America: A Beacon, Not a Policeman America: a Beacon, not an Empire
Christian Theory of Just War
Iraq and Kosovo
Americans Against World Empire, Inc. Homepage
This is one of our most consistently highest visited sites since 4 years, tens of thousands of readers--Ed.
(and on Kosovo by Chuck Colson--see below)
By Llewellyn Rockwell (note Pope's Attack on Bush Just War claims 2/10/03 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-572322,00.html
When does war accord with justice? When does it not? No philosophical system is better equipped to deal these most profound of political questions than Catholicism. Long before the advent of 'Catholic social teaching"-an unfortunate phrase that implies a chasm between individual morality and political systems--there were the political writings of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Late Scholastics. A jewel of these writings is the doctrine of Just War.
To pacifists the phrase Just War sounds like an absurdity.
How can mass killing and maiming, the very essence of war, ever accord with justice? In fact, there are times when it is necessary, just as self defense and defense of one's family and community are morally necessary. But to meet the demands of justice, war and the tactics and weapons of war must first submit to moral examination.
To militarists too, the phrase Just War sounds highly suspicious. Why can't nation states defend their interests around the globe through any means necessary? Because that way lies moral corruption and chaos. War is the health of the state and the state is the greatest earthly enemy that the faith has confronted in the long history of Christianity. God's kingdom is not of this world, but states have shown a propensity to try to establish themselves as gods, especially in the modern era.
So there must be restraints on states, particularly on their power to make war. These restraints must be based on Christian moral Leaching, and they must also be embodied in the legal structures of nations, including that of international law, a product of centuries of Catholic jurisprudence, which the great Protestant "scholastics' Pufendorf and Grotius also helped spread.
The desire to avoid war is a fundamental idea in the Christian view of politics, just as the romanticization of war is a pagan one that reflects a disregard for the sanctity of life.
What makes a just war? Every Catholic Encyclopedia spells it out. It must be defensive and never aggressive. It must be the last resort, under- taken after all possible means of negotiating a peace have been exhausted. It must be conducted by legitimate civil authority. (And an oppressed lower order may take up arms against a leviathan central power.) The means used must be proportional to the actual threat. There must be a good chance of winning (no sending soldiers to their death for no purpose). After the fighting is over, there may be no acts of vengeance.
Finally, and extremely important in our own century: no military action can be undertaken that seriously threatens civilians (much less deliberately aims at them as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki). There's a word for targeting civilians: murder. Wars are for soldiers, not non-combatants, and if all these conditions are met, war may be undertaken in good conscience (though no one can be obligated to participate).
Now for a test. What if Bill Clinton decides to bomb Iraq because Saddam Hussein doesn't want Americans to be part of the UN inspection team? Would Clinton be justified in ordering a bombing? Clearly not. It would not be a defensive action; indeed what goes on in Iraq is none of our governments business, unless its business is defined in messianic terms. Not all means of peace have been exhausted (indeed, the U.S.'s continued economic sanctions are warfare by another means), bombing would be disproportional (you don't kill someone for allegedly insulting you), and innocent civilians would surely die.
Consider what the U.S. has been responsible for thus far in Iraq. Not only has the U.S. boycott kept food and medicine from getting into the country. Not only have the trade sanctions prevented average Iraqis from making any kind of life for themselves or even feeding their children. But the U.S. deliberately bombed sewage treatment plants around the country to poison the water supply with deadly bacteria. Credible estimates suggest that more than a million people half of them children, have died of dysentery and other preventable diseases, as well as of malnutrition and starvation, since the end of the war.
By any standard of what constitutes a Just War, the hands of U.S. policy makers are unclean. That is precisely why John Paul II gave allocution after allocution in opposition to the prospect and the reality of the Gulf War. It wasn’t some vague attachment to the Arab world that animated these speeches, or same naïve view of the intentions of Saddam Hussein. (Although the Vatican is aware that Iraq is the least anti-Christian regime in the Middle East, with Christians able to practice their faith openly. Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi spokesman, is a Catholic, for example.)
