Is there nothing worse than war?

Deliver us from evil, we pray daily in the Our Father. To hear some ecclesiastics talk today, the particular evil of our day is war. It is not tyranny and injustice, nor sins against Catholic Morals. Of course for them evil is not religious indifference based on tolerance for all religions. It is simply war, and in particular the war in Iraq.

Archbishop Martino calls war "a crime that cries out for vengeance before God." --Inside the Vatican, February 2003

“War is a crime against peace that cries out for vengeance before God.” [1] Archbishop Renato Martino, President of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace, told us. The new criteria of Archbishop Martino is curious. I don’t recall having heard anyone in the Vatican recently qualifying homosexuality – and its abominable consequence, pedophilia – as crimes that cry out for vengeance before God. Even though it was clearly classified as such in the Catechism where I learn my Catholic doctrine.

Given the Vatican’s incredible tolerance for many contemporary moral evils I thought that it had forgotten this category of crime – the ones that call out for God’s vengeance. But I was mistaken. As soon as Bush and Blair announced war, Martino brought out that rusty and forgotten sword and utilized it against them. In fact, Archbishop Martino’s attitude was quite bellicose; one might say he was waging war against those who still support war. Why was his act of war good and the other bad? In his pacifist fury, the Reverend Archbishop simply forgot to explain.

Many humanitarian-based statements about the war from Church dignitaries and committees were delivered following the same Vatican orientation. USCCB president Bishop Wilton Gregory echoed the Holy Father’s admonition that “war is always a defeat for humanity,” and said war should be averted on behalf of the “long-suffering people of Iraq,”[2] referring to the embargo placed on Iraq at the request of the United States and Great Britain. In a meeting with President Bush in early March, Cardinal Pio Laghi, the Pope's special envoy, pleaded that the American President check any war plans. Why? Again, the embargo: “in the interests of the suffering people of Iraq.”[3] According to a document issued by the Pontifical Council for Religious Dialogue, this was a war that could only bring about “oppression and aggression against the human person.” [4]

[3] Ibid, “Holy See Maintains That There are Still Peaceful Avenues,” March 6, 2003).

[4] From the Islamic-Catholic Statement on Terrorism and Peace, issued March 2, 2003, by the Joint Committee of the Permanent Committee of Al-Azhar for Dialogue with the Monotheistic Religions and the Pontifical Council for Religious Dialogue.

Now, it seems to me that in the wake of the Iraqi war, the defenders of the above mentioned arguments might have the decency to blush. First, because it was a war fought with remarkable military precision and produced the least possible damage to a civilian population. Second, because every day brings revelations of “oppressions and aggressions” that were not caused by either the embargo or the war, but were being suffered by the civilian population under the brutal Hussein government.

The sense of justice of the anti-war religious leaders and media is quite strange. They were clamoring in favor of the Iraqi people. Yet when in the last weeks it became blatantly clear to the eyes of the world that Hussein was oppressing the Iraqi people with a Hiter or Stalin-style fierceness, the same leaders had hardly a word of blame for the tyrant. Were they sincere before the war in the great concern expressed for the human person? So, why no sign of remorse now for their erroneous predictions? Are they sincere now? Then, why no expression of relief and joy for seeing the Iraqi people released?

Listening to the news the other morning, I heard the surprised and shocked voice of a National Public Radio reporter who, in a liberal daze, was stunned at the number of Iraqi people on the Baghdad streets eager to tell their stories of torture, oppression, and horror as experienced under the Saddam Hussein regime. In a Washington Post report, Susan B. Glasser related some of these testimonies. Let me repeat a few:

She spoke to a young man, Anwar Abdul Razak, who had no ears. They had been cut off after he was caught absent without leave from his military unit in 1994. Hussein had just imposed this “new” punishment to stop the flood of army desertions in the 90s. “It was obligatory in all the hospitals,” admitted Jinan Sabagh, chief of surgery at Basra Teaching Hospital. “There wasn’t a choice.”

Today a boy is free to play in the terrible iron maiden with spikes used to torture athletes who performed below expectations. One of the instruments of torture used by Saddam's son, Uday.

