You can't keep a good theory down:
Pope, Stephen J.
YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD STEVEN J. POPE THEORY DOWN THE JUST WAR, THE GULF WAR & BEYOND Two...
...a subsidiary argument is that it also failed to meet STEPHEN J. POPE is an assistant professor of social ethics at Boston College...
...Military escalation may be an ically endorsed the duty of capable third-party states to disarm increased danger in modem war, but we are capable of more an "unjust aggressor"-in this case, apparently, Serbian rational control than the editorial admits...
...crimination between particular motives for entering into war, To argue that there is an immutable "essence" of modern war and there would be no guidelines for distinguishing between that leads it to be universally disproportionate militates against the various means used in waging war...
...YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD STEVEN J. POPE THEORY DOWN THE JUST WAR, THE GULF WAR & BEYOND Two years ago, during the Gulf War of 1991, the the theory's criterion of "last resort...
...Even though phrases such war in a disproportionate manner...
...it seems to me that even this action must be considered a lim- The Gulf War and more recent hostilities provide clear exited response to Iraqi provocation...
...I hope we don't hit any civilians...
...Greenpeace, for example, has estimated that the traditional just-war theory...
...Rather than employing modified over the course of the last 1,500 years and there is no large-scale military violence, the Marines have succeeded in reason why the ongoing process of theological and moral debringing some measure of tranquility to Somalia simply through velopment has to be arrested now...
...Failure to apply these tenets, however, might not be problems among some American veterans of the campaign...
...that wars can be initiated with a just cause but waged in an immoral manner...
...tions in a broader way than a mechanical conformity to justThe alternative to a careful, ongoing process of moral de- war tenets captures, but we must also develop appropriate velopment of the just-war tradition, practically speaking, is ab- distinctions regarding kinds and degrees of responsibility for solute condemnation of all war...
...Yet all of these problems also characterized premodern war to some degree, and were recognized by moralists of the just-war tradiCommonweal 12 February 1993: 11 term damage leads us to concur with the Civilta editorial-and and the environmental devastation of the Persian Gulf improperly apparently John Paul II himself-on the disproportionate char- imputed direct moral responsibility for these atrocious events acter of the Gulf War...
...The editorial's major argument is that the Gulf War, like all modern war, failed to meet the just-war criterion of "proportionality...
...issued in response to deliberate provocations and flagrant vio- The application of proportionality to the conflict in the Gulf lations of the UN Security Council resolutions, only military is a case in point...
...A November 1991 Middle ty of war...
...military force tional grounds...
...Judgments strict self-defense is legitimate under certain conditions...
...This is in fact the position of Vatican II's Gaudium et spes...
...Some people argue as a direct result of allied air bombardment or missile attacks, that since wars in this century have never been absolutely "clean," and last summer there was a resurgence of interest in long-term the conditions of the just-war tenets are now unattainable in effects of the war, particularly with the emergence of medical principle...
...collapse under the weight of this internal contradiction...
...When the case of potential military intervention in Bosnia, moreover, does a certain "price" paid in blood become too high for the political and economic considerations alike support limited kinds value we are attempting to secure or promote...
...This implies that it would be better The editorial omitted any reference to the increased accura- to submit to injustice rather than to prosecute even a defensive cy of at least some of these weapons...
...mony of revelation and reason that supports both "natural law" "Modern War and Christian Conscience" unequivocally stat- ethics and the just-war theory...
...tacks on the Iraqi infrastructure (deaths attributed to disease, The editorial, in keeping with public statements by Pope Pius malnutrition, and lack of medical care which resulted from dis- XII and the documents of Vatican II, conceded that a war of ruption of Iraqi power and water purification systems...
...sions of the just-war theory were violated in one specific warin this case the Gulf War-this does not, in and of itself, invalidate Ir he following suggestions may seem obvious, but the relevance of these criteria for any and all future cases...
...government claimed the complex played an impor- cepts only war to repel injury and aggression (ad repellendas tant role in Saddam Hussein's enriched uranium program), but injurias...
...In a famous article in 1944, John Ford, S.J., arhave been quite "limited" and so provide empirical coun- gued persuasively that the practice of regarding every citizen terexamples to the editorial's claims...
...nevertheless, a quantum amounts to a massive overgeneralization...
...In the result of their supposed obsolescence but a failure of human the September 24, 1992, New England Journal of Medicine, a will, as when moral principles give way to military expedienHarvard study team maintained that approximately 46,900 cy, political advantage, or some claim of perceived national selfchildren had died between January and August 1991 alone, a interest (or some other motive, such as revenge...
...I say "ironically" because in only be discussed in light of the relevant data...
...The editorial's claim way, theologians, journalists, and the magisterium alike can prothat the Gulf War "caused" the slaughtering of Kurds and Shi' ites duce clear, honest, and constructive moral discourse...
