|
Justice Jihad and the Just War By
Dear Reader:
The September 11 event and the ongoing war in Afghanistan are causing tremendous public introspection within the Islamic and Christian Worlds in ways not imaginable - outside cloistered academic environments and religious communes - even three months ago.
Examples are the two memos below by Dr. M.A. Muqtedar Khan of Adrian College (Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy), USA, and addressed to Americans and Muslims in America. Following them are two pieces that have to do with discussions on the Christian Just War.
Their contents are of enough universal appeal for me to bring them to the attention of Nigerians in general. This is in light of the tensions, real and imagined, between Muslims and non-Muslims, particularly Christians, in our country and the tendency to equate (anti-)Americanism with (anti-)Christianity and vice-versa. For Islam means Peace, why are so many adherents involved in war? And if Christians are expected to turn the other cheek and forgive their enemies, under what conditions, under the Christian faith, must these pacifist stance be violated?
Coupled with the case of Ms. Sufiya Tungar-Tudu's UNJUST and UNCONSTITUTIONAL death sentence for adultery in Sokoto State - ably dissected by Muslims Abdusalami Ajetunmobi and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi - these memos should enable Muslims and Christians who seek religious amity in Nigeria in particular to join in the reflections on these issues of Justice, Jihad and the Just War.
So, today - I give over my Monday Quarterbackings to others with the intention of promoting Christian/Muslim dialogue. 'Bolaji Aluko Burtonsville, MD, USA November 19, 2001 Bibliography: http://www.ijtihad.org/memo.htm "A Memo to American Muslims" by Muqtedar Khan http://www.ijtihad.org/memoa.htm "Memo to Americans" - by Muqtedar Khan http://www.christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID2228|C HID100546|CIID836768,00.html "What is just war theory?" - A BreakPoint Fact Sheet http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-093001justwar.story Catholic Church Debates 'Just War' "The Ruling of Death on Safiya Tungar-Tudu" By Abdulsalam Ajetunmobi http://www.gamji.com/NEWS932.htm "The Adulteress' Diary" By Sanusi Lamido Sanusi http://www.gamji.com/NEWS900.htm http://www.gamji.com/NEWS873.htm "SUNDAY MUSINGS: Trouble in the Nigerian House of Othman Dan Bello" By Mobolaji E. Aluko --------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.ijtihad.org/memo.htm A Memo to American Muslims M. A. Muqtedar Khan In the name of Allah, the most Benevolent and the Most Merciful. May this memo find you in the shade of Islam enjoying the mercy, the protection and the grace of Allah. I am writing this memo to you all with the explicit purpose of inviting you to lead the American Muslim community in soul searching, reflection and reassessment. What happened on September 11th in New York and Washington DC will forever remain a horrible scar on the history of Islam and humanity. No matter how much we condemn it, and point to the Quran and the Sunnah to argue that Islam forbids the killing of innocent people, the fact remains that the perpetrators of this crime against humanity have indicated that their actions are sanctioned by Islamic values. The fact that even now several Muslim scholars and thousands of Muslims defend the accused is indicative that not all Muslims believe that the attacks are unIslamic. This is truly sad. Even if it were true that Israel and the US are enemies of the Muslim World, wonder what is preventing them from unleashing their nuclear arsenal against Muslims, a response that mercilessly murders thousands of innocent people, including hundreds of Muslims is absolutely indefensible. If anywhere in your hearts there is any sympathy or understanding with those who committed this act, I invite you to ask yourself this question, would Muhammad (pbuh) sanction such an act? While encouraging Muslims to struggle against injustice (Al Quran 4:135), Allah also imposes strict rules of engagement. He says in unequivocal terms that to kill an innocent being is like killing entire humanity (Al Quran 5:32). He also encourages Muslims to forgive Jews and Christians if they have committed injustices against us (Al Quran 2:109, 3:159, 5:85). Muslims, including American Muslims have been practicing hypocrisy on a grand scale. They protest against the discriminatory practices of Israel but are silent against the discriminatory practices in Muslim states. In the Gulf one can see how laws and even salaries are based on ethnic origin. This is racism, but we never hear of Muslims protesting against them at International fora. The Israeli occupation of Palestine is perhaps central to Muslim grievance against the West. While acknowledging that, I must remind you that Israel treats its one million Arab citizens with greater respect and dignity than most Arab nations treat their citizens. Today Palestinian refugees can settle and become citizens of the United States but in spite of all the tall rhetoric of the Arab world and Quranic injunctions (24:22) no Muslim country except Jordan extends this support to them. While we loudly and consistently condemn Israel for its ill treatment of Palestinians we are silent when Muslim regimes abuse the rights of Muslims and slaughter thousands of them. Remember Saddam and his use of chemical weapons against Muslims (Kurds)?. Remember Pakistani army's excesses against Muslims (Bengalis)?. Remember the Mujahideen of Afghanistan and their