According to the testimonies, torture was routine. Anything said or done against the government opened a door to danger. A rumor or suspicion was enough to warrant a police “inspection,” in which torture was systematically applied to exact “confessions ” - or denunciations that came from parents against children, friends against neighbors, strangers against strangers “Of course they tortured me,” said Maithm Naji. “Beating people here is something regular.” He was arrested and jailed and tortured for speaking with a UN representative who came by his house for a few minutes in 1998.

“Iraq was a prison,” said Arif Orthman, who fled the army in 1991. Naively believing the sincerity of a reported amnesty, he returned to Iraq in 1998 only to be arrested and tortured.

In almost every case, Glasser reported, torture was part of a broader story of arrests, disappearances, executions and destroyed homes. Some victims were, in fact, part of the resistance party against the Iraqi government; others were under suspicion simply because of a family member who did not agree with the regime, or because they were Shiite.

These stories of torture are not pleasant. Saad Abdul Wahab said jailers placed electrodes on his navel to administer shocks. Nabili Abdul Ali said his shoulders were dislocated and an electric wire was wrapped around his private parts and attached to a hand-cranked machine. Zuhair Kubba said he was hung upside-down and beaten with an iron rod.

The methods of torture were endless: electric shocks applied to various parts of the body, razor blades used to slash the backs of prisoners; wives, sisters and mothers raped or stripped naked before the eyes of husbands, brothers and fathers; prisoners forced to sit on heated metal stoves; eyes gouged out, hand and feet amputated; foreheads branded and ears cut off.

Now, if this were the first news of such torture and atrocities, there might be some excuse for the great surprise of the West to “discover” such barbarities. But there were many other reports before now. For instance, an official August 2001 report of Amnesty International, titled “Systematic torture of political prisoners in Iraq,” states:

“Torture is used systematically against political detainees in Iraqi prisons and detention centers. The scale and severity of torture in Iraq can only result from the acceptance of its use at the highest level. There are no attempts to curtail or prevent such violations or punish those responsible. This total disregard for a basic human right, the right not to be tortured or ill-treated, grossly violated international human rights law which prohibits torture in all circumstances.” [5]

This report certainly raises an important question. Why did the Vatican, which so vehemently protested the war on humanitarian grounds, ignore these reports of systematic state-orchestrated violence against Iraqi citizens?

In fact, when fingers were pointed, why was it at the “inhumane” embargo against Iraq, with the strong implication that America was to blame for it? Why was the war that America waged labeled “the defeat for humanity,” and no critique made against a tyrannical and corrupt regime that was strangling its own people?

Stories of the awful day-to-day life of the civilian population in Iraq continue to emerge. I don’t have to go much further than the morning newspaper Los Angeles Times (March 27, 2003), which was, by the way, faithful to its liberal creed in its anti-war stance and reporting.

Camps were set up to receive an exodus of Iraqi refugees fleeing the war. They remained empty since the civilians did not feel threatened by the American/British attacks and stayed in their homes. Los Angeles Times - April 23, 2003

In section one is a report of a mass grave revealed by a gravedigger, himself afflicted by memories of men tortured, beaten, shot and disposed of.

An editorial tells us that – so far – it is figured 250,000 people were detained or murdered by the government of Saddam Hussein.

On another page is the story of Mustafa, a senior in high school when armed government thugs came to the family house and took him away. He was tortured, the family house was razed.

Another feature article details the fear of teachers in the elementary and secondary schools, who had to begin each day with a song praising Hussein and follow a state-mandated curriculum brimming with regime propaganda. Government supervisors would sit in on classes every few weeks, and teachers were nervously aware that a word could be misconstrued by students of families connected to the Hussein regime who were watching for “slip-ups.” “We were frightened all the time,” said Kitam Naama, a first-grade teacher.

Perhaps one of the most shocking stories for Western sensibilities was the news that emerged about the political jail in Baghdad for children. Their crimes? Everything from suspicion of “treason” for belonging to families suspected of “political crimes” … or simply because they had not joined the youth branch of the Ba’ath party.

