President Bush told the nation Wednesday night that the ?opening stages? of Operation Iraqi Freedom were under way. U.S. forces stepped up what had been intended as an initial softening of the battlefield by launching an aerial bombardment of Baghdad in an attempt to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. [...]A senior U.S. official said the raids in and around Baghdad had been intended as "extensive prepping of the battlefield" in the no-fly zone in the south of the country. But the attack was ramped up after U.S. intelligence spotted what was termed a "target of opportunity," described as a "senior or very senior member of the Iraqi regime."
U.S. officials told Miklaszewski that the target was Saddam himself. They would not say whether the attack, in which F-117s dropped mammoth GBU-27 "bunker buster" bombs, was successful.
'CONSCRIPTS TO SURRENDER (Sky News, 3/20/03)
'Two-thirds of Iraq's conscript army are ready to surrender without a fight, according to US military sources in Kuwait.Two army divisions totalling 20,000 troops based in the south of Iraq are set to give themselves up to Allied forces in nearby Kuwait, the sources told Sky News reporter Colin Brazier.
The sources said Iraq's 11th infantry and 51st mechanised divisions were "ready to capitulate".
They said troops from the 6th armoured division were also believed to be considering giving themselves up.
Brazier, with US troops in Kuwait, said recent intelligence briefings had reported the troops were badly motivated.
Asked why the conscripts would surrender, Sky's Foreign Affairs Editor Tim Marshall said: "They are underfed, underpaid and extremely scared."
SADDAM WAS ATTACK TARGET (Sky News, 3/20/03)
The cruise missile attack on Baghdad was aimed at wiping out Saddam Hussein, US sources said.Pentagon sources said the Iraqi leader, his two sons and senior military officials were the targets of the strike.
The sources said they had intelligence information pinpointing where Saddam and the others may have been.
My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein?s ability to wage war.
These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign. More than 35 countries are giving crucial support, from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to the deployment of combat units. Every nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honor of serving in our common defense.
To all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in the Middle East, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed. The enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military.
In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality. Saddam Hussein has placed Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military, a final atrocity against his people.
I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.
We come to Iraq with respect for its citizens, for their great civilization and for the religious faiths they practice. We have no ambition in Iraq except to remove a threat and and restore control of that country to its own people.
I know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon. Millions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent. For your sacrifice, you have the gratitude and respect of the American people. And you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.
Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.
Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures. And we will accept no outcome but victory.
My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others. And we will prevail.
May God bless our country and all who defend her.
U.S. forces launched a military strike near Baghdad targeting Iraqi leaders, a senior government official said.The official, speaking Wednesday night, said U.S. intelligence had detected the possibility Iraqi leaders were in the area, which he described as a "target of opportunity."
The official declined to identify the leaders who were targeted or to say whether the attack was successful.
UPDATE:
It's now being referred to as a decapitation strike. It's at least conceivable that Saddam is dead already.
MORE:
TARGET--SADDAM:
Crack troops pursue Saddam (Tim Reid, March 20, 2003, Times of London)
ELITE teams of US Delta Force commandos who have been inside Iraq for weeks are preparing to descend on Baghdad with the objective of capturing or killing President Saddam Hussein, US defence officials said yesterday.Small, highly mobile units picked from the US Army's most revered and secretive fighting force have been assigned a key mission of the war: to hunt down Saddam, his two sons and at least a "dirty dozen" of Iraq's top military and civilian leaders.
The Delta Force, the US equivalent of the British SAS, has 306 men. It has been training for several years with the CIA for the specific mission of hunting down the Iraqi leader, officials said.
Last night they were being mobilised to infiltrate Baghdad and Saddam's home city of Tikrit to begin the hunt.
As plans were revealed to drop the commandos from Black Hawk helicopters to sites outside Baghdad, it became clear that, if US forces locate Saddam, the likelihood is that they will kill him and his closest henchmen rather than capture them.
"The expectation is to kill him within days (of the start of the war)," a Pentagon official said."It's what Delta has been training 24/7 to do."
Assassinating a foreign leader runs counter to a 1976 order signed by President Ford. But White House officials cite international law, which states that, once a war begins, there are no limits on military actions against enemy leaders. Saddam, as Commander-in-Chief of Iraq's Armed Forces, is a legitimate target, they say.
CIA operatives have been photographing and spying on Saddam's numerous presidential compounds, while US spy satellites take daily pictures of the Iraqi leader's suspected hideouts. Some of the most detailed information on his possible whereabouts, Pentagon officials said, has come from Jordanian intelligence.
Explosions have been heard in Baghdad, an hour and a half after the US deadline for Saddam Hussein to go into exile or face war expired.The skies above Baghdad lit up with tracer fire and a large pall of smoke was seen in the south of the city.
President Bush gave the Iraqi leader until 0100 GMT on Thursday to quit, but there was no word out of Baghdad as the cut-off point lapsed.
