Iraq War

[argent_paladin]

Could you explain how the first Gulf War fits the thesis/antithesis/synthesis of Hegel and then how this means that it wasn't a just war? If the thesis is Saddam and the antithesis is the US then a Hegelian sythesis would be finding common ground and working together peacefully. War is the opposite of a synthesis. It is a better argument to say that negotiation and compromise represent synthesis, not war.

1. Just Cause The invasion of Kuwait was a serious, lasting and grave harm. If you cannot fight a defensive war for the survival of your own country, then no war is just and you are not a just war theorist, but a pacifist.

2. Proper authority. Kuwait, other Arab countries, Coalition countries, the Security council all agreed that the war was just.

3. Right intention. Clearly, the intention wasn't to invade Iraq or to depose Saddam (let alone for oil, or to kill Muslims, etc) because we didn't do any of those things initially.

Anyone who disagrees that freeing Kuwait was unjust is so radical as to not be near the mainstream for just war and should just admit to being a pacifist. There is no dishonor in it. But then the debate should shift from specific wars to defending the very idea of just war itself.
So, what are you James? Do you think that any war is justified?


PS Who are these "others" who agree that it is Hegelian. I did some internet reseach and the only ones I could find who agree with that position are far, far outside the mainstream. Eccentric to say the least.

[Guest Aluigi]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Jan 31 2005, 09:54 PM'] I agree that the US army should stay there.

You sound like my nutso ex history teacher. Unless something broke 50% it doesn't count.

Think of it this way, only 16% of the world is Muslium. Not all Musliums are fighters and not all are supports. Let us say 5% are supports and 2 are fighters, can you say they don't have an impact on the world? Same applies to Iraq. [/quote]
I was simply commenting on the fact that there is not popular support in Iraq and that that is reason to be optimistic and hope for the future. not that there is no problem, but everyone who knows anything about insurgencies and such knows that it's all about winning popular support. If 20% or less people in Iraq sympathize with the insurgents, that means 80% of the Iraqui people do not sympathize with the insurgents. You don't think that's something good? At the very least it dispells the myth that this has become another Vietnam, and at the most it shows that there is great hope for the future of Iraq.

[spathariossa]

From a 12th century Catholic (even Papal) perspective, the war was just.

It must meet three criteria: Just cause, good intention, legitimate authority.

Just Cause: The war was meant to disarm an insane dictator and to remove him from power.

Good Intention: We intended to protect innocent lives both at home and abroad.

Legitimate Authority: The President is the legitimate head of the US armed forces.

Ergo - Just War.

[Iacobus]

spathariossa,

That isn't the Catholic Church anymore. The Catholic Church once held that only Catholics can be saved. Now they say that all people, even those that do not know of Christ, can be saved. You cannot go back into time and pull up old doctrines, like your just war and the cited salavation, and use them in a modern context.

Dixi.

[crusader1234]

[quote name='spathariossa' date='Feb 1 2005, 11:11 AM'] From a 12th century Catholic (even Papal) perspective, the war was just.

It must meet three criteria: Just cause, good intention, legitimate authority.

Just Cause: The war was meant to disarm an insane dictator and to remove him from power.

Good Intention: We intended to protect innocent lives both at home and abroad.

Legitimate Authority: The President is the legitimate head of the US armed forces.

Ergo - Just War. [/quote]
Wow, talk about overstatement of the decade.

The war was meant to disarm an insane dictator. NOT to remove him from power. They added [i]that[/i] little tidbit on about five months into it. You can't justify a war just because it has some good side effects.

Secondly, I am unaware that 'disarming an [arguably] insane dictator' makes for a just war when there aren't any weapons there for this proposed disarming.

And lets get into a 21st Century Papal perspective; Pope John Paul II condemned the war. Of course, this isn't ex Cathedra, but it definately is a Papal perspective.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Feb 1 2005, 05:14 PM'] spathariossa,

That isn't the Catholic Church anymore. The Catholic Church once held that only Catholics can be saved. Now they say that all people, even those that do not know of Christ, can be saved. You cannot go back into time and pull up old doctrines, like your just war and the cited salavation, and use them in a modern context.

Dixi. [/quote]
The Church's doctrine does not change.

