We now abandon any pretense that this proposed war against Iraq is just. It cannot be justified.

We will strike not because Iraq has attacked us, not because there is any direct proof Iraq harbors those who have attacked us, not because Iraq has attacked one of our allies, but because we think maybe, just maybe, Iraq might do something we really won't like in the next couple of years.

Studs Terkel called World War II "the last good war." And perhaps it was.

But that hasn't kept presidents from arguing that wars they wanted to wage since then are good and are justified. The first President George Bush went to great lengths in 1991 to argue before religious broadcasters that his proposed Gulf War fulfilled every tenet of the long-standing Just War theory.

Why did he bother?

He bothered because war is horrific. War wreaks havoc on societies, destabilizes fragile balances of power, provokes others to join the violence and sears itself into the memory of those who survive. It takes a lot to justify going to war. Presidents before George W. Bush seemed to know that.

Ethicists and theologians, military strategists and politicians have spent almost 2,000 years working out a theory of how you can justify war when it is so horrific. It is called, aptly enough, Just War theory. Taught at the War College in Washington, D.C., in Christian seminaries and political science departments, Just War theory is the major thinking of most religious traditions and military strategists on how to justify war.

Just War theory first began with the agonizing reflections of a saint. St. Augustine looked at the horrors barbarian invaders were inflicting on the Roman citizens and he asked himself if a Christian could ever justify going to war. He answered a very qualified "yes." A Christian can go to war if it is to "defend the vulnerable other." His version didn't even include self-defense. Self-defense was added about 500 years later by another saint, Thomas Aquinas. You have a just cause, said Aquinas, when you are defending yourself. You have to have right authority (be a government), you need to have a right intention (not just love violence), you need to have a good outcome (more good should result than the evil of violence), you need to be proportional (not use more force than necessary), you need to have a reasonable hope for success (peace should result), and it must be the very last resort (all diplomacy must be exhausted).

We can see that no part of Just War theory supports a first-strike option.

To have a just cause, you have to be defending yourself (or defending someone else from attack). Not in this proposed war with Iraq. We just think somebody sometime might get attacked by Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney's 1992 white paper calls this "anticipatory action to defend ourselves." That means, "hit 'em first and then hit 'em back." That way you cover all the bases. It is immoral.

And we sure haven't exhausted every diplomatic measure. As retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of Central Command, was quoted as saying in the Oct. 11 Chicago Tribune, "I believe he [Saddam Hussein] is ... containable at this moment. War and violence are a very last resort." Clearly the general has studied his Just War theory.

St. Augustine wanted to know if Christians could resist barbarians. If the United States strikes first against Iraq, then it is Americans who have become the barbarians. We have learned nothing in more than 1,500 years of moral reasoning.

Susan B. Thistlethwaite is president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, where she also is a professor of theology

Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune

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Karl /GODCENTRIC
Husband of my amazing wife Aleshia
Klumsy@xtra.co.nz

Now perhaps for instance a man would arm himself with guns he could (because in the USA the 2nd amendment gives us a right to bear arms), but if that man shot in the direction of the police should not the police arrest him? The police would shoot back and probably kill him. Iraq has shot numerous times at our planes patrolling the no fly zone in violation of UN mandates.

John Adams (the second president of the USA) believed that US diplomacy should be like the national seal which is on the quarter, an eagle with one claw grasping arrows and the other grasping the olive branch with the head pointing towards the olive branch. The nation saying to the other there are two choices if you do this you chose war if you do this you chose peace, chose peace. Diplomacy in this case (Iraq's weapon development) has no effect if there is no threat of war. And believe me in the cold war there was threat of war. Kennedy (though I don't admire him for hiring women to seduce Martin Luther King) did maintain a massive threat of total nuclear war throughout the Cuban missile crisis our B52's were orbiting above the north pole loaded up with nukes.

I suppose as a Christian I would want the president to minimize the total number of casualties. And perhaps act in a way to open the country for Christian Aid ministries. I'm glad I'm not making the decisions. And I hope to GOD that GOD is. Pray for our president.

Love in Christ,
Gift