One More Response
I know I risk alienating some with another statement regarding the war, but I'm not trying to challenge the validity of the particular situation, but to answer a proposition that I believe to be false. The following is a copy of what was posted at Disputations in response to Kairos Guy (for whom I have the greatest respect, but with whom, on a single slender facet of this issue, I could not disagree more).
I couldn't disagree more:""War is always a disaster" is the kind of thing one says to avoid having to give the choice for war serious consideration."
I would only want someone holding this opinion to make the choice for war. War is always a disaster. Lincoln did not leap into war at the first opportunity, he undertook the responsibility gravely and with full knowledge of its disaster.
You say on your site, "Why is it so much worse than all the other indicators of the fallen condition?" This seems to suggest that you regard these other indicators as something less than a disaster for humankind. All indicators of the fallen human condition are disasters of the first water stemming from that first fall. None of them are less serious than war, and indeed are a certain type of war themselves.
To say that war is always a disaster does not say that it isn't EVER necessary. On the contrary, it suggests that the exigency of war must be regarded with the greatest possible horror, and only when all recourse is exhausted should such a project be undertaken. I leave to the appropriate civil authorities (not, in my opinion a U. N. commission) the question of whether our current crisis entails war. But to say that it is always a disaster in no way suggests that it is not sometimes necessary.
If one enters into a war with any other attitude, we end up with people flying into towers declaring a glorious "war" on innocents and civilians. To suggest that war is a source of anything other than wretchedness, heartache, pain, and loss is to invite glorying in destruction. However, to suggest that people like Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mbotu (from what I'm hearing from Zimbabwe), Kim Il-Jong, should be allowed to continue their oppression and reigns of terror unchallenged suggests, perhaps, an even greater calamity for humankind.
War is always a disaster, but it is not always a crime, and certainly not the gravest of crimes in some situations.
I think a clear demarkation must be made between "War is a disaster" and "All War is evil and uncalled for." The two statements are not equivalents.
I believe the Pope and his Cardinals articulate the truth in this matter even as they make prudential judgments that may be contested. And perhaps it is the unfortunate conflation of the two that gives rise to difficulty with the centrality of the truth they wish to express.
So once again, I leave it all in God's hands. I believe our president is a man of God, I pray for him daily. I trust that he will make the correct decision (a confidence I could not have expressed with our former regent). I do not want war; neither do I want Swamp Arabs chased from their homes and massacred, untold environmental destruction, people buried alive in pavement, Kurds gassed in their homes. It is unjust not to exert some force to make this stop. Whether it is sufficiently unjust to entail a conflict I leave to those who must make the very difficult decision, and I trust God completely that He will guide them if they are willing.
