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From NYT Catholic Bishops Say Iraq War Does Not Meet the Just War Test

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by glynch, Nov 15, 2002.

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  1. glynch

    glynch Member

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    ASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — Roman Catholic bishops in the United States issued a statement today saying that they cannot now find a moral justification for a pre-emptive war against Iraq because there is no adequate evidence that Iraq is about to attack.

    The bishops, gathered here on the third day of their annual fall meeting, urged the United States government and the world to "continue to pursue actively alternatives to war." They said that an attack on Iraq did not meet the Catholic tradition's criteria for a "just war," in part because such a war could create more "evils and disorders" than it would eliminate.

    They said that a war against Iraq could cause more suffering to Iraqi civilians, provoke wider conflict and instability in the region and detract from the effort to stabilize Afghanistan and prevent terrorism elsewhere.

    "We continue to find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq, lacking clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature," the bishops' statement says. "With the Holy See and bishops from the Middle East and around the world, we fear that resort to war, under present circumstances and in light of current public information, would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for overriding the strong presumption against the use of military force."

    In introducing the statement for the bishops' consideration today, Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston, chairman of the bishops' international affairs committee, said that the statement "does not ignore Iraq's dangerous behavior, intentions and threats."

    "We call on the government of Iraq to comply with the world's legitimate demands," Cardinal Law said.

    The bishops debated an amendment from Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit pledging the "prayerful support" of the bishops to military personnel who "conscientiously dissent from a choice for war."

    Auxiliary Bishop John J. Kaising, an auxiliary bishop of the military services who is also a veteran, objected to Bishop Gumbleton's amendment, saying: "If we pass this, does that mean that those who do not object and who go because their units are going and their commanders say they've got to go, does that mean they're wrong? I don't think we can do that to a soldier, sailor or marine who follows his commander in chief."

    The final statement included a compromise in which the bishops said: "We support those who risk their lives in the service of their nation. We also support those who seek to exercise their right to conscientious objection."

    The bishops' statement praises the United States for winning the unanimous support of the United Nations' Security Council for a resolution calling on Iraq to disarm.

    The bishops said they would pray that the United Nations action "will not simply be a prelude to war but a way to avoid it."


    They didn't even do this during the Vietnam War.
     
    #1 glynch, Nov 15, 2002
  2. Pole

    Pole Houston Rockets--Tilman Fertitta's latest mess.

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    Of course they're against this. A bunch of young boys will die.
     
    #2 Pole, Nov 15, 2002
  3. HayesStreet

    HayesStreet Member

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    daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmnnnnnnnn, pole.

    So glynch, should we all follow the Catholic church?
     
    #3 HayesStreet, Nov 15, 2002
  4. mav3434

    mav3434 Member

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    :eek: :eek: :D :D :D
     
    #4 mav3434, Nov 15, 2002
  5. MacBeth

    MacBeth Member

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    No, obviously we should ignore the Catholic Church, Nelson Mandela, the United Nations, Russia, France, pretty much the rest of the world...anyone who disagrees with our government's stance should just be dismissed as anti-American non-sense, rhetoric, or ignorance...
     
    #5 MacBeth, Nov 15, 2002
  6. t4651965

    t4651965 Member

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    Look at who you think should control our self-defense!

    1. Catholic Church- these clowns refuse to turn pedophiles over to the cops. They have no credibility.

    2. Nelson Mandela- he said that the United States is the greatest threat to world peace. Can you imagine a more ridiculous statement, given that our troops are spread out across the globe on peacekeeping missions? This guy's time is past. He needs to be put out to pasture.

    3. Russia and France- these two nations have serious economic interests in Iraq. They are voting their pocketbooks, and their opinion has nothing to do with the safety of Americans.

    4. The United Nations- they will support a war if Iraq doesn't comply with the sanctions now. You are wrong here.

    By the way, you left some important intellectuals off your list.

    Barbara Streisand
    Alec Baldwin
    Noam Chomsky
    The Olsen Twins
    Norman Lear
    etc.........

    :D
     
    #6 t4651965, Nov 15, 2002
  7. HOOP-T

    HOOP-T Member

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    Is that anything like the S.A.T.?
     
    #7 HOOP-T, Nov 15, 2002
  8. Cohen

    Cohen Member

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    Originally posted by t4651965
    Look at who you think should control our self-defense!
    ...
    :D

    :D
     
    #8 Cohen, Nov 15, 2002
  9. Oski2005

    Oski2005 Member

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    Great, just what we need, a Catholic backlash. Still, they have a very valid point on this.

    Please watch the Catholic bashing guys. I'm already pissed off about this firebrand preacher named Tom Short who visits A&M every year to preach on campus. He is so anti-Catholic, I can feel the hate as a sit on the opposite side of campus from him. Just imagine the mood you would be in if somebody told you that you and your family would be going to Hell for doing something you thought was right:(
     
    #9 Oski2005, Nov 15, 2002
  10. MadMax

    MadMax Member

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    correct me if i'm wrong...but didn't the united nations unanimously approve the un order the other day, ordering iraq to comply with weapons inspectors or face "serious consequences?" wasn't russia on that committee, in particular?
     