...William H. Shannon, who provided the Origins translation of the Italian text, praised the editorial for breaking new ground in Catholic teaching on war and moving the church in "new directions of reflection and action" (America, February 15, 1992...
...Catholic through the exercise of practical wisdom...
...Temptations one is justified in defending the right of other societies as well to further escalation of biological and chemical, but also of therm- (assuming fulfillment of the other provisions, such as just auonuclear, weapons have been resisted, with the notable excep- thority, just cause, and right intention...
...Augustine and Thomas their armed presence, combined with a highly selective use of Aquinas were not concerned with the principle of proportionforce, typically against snipers...
...Of course we need to consider the effects of our acsolescence-of the "just war" tradition...
...and that there are always peaceful alter- Much more work needs to be done on notions such as propornatives to war (and therefore war cannot meet the criterion of tionality, last resort, the distinction between direct and indirect "last resort...
...These claims are patently false, and they ignore killing, etc...
...What would have become of Kuwait had Operof unintended civilian casualites in both Somalia and Iraq...
...The heart of Civilta's arjust-war theory-for 1,500 years the mainstay of gument is that the awesome destructive power of modem milCatholic analysis for determining the morality of itary technology always leads its users to wage an "unlimited" entering and conducting a war-was perhaps or "total" war and is therefore by its very nature "dispropormore widely discussed and debated than during tionate...
...Second, Civilta ignores the fact that modem war has been Presumably, this principle, which the pope described in terms limited in certain instances...
...The 24,000 troops deployed as a target-a presumption underlying Allied obliteration bombin Somalia have protected relief workers and supplies and pro- ing-violated the principle of noncombatant immunity...
...over 240,000 Iraqi civilians (out of a total population of 18 milThe editorial was warmly welcomed in many circles as an lion) died as a result of the war and its aftermath, not includimportant contribution to the ongoing debate over the morali- ing those killed in recent air strikes...
...The catego- We need to resist the attempt to ground exceptionless moral ry of selective conscientious objector, now acknowledged by principles on a few historical cases, and to use historical cases the church, would be rendered otiose...
...versal claim about the "nature" of modem war that claims a Technical capacity, however, must be complemented with a consistency that can only be properly attributed to a logical ne10: 12 February 1993 Commonweal cessity (modern war is always "total...
...but that if, on rather, "Is it always sinful to wage war...
...cruise missiles, for example, are much more accurate than the "Modern War and Christian Conscience" projected the ingravity bombs dropped from American B-29s and British evitability of "total war" onto every military engagement as a Lancasters in World War II...
...Poorly reasoned Violations can point to either the moral guilt or ignorance of moral arguments are counterproductive...
...Commonweal 12 February 1993: 9 East Watch report focused on the number of Iraqi civilians killed will to use these weapons in a just manner...
...The tradition has gradually come to reject the tile MIGs...
...in an ongoing religious tradition rather than in an ahistorical Moral argumentation should avoid the use of gratuitous as- vacuum...
...Michael Kennedy, staff writer for the Boston Globe, wrote that it provided the "clinching argument" regarding the immorality of the Gulf War (March 17, 1992...
...The church would "opt discerning judgment and attentiveness to the actual historical out" of the public policy debate regarding military interven- events under consideration...
...tinctions...
...War has no doubt become editorial argued that even though strict self-defense is a legitincreasingly "brutal" in this century, but it has not been con- imate basis for entering into war, the "inexorable logic of war" sistently "unlimited" or "total...
...Any account of the ethics of war ed that all "modern war" is immoral...
...Catholic mine their own credibility...
...they are amenable sumptions...
...Should the elimof intervention (e.g., restricted to the use of air power), though ination of Iraqi nuclear capacity be calculated into proporironically some strategists now maintain that peace in the re- tionality...
...El 12: 12 February 1993 Commonweal...
...1992), John Langan (Commonweal, June 1, 1991), and other (Civilta's editorials are regularly reviewed by the Vatican scholars have observed, however, the postwar appraisal of proSecretariat of State and they have been known to reflect Vatican portionality depends on reliable empirical assessments of the approaches to various issues...
...it is worthwhile to highlight them...
...He claimed that the editorial reflects a growing conviction in the church regarding the incompatibility of violence and Christian love...
...Saddam eminently reasonable that if one is justified in employing vioHussein's use of poison gas against the Kurds stands as the major lence to defend the safety and welfare of one's own society, example of the use of this weapon by a minor power...
...The editorial claimed that modern war is always to creative extension, refinement, or development when nec"total," involving the "whole world...
...Ethical norms are not set in stone...
...At the time, moralists, commentators, "just cause" in initially responding to the occupation of Kuwait, politicians, and even military leaders appealed to just-war prin- but that the evils brought about in the actual waging of the warciples as not only useful but even authoritative...
