Mr. Edwin Weller argues against the final cause, where as Mr. Auster only argues for an instrumental cause. If the final cause is proven false, then the instrumental cause is inconsequential .

And since Mr. Weller once again puts the lie to the final cause, i.e. weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Auster’s argument is made invalid because the instrumental is subservient to the final cause.

And so we must ask, who is the fanatic, or at least the one not using logic to prove his case.

The proof of that question and QED I leave to others.

“And since Mr. Weller once again puts the lie to the final cause, …”

Nobody has done that. Mr. Salzer seems to think it fanatic or at least illogical to celebrate one good result, even if it was not the sole primary justificatory good for the action. Why is that?

On the primary justification it is true as a matter of fact that Hussein has now been definitively prevented from developing nuclear weapons. It is also a fact that he has attempted to develop them in the past. Whether he had an active program to do so on March 27 is an open question in some peoples’ minds, and those who are concerned about that question will need to wait for a definitive result.

Some interesting color from the chief news executive at CNN on that secondary good that it is, in the view of some, fanatic or at least illogical to celebrate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html

Matt is right, we do have to wait, but the longer the “coalition” has to inspect, the more suspicious I get. Mr. Auster will consider that unpatriotic, but the fact is that the “coalition” used plagarized “evidence” to support this war, has mislead the American people into thinking Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, and put out misinformation even during the main phase of the war.

I thought it only decent that the prowar people get to enjoy the potrayal of “jubiliation” a few days ago. Now reality sets in. BBC is reporting that shops and hospitals have been looted. More Marines die in firefights and suicide bombings. More civilians are shot at checkpoints, an shia Imam is killed in the chaos of Najaf. These were the real fears of the antiwar right . Winning is losing, we are in a place we have no business being, and our presence ultimately bring harm to us. For me, none of the jubilation/looting was worth the lives of the 100 Americans who have died to “liberate” Iraq.

And let’s compare a real liberation, the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe, to this one. I don’t recall any looting in Germany. In fact, I remember orderely lines of East Germans passing over to the West, receiving 100 marks to spend, and then *returning to their jobs in the East the very next day*. The Stasi HQ was not ransacked — it was investigated in a methodical fashion.

The Germans deserved their liberation precisely because they brought it about themselves. The same holds for the rest of Eastern Europe. I find it almost sacreligious to compare the situation in Iraq to the great events of 1989.

The cause of war advocated by the US government was that Saddam both posses and would in the future use weapons of mass destruction.

Whether he posses them or not, it has been established that he will not use them. Since he has not used them when he is in the dire circumstance of self defense of his life.

He has not used them for one of two reasons: he does not posses them, or he does posses them but will not use them. In ether case, the final cause for the war by the US government has been established to have been invalid.

It takes a great leap of faith to still hold that he would have used them in a future aggressive manner when he has not used them in the dire straights of self defense of his own life.

Mr. Young’s argument concerns another necessary requirement for just war, that of not causing greater harm. The future good or ill affects of the war in this regard are still contingent and in the future, and we shall have to wait for the fruits of this war to come to bare.

And in this same light of not causing greater harm, since the final cause for this war was to prevent Iraq, and Saddam in particular, from using weapons of mass destruction, and since it quite clear that he cannot or will not use them, it cannot be reasonably argued that bombing and invading Iraq caused less harm than Iraq’s established non-propensity to use weapons of mass destruction.

Whether the removal of Saddam causes a future good for Iraq and for America in other manners than the given reason for war is yet to be seen since it is still contingent, but the US government’s given reason for, i.e. the final cause for, this war is quickly ceasing to be contingent and is quickly proving to be invalid.

Remember the first Sunday of the war (Day 4, I believe)when the coaliton suffered what appeared to be their first setbacks. The word quagmire came to the surface of the liberal/corporate media faster than one could say Vietnam. This all sounds similar. We are at Day 2 of liberation and already the doubters are saying “Where are the WMDs?” Remember, the people who know where they are have to feel safe before they come forward. And I would think that the liberation of the children’s prison would have been justification in spades for this war. It is interesting that Scott Ritter, who saw this prison in 1998, chose to keep quiet about it for these past five years (see Time this week). I wonder if he sleeps well at night?

I don’t understand Mr. Salzer’s issue. Lets suppose for a moment that the calculus went as follows:

1) Saddam has definitely in the past attempted to produce nuclear weapons.