The Pope wasn't just playing a role as a "man of peace," saying the kinds of things you expect to hear from a spiritual leader, and then can ignore. It was Catholic theology and ethical teaching, specifically as it applies to warfare, that was behind those statements so widely ignored or condemned in this country. After the carnage, all of it unnecessary, we know he was exactly right to warn of the disasters that the Gulf War would engender. The Pope has also been eloquent in criticizing the post-war sanctions as unjust measures aimed at innocent civilians.
Just war doctrine wasn’t so widely ignored at one point in U.S. history. During the Civil War, Tom Woods of Columbia University has pointed out, Catholic newspapers in the North-at the direction of the bishops-editorialized on behalf of the South, the region that fought with a just cause in mind, first for the principle of subsidiarity, and to protect homes and property from invading Union troops. Slavery has long been discouraged by Catholic teaching, but Just War doctrine could not be violated to abolish it.
That is, the greater evil-war-could not be used to end a lesser evil. Slavery should have been discontinued, as is was in all other countries except Haiti, by peaceful means.
It was a Catholic sensibility that led Irish immigrants to massively resist the wartime draft in New York, and a Catholic sensibility that led a Catholic priest to become the Poet Laureate of the Confederate States of America. As Murray Rothbard argued in The Costs of War (Transaction, 1997), the South was justified in resisting invasion, and its efforts in that cause entirely accorded with Just War doctrine. It’s no wonder Catholics here and abroad-for instance Lord Acton-took the Southern Side. Acton’s moving letter to Robert E. Lee after Appomattox is a stirring defense of what Acton called the "Principles of Montgomery," named after the first capital of the Confederacy, and an accurate prediction of where Northern militarism and imperialism would lead America.
In World War 1, Catholic Irish and German immigrants were widely considered traitorous to the cause of the American empire. Why? Because they refused to back a global war in the name of the god "democracy," especially when the subtext of that war was the supposed theological mandate to overthrow the last surviving monarchies (particularly, the Catholic Habsburgs), Catholics suffered vicious treatment at the hands of the Wilson administration, headed by a lifelong Catholic hater. They were jailed on the slightest suspicion of insufficient war-patriotisin, and forced to recite a pledge to the U.S. flag--authored by a socialist New York minister-.that declared the union to be indivisible by order of God.
It wasn't some mystical loyalty to the "old country" that led Catholics-both in the pews and in the hierarchy-4o oppose entry into World War 1. It was the reality that this country wasn't being attacked or threatened, despite the Lusitania trick, and therefore the war failed the very first tenet of just War doc- trine: a war must be defensive.
It was a morally based opposition inspired by an Augustinian and Thomist philosophical legacy; this anti-war Catholicism confronted a wild-eyed, pro-war, post-millennial form of Progressivism, embodied in the mind of Woodrow Wilson. It had also been embodied in the mind of Lincoln, who thrilled to the chilling "Battle Hymn of the Republic," in which Our Lord is depicted as joyously killing Southerners through His chosen instrument, the Northern Army.
In the inter-war period, however, there was a just war, because it was eminently defensive. American Catholics prayed for the forces of Francisco Franco as they de-fended Spain against the monstrous central government. Of course, Franklin D. Roosevelt and his ally Stalin supported the Communists. To this day, the U.S. government and its mouthpieces like the New York Times still herald the appropriately named Lincoln Brigade of New York Communists who went to Spain to help kill priests and nuns.
But as World War II approached, it is no surprise that Catholic priests, intellectuals, and politicians led the movement for non-intervention. By the same token, notes Patrick Allitt (Catholic Intellectuals, 1993), in contrast to those cheering on all aspects of the war, "Catholic journals in the war years never waxed effusive about the Soviet Union, Stalin, or communism, despite the Grand Alliance.' Once again accused of subversion (Italians were particularly targeted, and even put in concentration camps), Catholics had to prove their loyalty to the U.S. state by putting the flag of the federal government in every parish. It remains to this day, to "balance" the papal flag.