    #10 MadMax, Nov 15, 2002
  11. Refman

    Refman Member

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    A fact that many like to overlook because it takes the "we're acting alone" rhetoric out of the equation...leaving the opposition with a gun full of blanks.

    BTW...anybody who makes light of the Catholic Church's problems right now is a serious *******.

    OF COURSE the church is against the war. Can anybody point to the last war that the church supported openly?
     
    #11 Refman, Nov 15, 2002
  12. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    Bush continues to surprise me. It's like letting your friend borrow your car hoping the worst, but at the end of the night you get a nice breath of relief when he returns with a ding...
     
    #12 Invisible Fan, Nov 15, 2002
  13. Cohen

    Cohen Member

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    Hmmm.

    http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=676&u=/usatoday/20021115/ts_usatoday/4626467


    Iranians may aid U.S. war on Iraq
    Fri Nov 15, 7:22 AM ET
    Barbara Slavin USA TODAY

    WASHINGTON -- Despite a campaign of mutual vilification, the Bush administration and Iran are moving toward quiet cooperation in any war against Iraq.

    A Pentagon (news - web sites) official on Thursday acknowledged ''preliminary feelers'' between the two countries dealing with military emergencies such as downed pilots or naval accidents in the Persian Gulf. A similar arrangement was reached for the Afghan war a year ago. The talks are taking place through Arab intermediaries in a small gulf nation, the official said.


    Iran's Islamic regime has also approved letting a dissident group of Iraqi Shiite Muslims based in Tehran work with the U.S. military to oust Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), Tehran-based diplomats say. The group has several thousand armed followers in southern Iraq.


    Iranian acquiescence to a U.S.-led war is important because Iran and Iraq share a 730-mile border. Iran sat out the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites) but could be more accommodating to U.S. interests this time. Iran has already stepped up efforts to help the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) catch Iraqi oil smugglers in the Persian Gulf by chasing the smugglers out of Iranian waters, Pentagon officials say.


    Tehran has motives beyond a deep-seated hatred of Saddam, who ordered an invasion of Iran in 1980, setting off a war that killed or wounded more than a half-million Iranians. Iran's leaders seek:


    * To gain leverage in a post-Saddam Iraq.


    * To ensure that Iran, which the Bush administration accuses of supporting Middle East militants and trying to develop nuclear weapons, is not the next target of the U.S. war on terrorism.


    * To score domestic political points in a growing feud between conservatives and reformers. Conservative clerics who have the upper hand in the Iranian government still chant ''Death to America'' in public but would want to get credit for any improvement in relations, analysts say. The United States broke off diplomatic ties in 1980 during a crisis over the seizure of hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. According to a recent poll, three-fourths of Iranians want such relations restored.


    U.S. motives also are complex. Both countries backed the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan (news - web sites). But in January, when most of the Afghan fighting was over and Israel intercepted a Palestinian ship laden with Iranian arms, President Bush (news - web sites) labeled Iran a member of an ''axis of evil,'' along with Iraq and North Korea (news - web sites). In July, Bush issued a statement that appeared to call on Iranians to overthrow the clerical regime.


    But in a sign of a thaw, a senior Iranian diplomat may be given permission to visit Washington for the first time in a year, State Department officials say. Iran's ambassador to the United Nations (news - web sites), Mohammed Javad Zarif, is expected to meet with a group of senators and congressmen at a lunch early next week. Zarif has also been invited to a reception Monday at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.


    Zarif's visit would be the first by a senior Iranian since last October, when a half-dozen members of Congress feted Iran's previous U.N. ambassador at a dinner on Capitol Hill.

    Because the two countries have no diplomatic relations, permission is required for the ambassador to travel outside New York.

    Iran experts say both governments probably would view any cooperation as a short-term tactical maneuver. ''I see some temporary improvement. But I'm not willing to bet on more,'' says Gary Sick, a professor of international affairs at Columbia University.

    Lasting progress depends in large part on Iran's tumultuous domestic politics. Thousands of students demonstrated this week against a death sentence pronounced by the conservative judiciary against a Muslim academic who called for a separation of religion and the state.
     
    #13 Cohen, Nov 15, 2002
  14. Cohen

    Cohen Member

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    The Catholic leadership in this country certainly deserves some chiding. I don't think anyone here said anything about the religion itself or Catholics in general.
     
    #14 Cohen, Nov 15, 2002
  15. TheFreak

    TheFreak Member

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    RM95, maybe you can put them back on your list now.
     
