So, yes, in that the rules of war have been kept.
You don't believe in war as part of your understanding of the faith.
But read Eshtain. Stu should have the book read and ready to go in about ten days. Ketchup, and we'll sling the mustard gas, and get ourselves in a pickle, turning one another into hamburger when we get to that particular bridge.
Best, Kirby
sigh. War is chaos. There are no rules. The "rules of war" is a dream concocted by Europeans in a past that is dead and gone (and wasn't followed then anyway).
I am against chaos. I am against entropy. I am against war.
You're not really willing to even consider war. If you were, you'd give war a chance.
Stu should have the book read and ready to go in about ten days.
Give me a full couple of weeks. I read the Kindle on the train, which gives me an hour each work day. And I'm in the middle of another book right now.
Okay dokey.
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