The tendency of American Catholics to oppose American adventures abroad remained a constant theme until the onset of the Cold War. Despite moral qualms associated with raising up an imperial military bureaucracy to threaten nuclear war on a global scale, it was deemed necessary because of the sheer scale and degree of evil of the foe: atheistic communism. Whether or not that was the right decision, or carried out in a proper way, it clearly took a threat on this level for Catholics to set aside their traditional concerns about the uses and abuses of the military power.
Indeed, even as against communism, Catholics were initially strong supporters of the efforts of Senator Joseph McCarthy to rid our own government of communists, not fight a global crusade under the command of anti-Christian social democrats.
Even at the height of the Cold War, John XXIII and the American Bishops raised moral concerns about the use of nuclear weapons. As the Pope and the Bishops pointed out, a nuclear bomb might rightly be regarded as intrinsically evil because it cannot discriminate between soldiers and civilians. In fact, these weapons were designed to wipe out entire cities and could potentially extinguish life on the planet. This is a terrifying and even demonic tool.
With the Cold War over, and the U.S. government still on the global rampage with troops in 100 countries, it is again time to put the spotlight on the doctrine of the just War. Catholics and all Christians have a moral responsibility to light the way out of this century of war and destructionism into a time of peaceful cooperation among nations. This is why John Paul 11 has been such a consistent voice for peace, and why so many Catholics have joined the effort to rein in the messianic ambitions of the new godless threat, our very own government.
There is no threat from abroad that compares with the danger that the federal government represents to our property, our families, our schools, our parishes, and the peaceful practice of our faith. It is not only a danger to us, but to everyone around the world who desires to live in peace.
What is the financial force be- hind the global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? What is the institutional force be- hind the continued subsidization of abortion and birth control here and around the world? Whose military bases are surrounded by nude bars and prostitution, even child prostitution, at home and abroad? Which government continues to prop up and subsidize anti-Christian regimes abroad and promote policies, as in Bosnia, that bring about wars against Christian peoples?
The culprit is not in Baghdad, but in Washington, D.C. That is why every American Catholic has a moral obligation to be aware of the danger the U.S. imperium represents, to resist its encroachments so far as he is able, and to pray for its end. As a first step, the murderous sanctions on the people of Iraq must be lifted.
Reproduced with permission from the Rothbard-Rockwell Report. For a sample issue, phone 800-325-7257.
Center for Libertarian Studies, 875 Mahler Road, Burlingame, CA 94011.
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The Silence of the Sheep & Kosovo
The Remnant Resistance
4/19/99 by Charles W. Colson
The scenes are as vivid in my mind as if they were yesterday: Thousands upon thousands of anti-war demonstrators marching through the haze of marijuana smoke and tear gas to encircle the White House.
Watching from my office inside, I was struck by the number of clerical collars, symbolic of the leadership of mainline churches in the anti-war movement. An Episcopal bishop even led one march.
These memories flooded back recently as I watched reports of American pilots bombing Belgrade. There are many similarities between then and now--but one huge difference: the almost total silence today of the Christian Church.
Milosevic, for example, proposed a cease-fire this weekend to honor, as his government put it, the Orthodox Church's "biggest Christian holiday." Yet, all our government said was "absurd." And I've heard nary a peep of protest from Christians.
What makes this silence even more disturbing is that the expedition into Yugoslavia raises profound moral questions that the Christian Church is uniquely qualified to address. In the JUST WAR THEORY, set forth by Augustine and observed for 1,500 years in the West, we have a set of moral standards to judge the rightness of military engagements.
According to the theory, the use of force is justified only if it meets the following criteria:
It has a just causeMeasured against these standards, our intervention in Yugoslavia falls woefully short. Even if we assume that preventing ethnic cleansing justifies bombing a sovereign nation, the action fails the last resort test. According to the Washington Post, the Joint Chiefs argued for economic sanctions instead of bombing--advice that was ignored. The fact is, we had not exhausted all other recourses.
it is a last resort
it is declared by proper authority
the evil caused by the war is less than the evil to be righted,
and it has a reasonable probability of success
The campaign also has caused more evil than it has prevented. As NATO started its bombing, Milosevic stepped up his reign of terror. So, in the short term, at least, NATO bombing has resulted in increased death and suffering.