2) Saddam has definitely in the past played a cat and mouse game with his weapons and was definitely continuing to do so rather than opening the kimono.

3) Bringing down Saddam was a good, humanitarian thing to do in itself for a variety of moral reasons (one of which is discussed in Mr. Auster’s posting). That is, bringing down Saddam solely for the sake of saving the Iraqi people from a reign of terror would itself be a morally just (not the same as politically prudent) thing to do.

4) Our failure to bring down Saddam in 1991 is an explicit reason that Osama bin Laden gave, in his speeches, for believing that we can be attacked with impunity. He confirmed his suspician of our weakness in Somalia and went on to perpetrate the 9-11 attacks. The Iraqis studied the movie “Black Hawk Down” to develop tactics against us that supposedly hinge upon our unwillingness to fight on the ground. (As an aside, going in with a fast ground assault was a brilliant piece of military tactics for precisely this reason — the 3rd ID and the 1st MEF were not the sort of Americans the Arab world thought it had declared Jihad against).

Whether or not there is some actual “smoking gun” found for some current Iraqi nuclear program seems irrelevant to me in determining the morality of the war. The conditions — or at least some specific foreign policy conditions — that led directly to 9-11 are being reversed, and in the process a horrific mass torturer-murderer has been deposed.

It seems to me that Mr. Salzer may be worried that the war will be found just in retrospect even if no WMD “smoking gun” emerges from the following reports and/or new evidence:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-ijaz041003.asp

It seems to me that Mr. Salzer is right to worry about that if he is so against the war that nothing will convince him that it was, in retrospect, just. Otherwise it seems better to wait and see, even if one has reasonable doubts about facts and criteria.

Incidentally, a war fought for purely humanitarian reasons may or may not be imprudent; but if it turns out in retrospect that the only successful result was the massive humanitarian one, and that other more selfish purposes were not achieved, would that make the war less just? Is a war just in retrospect only if all premeses prove true and all objectives — not merely the humanitarian ones but the self-interested ones too — are achieved? I don’t remember that caveat from Acquinas.

Furthermore (to anticipate an objection) I don’t recall, in just war theory, a requirement for all possible just wars to be fought. There may be other, purely humanitarian, potential just wars out there that do not result in the (already manifest) prophylactic effect of this one on the Arab world in general and Islamofascist terrorists in particular. The existence of those potential just wars, and a decision not to fight them, does not ipso facto mean that this particular war was unjust.

Auster and Matt already seem to have forgotten why we went to war against Iraq. Perhaps this is not too suprising since the “real” reason for going to war was most likely pure agitprop to whip up hysteria among the public and provide a fig leaf of legitimacy — “we have a right to defend ourselves.”

On numerous occasions Bush would say that if “Saddam refuses to disarm the United States will lead a coalition of the willing and disarm him.” Make a note that Bush did not say that if “Saddam refuses to grant free elections, stop torturing political dissidents, and expose his country to the liberating pull of free-markets, we will lead a coaltion of the willing and free the Iraqi people.” Not only would such a foreign policy be a direct violation of international law, Catholic teachings, and be politically unpopular, but would embark American’s on costly adventures all over the globe, toppling regimes we don’t like, busting our budget, and force us into an entirely new trajectory of permanent war — a bloodlusting neo-con dream come true.

Of course Bush and his fellow bloodlusting neo-conservatives like to soak their rhetoric in “freedom,” “democracy,” and “liberation”, but these were never their ambitions. While I have no desire to rehash the leading actors who were responsible for driving America into war, suffice to say that PNAC (Project for the New American Century), Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle — longtime advocates of toppling Hussein — were not driven by sympathey toward the Iraqi people suffering under Hussein’ regime. Their military objectives were not humanitarian, but realpolitik. Since the Soviet Union had fallen from the scene, it was imperative that the United States take the initiave and be the world’s only superpower and make sure that other countries never rise to challenge us. If neo-cons get their way this war will not stop at Iraq.

Now, it is possible that Saddam might have some “WMD” stashed away somewhere. But is this a reason to go to war? After all, Pakistan has nuclear weapons and where do you think the Taliban came from? So this war was not driven by anything substantial, but far-out conjectures: maybe Saddam does have weapons of mass destruction, and maybe if he does, he might hand them off to terrorists at some point, who (maybe) will use them against the United States. The United States damaged its relationship with France, Germany, and Russia, stoked the ire of the world by acting unilaterally, spent billions of dollars, and killed thousands of Iraqis for what? A stockpile of conjectures and “maybes.”

