Editorials
CONTENTS Volume CXVIII, Number 5 Correspondence 146 Editorials 147 A no-hands-tied war: Patrick Jordan 148 Limits of the just war: Paul Baumann 149 East meets West: David R. Carlin, Jr....
...Noble goals...
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...We cannot continue on these paths...
...New York, N.Y...
...And it may be the last opportunity for the Palestinians to assure themselves a territory...
...Necessary goals...
...But as in the Agincourt battle scene in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, once begun, everything becomes mud, confusion, and blood...
...mediation by Arab and Islamic countries is likely to be more productive than that of the Western nations...
...Bush has chosen capable people to carry out his policies, diplomatic and military, and has had the good sense to let them do their jobs...
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...The Israeli-Palestinian conflict should not be linked to the Iraqi-Ku.waiti one...
...But that is a posture--if conscious and thought through that might be productive in the Middle East...
...As such, it is neither just nor right...
...But it is the pursuit of peace to which the administration must now tum...
...In the face of defeat, Hussein's calls for withdrawal only raised the specter of an ambiguous outcome...
...There was, without doubt,justification for this war...
...Just as our abiding prosperity blinds us to dire poverty and despair in our own cities, our seeming immunity from violence encourages a dangerous sense of invulnerabilty and moral triumphalism in our foreign adventures...
...Display advertising correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, 11 Graffam Rd., So...
...The Iraqi despoliation of Kuwait, its firing at Saudi and Israeli cities, and its fouling of the Gulf's waters have been mirrored by the coalition's bombardment of Iraqi cities, the contamination of water and sewer lines, and the destruction of hospitals, schools, bridges, trucks...
...Still the U.S...
...Politics by other means: the war machine ground on--and rather swiftly--to remove Iraq from Kuwait...
...The United States ought to step back and not appear too central to a settlement that first of all involves Iraq and Kuwait, and then the other Arab coalition members, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Syria, and finally Turkey and Iran...
...Low casualties among the coalition armies and a rapid return of U.S...
...As authorized by the UN, it was intended to liberate Kuwait and to restrain a tyrant...
...150 Why theology is hard to read: Robert J. Egan 152 Screen: Richard Alleva 158 The Prophet and his children: David Burrell & Patrick D. Gaffney 162 BOOKS Modemity on Endless Trial: Diogenes Allen 165 Christian Belief in a Postmodem World/ Quest: Robert P. Imbelli 166 Religious booknotes: Lawrence S. Cunningham 169 STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Paul Baumann Production Editor: Patricia Mazzola Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Movies: Richard Alleva Stage: Gerald Weales Poetry: Rosemary Deen Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr...
...needs a coherent policy and a set of goals...
...Will it be as skillful in peacemaking as in war making...
...troops landed in Saudi Arabia last August...
...Is the administration able to persist in peace as in war in maintaining a consensus and coalition for stability in the Middle East, for arms control in the region, and for a settlement of the Palestinian issue...
...Even Saddam Hussein, in adopting every worst-case strategy, played his part...
...And as in Vietnam, the American public prob148: Commonweal...
...Billed as a war to liberate Kuwait, the purpose of the Gulf war has devolved to the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the crushing of Iraq's military capability...
...Here the UN Security Council can have a major role in restraining those permanent members, the U.S., the Soviet Union, France, and China, whose weapon sales have contributed so lavishly to the carnage...
...That is why, as in the present case, political and diplomatic failures led to war and why, as we come to the end of it, choosing for the longer term requires more than good organization and management...
...In sum, this is the Bush policy on proportionality...
...It will appear in retrospect that war was a foregone conclusion once U.S...
...9 Waged without restraints...
...regaining its sense of self-confidence...
...The United States and Egypt should press their Arab coalition partners to meet with Israel and begin a process that will lead to the recognition of Israel, to a guarantee of its borders and security, and to an end of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza...
...The current disarray in Panama suggests that U.S...