Still there are those who continue to assert that there is nothing worse than war. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like war. Following my feminine instincts, I always prefer to find ways of peace rather than embark on paths of war. But peace is not an absolute good, to be had at any cost. The liberation of an oppressed people, putting an end to a corrupt regime, restoring the honor of an affronted country are ideals that are more valuable than peace. In the glorious war of the Machabees at its beginning Mathathias cried out, justifying the fight: "Woe to me, wherefore was I born to see the ruin of my people, and the ruin of the holy city ... She that was free is made a slave. And behold our sanctuary, and our beauty and our glory was laid waste and defiled ... To what end then should we live any longer?" (1 Mach 2:7-13) He was speaking not only from experience. His words were inspired by the Holy Ghost.

When I hear stories of the systematic torture of civilians and political prisoners in the socialist and tyrannical regime of Hussein, I am reminded of similar tales of anguish from men and women behind the Iron Curtain. And I was asking, as I asked then: Isn’t anyone going to do something? Fortunately, some one did. In fact, on humanitarian grounds alone, one could argue that this was a war worth fighting, a just war. But there were other reasons that made this a just war as well.

Yes, there are causes worth fighting for, and there are things much worse than war. This is something that the Catholic Church has always taught.

Yes, there are causes worth fighting for, and there are things much worse than war. This is something that the Catholic Church has always taught.

How many thousands upon thousands of Christians have been slaughtered by Muslims in the Sudan over the past years yet I don't see carriers heading for the Red Sea or troops being dispatched there anytime soon. What about the wholesale slaughter of civilians by the Burmese Army, isn't anyone going to do anything about that? There is a real monster in Robert Mugabe but there are no plans to make the liberation of those oppressed in Zimbabwe a "cause worth fighting for" anytime soon either.

Why even go across the world, Castro has been mocking more than a have a dozen U.S. Presidents just ninety miles off the Florida coast for decades yet the human rights abuses just keep on rolling in Cuba.

And now, the huge big punch line to this all is that the U.S. has teemed up with China (CHINA!!) to help in talks with North Korea. Whatever atrocities you can count in Iraq, times those by 1000+ and you have China. However many people have been tortured, imprisoned and killed in Iraq, times those by 1000+ and you have China. Yet because we need to keep our Walmarts stocked, (well, one of about 100 reasons, but the single most offensive reason, IMHO) we get to overlook China. Bollocks.

This war was about the same thing the first Gulf War was about. Not about oil (thought it did lean that way for GWI) it was about exerting power and influence over a region and a people.

Good for the Vatican to speak out against this war. While there are millions all around the world suffering under tyrannical regiems that desire to be free, America merely chooses to tackle those that serve its own interests first, then smugly calls it "a just war".

Spoken like a true Democrat--noses out of joint because we succeeded in liberating 24 million people. Listen, if Bush had his way, we would go on to liberate all the victimized people in the world, in the Sudan or elsewhere. But there are Democrats in Congress, together with their media pals, together with countries like France and Russia, together with a myopic Vatican, who would pounce in an instant if he made the attempt.

Yet for the first time in history we have the means to do so, to use weapons so precise we may now depose tyranical regimes without doing any great harm to the civilian population. We are constrained by those like yourself who sieze on legal fictions--such as the UN's interest in world peace--to protect vicious dictators who slaughter hundreds of thousands, yet are considered legitimate rulers.

The truth is, the Pope was wrong, France and Russia were wrong, the media was wrong, and the left in general was wrong, none of the dire results predicted took place save for a dust-up here and there and some inconsequential looting. In the scheme of history, that's small beer, though I will grant it is pretty much all the Democrats have to latch onto in the face of an enormous triumph of good over evil.

Listen, if Bush had his way, we would go on to liberate all the victimized people in the world, in the Sudan or elsewhere. But there are Democrats in Congress, together with their media pals, together with countries like France and Russia, together with a myopic Vatican, who would pounce in an instant if he made the attempt.

So, let me get this straight. The Dems, media, France & Russia et al did pounce when Bush had his way in Iraq. Yet that somehow didn't stop him then from going forth and securing victory. So, what is holding him back now? If anything, he is in a far greater position to help others around the world right now, if that is indeed his will as you suggest, than six months ago. So, you tell me, what is stopping him from going forth and doing good throughout the whole world, liberating those in the Congo, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Tibet, etc.?

I have some ideas why he won't, but I'm sure you wouldn't like to hear them.