The fact that Saddam’s army so easily imploded and the fact that no WMD were used against the United States disproves in itself the neoconservative argument. As we all can see, Saddam’s army was never a threat to its neighbors, and if he does have WMD and chose not to use them while his regime was coming to a close, what incentive would he have to use them if we were on good diplomatic terms with his country? Of course, the neoconservatives running the Bush Administration would rather see a million people die for nothing than something as banal as good diplomacy hamper their imperialistic ambitions. A sad day for America indeed.

Hussein was a megalomaniac. He lacked scruples. He murdered his son-in-law. He regularly tortured and murdered on a large scale (which people do because they LIKE it). Twelve years ago he tried to use a nuclear reactor to produce fuel for nuclear weapons. He tried to build conventional super-cannons to bomb nonthreatening Israeli civilians. He recently compensated the families of Palestinian suicide bombers for murdering Israelis. He gassed to death Iranians and his minority citizens. He tried to murder an American President. He met with leaders of fanatics that were responsible for 911. He trained terrorists aimed at the U.S. He refused to comply with the terms (Pyrric to the U.S.) of the generous Gulf War Treaty. He did not value the lives of his poor soldiers in the ever certain and ongoing rout. In short, he was a menace to every human being on earth. George Bush and most Americans recognized this, and Mr. Bush, an American president, did his job.

Mr. Bush’s actions were a no-brainer in the short term. In the long view of history, only time will tell. Sure many of us disagree hotly with Mr. Bush’s status-quoism and anti-white attitude. His election might be the definitive turning point in American history, when two centuries of American culture were lost. But we must hang on to reality, live in the here and now. Hussein’s departure is welcome and justified.

Well said, Mr. Murgos.

Mr. Weller writes:
“Make a note that Bush did not say that if “Saddam refuses to grant free elections, stop torturing political dissidents, and expose his country to the liberating pull of free-markets, we will lead a coaltion of the willing and free the Iraqi people.””

I don’t remember Bush putting it that way, but I remember numerous times when “he has gassed his own people,” “he tortures his own people,” etc were asserted as a component of the justification. I addressed that specifically in my comment. To the Wellers of the world no actual facts about this war can force a conclusion that it was just, though: Mr. Weller makes a point of saying that even if/when WMD’s are found that discovery will not make him change his anti-war stance. Like many anti-war extremists Mr. Weller cannot be moved by the facts, because his opposition to the war is not a matter of making a prudential judgement as to whether or not it was just. Rather, it is a matter of unprincipled knee-jerk opposition to anything neocon; a reaction that ironically abdicates “conservative” legitimacy, leaving representation of legitimate “conservative” thought to the neocons. This is the paleo ideological equivalent of an unsuccessful suicide bombing.

A compliment from Matt is high praise indeed.

EW wrote: “The fact that Saddam’s army so easily imploded and the fact that no WMD were used against the United States disproves in itself the neoconservative argument. As we all can see, Saddam’s army was never a threat to its neighbors, and if he does have WMD and chose not to use them while his regime was coming to a close, what incentive would he have to use them if we were on good diplomatic terms with his country? Of course, the neoconservatives running the Bush Administration would rather see a million people die for nothing than something as banal as good diplomacy hamper their imperialistic ambitions. A sad day for America indeed.”

Your standards of proof when it comes to the motivations of George Bush seem suprisingly loose and malleable when compared with the rigid, inflexible standard you apply to just war theory. It does not by any means follow necessarily from the failure of Saddam’s regime to use WMD’s against our troops that they therefore didn’t/don’t possess them. Indeed, what is far more likely is that Bush’s threat to meet the use of WMD’s with nuclear retaliation, or (more likely, in my opinion) to bring those responsible for the employment of such weapons up on war crimes charges after the war under the all but certain penalty of death, is responsible. Moreover, it’s extremely likely that even if Saddam himself wanted to deploy such weapons against us, he lacked the ability after the first stages of our campaign against him to do so. It’s well known that Iraqi units fighting in the field were doing so leaderless, as communication and command and control ability had been effectively removed from the Iraqi side. In fact, it’s very plausible to imagine that Saddam may have in fact given such orders, but that they never reached the troops for any of a variety of reasons. We can’t know at this juncture, of course, what exactly happened, but the point is that there are other reasonable explanations for the Iraqis’ failure to deploy WMD’s against us than your dogmatic assertion that they didn’t/don’t possess them.