...THE GULF WAR A NO-HAHDS-TIED WAR NEITHER JUST NOR RIGHT ~ " - ~ espite all the talk about this being a just war--never has a president inclined his head so often to the moralists--the Gulf war is really nothing less than war the old-fashioned way...
...Better a clear-cut victory than more of his flamboyant war making and heedless intransigence...
...This will be no Vietnam...
...That is the challenge of peace making...
...Military goals have a clarity that more ambiguous political and diplomatic goals almost always lack...
...withdrawal should be immediate, and our naval forces 8 March 1991:147 rapidly reduced to their prewar numbers...
...From that perspective he has been masterful in building and holding together an unlikely coalition and in responding to and rejecting Gorbachev's efforts to negotiate an unsatisfactory settlement...
...It is time for the United States to call in its chips with Israel and help resolve this unending source of conflict...
...The Israelis have never been so vulnerable--and felt so---as over the past seven weeks...
...When events--such as the Ash Wednesday shelter/bunker bombing in Baghdad---or CNN updates have intruded, thereby threatening to raise questions about the war's conduct or progress, the government has worked assiduously to contain the damage...
...Finally, there will be no real chance for long-term peace in the Middle East unless the Palestinian issue is resolved...
...yet it is clear that as long as the Palestinians have no permanent home and the Israelis no formal recognition by their neighbors, their multiple grievances will provide endless opportunities for conflict...
...9 Carried by its own momentum...
...Anyone who believes otherwise is naive...
...No price is too heavy to pay to reverse the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait...
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...And to govern and direct that, all information on the war has been skillfully tailored to maintain public support at home...
...For as it happens, this is not simply a war about forcing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait...
...It is a war about oil, about Western hegemony in the "new world order," about establishing the preeminence and staggering power of technological weaponry, and, at bottom, about a weakened U.S...
...It is being waged without real or final restraints, and it is being carried by its own momentum...
...About this, Israel perforce will have the final say, but the United States should not step back and wait...
...While U.S...
...Eye has not yet seen nor ear heard the full extent of the devastation...
...interest wanes when the fireworks cease...
...casualties have been minimal, the scenes we have yet to see from Iran and Kuwait should rein in our hubris...
...He did not...
...Neither did George Bush's last minute ultimatum...
...Letters should not exceed 250 words and are subject to editing for clarity and space limitations...
...In the days following, Iraqi soldiers, exiting via Saudi Arabia as enemy-prisoners-of-war, showed greater prudence than their commander-in-chief...
...But its momentum could have been halted at any moment, including Saturday, February 23, had Saddam Hussein left Kuwait...
...Managing the peace he Soviet peace initiative never had a chance...
...Enforceable agreements on reducing the levels of offensive weaponry are vital in a region torn by conflict...
...Recriminations between Kuwait and Iraq will be fierce...
...Portland, Me...
...troops will contribute to popular opinion that President Bush has done the right thing...
...Perhaps there has never been a better chance for Israel to resolve the Palestinian question than now...
...Most immediately these should focus on support for a regional peace-keeping force, perhaps built around Egyptian divisions now in Kuwait and acting under the auspices of the Arab League and the United Nations...
...The only constraint--are you listening, bishops?--is not morality but public opinion...
...Commonweal welcomes letters on subjects treated in its pages...
...We have it on the president's word...
...Something like "the vision thing," if only in modest amounts, is called for...
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...Their restraint in the face of such attacks was admirable...
...The Scud missile attacks have confirmed to them and finally made clear to the rest of the world the exceedingly short warning time they have to respond to air attack...
...It was also very much in their self-interest, and it is to this selfinterest that appeal should now be made...
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...Only high-ranking officers and defense department officials release news on this war, it seems, presenting their information in sanitized video packages and with abstract terminology (killed is "KIA," war is "storm...
...Perhaps the greatest danger to peace over the long term is our own national predilection for settling the world's problems unilaterally and militarily...
...We will not have one hand tied behind our backs like last time...
...It forswears the use of nothing: gas, germs, nuclear weapons...
...If need be, this war will be prosecuted with the full extent of American power...
Vol. 118 • March 1991 • No. 5