mutual slaughter? Have we ever condemned them for their excesses? Have we demanded international intervention or retribution against them? Do you know how the Saudis treat their minority Shiis? Have we protested the violation of their rights? But we all are eager to condemn Israel; not because we care for rights and lives of the Palestinians, we don't. We condemn Israel because we hate "them". Muslims love to live in the US but also love to hate it. Many openly claim that the US is a terrorist state but they continue to live in it. Their decision to live here is testimony that they would rather live here than anywhere else. As an Indian Muslim, I know for sure that nowhere on earth, including India, will I get the same sense of dignity and respect that I have received in the US. No Muslim country will treat me as well as the US has. If what happened on september 11th had happened in India, the biggest democracy, thousands of Muslims would have been slaughterred in riots on mere suspicion and there would be another slaughter after confirmation. But in the US, bigotry and xenophobia has been kept in check by media and leaders. In many places hundreds of Americans have gathered around Islamic centers in symbolic gestures of protection and embrace of American Muslims. In many cities Christian congregations have started wearing hijab to identify with fellow Muslim women. In patience and in tolerance ordinary Americans have demonstrated their extraordinary virtues. It is time that we acknowledge that the freedoms we enjoy in the US are more desirable to us than superficial solidarity with the Muslim World. If you disagree than prove it by packing your bags and going to whichever Muslim country you identify with. If you do not leave and do not acknowledge that you would rather live here than anywhere else, know that you are being hypocritical. It is time that we faced these hypocritical practices and struggled to transcend them. It is time that American Muslim leaders fought to purify their own lot. For over a decade we have watched as Muslims in the name of Islam have committed violence against other Muslims and other peoples. We have always found a way to reconcile the vast distance between Islamic values and Muslim practices by pointing out to the injustices committed upon Muslims by others. The point however is this – our belief in Islam and commitment to Islamic values is not contingent on the moral conduct of the US or Israel. And as Muslims can we condone such inhuman and senseless waste of life in the name of Islam? The biggest victims of hate filled politics as embodied in the actions of several Muslim militias all over the world are Muslims themselves. Hate is the extreme form of intolerance and when individuals and groups succumb to it they can do nothing constructive. Militias like the Taliban have allowed their hate for the West to override their obligation to pursue the welfare of their people and as a result of their actions not only have thousands of innocent people died in America, but thousands of people will die in the Muslim World. Already, half a million Afghans have had to leave their homes and their country. The war has not yet begun. It will only get worst. Hamas and Islamic Jihad may kill a few Jews, women and children included, with their suicide bombs and temporarily satisfy their lust for Jewish blood, but thousands of Palestinians then pay the price for their actions. The culture of hate and killing is tearing away at the moral fabric of the Muslim society. We are more focused on "the other" and have completely forgotten our duty to Allah. In pursuit of the inferior jihad we have sacrificed the superior jihad. Islamic resurgence, the cherished ideals of which pursued the ultimate goal of a universally just and moral society has been hijacked by hate and call for murder and mayhem. If Binladen were an individual then we would have no problem. But unfortunately Binladen has become a phenomenon -- a cancer eating away at the morality of our youth, and undermining the spiritual health of our future. Today the century old Islamic revival is in jeopardy because we have allowed insanity to prevail over our better judgment. Yes, the US has played a hand in the creation of Binladen and the Taliban, but it is we who have allowed them to grow and gain such a foothold. It is our duty to police our world. It is our responsibility to prevent people from abusing Islam. It is our job to ensure that Islam is not misrepresented. We should have made sure that what happened on Sept. 11th should never have happened. It is time the leaders of the American Muslim community woke up and realized that there is more to life than competing with the American Jewish lobby for power over US foreign policy. Islam is not about defeating Jews or conquering Jerusalem. It is about mercy, about virtue, about sacrifice and about duty. Above all it is the pursuit of moral perfection. Nothing can be further away from moral perfection than the wanton slaughter of thousands of unsuspecting innocent people. I hope that we will now rededicate our lives and our institutions to the search for harmony, peace and tolerance. Let us be prepared to suffer injustice rather than commit injustices. After all it is we who carry the divine burden of Islam and not others. We have to be morally better, more forgiving, more sacrificing than others, if we wish to convince the world about the truth of our message. We cannot even be equal to others in virtue, we must excel. It is time for soul searching. How can the message of Muhammad (pbuh) who was