Further--and for me, most telling--according to the same news reports, the Joint Chiefs also warned the president that bombing alone wouldn't do the job. Yet he went ahead, anyway. So much for having a reasonable chance of success.
Yet, despite all this, the Church is strangely silent. Are we really so complacent? Has the 10,000 point Dow Jones sapped us of our moral outrage?
The Vietnam-era protests weren't the only time that the Church argued against its own government's use of military force. During World War II, British clergy denounced their own government's carpet bombing of German cities. And before the Gulf War, many Christians raised serious Just War concerns. It was a healthy debate.
These Christians, right or wrong, at least recognized that a Christian's first allegiance is to the City of God. Whether Caesar listens or not, we are to be the conscience of society.
So if the campaign in Yugoslavia should tragically turn into a quagmire from which the U.S. can't extricate itself--a real possibility, many fear-- the blame will lie not only at the feet of the president and his administration, but also at the feet of those Christians who said nothing.
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http://www.catholic.com/library/Just_War_Doctrine_1.asp
Just War Doctrine
As America turns to God for guidance and strength in the war on terrorism, its actions must be shaped by God's rules for when and how military action may be taken -- what Catholic theology calls just war doctrine. It is important that ordinary citizens be informed about these rules so they can help inform our leaders at key junctures through the democratic process.
This guide is a primer on just war doctrine. Because it is meant to be of use to Americans evaluating conflicts in the war on terrorism, it is written with an eye towards the present conflict.
THE ROOTS OF JUST WAR DOCTRINE
In the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us "blessed are the peacemakers" (Matt. 5:9). Elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount he tells us "if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39). From such verses some have concluded that Christianity is a pacifist religion and that violence is never permitted.
But the same Jesus elsewhere acknowledges the legitimate use of force, telling the apostles, "let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one" (Luke 22:36). How are these passages to be reconciled?
In broad terms, Christians must not love violence. They must promote peace whenever possible and be slow to resort to the use of arms. But they must not be afraid to do so when it is called for. Evil must not be allowed to remain unchecked.
Added weight is given to this realization when one recognizes that Scripture -- all of Scripture -- is inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16). This means that the Old Testament is just as inspired as the New Testament and thus an expression of the will of Christ.
The Old Testament acknowledges frankly that there is "a time to kill" (Eccles. 3:3). At various times in the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites to defend their nation by force of arms. Yet it was always with the recognition that peace is the goal to be worked for. Thus the psalmist exclaims, "how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!" (Ps. 133:1). Peace is the goal, but when it cannot be achieved without force, force must be used.
In the same way, the New Testament sets forth the goal of peace but acknowledges the legitimate use of force. It does so by John the Baptist's acknowledgment that Roman soldiers, whose job it was to enforce the Pax Romana, or "Peace of Rome," could keep their jobs (Luke 3:14) and by Paul's observation that the state "does not bear the sword in vain" but is "God's servant for your good" (Rom. 13:4).
As long as Christianity remained a minority religion in the Roman Empire, it was not forced to put these insights together into a formal theory of when warfare could be used. But as Christianity grew predominant, more attention had to be devoted to this subject. By the time of Augustine (A.D. 354-430) the need for a theory of when warfare was just was keen, and Augustine provided one, crystallizing biblical principles into what is now known as just war doctrine. In the intervening centuries the theory has been refined, but its framework remains as he gave it.
JUST WAR DOCTRINE TODAY
The most authoritative and up-to-date expression of just war doctrine is found in paragraph 2309 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It says:
The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Let us take a closer look at each of the elements in the Church's just war doctrine.
STRICT CONDITIONS
The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time . . .