In addition, the anti-war side keeps droning on and on about “imperialism,” yet there is no proof whatsoever to substantiate such a charge. Especially in recent days, Bush and Blair have gone out of their way to insist that Iraq will be returned to the Iraqis and will be governed by a leadership chosen by the Iraqis. And if words are not enough, there is the plain fact that we have made no move to install any kind of leadership at all over there, even in the face of widespread anarchy and looting. If our motivation really were conquest as you claim, it seems to me we’d want to clamp down on such things as quickly as possible and keep a populace already long-accustomed to domination in that same subservient frame of mind.

If the caricature of Saddam created by the neoconservatives is true..
— Why did the Reagan Administration remove Iraq from the list of states that sponsor terrorism in 1982?
—Why did the Reagan Administration permit the Commerce Department to authorize weapons transfers to Iraq, which included the bubonic plague and anthrax?
—Why did the Reagan Administration allow Iraq to use US intelligence and logistics to enhance their chances of winning the war against Iran?
—Why did the Reagan Administration issue National Security Directive 114 that stated, “do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran?”
—Why did the Reagan Administraion send Donald Rumsfeld as a personal envoy to Iraq in 1983 with the hopes of resuming full diplomatic relations with them? Why did they not care that Iraq was using chemical weapons on a daily basis against the Iranians?

This is just a sample of our past relationship with Saddam, and during the Iran-Iraq his country was at its strongest, but after after 12 years of sanctions, poor morale among the Iraqi soldiers, and UN Weapons Inspectors, Iraq is at its weakest. So why is Iraq all of a sudden a grave threat to the United States when it is at its weakest? Does that make any sense to you?

When Bush and the other neoconservatives claim that Saddam “gassed his own people,” this is not a rationale for war in itself; it is Bush’s attempt to try and make the case that if Saddam is willing to gas his own people, then surely he will be willing to gas Americans as well. However, the refrain that Saddam “gassed his own people,” is just as slippery and slick as the rest of the neoconservative agitprop.

Saddam gassed the Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988 because they had formed a loose association with the Iranians. The Kurds actually do not see themselves as Iraqis and wish for an independent state spanning through several Arab countries. So the Kurds are not really Iraqis. For instance, does it make any sense to say that “Turks kill their own people,” when they kill Kurds? Does it make any sense to say that “Russians are killing their own people,” when they are slaughtering Chechnyans? Did we say that the Serbs were “killing their own people,” when they were fighting Albanian Kosovars?

I could go on, but the list of lies, deceptions, sophistry, and calumny that neoconservatives have spewed against Saddam is just a propaganda effort to reduce him to a simplistic caricature of pure evil, so that the pictures of US tanks rolling into Baghdad will be seen by Americans as defenders of freedom rather than the ugly face of empire. Sad,

“has mislead the American people into thinking Iraq had anything to do with 9/11”

911 was carried out by 19 Arabs following a fanatic anti-American ideology and promoting assymetric terrorism against America, Christians and Jews. Saddams regime was an Arab National Socialist state promoting state terrorism, firstly against it’s own people, and secondly, through proxies, against America and Israel. The war we are now in is not a war solely against Al-Qaeda. It is not a war solely against those responsible for 911. It is a war against any and all forms of Islamic/Arab terrorism. That includes the fallen Iraqi regime. It should also include Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and their proxies, Hisbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It is foolish in the extreme to believe that only targeting the specific people responsible for 911 is going to end Arab/Islamic terror against our nation and our allies.

“I could go on, but the list of lies, deceptions, sophistry, and calumny that neoconservatives have spewed against Saddam is just a propaganda effort to reduce him to a simplistic caricature of pure evil,”

The man had children tortured and raped in front of their own parents in special childrens prisons. If that is not pure evil plain and simple, then nothing is. Of course the paleoconservatives would not recognise evil anymore. They have thrown morality out the door, along with courage, patriotism, and rational thought. Instead, along with their far left fellow travellers, they have adopted European anti-Americanism, postmodern moral equivalence, anti-Jewish hatred and conspiracy theories, and spineless cowardice in the face of an enemy sworn to our utter destruction. Now that is sad.