With the passing of the deadline, Mr Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters: "The disarmament of the Iraqi regime will begin at a time of the president's choosing."
White House says, "The opening stages of the disarmament of the Iraqi regime have begun." President Bush to address nation at 10:15 p.m. (CNN)
MORE:
Many Iraqi Loyalists Leave Posts (HAMZA HENDAWI, 3/20/03, Associated Press)
Hundreds of armed members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party and security forces deployed Wednesday throughout Baghdad, taking positions behind sandbags and in foxholes ahead of the U.S. ultimatum for the Iraqi leader to leave or face war.There was no sign during the day of regular army troops, however, and as the deadline approached, nearly half of the Baath loyalists were gone from the almost deserted streets. [...]
The Baath loyalists and security forces, meanwhile, stood behind hundreds of sandbagged positions built throughout the city over the past two weeks. Some were inside foxholes. Most were armed with Kalashnikovs, but some had rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns. On the city's southern fringes, several anti-aircraft guns could be seen.
Even Baghdad's traffic policemen wore helmets and carried assault rifles.
The Baathists, who wore olive-green uniforms and deployed in clusters of fours and fives, are widely expected to take charge of keeping law and order in Baghdad and other main Iraqi cities in the event of war.
Saddam, Iraq's president of 23 years, also was expected to look to them and other loyal militiamen and troops to deal with any anti-government stirrings by groups tempted to capitalize on the chaos caused by war to try to seize power.
Curiously, there was no sign Wednesday of Iraq's army troops or armor in or outside Baghdad, where Saddam is widely expected to make his final stand against any invaders.
With war imminent, the most outspoken opponents of military action against Iraq - France, Russia and Germany - insisted Wednesday the United States will be acting illegally if it attacks Iraq and overthrows Saddam Hussein.
I have been living here in the guise of a businessman. Not being registered as a journalist means I don't need a KDP minder "for my protection." In the age-old fashion, such minders have a distinct influence on what foreign journalists see and think. In this case, journalists have not noted the nefarious activities of the Kurdish authorities in charge of the northern "no-fly" zone....[T]he Kurds could ... integrate into their northern zone a population of Turkmens and Assyrians that would almost match their own -- and for a while, perhaps for a long while, they would rule over them. Their treatment of those minorities to date in their own preponderantly Kurdish zone suggests it won't work ...
I witnessed a "spontaneous" stone-throwing riot against [Turkmen] party headquarters by a Kurdish mob in Irbil, which the KDP offered to dispel by occupying the premises. The Turkmens refused, as the KDP have a passion for invading and looting their offices. Some nights later, KDP commandos occupied the high-points around Turkmen office buildings and pointed Kalashnikovs at the guards. Turkmen officials are detained without charge, their homes looted anonymously....
Saddam used [the Turkmen] as cannon fodder in the Iran-Iraq war. Many were taken prisoner by the Iranians. Others escaped to [Kurdish-controlled] Irbil, leaving behind relatives at Saddam's mercy. Saddam in turn has tortured and killed those unfortunates for having "foreign" connections. Now the Irbil exiles are stuck with Barzani -- dubbed "Mini Saddam" -- who also treats them as spies for the Turks. Barzani's rival-cum-uneasy confederate, who rules the other official Kurdish zone as strongman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), is a mite more civilized, though insidious. He refused minority-language TV channels, for example, on grounds that he couldn't protect them adequately....
Barzani's new-found pan-Kurdish nationalism is pragmatic. Any change in the status quo brought on by Turkish or American forces breaks his monopoly on trade and smuggling revenues and threatens his financial hold over the mercurial Kurdish tribes. Until the trade in oil with Iraq stopped a few days ago -- after Turkey closed the border -- Barzani made nearly a billion dollars a month on transit "taxes." His family takes a cut from all trade in tobacco, textiles, tea, alcohol and medicines. None of this bodes well for his future governance in a wider Kurdish area. It is an open secret here that he has allowed Iraqi intelligence to operate under cover, and that Saddam's family and friends have regularly visited here -- after all, Barzani and Saddam's son, Qusay, co-own the local firm that traded in U.N.-sanctioned oil....
In the weeks I've been here, I've learned the last thing local leaders want, or intend to employ, is democracy and the rule of law.
Laura's guest is Michael Kirk, senior producer of the PBS Frontline program, "The Long Road to War"
Although millions have marched worldwide, Bush's war is now beginning.But even despite the launch of mass bombing, we must continue to work to lay the groundwork to prevent it from leading to wars on Iran, North Korea, Colombia, and so on. This means we'll need those now surging into the movement to stick around for the long haul, and not melt away when times get hard.