sent as mercy to mankind become a source of horror and fear? How can Islam inspire thousands of youth to dedicate their lives to killing others? We are supposed to invite people to Islam not murder them. The worst exhibition of Islam happened on our turf. We must take first responsibility to undo the evil it has manifest. This is our mandate, our burden and also our opportunity. Muqtedar Khan, Ph.D. Director of International Studies, Adrian College, MI Association of Muslim Social Scientists Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.ijtihad.org/memoa.htm Memo to Americans Muqtedar Khan, Ph.D. Dear Americans, I hope this memo finds you all well on the way to recovery. I pray that God, who is most merciful and most benevolent, will be with you every step of the way as you recover from the collective anguish and fear precipitated by the events of Sept 11. God promises in the Quran (2:286) that He does not burden a soul beyond its capacity to bear pain. He will keep his promise. The catastrophic attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have raised several questions about Islam and militant Muslims. The chief among them are, why are some Muslims so angry at the US that they would perpetrate such an inhuman act? An even more puzzling question is how could Islam or any religion be a source of motivation or justification for such an act? Before we answer the above questions, I want to thank all those wonderful Americans (specially President Bush) who came out to protect American Muslims, their mosques and their properties from a xenophobic backlash. I congratulate you for displaying such humanity and safeguarding the American way even under such adverse and challenging circumstances. May Allah reward you all and this nation for its restraint. As it is the American Muslim community feels beleagured, ostracized, marginalized and scared; those of you who came out in our support made a big difference. Now I turn to the difficult task of making the events of Sept. 11th intelligible. I need your patience and your understanding to accomplish this. It is important to clarify that in spite of its gross inhumanity, the attack on America is certainly not the most egregious of crimes against humanity. The Spanish inquisition, the holocaust, the genocide in Bosnia, the systematic elimination of the native American population, the ethnic cleansings in Africa, and Cambodia, and even the atrocities against the Bosnians are in sheer number of casualties much bigger crimes. One may also recall that in India nearly 50,000 Sikhs were slaughtered in less than a week as revenge for the assassination of Indira Gandhi in early 1980s. The attack on American is significant because of its spectacular nature, its target – the world's sole superpower – and the fact that a part of it was caught on tape. Why are Muslims Angry at the US? There are several theories being advanced by various commentators explaining why Muslims generally hate the United States. The silliest of them is the one that the Bush administration and the conservative elements in America entertain. They insist that Binladen and other Islamic militants hate America because they hate American values of freedom and democracy. Nothing can be further from the truth. Indeed most Muslims are great admirers of democracy and freedom and insist that these values are not only consistent with Islam but were the bedrock of the glorious Islamic civilization. They point to the diversity, tolerance and harmony at the peak of Islamic civilization to substantiate their claims. As Islamic awareness increases in postcolonial Muslim societies and Islamic activists try to rebuild their civilization they find that the economically motivated alliance between secular authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world and the West, in particular the US, is the biggest barrier to freedom, democracy and self determination. Turkey, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait are just a few examples of states were non-democratic regimes thrive and repress popular movements with US support. In 1953 a CIA coup replaced the democratic government of Muhammad Mossadeq in Iran with a monarchy so that Iran could become a client serving US interests in the Middle East. In Algeria the west financed and legitimized a military coup that prevented Islamists from coming to power after winning an election. In the 1960s, and again in 1990s Turkey forced Islamists out of power, even after they had won popular mandates, with the tacit support from the US. Even now all that American establishment can think of, as an alternate to the Taliban in Afghanistan is the reinstatement of a senile monarch, not the establishment of democracy. The utter lack of peaceful channels for protest and dissent in the entire Arab world has slowly radicalized most moderate Islamic oppositions. The use of brutal force by secular regimes has further incited reactionary violence from Islamic militias. There is also a false notion circulating that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Today nearly 650 million Muslims live in democratic societies. As of now there are two Muslim nations with over a 100 million people that have women heads of state – Indonesia and Bangladesh. The US has not had one in over 220 years! It is not a hatred of democracy and freedom but the desire for one that has made many Muslims hate the US whom they blame for the perpetuation of undemocratic polities in their world. Surely there are some Muslims who argue that democracy like everything Western is UnIslamic