Here the Catechism indicates the gravity of the decision to go to war. Before this can be done "rigorous consideration" must be given to whether the following conditions are met. It is not enough for just some of them to be met. Instead, all must be met "at one and the same time."
LASTING, GRAVE, AND CERTAIN DAMAGE
The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.
The first condition indicates that there must be an aggressor who is harming the nation or the community of nations. One cannot go to war simply to expand one's sphere of influence, conquer new territory, subjugate peoples, or obtain wealth. One only can go to war to counter aggression.
In recent wars, the aggressor often has been a nation-state, such as Germany was in the First and Second World Wars. But nation-states are relatively new in world history. Throughout much of history the aggressors were much smaller and more loosely organized. Even today many small wars are fought between tribes. In recent years they have been fought between national armies and drug cartels. And in the war on terrorism a principal aggressor has been the terrorist organization al Qaeda.
The damage inflicted by the aggressor must be "lasting, grave, and certain", An aggression that is temporary and mild would not meet this condition. It must be foreseen to have effects that are both lasting and grave.
It also must be foreseen with moral certainty, moral certainty being the highest kind of assurance that is possible in geo-political matters. If this is present -- and if the other conditions are met -- then it is lawful to resort to war.
This means that it is not necessary for the aggressor to strike first. A moral certainty that the aggression will occur is sufficient. Such certainty might be present, for instance, if a party with a history of aggression began amassing troops or munitions.
In a world where it is possible for an aggressor to strike at a distance, with little or no warning, and to cause mass casualties, it is important to identify a potential aggressor early and determine whether he poses a morally certain danger.
OTHER MEANS IMPRACTICAL OR INEFFECTIVE
All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.
The second condition establishes war as a last resort. If there are other practical and effective means of stopping the aggressor, they must be used.
Alternatives include one-to-one diplomacy; international pressure; economic sanctions; and such tools as blockades, quarantines, covert actions, and small-scale raids that do not amount to a full-scale war effort. It is not necessary to employ all such methods before going to war. It is sufficient if rigorous consideration reveals them to be impractical or ineffective.
They would be shown to be impractical if rigorous consideration revealed that, even though they might work in theory, they were not practically possible.
They would be shown to be ineffective if they had little or no chance of stopping the aggression and preventing the damage that it will bring.
PROSPECTS OF SUCCESS
There must be serious prospects of success.
The third condition is that the war must have "serious prospects of success."
It is not possible to have a guarantee of success. Even nations with overwhelming military force can lose wars to less well-armed nations, as happened to the U.S. in the Vietnam War. This may be caused by a loss of public will, by lack of expertise in fighting a particular conflict, the intervention of other nations, the outbreak of side conflicts, or other factors.
Because it is impossible to guarantee the outcome of an event as chaotic and destabilizing as war, all that is required for this condition is that there be a substantial possibility of success.
GREATER EVILS?
The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
The final condition has to do with the foreseen consequences of the war. Even if a victory can be foreseen, the damage that is done by the war itself must be taken into account.
As the Catechism notes, the weapons of mass destruction that are available to many nations play a large part in evaluating whether this condition is met. Armed with these weapons, it would be possible for nations to use excessive destructive force when stopping an aggressor, resulting in more casualties than would have occurred if the aggression had been allowed to run its course. In some measure, the evaluation of this condition pertains to the question of how the war is conducted, which will be dealt with below.
Wars inescapably cause damage. This includes the collateral damage they produce in civilian casualties. They also can create other evils, such as destabilizing neighboring countries, changing international alliances in harmful ways, and creating economic burdens.
It is incumbent on those making the decision to go to war to attempt to the best of their ability to foresee both what damage will result if the war is conducted and what damage will result if it is not. The former must not clearly outweigh the latter.
WHO DECIDES?
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Finally, the Catechism identifies those who have the burden of evaluating the conditions for whether a particular war is just: "those who have responsibility for the common good." In modern nation-states, this means the government.