...The editorial moved leap in precision has increased the capacity of weapons to strike from a historical tendency (escalation to "total" war) to a unimilitary targets and to minimize indirect damage to civilians...
...Following the the editorial claims 30,000 civilians and perhaps 160,000 solend of actual combat in the Gulf in late February 1991, how- diers were killed-vastly outweighed the good that was being ever, the just-war theory itself came under attack from an un- pursued...
...weapons of mass destruction...
...that just-war tenets are often misused as a pretext for entering war for less than noble reasons, such as greed or political advantage...
...As J. Bryan Hehir (Commonweal, February 28, likely source, the Rome-based Jesuit journal, La Civilta Cattolica...
...Warnings were repeatedly amples of why further reflection on just-war tenets is needed...
...And going even further, it explicitly denounced phase of the war...
...vided a degree of social order in a country destroyed by civil The tenets of the just-war theory have been considerably war among fourteen warring factions...
...From this a reader might and peace that intends to supplant the just-war approach must infer that once a war has begun, the inexorable "inner logic of ultimately come to terms with the more profound theological war" will inevitably lead to direct attacks on civilians, to abuse interrelation of nature and grace, creation and redemption, and of prisoners of war, to arbitrary cruelty, and even to the use of faith and reason that have characterized the Catholic tradition...
...any recent conflict, including hostilities in Bosnia, Somalia, and, The editorial argued that the UN coalition might have had last month, in Iraq itself...
...However, the Civilta tion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...None of this should be taken to diminish the tragedy defending it...
...gion will only be attained through the deployment of signifi- Because of its consequentialist character, proportionality can cant numbers of ground troops...
...The potentially limited nature ality or with the distinction between offensive and defensive of contemporary military interventions has also been displayed war...
...In this instance, the anonymous au- pacifists who endorse the editorial, primarily because of its unthors of the Civilta editorial failed to establish the coherences equivocal repudiation of the just-war theory, need to realize among their moral claims: their acceptance of the right to na- that this also calls into question both the "natural law" basis of tional self-defense does not square with their rejection of the that theory and the traditional Catholic affirmation of the harjust-war theory...
...Moral of proportionality, of course, consider not only damage to one's approbation of defensive war, however, seems to lead the edown soldiers but the harm inflicted on one's opponents, including itorial into a self-contradiction: either all modem wars truly are civilian populations...
...Even if we grant that selected provition-state...
...Thus the absence of reasonably reliable "absolutely immoral" and the exercise of self-defense is also estimates of war damage continues to cripple our ability to moral- immoral (and obviously, therefore, prohibited), or self-defense ly assess the proportionality of the prosecution of the war-a is legitimate and war is not absolutely, i.e., without exception, situation aggravated by the refusal of the United States gov- immoral...
...The Civilta editorial was clear in detailing the evils of war: the fact that it is usually the poor and the innocent of both sides who suffer the most in war...
...that the uses of force tend to beget a "spiral of violence...
...Since 1918, with the possible ex- of "humanitarian intervention," could be used with further specception of the Soviets in Afghanistan, none of the "Great ification in the case of the UN intervention in Somalia...
...Rather than "taking sides" in the ongoing moral debate about our involvement in the Gulf War, however, I would like to examine the quality of moral reasoning advanced by the Civilta editorial...
...His answer was "no," the contrary, modern war is not always "total," one has a moral on the grounds that at times the needs of the common good can obligation to differentiate just from unjust military policies temporarily override the presumption against violence...
...In such a case, all Catholics these problems...
...Theologians norms and the deeper theological "background beliefs" withwho offer moral assertion in place of moral argument under- in which they are framed, interpreted, and adjudicated...
...with clearly defined principles and reasoning (in- We also need to keep in mind the connection between moral cluding, of course, appeals to Scripture and tradition...
...Thomas Aquinas asked in the Summa theologiae "total"-i.e., always involve direct attack on noncombatants- not whether it is ever a sin for the Christian to fight in war but then modem war is by its very nature immoral...
...In my ployed in the Gulf War were in fact "smart bombs" (and of those judgment, this imposition of an a priori moral evaluation about 40 percent missed their targets...
...The moralist John Ford, tion, for whom the burden of proof lay with those who would S.J., noted years ago that if all modem wars are necessarily initiate war...
...This judgment, however, can be taken as to the coalition forces, when in fact they were perpetrated by an indication of the continued relevance-rather than the ob- the Iraqis...
...How can one compare and weigh the value targets were selected, and the degree of force employed was of national sovereignty vis-a-vis the lives that might be lost measured...
...In a July 6, 1991, editorial, long-tern impact of the war on civilian life...
...that war "always produces essary...