During the first Gulf War, one arguably more justified, the U.S. peace movement got kicked in the gut. Then as well, major protests surged through American and European cities, hoping to stop the war before it started. But once the war began, mainstream American debate over the wisdom of war quickly became supplanted by the insistence that anything other than relentless cheerleading was disloyal to the troops -- and to the country. Americans overwhelmingly supported the first Gulf War, because it worked militarily, and because the hundred thousand Iraqis who died were faceless and anonymous.
Those who continued speaking out for peace quickly felt marginalized, isolated, and silenced. Most quickly retreated into private life, many entering a political cocoon they would stay in for years.
Yet for some who've been active working for justice and peace ever since, that war was their entry point to involvement. What made the difference between the people who retreated and those who stayed engaged? What will make the difference now that many more ordinary citizens are outraged enough to speak out -- opposing both the war and Bush's broader assault on democracy?
Those who persisted back then promptly learned that their actions could matter whether or not they produced immediate results. Connecting with fellow activists, they saw themselves as part of a long-term movement for change -- fighting for basic principles. They retained hope and courage even when the political tides seemed to run against them.
History never fully repeats itself. But if Bush does go to war despite massive global opposition, the peace movement needs to be prepared for some unsettling possibilities.
Anti-war sentiment and disapproval of President Bush's international policies continue to erode America's image among the publics of its allies. U.S. favorability ratings have plummeted in the past six months in countries actively opposing war--France, Germany and Russia--as well as in countries that are part of the "coalition of the willing." In Great Britain, favorable views of the U.S. have declined from 75% to 48% since mid-2002.In Poland, positive views of the U.S. have fallen to 50% from nearly 80% six months ago; in Italy, the proportion of respondents holding favorable views of the United States has declined by half over the same period (from 70% to 34%). In Spain, fewer than one-in-five (14%) have a favorable opinion of the United States. Views of the U.S. in Russia, which had taken a dramatically positive turn after Sept. 11, 2001, are now more negative than they were prior to the terrorist attacks.
Among possible coalition countries, majorities oppose joining the U.S. to take action against Iraq to end Saddam Hussein's rule. Even in Great Britain, a 51% majority opposes war. Among the unwilling allies, there is also virtually no potential support for a U.S.- led military effort.
But ironically, most publics surveyed think that in the long run the Iraqi people will be better off and the Middle East will be more stable if Iraq is disarmed and Hussein is removed from power. More than seven-in-ten of the French (73%) and Germans (71% ) see the Iraqi public benefiting.
Washington has angrily demanded the immediate release of dozens of Cuban dissidents arrested for their contacts with the US representative in Havana.State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Washington was "outraged" by the detentions.
"This is an appalling act of intimidation against those who seek freedom and democratic change in Cuba," Mr Boucher said.
He also strongly defended the US envoy, James Cason, against Cuban accusations of carrying out subversive activities.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has expressed concern for the millions of civilians who could be caught in the looming war in Iraq."It is the plight of the Iraqi people which is now my most immediate concern," he told a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York - just hours before a US deadline for war was due to expire.
Mr Annan said Iraqis had suffered a lot over the years and were faced now with a disaster "which could easily lead to epidemics and starvation". [...]
The Secretary General said nearly a million Iraqi children were suffering from malnutrition, and the coming conflict would make things much worse.
It is quiet here in the rubble at the presumed site of ancient Troy. No tourists gawk at the spot where Achilles pierced Hector's throat, at the high stone walls on which King Priam tore his gray hair, at the gate that shows signs of having been widened as if to admit an unusually big object, like an oversized wooden horse.Then there's a roar, and two fighter jets streak across the sky, creating a collage of one of the world's first battlegrounds and the next one, just southeast of here in Iraq. The instruments of war have changed mightily in 3,200 years, but people have not; that is why Homer's "Iliad," even when it may not be historically true, exudes a profound moral truth as the greatest war story ever told.
So on the eve of a new war, the remarkably preserved citadel of Troy is an intriguing spot to seek lessons. The Trojan War was the very first world war, between Europe and Asia, and the legends suggest that it was marked not just by heroism but also by catastrophic mistakes, poor leadership and what the Greeks called ato: the intoxicating pride and overweening arrogance that sometimes clouds the minds of the strong.
Troy offers us three lessons about war, each as enduring as the spring that still trickles here - described by Homer as the place where Trojan women washed clothes.
Not so long ago, Saddam was admired as a thoughtful, articulate, intelligent politician who was an asset to Iraq's reform-minded socialist-revolutionary party. Some of those who knew him in the sixties and seventies recall enjoying idealistic bull-sessions with him about Iraq's future. And as he gained power within the party, he began to implement a number of reforms to Iraq's health-care and educational systems that ... earned him praise in the West.A pathological sense of vanity, Bowden explains, has also played an important role in Saddam's quest for absolute power. He seems to want more than anything to go down in history as a great man ...