To Matt’s defense of the war, I answer that:
2309 “The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;”

This condition was flat out never met. Period. Further, the justification for war must be met PRIOR to war, not after. The US never argued that the justification for war was liberation of Iraq, it argued self defense against weapons of mass destruction. That is the stated reason for the war, and that is the argument and merit on which this war must be judged.

There may not be many in the US capable of such rigorous consideration, but that does not lift the burden. Let it be that “the evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good;” but surely no one would ever imagine Bush capable of such capacity beyond his simple holding of the responsibility.

Mere speculation and hypothetical is not the same as rigorous consideration offering proof of aggression that is lasting, grave and certain. The proof proffered by the US never went beyond hypothetical speculation, and was certainly never proof of lasting, grave or certain aggression. Further, the only shreds of proof offered as justification by the US were easily dismissed because they were without exception weak, transparent, and amateurish.

This above complete failure by the US government to put forth a coherent argument for war with proof of lasting, grave and certain proof of aggression was and is alone is sufficient to condemn the war in Iraq as being without merit.

My argument that Saddam and Iraq did not use weapons of mass destruction at any time during the war against Americans simply adds to argument that Iraq was never certain of committing unjust aggression against the US.

Contrary to Matt’s assertion, let alone a worry of mine, I have never argued that simple possession of weapons of mas destruction by Iraq is sufficient in its self to justify war. If so, every country on earth would be subject to war because of simple possession. Every sovereign nation on earth has the right to self defense, not withstanding the use of weapons of mass destruction because of the Church’s condemnation, and Iraq has this right no less than the US. Thus, I have never seen the enforcement of Iraq’s unilateral disarmament as legitimate. Especially given that Iraq faces hostile neighboring nations on all sides, and to give up legitimate means of self defense would be the unreasonable expectation of Iraq to commit virtual national suicide.

The expectation that Iraq give up weapons of mass destruction is on par with the same expectation of the US. The US has used and been party to the use of such WMD to a much greater degree and with much greater harm to the noncombatants than Iraq. Those who would deny this quid pro quo fall into the category of “an unthinking adherence to the doctrine of American exceptionalism, the view that the U.S. is somehow exempt from judgment and constraint by the teaching of the Church because it is in some morally significant sense a nation like no other. Extremist American exceptionalists think that everything the U.S. does and advocates is good, that this should be obvious to all, and that it permits——perhaps even requires——abrogation of the teaching of the Church about war. American exceptionalists are often puzzled by the fact that not everyone acknowledges the obvious goodness of the U.S., and this is worth noting because the use of tropes of obviousness and self––evidence in the political discourse of the U.S. from the founding until now is an essential ingredient to American exceptionalism in both its left and right versions. For the true––blue Catholic American exceptionalist, then, American wars are always good ones, and the burden of proof is thus shifted to those who would object to any one of them. But American exceptionalism is idolatry——whether in its right––Catholic version (America is always right) or in its left––Catholic version (America is always wrong)——and therefore a sin.”

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0204/articles/justwar.html

Whether weapons of mass destruction are ever found in Iraq means little to me since I never considered possession of them as sufficient in themselves, the treaty with the UN (there is none with the US) not withstanding. But if the WMD are not found, it will certainly condemn the US even further.

But I am, ( as with all who oppose the US aggression against Iraq ), in no regard responsible to prove the US war against Iraq is unjust and without merit. The rigorous burden of proof to justify war is solely on the heads of the US government and those who support war. And thus far they have never offered more that speculation.

I think it is obvious from Shawn’s last two posts just who has lost the capacity for rational thought. But let’s examine his statements.

He claims that fanatical Arabs carried out 9/11, that these Arabs are engaged in a war against Christians and Jews, and therefore we must attack Iran, Pakistan, etc etc. Iraq, of course, was first on the list because it promoted “state terrorism” and was an Arab Nationalist Socialist regime. Where to start with this nonsense?

“Arab” of course is an ethnic/linguistic category. The 9/11 attackers were Islamic fanatics, true. They were not Arabist fanatics. I bet one could read through the entire corpus of bin Laden without coming across a reference to Arab glory, unless it was associated with the greatness of Islam. It must be quite difficult for the large number of Arab Christians — like Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO or Tariq Azeez of Sadaam’s regime — to engage in a murderous war against themselves. Indeed, from what I have read, the Ba’athist party was started by Arab Christians . They must really be self-hating semites.