Governments are privy to information gathered by intelligence services and other means that the general public does not possess. Because the public is not in possession of this information, the public is not in as advantaged a position to determine whether the conditions are met. As a result, the public must in significant measure be prepared to trust its leaders to make the right decision.
There may not be a guarantee that the government will do so, but, except in the case of fundamentally evil regimes, it is more likely that the government would arrive at an appropriate course of action than would the general public.
This is not to say that the public has no voice in such matters. Particularly in democracies, it does. The public elects its leaders and, through public debate, helps guide its leaders' decisions. Nevertheless, the general public does not bear ultimate responsibility for the decision to go to war. That belongs "to the prudential judgment" of its political leaders. They must evaluate the situation and make their best judgment whether the conditions for just war have been fulfilled.
JUSTICE IN WAR
Once the decision to go to war has been reached, a new set of issues is placed in focus. These have to do with how the war is conducted. Thus the Catechism states:
The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties (CCC 2312).
A particular danger in wartime is brutality toward those not engaged in combat. Frequently in the history of warfare, soldiers have maimed, raped, and even killed those who did not pose a physical threat to them. Sometimes this has escalated into genocide. The Catechism is at pains to stress the moral illegitimacy of all of these:
Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely. Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide (CCC 2313).
Unlike many countries, America has a strong commitment to this principle. The U.S. is famous for its humane treatment of non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners of war. Indeed, America is renowned for turning former wartime enemies -- such as Germany, Japan, and Italy -- into friends.
The treatment of non-hostile individuals in wartime is not the only consideration involved in the just prosecution of a war. The existence of weapons of mass destruction poses special moral challenges. In this regard the Catechism states:
Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons -- especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons -- to commit such crimes (CCC 2314).
The U.S. has not always been committed to this principle. In the Civil War, World War I, and World War II the United States violated it. Grave violations during World War II included the firebombing of Dresden and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These were not attacks designed to destroy targets of military value while sparing civilian populations. They were deliberate attempts to put pressure on enemy governments by attacking non-combatants. As a result, they were grave violations of God's law, according to which, "the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral" (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 57).
It is important to recognize what this principle does and does not require. While it does require strenuous efforts to avoid harming innocents, it does not require the result of no innocents being harmed. Such a result is impossible to guarantee. Even with the smartest of smart munitions, it is not possible to ensure that no non-combatants will be harmed in wartime. As tragic as it is, collateral damage to innocents is an inescapable consequence of war. Catholic theology recognizes this. It applies to such situations a well-established principle known as the law of double-effect. According to this law it is permissible to undertake an action which has two effects, one good and one evil, provided that certain conditions are met.
Although these conditions can be formulated in different ways, they may be enumerated as follows: (1) the action itself must not be intrinsically evil; (2) the evil effect must not be an end in itself or a means to accomplishing the good effect (in other words, it must be a foreseen but undesired side-effect of the action); and (3) the evil effect must not outweigh the good effect. If these three conditions are met, the action may be taken in spite of the foreseen damage it will do.
The law of double-effect would not have applied to the cases of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. In these situations though the act (dropping bombs) was not intrinsically evil and though it is arguable that in the long run more lives were saved than lost, the second condition was violated because the death of innocents was used as a means to achieve the good of the war's end.
Fortunately, despite these past, grave transgressions, the United States is now committed to the principle of sparing innocent life during military actions. It has repeatedly and sincerely expressed its intent to minimize civilian casualties and to serve as a liberator of captive populations in the War on Terrorism. The U.S. is now committed to the principles of the just war.
CONCLUSION
As the Second Vatican Council noted, "insofar as men are sinful, the threat of war hangs over them, and hang over them it will until the return of Christ" (Gaudium et Spes 78). The danger of war will never be completely removed prior to the Second Coming.
Christ's followers must be willing to meet this challenge. They must be willing to wage war when it is just and they must be willing to wage it in a just manner.
Simultaneously, they must work to establish a just and peaceful order among the nations. In so doing they seek to fulfill the words of the prophet, according to which the nations "shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Is. 2:4).
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