In 1994 genocide occurred in Rwanda. Within the space of 100 days, 1 million people perished. At the time, the United Nations had a sizable presence in the country, but it did not stop the genocide. The world still debates whether the international community could have stopped the horror. It is a debate Rwandans do not understand and cannot relate to.Maybe the risk of failure in Rwanda in 1994 was high; maybe substantial numbers of the members of an intervening force would have come home in body bags. That is no justification for the inaction that cost Rwanda its best and brightest. [...]
Rwandans believe that the international community needs to learn from its mistakes. Sadly, that seems not to be happening. We are not members of the Security Council, and we do not know whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction and is therefore a danger to international peace and security, as Resolution 1441 says. What we do know is that the international community cannot shirk its responsibility. Either Hussein is and he should be disarmed, or he is not.
International politics is, in many ways, about dealing with shades of gray. Where genocide, international terrorism and the survival of the human race are concerned, however, hard choices need to be made. Simply waiting is not a choice, it is an abdication of responsibility.
In Berlin, a reporter talking to a German official heard that the Schroeder government initially believed Iraq was a one-issue crisis, narrowly confinable to disagreement on the military undertaking and the painful although surmountable problem (in the middle term) of Germany's nonparticipation.But reacting in fear of isolation, the official suggested, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's willingness to subordinate Germany to a French view of confrontation with the United States on many wider fronts has brought the government to a position it now finds an awkward fit with Germany's long-term interests, and to a place outside the realm of the two men's anticipation when they ran for re-election on a pacifist platform last September.
In very less specific terms, this notion of things having gone too far appeared to suffuse remarks on Monday by Fischer that American policy was absolutely nonimperial in nature, that the United States was the irreplacable element of global and regional security, that there was no alternative to good trans-Atlantic relationships and that he well understood how the new East European membership of the European Union could have a "very different view" of their security than this or that EU founding member.
British and American troops were involved in fierce fighting near Iraq's main port today as the war to topple Saddam Hussein began.The firefight broke out near Basra as men of the Special Boat Service targeted the strategically vital city and the oilfields in southern Iraq. [...]
The fighting reported at Basra was believed to involve British special forces and US marines in an operation to prepare landing sites for amphibious craft during an invasion.
Other special units were deep inside Iraq on secret operations to prepare landing strips in the desert for airborne troops.
Basra, Iraq's only seaport, lies on the Shatt al Arab waterway where the Tigris and the Euphrates open into the northern Gulf.
Surrounded by treacherous sandbanks and marshes it is difficult to approach from the sea.
Artillery, infantry and the tanks of the 7th Armoured Brigade had already moved into Forming Up Positions, and some were already on the start line.
An attack could target Basra and proceed up alongside the Euphrates towards the strategic cities of Nasariya, Najaf and Karbala.
Citizen after citizen told the Senate Taxes Committee on Tuesday evening at Northeast Middle School in Minneapolis that taxes ought to be raised on high-income families or corporations in order to balance Minnesota's $4.23 billion projected budget shortfall.J Robert Burger, an organizer for a clerical workers union at the University of Minnesota and one of about 40 citizens who testified Tuesday, cited statistics from the Minnesota Revenue Department showing that those at the very top of the income scale pay a lower percentage of their income in state and local taxes than do middle-and low-income families. [...]
Burger's direct challenge to the Senate, which is controlled by the DFL, will be answered by the end of the month. Senate Majority Leader John Hottinger of St. Peter has set that deadline for presenting an alternative DFL budget proposal. But he says he still doesn't know whether the proposal will include a tax hike, despite increasing demands from some interest groups and citizens, such as Burger. [...]
It's no secret that DFLers at the State Capitol, already reduced to their fewest numbers and weakest position in 30 years, have been in a terrible bind over how to respond to [Governor] Pawlenty's adamant opposition to higher tax rates.
Republicans control the House by a yawning margin. Pawlenty, with his no-tax-increase campaign, beat DFLer Roger Moe and the Independence Party's Tim Penny, both of whom said that increases were "on the table."
Some DFLers note that the combined vote of three major-party candidates who had taxes on the table was larger than Pawlenty's, about 55 percent to 45 percent, but opinion polls continue to show little support for tax increases.
After the blowing up of the Maine in Havana harbor in 1898, McKinley issued a call for 25,000 volunteers to liberate Cuba from Spain. A million responded. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the lines at recruiting stations went around the block.This war is different. It is a war the president and Secretary Powell said they did not want to fight, but must, if Iraq refused to disarm. Thus, on the eve of war, the mood here seemed less one of war enthusiasm than of resignation, and a grim resolve to get it over with.
The war debate has been protracted and bitter. Now it is over, and patriotism commands that when American soldiers face death in battle, the America people unite behind them.
