Posted on 03/20/2003 10:38:18 AM PST by ArrogantBustard
The secular news outlets reported a half truth.
A half truth is a lie.
The secular news outlets are Liars.
I don't. I also don't wonder if the anti-Catholics on FR will ignore this thread. And I don't wonder if those who don't ignore the thread will post some silly rant before even reading the statement.
I'm fairly confident of what they will do.
But maybe they've more intellectual honesty than I give them credit for.
I would have been happier had they made the more proper judgement several months ago that this action does indeed satisfy all of Aquinas', Jerome's and Augustine's requirements of "Just War Doctrine". Unfortunately, Mother Church has proven incapable of correctly interpreting this in the past, and again simply carried out their tradition of blindness to the proper and necessary use of force in this fallen world. It isn't that tough to interpret, as anyone who can do a google search for the Summa Theologica can satisfy for themselves. They again allowed the wonderful emotion of compassion for the short-term suffering of a dictator's citizens during a coming war overcome the truth of the long-term suffering at the hands of the dictator. They ought to have excoriated Hussein and condemned his immoral and illegal actions daily for the past 20 years instead.
The failure of the whole world to stand in solidarity with the US against the madman in Iraq certainly doomed the diplomatic efforts to failure.
While we have warned of the potential moral dangers of embarking on this war, we have also been clear that there are no easy answers.Now you're talking.
Yes. Rather well-considered, quite in contrast to the rantings of La Civilta Cattolica, Archbishop Martino, and JP II's characterization of war as a "crime against humanity."
But, then, these are American bishops, and they have a very clear view of what we are doing.
If you'd been paying attention, you'd already know this.
Except: "Any decision to defend against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction by using our own weapons of mass destruction would be clearly unjustified."
Sorry, but the threat of immediate retaliation is something that must be made. And, once threatened, the use must be upheld if the enemy figures it's a bluff.
The only thing that prevented Hitler from using WMD (chemical/biological) during WWII was the threat that England and the United States would respond .. and he knew we weren't bluffing.
Let's be very careful, here. In addition to being morally reprehensible, direct deliberate attacks against civilian populations are militarily useless. Unless the destruction of said civilians is the military goal. In which case, one is engaged in genocide. The use of nuclear weapons, and maybe chemical weapons, against military forces or installations, OTOH, certainly can be legitimate. If SH, for example were to barrage our troops with VX, or nuke them, or worse detonate something like that in CONUS I would not be averse to nuking every last one of his hidden command bunkers. We even have a nice earth-penetrating dial-a-yield weapon just perfect for that sort of thing. But the loose talk of "turning Baghdad into a parking lot" is repulsive and beneath us.
However, a large-scale WMD attack against one of our civilian population centers should be met with an identical counter-strike. Otherwise, the enemy can park his military inside population centers and blast away at ours without retaliation.
Genocide, my *#&$& ... fire-bombing Dresden and Tokyo was not genocide. The two nukes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the best investments that we made in wartime, saving the lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of our own troops (and Japanese defenders, civilian and military .. although that doesn't really enter into MY equation).
Ping.
Excellent point! Pinging them now.
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