CARROLL: THIS IS AN UNJUST WAR!

Boston Globe ^ | 11/27/2001 | James Carroll

[alnick]

Anyone still refusing to sign onto this campaign is increasingly regarded as unpatriotic. Next, we will be called ''kooks.''

Oops...too late.

[cardinal4]

makes sense to me.....

[Aquinasfan]

I'll say this nicely. Carroll is a freakin' idiot.

[wideawake]

My post was not intended to do so. If you reread it you'll see that I specifically referenced "anti-Catholic Protestants", and not Protestants in general.

I am all for uniting both conservative Catholic and conservative Reformed Christians, and it galls me that there are some on this forum who wish to split them. James Carroll is a favorite of that group.

[wideawake]

I'll add you to the list of those who failed to read my post carefully.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Carroll has not offered any argument as to why this war might be unjust.

Yes he has.

Did you read the article?

The term "just war" might be a mere literary flick of the wrist to you, but in western political theory, it means something very definite. In calling this war unjust, Carroll didn't even bother to use the criteria his fellow catholics developed, but instead used his own: "ignorance," "narrow context," and "wrongly defined use of force."

Then, after satisfying his own shallow definition, he used the weight of Augustine's and Aquinas' well-developed "just war" authority to brand, loudly, this war as unjust---as if it was according to Augustine and Aquinas.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

You are confusing knowing what they say with agreeing with it. I think there thinking on the matter has many of he same fine qualities as did ancient Roman automobiles.

In other words, you're completely arguing out of your arsehole.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

You talk of political theory as fact. Why then do they call it theory?

Because it is theory . . . based on thousands and thousands of years of human experience and history. The alchemic interactions that occur between human beings aren't governed by concrete laws of science, or haven't you noticed?

I submit you thinking is a clean as your mouth, and that is something you have clearly defined for us.

I submit your posts on this thread in defense of James Carroll have been ridiculous, and I'm sorry you feel bad because I called you on it. But those are the lumps you take when you post in a public forum.

[ThomasMore]

Do you have any background in Moral Theology or Philosophy as well as Just War Tradition? Or are your posts in, your honest opinion?

[wideawake]

Your reply makes close to no sense, but out of courtesy I'll address it anyway.

If you believe that, you have just clarified to us that you don't believe this is a just war, just that there is a probability it is a good thing. As in any dice throw, which you now admit this is, the roll could come up either way.

First of all, I'm not sure what it is you think I "believe". Secondly, the justice of a war is not predicated on whether or not it is successfully prosecuted. Very often people strive mightily to do the right thing, but are unable to accomplish it. If I see a child wander onto a railroad track as a train is bearing down and attempt to snatch him out of the way and, sadly, I do not clear the track fast enough and we are both killed - was my action unjust? By no means. Independently of the result, I did the right thing.

Likewise, the successful prosecution of this war is independent of its justice. We are engaging in a limited act of self-defense against an unjust aggressor and that aggressor's accomplice. We are solicitous of the noncombatants in this struggle and are acting to prevent a bloodthirsty organization from acquiring the means to wreak more havoc. This war is eminently just in the highest degree and I have in no way suggested otherwise.

You have put words in my mouth.

Any military scholar will tell you immediately that all war has an indeterminate outcome.

I never even implied that wars do not have indeterminate outcomes.

Besides, you are either contradicting yourself, or you are admitting that Catholic 'just war' arguments are really just semantics.

You are creating a false contradiction by introducing an unwarranted enthymeme. Just war theory is predicated on one key question: is the combatant justified in engaging in combat?

This involves a series of subsequent questions: (1) Was there provocation in fact or in threat? Yes, on both counts.

(2) Is there a concern that unchecked, the enemy will continue its violent provocation? Yes, it is a certainty.

(3) Does the combatant have a reasonable prospect of success or is the combatant foolishly waging a war he has no prospect of winning? Yes, we certainly do have a reasonable prospect of success.

(4) Is the combatant solicitous of noncombatants? Yes, in fact the combatant in this case is actually feeding hungry noncombatants.

(5) Has the combatant given the enemy sufficient opportunity to peacefully redress the combatant's grievances? Yes, almost a full month's time to simply locate an organization whose movements were well known to the Taliban.

(6) Has the combatant given the enemy the opportunity to surrender unconditionally? Yes - in fact the enemy has even violated the terms of a negotiated surrender.

one thing history clearly defines for us is that the teaching of the Catholic Church has often strayed from Christianity in many ways.

The teaching of the Catholic Church and Christianity are coterminous and synonymous. There is no distinction between the two. You might want to cite a teaching or two when you are making such broad and unsupported claims.

Don't you think that if the Catholic Church were really so hot and fired over identifying just wars that it might have more military than just a few guys running around with pikes and ancient uniforms?

You seem prepared to advise on the moral propriety of war and you don't have an army. What a specious, silly argument! The Church's purpose is not to make war, therefore it is not equipped to wage it.

Based on the evidence, it seems really hard to me to cite them for practicing what you allege they preach.

They you know nothing of the conduct, practice and law of war in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Don't refer to the lessons of history - it's a discipline with which you are evidently unacquainted. Find out what the pax Dei is and who Vitoria was, then rejoin the conversation.

[philosofy123]

Hey, you can be sutpid if you want to. The fact is we were attacked on our soil by Mslem fanatics. We know who they are, and we will make them pay. If you need a signed document from Ben Laden ordering Mohamed Atta to do that massacer, then you are a bigger fool.

[BlackElk]

Carroll is just another case of arrested development. He never resolved his adolescent rebellion against his father, a very fine man by all accounts whose career was in the FBI before he lateraled into the military with high rank in military intelligence. Carroll's father committed a number of unforgiveable sins in Carroll's warped imagination.

First of all, his father would not yield to the Kumbaya version of AmChurch Catholicism that views the Ten Commandments as mere suggestions and anything Vatican as strictly optional.

Next, in spite of the fact that his radical son the priest was ENRAGED over the Vietnam War, the elder Carroll did not obey immediately and abandon his career, his country and his Church at the direction of the idiot he had whelped.

Then there is the matter of the ex-priest who traded in his faith and his country for a mess of Marxist pottage in the 1960s and consequently regards the 1960s as a Golden Age of some sort, spending thirty years in a desperate search for an opportunity to repeat the experience.

One more example of a gutless moral coward who imagines himself a hero because of his attempts to piss on the grave of Western Civilization and is rewarded by the patronage of our feckless unprincipled elites (the New York Times which owns the Boston Globe).

[Psycho_Bunny]

This is one of the most absurdly stupid articles I've ever read.  Typical "What we're doing is wrong but I don't have the slightest clue at all how it could actually be done better" pseudo-intellectual bovine pies.

And as for the people defending Carroll's article : We should draw no distinction between those who harbor stupidity and the stupid themselves.

[Aurelius]

BUMP

[Poohbah]

OK, let me rephrase the statement: having read a couple of his novels, I can say with some authority that James Carrol is a commie-loving traitor.

[Faraday]

A modest proposal that might meet with Carroll's approval: The US should declare that any terrorist attack on America will be considered an act of war to be met with the full force and fury of American society, EXCEPT for attacks on the greater Boston area (including Cambridge) and the greater San Fransico area (including Berkeley and Oakland). Attacks on these latter, will be responded to as though they are part of "a cycle of violence." We will enter into thoughtful study of the causes that led to the attacks. However, we reserve the right to open a police investigation.