(This is not to argue one way or another about the Iraq war, just to point out this fact.)

The Church still teaches that only those who belong to the Church can be saved (it has just speculated on how one may be baptized "by desire." If one is a member of the Church by desire, he is still a member of the Catholic Church.

Church dogma does not change. Understanding of particular dogmas may change, but the dogmas themselves do not. To say that they do, and discredit "outdated" doctrines is contrary to the Catholic Church. Sounds "phishy" to me!

[Guest Aluigi]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Feb 1 2005, 05:14 PM'] spathariossa,

That isn't the Catholic Church anymore. The Catholic Church once held that only Catholics can be saved. Now they say that all people, even those that do not know of Christ, can be saved. You cannot go back into time and pull up old doctrines, like your just war and the cited salavation, and use them in a modern context.

Dixi. [/quote]
Outside of the Church there is ABSOLUTELY NO salvation. All outside of the Catholic Church go to the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. This is Divinely Revealed irreversable Catholic Dogma. Don't believe it? Then be anathema.

People who are inculpably ignorant of not being in the Church (we cannot judge whether or not anyone is inculpably ignorant. for all we know, everyone in the world is culpably ignorant) but seek to follow God's will through the dictates of their God-given conscience (the natural law written on all men's hearts) then it is possible that God will save them through extraordinary means by counting them as imperfect members of the Church, united to the Church in desire and intention and all that causes their division is not their fault. Ss. Thomas Aquinas and Pius X will suffice to back me up on this and establish it as a sound orthodox belief.

However, if you hold that the Church has reversed the Dogma that no one outside of the bulk of Peter is saved, you hold heresy. The Church cannot and does not change her teachings.

Just War Doctrine is applicable through all the centuries of the Church as well. There is no contradiction and to falsely pit a current magisterium against a past one is the work of the devil who constantly attempts to make the Church veer from Her course.

[Iacobus]

[quote name='Aluigi' date='Feb 1 2005, 06:39 PM'] Outside of the Church there is ABSOLUTELY NO salvation.  All outside of the Catholic Church go to the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  This is Divinely Revealed irreversable Catholic Dogma.  Don't believe it?  Then be anathema.

People who are inculpably ignorant of not being in the Church (we cannot judge whether or not anyone is inculpably ignorant.  for all we know, everyone in the world is culpably ignorant) but seek to follow God's will through the dictates of their God-given conscience (the natural law written on all men's hearts) then it is possible that God will save them through extraordinary means by counting them as imperfect members of the Church, united to the Church in desire and intention and all that causes their division is not their fault.  Ss. Thomas Aquinas and Pius X will suffice to back me up on this and establish it as a sound orthodox belief.

However, if you hold that the Church has reversed the Dogma that no one outside of the bulk of Peter is saved, you hold heresy.  The Church cannot and does not change her teachings.

Just War Doctrine is applicable through all the centuries of the Church as well.  There is no contradiction and to falsely pit a current magisterium against a past one is the work of the devil who constantly attempts to make the Church veer from Her course. [/quote]
I don't think I was speaking of heresy though. What I mean is not that the dogmas change, which is probly what could have been read as what I wrote, but I meant that the intererations could change. To my small understanding, Trent said that only members of the Catholic Church could be saved, nobody that wasn't Catholic (protestent, Muslium, Jew, etc) could be saved. I am not overly well versed in that but I am pretty sure the Church says they can be saved and also teaches baptism of desire. So the interperation has changed and the currect Catholic one is the one currently taught.

I think I have made this mistake of diction in the past as well. I can't rember where though.

Edited February 2, 2005 by Iacobus

[argent_paladin]

I agree with Iacobus. Catholic doctrine does change, in the sense that it develops and grows. But it doesn't change in the sense that it contradicts previous doctrine. The Dogma of the Assumption represents a change of sorts, since it is new dogma, but of course it doesn't contradict any previous authoritative Church teaching.
Catechism:
"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? [335] Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.[336]

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.[337]

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."[338]

335 Cf. Cyprian, Ep. 73.21: PL 3, 1169; De unit.: PL 4, 509-536.
336 LG 14; cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5.
337 LG 16; cf. DS 3866-3872.
338 AG 7; cf. Heb 11:6; 1 Cor 9:16.