With rising intensity and emotion, the Democratic Party finds itself divided over war in Iraq. The turmoil in the party--and the rising voices of the antiwar wing--are shaping the nation's view of the Democrats as they approach a national election that could turn on the question of the country's security, party leaders said.Officials in both parties say the image of high-profile Democrats challenging President Bush's war policy right up through his address to the nation on
Monday--and, in fact, beyond the speech, as was clear here today--could reinforce a perception that Republicans are better suited to deal with threats from abroad.Should that happen, Democrats say, it could pose a serious obstacle for the party if the White House and Congressional contests in 2004--unlike the contests of 1992, 1996 and 2000--are fought out on issues of national security and foreign policy. [...]
Though worried, some Democratic leaders predicted that the potential war with Iraq would ultimately have little effect on the outcome of Mr. Bush's re-election campaign.
"Let's remember that this war--if there is a war--is likely to be a distant memory by November of 2004," Gov. Gray Davis of California said.
In recent months, everyone from Slate's Michael Kinsley to former U.S. presidential candidate Gary Hart to Hardball host Chris Matthews has commented about the problem of "dual loyalty" in this conflict — the question of whether some Americans — especially certain Jewish members of the Bush administration — are supporting war with Iraq because they believe war is in Israel's interests.The debate surfaced in public March 3 when Rep. James Moran, D-Va., told a church forum that, "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this."
The White House condemned Moran's comments and the congressman has since apologized for his comments.
American Jewish groups have not endorsed the war, and many Jews have been active in the anti-war movement. But, as evidenced by Moran's recent comments, the debate continues over Israel's role, American Jewish support of the Iraq war, and a perceived dual loyalty.
Kinsley wrote in October that there has been a "lack of public discussion about the role of Israel in the thinking of President Bush." The Moran flap was the first time the White House has gotten involved. Before, the discussion has stayed in the realm of political magazines and op-ed pages. Below we break down the debate.
Carbon dioxide certainly warms our planet, but it might not turn on the heat, reveals a new analysis of ancient Antarctic ice."Our data suggest that the warming came first, then carbon dioxide increased," says Jean Jouzel of the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute in Gif-sur-Yvette, France1. Something else — probably extraterrestrial — got the warming going, his team concludes.
Aside from water vapour, carbon dioxide is the major warming influence on our planet. But it's hard to work out which comes first: a rise in carbon dioxide levels or a slight warming. Why? Because even a slight temperature hike increases atmospheric carbon dioxide, through its effects on forests and oceans.
Pioneering a new technique, Jouzel's team has probed air bubbles trapped in 240,000- year-old ice laid down as snow when the Earth was warming up at the end of a massive ice age.
They compared the ratio of two forms of the atmospheric gas argon in the bubbles, and looked at their carbon dioxide content. The argon ratio changes relative to the temperature of the air at the time it was trapped, the team argues.
They saw a temperature rise, followed by greater warming caused by rising carbon dioxide levels, that tallied well with evidence from the surrounding ice and other climate records. "We were surprised to find that these indicators agreed," says Jouzel.
In the hours following President Bush's ultimatum Monday to Saddam Hussein, local antiwar groups moved to shift their strategy from protest to resistance.E-mails went out to supporters. Phone calls, too. In Oakland, groups affiliated with Direct Action to Stop the War met to complete plans for the day bombs start hitting Iraq.
In San Francisco, the organization stepped up nonviolent "role-playing scenarios" to prepare for acts of civil disobedience.
As the groups begin to mobilize, communities throughout the East Bay began bracing for war and the mass protests that promise to follow. If the local response to 1991's Operation Desert Storm is any indication, the Bay Area could face days of unrest in the event of war.
This time, however, the protests are expected to be larger, organizers said, because of intensified antiwar sentiment in the Bay Area and across the world.
"We're getting ready to see something we've never really seen before," said Leda Dederich, an organizer with the San Francisco-based Direct Action to Stop the War.
"We're planning to really stop the financial district, to really put our bodies on the line to stop the war machine," Dederich said.
The problem for these protestors is that there's no objective sense in which they're morally correct and subjectively the great majority of Americans disagree with them. The idea of sending them to prison for trying to disrupt the functioning of society is far more attractive than that of leaving Saddam in place. Let's hope that, like serious practitioners of civil disobedience in the past, they're willing to stay in prison until society changes its policy...in other words, forever.
Elshtain clearly thinks a war now against terrorism and Iraq meets just-war criteria.Her guiding ethos is an "Augustinian realism that resists sentimentalism and insists on ethical restraint." The great Church father appreciated, in her words, that "power is a basic reality of political life" and "justice and force are not mutually incompatible." Indeed, President Bush's much-mocked view that he might go to war partly to create a just peace for now-oppressed Iraqis is vintage Augustine, who advocated force to protect innocents from harm, and even saw it as a form of obligatory Christian love for neighbors.
Elshtain's trench-level arguments about such matters include reflections on the thoughts of such theologians as Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich about force and evil. Some of her citations sound eerily contemporary, such as Niebuhr's 1940 observation that history "refutes the idea that nations are drawn into war too precipitously. It proves... that it is the general inclination, of democratic nations at least, to hesitate so long before taking this fateful plunge that the dictator nations gain a fateful advantage..."