and evil. Fortunately such misguided people are few and have very little influence in the Muslim World. Many Muslims also believe that the US is inherently opposed to Islam and Muslims. Binladen for one has claimed that by maintaining troops in Saudi Arabia (to protect the monarchy from any popular revolutions) the US actually occupies the two most important Muslim holy sites, Mecca and Medina. And through Israel, which is seen as an outpost of Western imperialism in the Arab world, the US occupies Jerusalem the third most holy Muslim city. Add to this the systematic destruction of Iraq, the death of over half a million Iraqi children through US sponsored sanctions, and the daily atrocities, assassinations and dispossession of the Palestinians by a US armed and funded Israeli army, it is not difficult to imagine why US is not seen as a beacon of freedom and virtue in the Muslim World. Does this mean that angry Muslims are allowed to perpetrate collateral damages that include over 5000 innocent Americans? Certainly not. The purpose of this article is not to condone what happened on September 11th. What happened was horrible, inhuman and unIslamic. But reflection over Muslim grievances can help us understand how even devout people can be driven to commit themselves to terror. Systematic repression dispossesses people of their humanity, inciting them to commit inhuman acts. Americans must take these grievances seriously and address them in good faith and that, in my opinion, is the best way to fight resentment, anger and the resulting violence. How Can Islam permit/incite terror? Any observer of the Palestinian problem, who does not nurse malice towards Islam, will understand why many Palestinians would resort to suicide bombings against Israel. Surely, if we were to equip them with F-16s and Apache helicopters they would also fight fair and square with Israel. As far as killing of innocent civilians is concerned, the Israeli army kills many times more Palestinian children than the casualties caused by suicide bombers. Those are realities of the region. Islam however, is irrelevant to the Israeli- Palestine violence. Distorted interpretations of Islam are used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a rhetorical instrument for mobilization of resistance and justification of their actions. Islam specifically forbids suicide (Quran 4:29) and the killing of civilians, women and children (Bukhari: Book of Jihad). The important point is that it is not the Islamic belief of Palestinians that leads them to suicide bombing but rather the logic of the circle of violence and the hatred many of them now nurse against their occupiers. Also remember that Japanese pilots in World War II and Tamil Elam Tigers (of Buddhist and Hindu religions) have used suicide bombing more often than Muslims. Long before Hamas emerged, a suicide bomber had assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, India's Prime Minister. Islam, according to Max Weber, Freidrich Nietzsche and Hegel is the most practical, rational and realistic of all religions. It is this realistic element in Islam that does not fully advocate pacifism, permitting the use of force. The theory of Jihad (Struggle in the path of God) forbids violence except when 1) Muslims are not allowed to practice their faith (freedom of religion is threatened) 2) when people are oppressed and subjugated (in pursuit of freedom) and 3) when people's land is forcibly taken from them. Islam allows a range of responses. One can forgive the oppressor or one can respond in kind. There are Quranic sources encouraging both positions. And slay them wherever you find them, and drive them out of the places from where they drove you out, for persecution is worse than killing (2:191). Tell those who disbelieve that if they cease persecution of believers that which is past will be forgiven them (8:38). There is no hierarchy of verses in the Quran. Those who privilege the first verse over the second will wage war to fight injustice. And most militant Muslims invoke this verse in the defense of their actions. But then there are Muslims who privilege the second verse and seek diplomatic end to persecution through forgiveness. The two verses above are exemplary of the tension between realism and idealism in Islam. But in the final analysis Islam is what Muslims make of it. While war in search of justice and to escape persecution is permissible in Islam, what happened on Sept. 11th certainly is not. I wonder how those Muslims responsible for the slaughter of American civilians would rationalize their actions in the light of this Quranic verse: He who has killed one innocent soul, it is as if he has killed all humanity. And he who has saved one soul, is as if he has saved all humanity (Quran 5:32). To my mind there is absolutely no justification and no way of rationalizing what happened on Sept. 11th. I am convinced that Islam does not shape the perpetrators' values and their beliefs. Islam is a religion of peace and I pray that good Muslims (Quran 11:116) will rescue Islam from the clutches of those who use it for their political purposes. Until Americans revisit their foreign policy practices and good Muslims challenge distorted interpretations of Islam consistently we may not come out of the circle of terror and counter-terror. Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Director of International Studies at Adrian College in Michigan. Dr. Khan is on the Board of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. His work is archived at http://www.glocaleye.org. Muqtedar Khan, Ph.D. Director of International Studies, Adrian College, MI Association of Muslim Social Scientists Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy -------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID2228|C HID100546|CIID836768,00.html BreakPoint - A BreakPoint Fact Sheet What is just war theory? The Christian just war theory is a 1600-year-old attempt to answer the questions "When is it permissible to wage war" (jus in bello), and "What are the limitations on the ways we wage war?" (jus ad bellum). Where did just war theory originate? The first Christian thinker to write extensively about the subject was St. Augustine of Hippo. For Augustine, war was a logical extension of the act of governance. And governance itself was, as St. Paul wrote in Romans 13.1-7, ordained by God. This, however, doesn't mean that all wars are morally justifiable. Augustine wrote, "It makes a great difference by which causes and under which authorities men undertake the wars that must be waged." This led him to describe the conditions under which war could be waged justly . What does just war require? For Augustine, the first requirement was proper authority. As he put it, "The natural order, which is suited to the peace of moral things, requires that the authority and deliberation for undertaking war be under the control of a leader." The leader Augustine had in mind was one whom God had entrusted with the responsibility of governance. In his time, this was the emperor. Later, it would be kings and princes. Today, it's our elected leaders hip. These people are answerable to God for the welfare of their states in a way that no private citizen is. Proper authority is not the only requirement. For Augustine, proper cause, the reasons for which we go to war, was as important as who authorized the action. He specifically ruled out as justifications for war such causes as "[t]he desire for harming, the cruelty of revenge, the restless and implacable mind, the savageness of revolting, [and] the lust for dominating." Augustine saw war as a tragic necessity and we should keep in mind his admonition to "[l]et necessity slay the warring foe, not your will." Are there other requirements? Augustine's ideas have been expanded upon over the years. In addition to proper authority and proper cause, Christian just war theory requires that there be a reasonable chance of success. Even if you have a good reason to attack, you cannot simply send young men out to die. Human life is too precious, too sacred to waste. The final requirement is one of proportionality. In waging a war, authorities must make sure that the harm caused by their response to aggression does not exceed the harm caused by the aggression itself. Annihilating the enemy in response to an attack on one of your cities is an example of disproportion. Similarly, proportionality has also come to mean that non-combatants must be shielded from harm. They can never, for any reason whatsoever, be the targets of an attack. The history of modern warfare is characterized by "total warfare," the expansion of targets beyond strictly military ones. That's why, of all the requirements of just war theory, proportionality is the most likely to be violated, even by governments with the most just of causes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-093001justwar.story Catholic Church Debates 'Just War' Religion: Leaders, including the Vatican, give mixed signals about how far a U.S. response should go. By RICHARD BOUDREAUX and TERESA WATANABE, Times Staff Writers ROME -- In the 16 centuries since St. Augustine spelled out the concept of the "just war," the Roman Catholic Church has often assumed the role of its custodian, trying to guide the use of force according to Christian ethics. Last week, as the United States mobilized for war on terrorists, the Vatican weighed in with two distinct voices. Pope John Paul II told an audience of Muslims and Christians in Kazakhstan that the terror attack on America, which has been blamed on Islamic extremists, must not lead to "a deepening of divisions" between the two faiths. "I beg God to keep the world in peace," he added. The next day, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls made it clear that the Vatican would understand if the United States decided to use aggressive means of "self-defense," as long as they were "proportionate to the threat" and did not harm innocent people. He insisted: "The pope is not a pacifist." The bottom line is that the Vatican, which opposed the 1991 Persian Gulf War and criticized the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, appears ready to give its blessing to a limited strike against terrorists. But the mixed signals indicate that Catholic moral debate over such a campaign is only beginning. Some leading cardinals have joined the pope in emphasizing the horrific consequences of war. "It is an extremely serious risk," said Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the archbishop of Milan. "I hope the Americans understand that." Others have stressed the need for some kind of response. "Something has to be done, or else we will all become hostages of these terrorists," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top ecumenical official. Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the U.S. Catholic bishops conference, has told President Bush that the country has "a grave obligation" to defend itself, as long as military action is restrained by "sound moral principles . . . of the just-war tradition." But the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, representing 80,000 nuns in the United States, has urged Congress to work for peace "without resorting to violence." Bush is attuned to this debate, church officials say. His ambassador to the Holy See, former Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson, is reading up on just-war theory, ready to press the administration's case here on moral grounds. Catholic teaching holds that war may be declared if the cause is just, if it is led by a legitimate authority and not guided by revenge, if the results do not produce more evil than the good sought, if it is waged as a last resort, if there is a reasonable chance of success, and if the goal is peace. A war that meets these requirements must, once under way, avoid excessive force, the teaching says, and seek to avoid damage or death to innocent parties. The latter requirement gained force in recent decades with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the church became more reluctant to justify any use of force. It opposed the U.S.-led invasion and bombing of Iraq on the grounds that the possibility of a negotiated Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait had not been exhausted. On Kosovo, the Vatican reacted to Serbian atrocities against ethnic Albanians with a just-war scenario, saying it could support armed police intervention to stop the slaughter. When NATO decided to bomb Serb forces instead, however, the Vatican protested the cost in civilian lives. The Sept. 11 attack confronted the Vatican with a similar horror that cried out for a response. But the Vatican's tentative support for a forceful response could vanish if the United States, in its view, violates the just-war standard. Many Catholic ethicists in the United States agree that these standards are a useful way of judging Bush's campaign. "Without such criteria and their advocacy, the 'fog of war' will lead U.S. actions to emanate from [a] legal and moral carte blanche," George A. Lopez, director of policy studies at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, wrote in the current issue of America, a leading Jesuit magazine. But because this is a war against a hidden enemy, not a state, the just-war standard is under strain. In confronting terrorists, some theologians argue, just cause cannot be limited to repelling aggression but must allow for preemptive military strikes. Others warn that those making such strikes must resist the argument, made by Bush, that nations supporting terrorism must be treated the same way as terrorists. Since the U.S. government has stated that a number of countries support terrorist groups, it could quickly be at war on many fronts. Such a conflict would not have the likelihood of success required by the doctrine, said Father Drew Christiansen, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington. Many Catholic theologians say they could support a surgical strike aimed at capturing Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the terrorist attacks, but not a massive bombing campaign that would cause civilian casualties. Theologians are split on whether just-war principles make it permissible to kill Bin Laden while trying to bring him to justice. Father John Langan, a Georgetown University professor who has advised the U.S. military on the morality of war, said that by their nature wars muddy the doctrine's moral dictates. Pacifists make the same argument to reject war, even when fought for a just cause. Mary Lou Kownacki, a Benedictine nun and co-founder of Pax Christi USA, said that no major armed conflict today could satisfy the just-war tradition's criteria for avoiding civilian deaths. Kownacki supports such nonviolent methods of fighting terrorism as freezing terrorists' bank accounts. Pacifism has grown as a legitimate Catholic position, along with the just-war doctrine, since the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Pacifist thinking was widespread in the Vatican during the Gulf and Kosovo wars. John Paul's repeated appeals for negotiations drew crowds of pacifists to St. Peter's Square for his weekly addresses. They plastered Rome with posters of his warning: "War is an adventure with no return." The pope could again become a rallying point for Catholic pacifists. While denouncing the Sept. 11 attacks as "unspeakable horror," he has urged the United States "not to give in to the temptation of hatred and violence" and made no mention of just-war criteria. Vatican watchers say the pope embraces just-war theory but cannot espouse it publicly without undermining what he feels is a more important goal--cooling religious hatred in the wake of a mass slaughter motived by radical Islam. Moderate Muslim leaders around the world say they would support a just war against terrorism, using Islamic criteria similar to the Catholic standard. But any talk of such a war from the Vatican "could undermine the pope's effort" to ease religious tensions and help justify "another form of terrorism" by U.S.-led forces against Muslim countries, said Din Syamsuddin, head of Indonesia's supreme body of Islamic organizations. "John Paul does not believe that his role is to conduct a review of the criteria for legitimating a just war and then give a pontifical blessing to the use of armed force if those criteria have been met," said George Weigel, author of the papal biography "Witness to Hope." _ _ _ Boudreaux reported from Rome, Watanabe from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Cairo, T. Christian Miller in Cairo and Richard C. Paddock in Jakarta contributed to this report. December 2001
|