[spathariossa]

I didn't mean to say the Iraq war was a just war. I'm doing two crusades classes this quarter, I'm a medieval studies major, and I know more about politics of the 11th and 12th centuries than I do of the 21st. I was just bringing in (what I thought to be) an interesting perspective on the issue.

Oh and I forgot there is a 4th requirement for Just War - Proportionality. The war has to be in proportion to the threat in terms of destructiveness, loss of life, etc.

[goldenchild17]

I'd say this has been beaten to death. I'll I want to do is throw in my support for the war. I don't believe it was exercised in exactly the best manner possible, but I still believe it a good and just cause.

Oh, and another thought? Aren't we called to defend the helpless? Unborn babies are helpless. The elderly threatened to be put under euthanasia are helpless. The Jews during the Holocaust were helpless. The Iraqis under Hussein were helpless.

[argent_paladin]

Spathariossa,
Thanks for your perspective.

Also, it is simply a falsehood that the Pope condemned the war. It never happened. And it is no accident that the pope himself never condemned as immoral this particular war.

The truths of the Church don't change. But political circumstances do. For instance, Spathariossa wrote:
"Legitimate Authority: The President is the legitimate head of the US armed forces."
The Constitution says that congress is authorized to declare war. The president is not. The president, as commander-in-chief, is charged with waging war once declared. I think that is the strongest argument against the war: Congress has not declared war. But, it hasn't declared war since WWII. I think that Congress declaring war is a good idea, because the would be more discussion and argument. We would only go to war when it was clearly and definitely in our best interest. And there would be far less dissent.

[save ferris 101]

[quote name='goldenchild17' date='Feb 2 2005, 03:49 AM'] I'd say this has been beaten to death. I'll I want to do is throw in my support for the war. I don't believe it was exercised in exactly the best manner possible, but I still believe it a good and just cause.

Oh, and another thought? Aren't we called to defend the helpless? Unborn babies are helpless. The elderly threatened to be put under euthanasia are helpless. The Jews during the Holocaust were helpless. The Iraqis under Hussein were helpless. [/quote]
So, I guess we should just go into every country where the people are "helpless" and establish a new government? Sounds like a great idea

[Guest Aluigi]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Feb 1 2005, 08:15 PM'] I don't think I was speaking of heresy though. What I mean is not that the dogmas change, which is probly what could have been read as what I wrote, but I meant that the intererations could change. To my small understanding, Trent said that only members of the Catholic Church could be saved, nobody that wasn't Catholic (protestent, Muslium, Jew, etc) could be saved. I am not overly well versed in that but I am pretty sure the Church says they can be saved and also teaches baptism of desire. So the interperation has changed and the currect Catholic one is the one currently taught.

I think I have made this mistake of diction in the past as well. I can't rember where though. [/quote]
what I said was what the Church actually teaches when one reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the light of 2000 years of teaching. The Church does not teach that any Jew is saved or that any Muslim is saved. She teaches that if one is a Jew or a Muslim and are [u]inculpably [/u]ignorant that the Church is absolutely necessary for salvation but seek to follow God's will through the dictates of their God-given conscience they might be saved through an extraordinary act of God's Mercy on account of the fact that through their implicit will and desire they are united (although imperfectly) to the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church. This does not contradict the Council of Trent in the slightest and in fact was a doctrine, though less elaborated upon, at the time as well.

This is my position based on the Council of Trent, the Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X, the Baltimore Catechism, the Second Vatican Council, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

[rufiokicks]

[quote name='delta557' date='Jan 22 2005, 08:41 PM']Either a lot innocent people including women and children are going to be killed in America by terrorists or in Iraq by Saddam's regime, or, a smaller amount of people will volunteer to give their life so that others may live.  [/quote]
Delta, I know this is a little late but I'd like to point out to you that terrorism is created everywhere and targeted at everyone. Why aren't we doing anything about American terrorists? These people are hurting our own nation. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but a war on terrorism is a bit of a paradox. It's almost like bombing abortion clinics. Killing for life is like having sex for virginity. We can free a nation from an unjust ruler without bombing and killing the innocent. 9/11 suddenly made us focus on this issue, why weren't we worried about protecting our people before? Remember the Uni-bomber? That was a only a few years ago. Where were the troops then?