Day: November 14, 2002

So the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has a statement which takes a dim view of miilitary action against Iraq:
“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.”
Their statement invokes Just War theory, a philosophical framework which I do not claim to be expert in. I’ll confine myself to observing, therefore, that if Just War theory does indeed argue that liberating a people from what the Bishops themselves call Iraq’s “internal repression” is insufficient moral cause for war — well, then I simply don’t have much use for it.
But given the Bishops’ current position, is seems worthwhile to look back in time and examine what their past ideas on Iraq have been.
Here’s what they said in their November 1999 statement:
“It is time for a new approach to Iraq. We cannot turn a deaf ear to the suffering of the Iraqi people or a blind eye to the moral consequences of current U.S. policy. It is time to end comprehensive sanctions against Iraq, halt the ongoing air strikes, and find morally acceptable alternatives to contain the aggressive actions of the Iraqi government.”
One can safely assume that military action of any kind was not a valid option to the Bishops, so it’s not at all clear what “morally acceptable alternatives” they had in mind.
So, anyone care to take a guess where Saddam’s weapons program would be if sanctions had been lifted three years ago? Yeah, me neither.
My advice to the Bishop’s Council: Stick to tending thy own flock; you’ve got plenty of work to do there.

The Yale Daily News reports that an alumni / student group at Yale is on the divest-from-Israel bandwagon:
A group of Yale faculty and alumni announced Tuesday that it has initiated a petition to campaign for University divestment from Israel.
With a paid advertisement in the Yale Daily News Tuesday, the Yale Divest from Israel Campaign, or YDIC, publicized its petition and Web site — www.yaledivestnow.org — and suggested that the group might eventually bring legal action against Yale.

An announcement from MommaBear’s Den:

A Farewell From Dodgeblogium……..
Due to circumstances beyond her scope and domain, MommaBear is compelled, with all the dignity she can muster, to remove her Den from Dodgeblogium.
Farewell, dear readers, ’til she finds new digs!

This bear, for one, waits eagerly to learn where she shall being moving the Den to…
Update: It now appears Dodgeblogium itself shall be no more. from Andrew:
As you might have noticed, things are changing round Dodgeblogium. MommaBear has resigned from her position as editor and contributor to the blog. I, on the other hand, am heading off to the new and more popular pastures of Sasha Castel’s blog. Frank and Ian have been invited by the lovely Sasha to follow me to La Blogatrice’s domain.
Update 2: MommaBear has come to rest at Kathy’s fine lair.

Glenn a rather odd thing this morning about the downside of minimizing civilian casualties:
I wonder, though. After reading a piece in The New Yorker (not on line) about German civilian casualties in World War Two, and then this post by Jim Henley on not going far enough in the Afghan war, it occurs to me that trying so hard to prevent civilian casualties might be a mistake. I’m all for minimizing civilian casualties to the extent possible, consistent with winning the war. But if people are beaten so bloodlessly that they don’t feel beaten, and have no real reason to dread a confrontation with the United States, is this really a good thing?
Yes, yes, and yes again — at least with regards to Iraq.
The Iraqi people have been beaten — by Saddam, for many decades. The conflict we face is not a “War with Iraq”, but a “War with Saddam”, as Christopher Hitchens continues to point out in his pedantic fashion wherever possible.
We don’t need to scare the Iraqi people; we need to free them and, by shepherding them through the inevitable rough years to come, ensure that they emerge with a stable democracy of their own. That will go quite far enough to ensuring that the Iraqi people never threaten us.
On the other hand, I would not go so far as to say that fear is a tool we should never use. In the fight against Al Qaeda itself, I do indeed want any potential recruits to that organization to fear that should they choose Osama’s path, nothing but a nasty, pointless end at American hands awaits them.
But one must be terribly cautious talking about fear-as-a-weapon, particularly when the source of the fear is civilian casualties. Because at its heart, that starts to resemble the very thing we’re fighting against —- terrorism.
The fear must match the crime — essentially, if the fear can be reduced to the phrase “we will make them fear justice at our hands,” I believe it is legitimate and moral. But the idea of civilian casualties being the source of fear leaves me queasy — as by definition, a “civilian” is one who did not commit any action against us and therefore has no “justice” waiting to be brought to them.
The strategy should be clear: minimal civilian casualties is always the right course. But maximal damage to those who truly stand with our enemies.