Elshtain's least persuasive moments concern America's role in the world. "The role of preventing or interdicting violence in other countries is not new to the United States," she writes, "it was thrust upon the United States in 1989 when it became the world's only superpower."
That's the kind of disingenuous malarkey currently infuriating America's allies. No one thrust the role of world cop on the United States - we took it. Even if one believes we should take it, we owe the world some arguments beyond "might makes right." Since agreed-upon "just take" criteria don't exist, working out the principles is a challenge.
In the end, one values Elshtain's judgments while regretting her often inadequate brief for them. She says "we have no choice but to fight." Better to say, "It's our choice to fight," and explain why.
Paul Jaminet has already offered a long post on just war theory today and we finally posted our long-promised review of Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars. But quite the best thing you're ever likely to read on just war is the essay Just Cause
Revisited by James Turner Johnson. It is exceptional.
[H]ere we are, going to war, basically alone, in the face of opposition, not so much from "the Arab Street," but from "the World Street." Everyone wishes it were different, but it's too late — which is why this column will henceforth focus on how to turn these lemons into lemonade. Our children's future hinges on doing this right, even if we got here wrong.The president's view is that in the absence of a U.N. endorsement, this war will become "self-legitimating" when the world sees most Iraqis greet U.S. troops as liberators. I think there is a good chance that will play out.
But wars are fought for political ends. Defeating Saddam is necessary but not sufficient to achieve those ends, which are a more progressive Iraq and a world with fewer terrorists and terrorist suppliers dedicated to destroying the U.S., so Americans will feel safer at home and abroad. We cannot achieve the latter without the former. Which means we must bear any burden and pay any price to make Iraq into the sort of state that fair-minded people across the world will see and say: "You did good. You lived up to America's promise."
To maximize our chances of doing that, we need to patch things up with the world. Because having more allied support in rebuilding Iraq will increase the odds that we do it right, and because if the breach that has been opened between us and our traditional friends hardens into hostility, we will find it much tougher to manage both Iraq and all the other threats down the road. That means the Bush team needs an "attitude lobotomy" — it needs to get off its high horse and start engaging people on the World Street, listening to what's bothering them, and also telling them what's bothering us.
Some 35 years ago Israel won a war in Six Days. It saw its victory as self-legitimating. Its neighbors saw it otherwise, and Israel has been trapped in the Seventh Day ever since — never quite able to transform its dramatic victory into a peace that would make Israelis feel more secure.
More than 50 years ago America won a war against European fascism, which it followed up with a Marshall Plan and nation-building, both a handout and a hand up — in a way that made Americans welcome across the world. Today is a D-Day for our generation. May our leaders have the wisdom of their predecessors from the Greatest Generation.
Pope John Paul II is a man of intellectual courage and a leading philosopher of the school known as Christian personalism. He has often integrated his personalist views into traditional Catholic teachings to good effect: his strong support for capitalism and democracy helped bring the Catholic nations of Latin America, Iberia, and Africa from dictatorship to democracy during his papacy; and his teachings on sex, love, and marriage have helped make "the new familiar, and the familiar new." But in one area -- questions of the use of force, especially in matters of life or death -- his innovations seem to me a step backward.
Traditional Catholic teaching integrates hundreds of Bible passages which in some cases endorse the use of force, even deadly force, and in other cases reject it. For instance:
If a thief is caught in the act of housebreaking and beaten to death, there is no bloodguilt involved. [Exodus 22:1]
I say unto you, resist not evil; if one strike you on the right cheek, offer him the other. [Matthew 5:39]
Exodus tells us that killing a housebreaker is a legitimate act, so that no one may rightly punish a householder who kills a housebreaker. But though such a killing would be legitimate, so too not killing the housebreaker would also be legitimate. Which should the householder choose? That is a moral question. Jesus's "resist not evil" is traditionally taken as a spiritual, not a moral, injunction, for, as St. Thomas Aquinas noted, Jesus's cheek really was slapped and far from turning the other one, Jesus protested (John 18:23). Aquinas comments:
Holy Scripture must be understood in the light of what Christ and the saints have actually practiced. Christ did not offer His other cheek, nor Paul either. Thus to interpret the injunction of the Sermon on the Mount literally is to misunderstand it. This injunction signifies rather the readiness of the soul to bear, if it be necessary, such things and worse, without bitterness against the attacker. This readiness our Lord showed, when He gave up His body to be crucified. [Commentary on Saint John, 4, 2]
Indeed, traditional Christianity holds that to use force against evildoers is an act of love: love for the evildoers, because it limits their descent into sin and encourages them to repent; and love for those who would otherwise fall victim to the evildoers. As an act of love, the use of force can be morally obligatory, particularly for those authorities to whom society has entrusted the use of force.