Now let’s look at the countries that Shawn wants to attack. Iran and Pakistan are of course not even Arab. Nor are the Taliban. I know all them ragheads look alike, Shawn, but please, they really get upset when you confuse them for an ethnic group they don’t particularly like.

So who are we at war with, Shawn? Is it Christian Arab “National Socialists”, or Indo-Aryan Islamicists, or Islamic Arabs, or Indo-Aryan Christians or what? Really Shawn, turn off Fox News and try reading a few background articles on the Middle East.

Or perhaps Shawn is addicted to the propaganda coming out of Fox. There is probably a twelve step program or something, Shawn, don’t lose heart. Maybe they even treat people who like being lied to by their own government.

Mr. Salzer quotes the catechism: “the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.”

The damage Saddam Hussein inflicted upon his own nation and the middle east, and therefore the community of nations, was clearly lasting (30 years), grave (hundreds of thousands tortured and killed), and certain. Bringing it to an end was manifestly just. Mr. Young has latched onto the argument that the justice of this war is predicated on our willingness to fight all possible just wars; again, I don’t remember that from Acquinas.

Mr. Salzer:
“Extremist American exceptionalists think that everything the U.S. does and advocates is good, that this should be obvious to all, and that it permits——perhaps even requires——abrogation of the teaching of the Church about war.”

That may be true, but Mr. Salzer implies that I am an extremist American exceptionalist. I am not, as my posting record on VFR demonstrates clearly. Therefore his arguments against my comments here are straw men.

Matt writes: “Mr. Young has latched onto the argument that the justice of this war is predicated on our willingness to fight all possible just wars; again, I don’t remember that from Aquinas.”

This is a further example of how the antiwar right, in their rebellion against rationality, has adopted left-liberal thought forms. In order to deny the morality of any actual act of which they disapprove, liberals commonly appeal to some impossible, utopian standard of justice. Thus one of their most common arguments is to say that a conservative’s claim for the morality of a particular course of action is “hypocritical” because the conservative is not battling all injustice and inequality everywhere, which is of course impossible. Since any practical assertion of morality is hypocritical, it follows that the only way to avoid being hypocritical is to drop the very idea of morality and simply adopt the ever-changing whims of liberals as one’s standard.

In the same way, the antiwar right and left say that unless one is fighting all tyranny everywhere, to oppose some particular tyranny is hypocritical. Which leads to the conclusion that one should not fight tyranny anywhere.

I will repeat for Matt’s benefit:
The justification for war must be met PRIOR to war, not after. The US never argued that the justification for war was liberation of Iraq, it argued self defense against weapons of mass destruction. That is the stated reason for the war, and that is the argument and merit on which this war must be judged.

Matt choses to ignore the US government’s central arguement for war with Iraq, and instead shifts to a different argument which was not offered by the US government prior to the war.

This is not a proper argument for war because it is NOT PRIOR to war. The burden of proof must come prior to war and thus the reason for war cannot shift post war. Matt substitutes a pre-war instrumental cause into a post war final cause. But men act for an end, they never act for an instrumental cause. And thus his argument is logical nonsense.

Mr. Salzer writes:
“The justification for war must be met PRIOR to war, not after. The US never argued that the justification for war was liberation of Iraq,…”

This is simply false. The tyranny of Saddam Hussein over Iraqis was always ONE of the moral justifications given for the war. How many times did we hear about him “gassing his own people”, that is, murdering with chemical weapons people who were under his custodial care as head of state? Mr. Young tries to play the liberal category game, denying that “their own people” has a clear meaning, as if governing jurisdiction and the responsibility that comes with it were not clear as crystal in all the cases he mentions. He even goes so far as to play the race card against Shawn just like a leftist, i.e. “I know all them ragheads look alike, Shawn,…”

Mr. Auster’s thesis that the antiwar right thinks just like a pack of leftists has really proven out in discussions on VFR.

The fundamental disconnect seems to be as follows: in objective fact, ending Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror *in itself* justifies the war morally under just war theory. The US entered the war for that reason AND for other (more self interested) reasons.

Mr. Salzer seems to think that in order for the war to be viewed as just ALL reasons given prior to the war must prove out unequivocally (which still may occur). That isn’t how rationality works, though: sufficient justification is sufficient justification.

