Friday 29th March 2024

Home » Featured Today » Currently Reading:

Or Do We?. . . “We’ve Got To Do Something In Iraq”

October 15, 2014 Featured Today No Comments

By GEORGE A. KENDALL

At the moment, our rulers seem well on the way to getting us into our third Iraq war in a generation, the first two having exhibited, in the short term, the appearance of success (“a piece of cake”), but dismal failure in the longer run, wasting our nation’s resources and lives, accomplishing nothing but to get us even deeper into the Middle Eastern quicksand, while increasing the disorder there.
That means it’s time to do a brief review of the Church’s just war tradition and to reflect on how it is relevant to the present situation.
My own views on all this have, I must acknowledge, changed drastically over the years. I was a pretty rabid hawk during the cold war era, focused strongly on mankind’s struggle against totalitarianism as the central reality of our times and supporting any military action that, in my judgment, might weaken or eradicate totalitarianism, especially in its Communist form. This outlook tended to persist even after the cold war, as it did for so many conservatives.
Readers with long memories may recall the enthusiastic support I gave to the first Gulf War, getting involved in several editorial page controversies with the late Joseph Sobran (requiescat in pace) on the subject. Today I must acknowledge that he was right and I was wrong.
In part, at least, the change followed a clarification of my understanding of evil. While I knew better, I still had a tendency to reflexively identify evil with certain individuals or groups (e.g., Communists, Islamic militants, liberals) who embodied evil and needed to be decisively defeated and no longer in a position to influence events. In other words, if we just get rid of these people or these groups or these ideologies, everything will be fine. This is exactly the thinking of so many of the ideologues who have promoted our ill-fated “war on terror.” Two of them actually co-authored a book titled An End to Evil.
I have learned to be very wary of people who think they can stamp out all evil. Short of exterminating the entire human race, there is no possibility of stamping out evil (and actually, that would still leave the evil spirits). This is so because, as Solzhenitsyn tells us, the war between good and evil doesn’t run between persons, groups, social classes, religions, etc., but right through the human heart. We are all fallen creatures, and good and evil constantly struggle within each of us.
Besides that, we need to think about the parable of the wheat and the tares, in which Jesus tells us that it is God’s plan (a great mystery) to let good and evil continue to grow and develop until the end of time. The people who want to definitively stamp out evil are like the servants in the parable who offer to uproot the tares on the spot and burn them, which means they are rejecting Christ’s plan for human history and substituting their own.
We need to recognize that while there are things that politics and even war can do to contain and limit evil, if we try to use these instruments to definitively end evil, we are committing ourselves to an impious effort to accomplish the impossible and will only increase the level of disorder in the world.
Now, as regards the disastrous situation in Iraq associated with the crumbling of the regime we put in place following our “victory,” a regime utterly incapable of governing the place, more and more of our leaders, on both the right and the left, are beating the war drums, wanting to go back in there, take over the country, get rid of ISIS (and, yes, we are hearing all the rhetoric about putting an end to evil), we need to ask whether such a war can possibly meet the conditions the Church sets for a just war.
The first condition that St. Thomas enumerates is that war must be initiated and carried out by the lawful public authority — i.e., private citizens cannot organize private armies and go to war against another country. For us today this is complicated by two factors:
1) It is questionable whether in America today we have a lawful public authority, given the massive usurpation of power by a central government that has come to look more and more like an illegal regime. But assuming, for the sake of argument, that our Constitution is still in effect, there is the little problem that it clearly gives to Congress, not the executive, the power to declare war, which means that Congress, not the president, is the lawful authority for initiating war. And yet since World War II, all our wars have been initiated by the president, and after the fact there have been congressional resolutions supporting the president’s acts, resolutions which I am certain do not amount to anything resembling what the Founding Fathers meant by a declaration of war.
There is every reason to believe that the war now being contemplated would be carried out in the same way, and hence would be illegal — hence, not a just war.
2) A second requirement is just cause — that is, that there is a serious injustice or disorder that needs to be corrected. I think most of us would grant that just cause exists in the present situation in Iraq. The horror of ISIS going through Iraq murdering anyone who is in the way, suspected of sympathizing with their enemies, even murdering children, and, especially, murdering Christians, is enough to convince anyone that this is an evil which, other things being equal, needs to be suppressed and the evildoers punished.
But other things are often not equal, and just cause cannot stand alone as a justification for war. When atrocities are committed, people instinctively think, “We’ve got to do something!” But what if nothing can be done? Or if the cost of anything we do is just too great to justify it?
Which brings us to still another condition: that there must be a reasonable chance of winning (there is a parable for this, too; see Luke 14:31-33). My first thought is this: Given that we have fought two wars in Iraq, and neither produced results that could exactly be thought of as victory, what is the likelihood that another try at this would produce different results? One thinks here of the adage that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and each time expecting different results.
Do we have the resources for this war? Financially, we have spent astronomical sums for our previous Mideast adventures, creating a national debt that is likewise astronomical. Continuing to grow this debt can only accelerate the dissolution of our economy.
In terms of human resources, the American people may support the war short-term, due to outrage over the crimes of ISIS, but this lacks depth and the support will evaporate more and more as the war goes on. I like to think that a good measure of a society’s support for a war is the extent to which the people support a draft. Right now, if we tried to bring back the draft, there would be rioting in the streets. That does not augur well for success. People will support a war only as long as it is other people’s kids who will get killed or maimed.
Another human resource that is sadly lacking is leadership. Our leaders today are mostly politicians with no interest in anything except getting and keeping public office, or they are spiritually diseased ideologues who live in a dream world, with their heads full of Wilsonian nonsense about imposing democracy on the whole world. Of the two groups, these latter are the more dangerous. People like this really need to be put in a nice home someplace where they will be cared for and not allowed to harm themselves or others. With these people leading the war effort, the chances of a successful outcome would have to be minuscule.
Another condition is that there be a reasonable prospect that the war will not produce evils so great as to outweigh the good, if any, that it achieves. It seems evident to me at least, that our interventions in the Middle East, particularly Iraq, have produced great evils and little if any good. In Iraq we got rid of a dictatorship which, however brutal, kept the various Muslim factions under control and protected Christians from these same factions.
Then, under the influence of the Wilsonian ideology of promoting democracy everywhere, we put in place a weak government which could not keep order, and the result is all-out civil war. There is no doubt at all that the Iraqis would be better off with Saddam Hussein. I realize, of course, that the neocons will say, well, yes, we did it wrong (“mistakes were made”) last time, but now we’ve learned and will get it right. In my experience, these people never learn. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
The fact is, we have the capacity to do great harm in the Middle East and elsewhere, but we lack the capacity to do good there, to fix the problems and overcome militant Islam. Instead of having another go at the failed strategy of a crusade against militant Islam, we need to take a leaf from the late George Kennan’s book and try to form a strategy of containment, something I hope to say more about later. This may well be helped along by the propensity Muslims have for fighting among themselves. Divide and conquer may well be part of the containment strategy.
Of course, no one is going to pay any attention to such obvious common sense. Endless war keeps corrupt and power-hungry leaders in power.

+ + +

(© 2014 George A. Kendall.)

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)