    #15 TheFreak, Nov 15, 2002
  16. Batman Jones

    Batman Jones Member

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    Catholics do not deserve to be bashed. The Catholic Church, however, deserves to be bashed and bashed hard and loud and tirelessly, by every Catholic and non-Catholic, until they defrock every single guilty priest and hand them in to the proper authorities. All organized religions have been guilty at one time or another of organized hypocrisy which would shame their respective deities, but none has been so guilty as the Catholic Church, which having acknowledged widespread child rape and the systematic covering up of widespread child rape continues to refuse to punish it.
     
    #16 Batman Jones, Nov 15, 2002
  17. Refman

    Refman Member

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    There's the problem. Tell me...which are guilty and which have been accused wrongly (it's happened before)? This I'd like to know before subjecting the Church to countless wrongful termination suits.

    BTW...the state can institute a criminal investigation in this type of case of its own volition. The various states have seen fit to not do so.

    Define "widespread." What percentage of priests do you think are involved? Widespread sure makes it sound like the majority...that is simply erroneous.
     
    #17 Refman, Nov 16, 2002
  18. glynch

    glynch Member

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    A good article that seems to show that essentially it is the Southern Baptists and the evangelicals that support the war.
    *****
    A vigorous U.S. church debate is breaking out on Iraq policy, with the Southern Baptist Convention's chief social issues spokesman saying there is just cause to remove Saddam Hussein, and leaders in the United Methodist Church and other faiths warning against armed conflict.
    The Southern Baptist official, the Rev. Richard Land of Nashville, Tenn., said Monday through the denomination's Baptist Press service that Saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction "at breakneck speed."
    Mr. Land said war against Iraq would be defensive because of the future "human cost of not taking Hussein out and removing his government." He said the purpose would be to aid Iraq and its people, not to conquer or destroy the nation.
    Military action should be a last resort, he said, but Saddam's history shows he is an "international outlaw beyond the reach of all international sanctions."
    Other evangelical leaders also have supported President Bush.
    On the other side is Jim Winkler, of Washington, Mr. Land's counterpart in the United Methodist Church. He has accused the Bush administration of "unprecedented disregard for democratic ideals" and "a major and dangerous change" in U.S. policy by favoring pre-emptive warfare.
    Mr. Winkler's Aug. 30 statement said no member state of the United Nations "has the right to take unilateral military action without the approval of the U.N. Security Council" and U.S. strikes without such approval would violate international law.
    Noting that Mr. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney are United Methodists, Mr. Winkler said the denomination "categorically opposes interventions by more powerful nations against weaker ones" and believes a nation's first duty is to resolve every dispute by peaceful means.
    The Southern Baptists and United Methodists are the nation's two largest Protestant groups.
    U.S. leaders of the nation's biggest denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, have not yet addressed the issue.
    The U.S. bishops' international policy committee urged peaceful methods in dealing with Iraq during the late 1990s. But in November, in the context of Afghanistan, the bishops overwhelmingly supported the United States' right to use military force against terrorists. They said it should be part of a broader foreign policy aimed at alleviating poverty and protecting human rights.
    The head of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, said last week that the United States should pursue diplomacy, because military action would cost Iraqi and American lives, alienate allies and destabilize the Middle East.
    The governing Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, which includes officials from many U.S. Protestant and Orthodox denominations and the National Council of Churches, also has taken an anti-war stance.
    Last week, the committee reiterated its 1991 position that "no nation or group of nations is entitled to prosecute vengeance against another," and that no single nation is entitled to take action that causes devastation and massive suffering.
    The committee called on the United States "to desist from any military threats against Iraq" and any plans for military action, and urged other nations to resist pressure to join a campaign "under the pretext of the 'war on terrorism.'"
    The Rev. Richard Cizik, the National Association of Evangelicals' vice president for government affairs, said in a forum on the Web site for the magazine Christianity Today that an attack is justified, but Congress needs to ratify the move and support from a coalition of allies would show proper authority for such action.


    southern baptist support the war
     
    #18 glynch, Nov 16, 2002
  19. glynch

    glynch Member

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    Please note the supporters of Gulf War II in the thread above don't respond to the thrust of the bishop's argument, which is that the war does not meet the just war theory because 1) it would create more evil than it would eliminate and 2) the current ifo does not show a direct threat of attack.

    The war suppoters decide to divert by attacking pedophile priests. Another seeks to justify the war by posting a story that the Iranians may be somewhat supportive.
     
    #19 glynch, Nov 16, 2002
  20. t4651965

    t4651965 Member

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    The Catholic bishops are as wrong as Glynch.

    1) it would create more evil than it would eliminate and

    Saddam has killed over a million people, and he gassed women and children. Everyday, children are denied basic medical services while Saddam puts his money toward a WMD campaign.

    2) the current ifo does not show a direct threat of attack.

    Iraq has attacked our warplanes on a daily basis. Our planes are conducting a UN mission. When will this madness end? I say when Saddam's head is on a stick!

    The war suppoters decide to divert by attacking pedophile priests.

    Oops, another right wing conspiricy has been discovered.:D
     
    #20 t4651965, Nov 16, 2002
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