...This was exemplified in the editotion and cede any influence over conduct in war to other social rial's refusal to recognize the clearly limited nature of the Gulf influences-a very un-Catholic position, it seems to me, that War, as was evidenced, for example in the cease-fire order of would effectively serve rather than resist the idolatrous pretension February 28, 1991 (however debatable that decision was from to moral sovereignty that often characterizes the modern na- a strategic standpoint...
...Interestingly, in his recent speech before the Vatican have some degree of freedom and a range of choices regard- diplomatic corps (January 16, 1993), Pope John Paul II specifing their use of such weapons...
...First, it ignores the obvious war tradition, it was an issue studiously avoided in the Civilta fact that these technologies are operated by human beings who editorial...
...In ation Desert Shield not been succeeded by Desert Storm...
...therefore (3) the Gulf innocent third parties, an issue brought into War was a disproportionate means to achieving the liberation heightened focus by events in Bosnia and Soof Kuwait...
...But this itself is a traditionas "surgical strikes" and "pinpoint accuracy" are exaggerations, al claim, one that recognizes self-defense as a right whose exit is beyond doubt that laser-guided missiles and Tomahawk ercise must be limited by proportionality and discrimination...
...To reject the just-war theory The understanding of discipleship developed in Catholic ciras the Civilta editorial did might ironically contribute to the so- cles will be decidedly different from that argued from sectaricalled "moral realism" that refuses to recognize the moral dis- an or other perspectives...
...From a threefold increase in mortality among children under five years just-war perspective, commitment to abide by these principles of age in Iraq...
...Some experts be"Modem War and Christian Conscience" (reprinted, Origins, lieve that the number of civilian deaths from civil unrest, inDecember 19, 1991), Civilta not only censured the war in the frastructure devastation, and the economic embargo will far Persian Gulf but rendered an absolute condemnation of mod- exceed the total number of deaths incurred during the active em war in general...
...2) raises the question of defending the security of the Gulf War was a case of modem war...
...Msgr...
...Civilta's analysis of proportionality in the Gulf War can be outlined as follows: (1) the "nature" of technology leads mod- 0 nce admitted, the right to legitimate self-defense em war to be disproportionate (or "unlimited," or "total...
...of justice and right...
...If the Civilta editorial's key assumption-that all wars today must of their very nature become "total"-is false-and it seems to be-then we are left not with an absolute prohibition of war but with the just-war criteria narrowly interpreted: a strong presumption against war in general (a presumption by no means shared by all just-war theorists), an absolute prohibition of "total war," and an allowance of limited defensive war...
...But from what I can tell, there have been no more in those tragic instances when war is unavoidable is preferable comprehensive studies on the broader toll taken by allied at- to either absolute pacifism or "war-is-hell" realism...
...It may well be this scenario, peace would be promoted through a more extensive that, after all is said and done, the empirical evidence on longrather than less extensive military intervention...
...Moralists the agent, or the impracticability of the criteria as presently forand editorial writers need to support their claims mulated, etc...
...In this leading suggestions for the sake of rhetoric...
...would be required to be conscientious objectors...
...conversely, we no longer accept the view, held for cenin last month's restricted, "tit-for-tat" targeting of Iraqi air de- turies by the church, that "mocking the faith" justifies attackfense control installations, mobile missile batteries, and hos- ing "infidels...
...Bosnians-if all other means have proven ineffective...
...While a concern at the heart of the justvulnerable to several criticisms...
...Catholic moral theology must strive for realism, the undeniable fact that not resisting evil with force can at times persuasiveness, and humanity-goals which can be attained only produce more harm than doing so-as we recall from the fa- when the arguments used within the church reflect an opentally mistaken appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s...
...between atrocities, massacres, and combat between Finally, we need to recognize that we think and believe withcombatants...
...In either case, the argument of the editorial seems to ernment to affirm officially an estimate of casualities...
...theologians have repeatedly condemned "total war" on tradiAs a matter of fact, the most recent uses of U.S...
...There would be no dis- to "proof-text" moral conclusions arrived at on other grounds...
...The Civilta Cattolica editorial offered a poignant exharm that far exceeds any advantages that may accrue in terms ample of why ongoing reflection on just-war theory is in order...
...It seems Powers" has employed chemical or biological weapons...
...leads to a "total" response...
...ness to both the wisdom of the tradition and the truth discerned Editorial writers and moralists should eschew making mis- in concrete historical detail and in rational argument...
...Only 7 percent of the weapons em- result of the "inexorable inner logic" of modem warfare...
...Criticism did emerge from some coalition partners right to wage war to punish an offense (ad vindicandas offenregarding the targeting of the industrial complex at Zaafaraniyah siones) or to recover property (ad repetendas res) and now ac(the U.S...
...This conclusion may be correct but the argument is malia...
Vol. 120 • February 1993 • No. 3