Indeed, in actual fact Mr. Salzer has made it clear that he won’t be satisfied even if ALL reasons given prior to the war prove to be unequivocally true. That is, Mr. Salzer has no interest in applying facts, just war theory, or rationality to DETERMINE the morality of the war. Rather, he has a priori decided that the war is unjust and, despite the manifest justice of freeing children from torture chambers, he will make any unprincipled argument possible to attempt to undermine the manifest justice of the war.

Now underneath all that are some legitimate concerns. If the US stays as an occupying force for years and steals Iraqi oil then the worries about empire will be validated. Despite Mr. Salzer’s objections to ex post facto deontological analysis it is possible (though unlikely) that this could be viewed in the future as a war of occupation and looting rather than a war that ended a reign of terror and had prophylactic effects against Islamofascist terrorism. When we do something moral we can transform it by later acts into something immoral — a man who adopts and raises an orphan girl with charitable intent can later ruin the morality of that act by raping her and using her for a personal sex toy. So what the US does next, and what facts surface, DO matter in evaluating the justice of the war, despite Mr. Salzer’s simplistic reading of JWT. Mr. Salzer acknowledges as much by asserting that whether or not WMD’s surface has an effect on just how evil this war, in his opinion, was.

As distasteful as it is, in the interests of public health, I’m going to take a few moments to clean up the mess that Mr. Weller’s arguments have left on the pages of VFR.

He writes:

“On numerous occasions Bush would say that if ‘Saddam refuses to disarm the United States will lead a coalition of the willing and disarm him.’ Make a note that Bush did not say that if ‘Saddam refuses to grant free elections, stop torturing political dissidents, and expose his country to the liberating pull of free-markets, we will lead a coaltion of the willing and free the Iraqi people.’”

But whoever claimed differently? The casus belli was the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The reason the WMDs were uniquely dangerous IN THIS CASE was the well-demonstrated tyrannical and cruel nature of the Hussein regime. A regime that had behaved the way it had in the past against its own population could not be counted on not to behave the same way toward other countries, and so could not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. That’s why the elimination of the weapons and the elimination of the tyranny became, quite logically, complementary aspects of one argument. There is no hypocrisy or indirection here. Furthermore, given the fact that we were planning to overthrow that regime, it became our responsibility to help Iraq replace it. A representative, non-tyrannical government would be both more decent to its own people and less dangerous to the outside world.

Thus the argument about weapons, and the argument about tyranny, are parts of one argument. But for Mr. Weller and his fellows on the antiwar right, if Bush used more than one argument for the war, or if he emphasized different points at different times in a debate that LASTED AN ENTIRE YEAR, that in itself is proof of hypocrisy and bad faith.

(Also, the fact that the neoconservatives are wrong in their utopian beliefs in democratization does not mean they were wrong on the need to topple Hussein. The two issues need to be kept distinct.)

Mr. Weller continues:

“Of course Bush and his fellow bloodlusting neo-conservatives like to soak their rhetoric in ‘freedom,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘liberation’, but these were never their ambitions. While I have no desire to rehash the leading actors who were responsible for driving America into war, suffice to say that PNAC (Project for the New American Century), Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle — longtime advocates of toppling Hussein — were not driven by sympathey toward the Iraqi people suffering under Hussein’ regime. Their military objectives were not humanitarian, but realpolitik.”

First, Mr. Weller’s disgusting rhetoric, so typical of the antiwar right (“Bush and his fellow bloodlusting neo-conservatives”) ignores the fact the adminstration and a large majority of the American people support this war not for “bloodlust” but for self defense. It becomes apparent that when Mr. Weller watches television and sees Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Myers, Franks and Brooks, as well as our great military men in Iraq, he does not see fine, intelligent responsible people carrying out a difficult and necessary task in a magnificent way; he sees “blood-lust.” A person who sees and characterizes his fellow Americans in such a manner is not a good person acting on good motives, but an America-hater.

Second, there is Mr. Weller’s false dichotomy between good (and utopian) “humanitarianism” and bad “realpolitik,” a dichotomy that would make rational and moral action in the world impossible.

The initial motive for overthrowing Hussein was not some desire for world dominance, as Mr. Weller would have it, but the fact that Wolfowitz and his collegues (not to mention millions of Americans) were horrified when the first President Bush abortively stopped the Gulf War and then allowed Hussein to slaughter the Shi’ites and Kurds. Wolfowitz and others had perfectly rational reasons for saying that the only way to resolve the ongoing problem of Hussein and the threat of WMDs was to remove Hussein. The subsequent decade of ever weakening sanctions and inspections only proved the wisdom of that point.