We are constrained by those like yourself who sieze on legal fictions--such as the UN's interest in world peace--to protect vicious dictators who slaughter hundreds of thousands, yet are considered legitimate rulers.

Please do me the favor of pointing out exactly where I mentioned anything like "legal fictions" or the UN in my post. Here, I'll help. I didn't.

Truth is I want change in places like Cuba, Zimbabwe, Burma, Congo and all the other countries that havevicious dictators who slaughter hundreds of thousands. And, truth be told, if it takes a military means to do it, then let war be the answer. And I also agree with you that we do have the means, more than anytime in history, to accomplish this.

However, Castro, Mugabe and all these others will continue to stay in power, not because of the Dems or the UN or the Vatican or anyother liberal boogieman you choose to believe in. The cold, hard, bitter reality is that they will stay in power becasue it does not serve America's interests in overthrow them like it served America's interest to overthrow Sadaam Hussian.

So, the answer to your question, "Is there nothing worse than war?" The answer is yes, killing people for financial and political gain while hiding behind a mask of justice and liberty while you are doing it. That, friend, is worse than war.

You don't seem to appreciate how the projection of power actually works. It is not necessary to go around bombing rogue regimes once we've established we're willing to use force. By showing ourselves ready to take out one tyrant, the US has forced others to take notice and start moving in our direction. Within days of our victory Iran began making peaceful noises, announcing it wished to "normalize relations" with us. This was followed by Syria which conceded to our demands within days, sealing off its border and halting the influx of suicide bombers into Iraq. Even loony North Korea agreed to multilateral talks which brought China--previously unwilling to back our position-- finally into the equation. So you see, showing a willingness to fight makes outlaw nations behave as we want without the need for us to go around punching every one of them individually in the nose.

As for your second point, that Bush's motives for war are financial and political, where is there evidence that this is true? Even with the gain of contracts for post-war reconstruction, the outlay for the war itself cost us billions in deployment and weaponry. And even the reconstruction afterwards will be costly, necessitating long deployments of troops and materials. It is true the oil wells are badly in need of repair and Halliburton has been brought in to do the job--but so what? It is highly qualified to get the wells working and it is only logical that we who expended blood and treasure should gain the contracts. Would you suggest we turn to France or Russia to repair the wells and the communications infrastructure? As for the oil, we have said over and over it belongs to the Iraqi people. Our word is solid on this and any suggestion to the contrary is ideological bull. There is not a jot of evidence for this.

As for the political gain--this is at the heart of the Democratic angst. It is not that the US has won a victory that sticks in your craw, it is the fact that Bush gets credit for it and wins points with the American people for his bold leadership. But Bush took a political risk from motives of high principle when the outcome was not at all as promising as it now appears. Notwithstanding some minor dustups here and there and some end-of-war looting, the victory is far more absolute than anyone had anticipated. It was a high stakes political risk, and Bush took the gamble. Had Iraq shown itself more adept, we could have been bogged down much longer and Bush would have been blamed. In fact, the media and people like you did all they could to hammer away at Bush's policies and to denigrate him politically. Even now his opponents seek to exploit the economic downturn which resulted from the uncertainties over Iraq. So the politics of all this has been risky--not at all a scheme hatched by Bush to pump up his approval numbers.

Finally--of course we go in where it suits us as a nation and where there is maximum benefit to ourselves. That is what our leadership is constitutionally pledged to do--we live in a finite universe and notwithstanding our great power, it is not infinite. We must pick and choose. But the fact that we do so is not inconsistent with high principles. If we choose to set Iraq free and not Zimbabwe, it is because there will be more chance for geopolitical success by going into the Mideast instead of Africa. It is the Mideast, after all, that is the wellspring of worldwide terrorism; and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been an open wound that has festered for more than half a century. It is only logical we should begin there. So there are all kinds of factors besides the desire to liberate an enslaved people which must be taken into consideration when action is decided upon--but none of these in the final analysis cancel out the good that is achieved by any single war of liberation, particulary one as sparing of the civilian life as this one was.

Just some quick points...

As far as Syria and Iran (and others) stepping in line with U.S. demands, all I have to say is that it is far too early to tell if all this immediate lip service will be backed up by any real change. Syria looks as entrenched in Jordan as ever, and its own WMD's are far from being catalogued let alone destroyed.