One further point regarding traditional Christian teaching is worth making. The Bible makes no ethical distinction between rulers and ruled: the same ethical law applies to all. Distinctions in the right to use force will come about because of the voluntary agreements of persons, but such agreements are always limited by the original grants of authority under divine law. Thus the principles governing a ruler's decisions about force in war are derived from the same principles as those governing a householder's decision to kill a housebreaker. As Scripture has it:
[S]hould you then decide to have a king over you like all the surrounding nations, . . . [w]hen he is enthroned in his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law made from the scroll that is in the custody of the levitical priests. He shall keep it with him and read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the LORD, his God, and to heed and fulfill all the words of this law and these statutes. Let him not become estranged from his countrymen through pride, nor turn aside to the right or to the left from these commandments. [Deuteronomy 17: 14,18-20]
The Christian tradition on the use of force was thoroughly worked out by such eminent philosophers as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Given the difficulty of finding alternative interpretations that are consistent with the many relevant Biblical injunctions, there would seem to be little scope for innovation in Catholic teaching on these issues.
Yet Pope John Paul II has brought about a change in rhetoric and emphasis. Horrified by the rise of mass abortion -- 40 million babies killed in the United States since 1973, and hundreds of millions around the world -- the Pope sought a new way to teach respect for life. He juxtaposed "the culture of death" with "the culture of life," and argued for life. This rhetoric avoids the subtleties of traditional Christian teaching on the use of force, but rhetorical power comes at some cost. How, for instance, can the Church's traditional support for capital punishment be reconciled with its denunciation of "the culture of death"?
Theologically the reconciliation is possible, but only by emphasizing the prudential judgment. The Bible makes clear that the death penalty is a legitimate response to murder ("Whoever takes the life of any human being shall be put to death," Leviticus 24:17). But life imprisonment, or some lesser sentence, are also legitimate. Which is morally best? At this point a prudential judgment must be made. Here the Pope argues that, of the various legitimate courses, abjuring the death penalty is best because doing so will help promote "the culture of life." In effect, the Pope seems to be arguing that many people who on issues like abortion would not be persuaded by the sophisticated but subtle Bible-driven traditional Catholic principles, are open to persuasion by the simpler life-is-better-than-death argument, and that, as it is crucial to win over these people, it would be imprudent to make the "culture of life" rhetoric appear hypocritical by supporting the death penalty.
The result has been a kind of moral pacifism: yes, killing is sometimes just, but so rarely is it morally good, when all its consequences are considered, that in practice we should almost never do it. The prudential judgment almost completely swallows the rest of the theory. Prudence decides. What is more, the factors that prudence should consider are particular to the contemporary world -- the abortion plague, for instance. The Church does not reject St. Thomas Aquinas's judgment that the death penalty is morally superior to life imprisonment as a punishment for murder; rather it holds that times have changed, and in current circumstances it is best to oppose death.
One consequence is a de-Christianization of Church rhetoric about the use of deadly force. Biblical principles are irrelevant to the decision; only consequences in today's world affect the prudential decision. This is why Catholic bishops, speaking today on questions of deadly force, rarely quote the Bible or the saints, and make arguments indistinguishable from those of atheists.
Let's look now at recent Vatican statements regarding the war on Iraq.
Vatican Strongly Opposes War (Fox News, 3/12/2003)
Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials are unleashing a barrage of condemnations of a possible U.S. military strike on Iraq, calling it immoral, risky and a "crime against peace."...The stance reflects what experts say is the Vatican's evolving position on just war, already seen by its opposition to the Gulf War, as well as concern about the impact of war on relations between Christians and Muslims.
"He is looking ahead for the rest of this century where Christian-Muslim relations are key to peace and religious freedom in Africa and many parts of Asia," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America....
"We want to say to America: Is it worth it to you? Won't you have have, afterward, decades of hostility in the Islamic world," asked the Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
John Paul II's "global diplomacy" in the Iraqi crisis is motivated in part by an attempt to avoid any kind of clash of civilizations, says the founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio.Andrea Riccardi, whose Catholic movement arose in Rome in 1968, said that "it is clear that the Vatican has the Christians of Iraq and the Muslim world in mind, who might remain as hostages of a Muslim reaction against the West. However, this is not the only reason for so much effort."
"As at the time of the Gulf War, the Pope does not want the confrontation to become a war between the West and Islam," Riccardi explained an article published in the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia.
Now, I believe that the Vatican is mistaken about the consequences of war. Muslims will not despise Christians for liberating them from a vicious dictator, as this New York Times report from Baghdad shows:
The striking thing was that for many Iraqis the first American strike could not come too soon....Iraqis were astonishingly frank in suggesting they were ready to endure war for liberty.
One retired chemical engineer working as a taxi driver told a fare that he had listened to Mr. Bush. "People are waiting for America," he said, taking both hands off the wheel to simulate applause.