As Churchill said, this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, it is, however, the end of the beginning. And, if our current progress in Afghanistan is any measure (or lack of progress, as it obviously seems) then this is end of the beginning of something that will be long, costly, and ill-thought out as to it's conclusion.

As far as the financial gains, which country got the contracts first? Which country will get the lion’s share, do you reckon? You respond, "so what?", but I say, "Exactly". I guess that I am just not as easily dismissive of exchanging lives for profits as you are. As for the cost of weaponry, that just means more for the military budget to restock and continued billions into military R and D. All good for the U.S. economy. Which brings me to another point

...Bush took a political risk from motives of high principle when the outcome was not at all as promising as it now appears.

This is the heart of my dissatisfaction with this whole war. This war was about the U.S. exerting power and influence over a region, for its own gain. All this high-handed rhetoric about "high principle" is utter nonsense, and truly offensive to those suffering around the world (Cuba, Sudan, Burma, Congo, Tibet, et al.) who do not have oil, who do not have a stake in the Israel/Palestinian conflict, and, thusly, are left out in the cold. Literally. I would have been much, much happier if someone would just have the balls to come out and say, "Look, we are not going to let September 11th happen again, so we are going to kill and maim and destroy all those who would intend to do such to America again." without appealing to this "high moral principle" crap. This was about revenge and exerting power, and the liberation of the Iraqi (and Afghani) people was about 15th on the list of reasons for action, probably lower.

It is the Mideast, after all, that is the wellspring of worldwide terrorism; and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been an open wound that has festered for more than half a century. It is only logical we should begin there.

Trust me, it has begun and ended there. It will go no further than those immediate countries involved. There are no plans to do so, there never was, there never will be.

I'm done here. You and your worldview are obviously very happy together. I wish you both the best.

pony

You have it wrong on each and every point. The press reports from Iraq and Afghanistan give a distorted view, publicizing momentary dustups and projecting them as calamities. Case in point: it now appears--according to a recent article in the Weekly Standard--that the huge crowds of Shiites in southern Iraq chanting "America go home," were in actuality religious pilgrims who strongly favored the American presence. In their midst were a few hundred Shiite activists who used the huge crowd of pilgrims to project the appearance of a mass rebellion. Journalists did not distinguish between the two and much was made of very little. So too with the recent explosion of a service station in Baghdad which killed some Iraqis and set off some hostility in a small segment of the population. This obscured the euphoria generally felt over our presence which is still strongly expressed by the general population.

Second, it is a cheap shot to say we have "exchanged lives for profit"--which simply is not true. We have achieved a great victory at the cost of very few lives. When set up against a history of three decades of mass slaughters and against the potential for the loss of still more thousands under an incredibly brutal regime, not to speak of people tortured, tongues cut out, people pushed through shredders, etc., etc., etc., our war of liberation amounts to a negligable cost in lives, however regrettable. Nor are we profitting as you suggest. Our financial outlay will not in any way be recouped by the contracts mentioned. Deployment alone will far exceed whatever benefits accrue to us financially. The oil itself, which will be the primary means for a prosperity to come, will remain in the hands of the Iraqis themselves. Despite this, America-bashers like yourself keep claiming we went to war for profit. This is not only an unsubstantiated claim, it covers over the real profiteers--the UN and nations like France and Russia and Syria which profitted greatly from Saddam's tyranny.

As for your final point: we have not neglected the human rights violations in Cuba, Sudan or elsewhere. The State Department has recently put out a list of countries which have violated human rights and which cooperate with terrorist organizations and Colin Powell spoke to this with Tim Russert on Meet the Press only this morning. He made it clear we have many means for opposing each of these rogue regimes, economic isolation, diplomatic pressure, military action, etc., and that each must be taken on a case-by-case basis. Much depends on the geopolitical context. Clearly the Mideast remains our primary target since it is the font of terrorism around the world. But every one of these regimes now has cause to worry. So your central point is bogus. You call the Bush grand design "high principle crap" because it emanates from the an administration which you apparently loathe to such an extent that you enter into all sorts of specious reasoning to justify your opposition. But Bush's policies have not only succeeded in making America more secure, but they have done so with very little cost in life and have already liberated millions upon millions of suffering victims of tyranny both in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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