Conversely, if Christians were so weak that we were not only unwilling to bear any burden for love of Iraqis, but unwilling to defend ourselves from the attacks of murderers like Saddam and al Qaeda, we might obtain the contempt of many Muslims. Statements by Osama bin Laden and others suggest that our refusal to respond to terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s led extremist Muslims to believe that we know our society and culture and religion to be unworthy of defense, and encouraged their attacks.
Moreover, the emphasis which the Vatican now gives to prudential judgment is contrary to the Biblical mindset. The Bible warns us against trying to calculate speculative consequences too finely: indeed, calculation is the pre-eminent activity of evildoers:
They have calculated and gone astray, they have not appreciated the honour of a blameless life. (Wisdom 2:21-22)
God made mankind straight, but men have had recourse to many calculations. (Ecclesiastes 7:29)
For the reasoning of mortals is worthless, and our designs are likely to fail. (Wisdom 9:14)
The LORD brings to nought the plans of nations; he foils the designs of peoples. (Psalm 33:10)
He frustrates the plans of the cunning,
so that their hands achieve no success;
He catches the wise in their own ruses,
and the designs of the crafty are routed.
They meet with darkness in the daytime,
and at noonday they grope as though it were night. (Job 5:12-14)
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are we not of more value than they?... Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'How shall we defease Muslim hostility? How shall we appease the Arab street?' For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be yours as well. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow.
I believe, further, that the Vatican's recent "evolution" in just war doctrine, apparently from tradition toward modern European progressive opinion, is mistaken. I stand with John Locke:
And he that shall collect all the moral rules of the philosophers, and compare them with those contained in the new testament, will find them to come short of the morality delivered by Our Saviour, and taught by his apostles; a college made up, for the most part, of ignorant, but inspired fishermen. (The Reasonableness of Christianity, 241)
May the war end swiftly, with few lives lost; and may God continue to bless America.
MORE: An opposing view from The Spectator (via Amy Welborn).
-REVIEW: of Just and Unjust War by Michael Walzer
(Brothers Judd)
Sometimes I feel as if I've spent half my adult life covering a President Bush as he squares off against Saddam Hussein, an evil dictator who invades his neighbors and gasses his own people.But while on the surface this seems like Groundhog War, the father-and-son duels in the sun with Saddam are breathtakingly different. The philosophical gulf between 41's gulf war and 43's gulf war is profound and cataclysmic--it has sent the whole world into a frenzy--yet it can be summed up in a single pronoun.
"The big I," as Bush senior calls it.
The first President Bush was often teased about his loopy syntax. But it was a way of speaking that signified the modesty and self-effacement his mother had insisted upon. He was so afraid to sound arrogant if he used the first person singular that he often just dropped the subject of a sentence and went straight to the verb.
"Mother always lectured us--in a kinder, gentler way--against using the big I," Poppy Bush said. He is so shy of "I" that he has never written a personal memoir.
Intellectually, Saad Eddin Ibrahim has always been one of Egypt's freest men. Now, after three years, three trials and 14 months of health-shattering imprisonment, Dr. Ibrahim, the country's most prominent democracy and human rights advocate, is legally free as well. Egypt's highest and most independent court, the Court of Cassation, affirmed yesterday what every honest observer of the Ibrahim case had known all along, that the charges against him were without foundation. The court's verdict is final; the Egyptian government cannot appeal.Dr. Ibrahim, who holds American as well as Egyptian citizenship, was charged with damaging Egypt's reputation by reporting past instances of electoral fraud, as well as illegally accepting European Union research funds. The real damage to Egypt's reputation came from the politically motivated prosecution of Mr. Ibrahim, a 64-year-old sociologist who worked to encourage cleaner elections, wider political participation by women and better understanding between Egypt's Muslim majority and Coptic Christian minority, earning him an international reputation. Yesterday's verdict will restore some of Egypt's good name. [...]
To its considerable credit, last year the Bush administration froze additional aid to President Hosni Mubarak's government over Dr. Ibrahim's treatment. This pressure, and the efforts of human rights groups worldwide, helped persuade the government to back off and prosecute the case less aggressively. Lesser known activists continue to face legal persecution in Egypt and even greater dangers in other Arab countries, like Libya and Syria.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien says Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would have peacefully disarmed within weeks if the U.S. hadn't jumped the gun with a 48-hour deadline.Chretien said he's convinced the Canadian compromise brought to the UN Security Council Feb. 18 that would have set four weekly disarmament deadlines for Hussein would have succeeded.
"If we had accepted the ideas presented by Canada ... I think Saddam Hussein would have met the requirements," the PM said yesterday after meeting with Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano. "And I think we might have been able to avoid a war."
Chretien said U.S. President George W. Bush caused the failure of diplomacy by pulling out of the UN Security Council and ordering Hussein and his son's out of Iraq by tonight.
"I am still of the view, given some more weeks, disarmament would have been achieved," Chretien said. "I think the process of diplomacy was not over."