Mr. Weller continues:

“Now, it is possible that Saddam might have some ‘WMD’ stashed away somewhere. But is this a reason to go to war?”

Let us underscore the point that Mr. Weller believes we should have knowingly allowed Hussein to develop nuclear weapons.

He continues:

“The fact that Saddam’s army so easily imploded and the fact that no WMD were used against the United States disproves in itself the neoconservative argument.”

France could have easily toppled Hitler in 1937 when he moved into the Rhineland. Had Mr. Weller been around then, he would have said: “The fact that Hitler’s army so easily imploded disproves in itself the Churchillian argument that Hitler is a threat.”

This is the kind of dishonest argument that is used by people (usually liberals) who want to deny that any external threats exist in the real world and that something needs to be done about them. For example, immigration advocates say that America’s great success with assimilation in the 20th century disproves the idea that immigration needs to be restricted—ignoring the fact that the assimilation largely occurred because immigration was largely stopped for 45 years. Or liberals say that the recent drop in violent crime disproves the argument for incarceration—ignoring the fact that it’s the incarceration that has led to the reduction in crime. In the same way, now that the Hussein regime has been destroyed, Mr. Weller uses the fact of that destruction to suggest that the regime was never a threat in the first place.

Further, he ignores the phenomenal resources and efforts and human skill and qualities of character and training that were needed to achieve that destruction. But now that the destruciton has been accomplished, as the culmination of a vast political and military effort extending over a year, he acts as though the very fact of its being accomplished means that it was easy to do.

He continues:

“Of course, the neoconservatives running the Bush Administration would rather see a million people die for nothing than something as banal as good diplomacy hamper their imperialistic ambitions.”

The absurdity and viciousness of this comment speaks for itself.

Mr. Auster’s post is nicely complementary to mine. Note that in the aspect of justification Mr. Auster focuses on the political justification and objectives of the war, whereas my posts focus on whether or not the war was *morally* just. Mr. Auster is right of course that the political reasons are a combination of the nature of Hussein’s regime and the WMD/terrorism threat. I would emphasise that pragmatically assessing the degree of success or failure in the practical aims will take quite some time, though clearly Hussein has now been prevented from developing nuclear weapons.

My focus here has not been assessing the pragmatic aims and results, i.e. whether or not the war has achieved its political objectives. Morally the reasons are more seperable and the situation is more clear. I think that terrifies paleos because it is like a moral weapon in the hands of neocons. That would be less the case if the bulk of the paleos hadn’t committed intellectual suicide in the past year and a half.

Matt do you know what the difference between an instrumental cause and a final cause?

Matt and Mr. Auster have covered this, for the most part, but here goes:

In re Salzer. Wow, I disagree completely with your view of the “grave danger” element of Just War Theory as applied to Saddam and Iraq. I thought it the easiest and most certainly proved.

To explain, I took the phrase “community of nations” to imply that the grave danger need not be posed or directed at one’s own, or any, particular nation. From a speech given last fall at a Catholic social/theology club, I heard the perhaps too attractive explanation that the “community of nations” phrase can justify the use of arms even against a tyrant who threatens none but those living under his power. In effect, I understand that nation A can justifiable use military force in lawful, legitimate self-defense of the innocents (think children) of nation B, regardless of whether nation B posed any threat, grave, incidental, or otherwise, to anyone else either in nation A or other nations.

I realize there is a problem with that interpretation, namely, the section just before it, 2308, where the Catechism states, in part: “However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”” http://www.catholicreality.com/cc/ccc_2302-2317_war.shtml

“Self-defense” would seem to imply defense of self, i.e. that nation A can only justifiably defend itself, nation A, and cannot justify the use of force in defense of nation B’s children, or C’s women, or others.

I take it you would agree with such a, shall we say, strict interpretation. Thus it is your position that Saddam and Iraq posed no grave danger to the US, or at least that such an allegation was not proven to you to your satisfaction, and that, therefore, Just War Theory cannot be invoked to excuse the deaths our military has caused. Fair enough. I’ll leave the Saddam to terrorists to terrorist acts to US dead nexus argument for others (including the hoped for prudence of the legitimate authorities of the US). What I want to pursue with this post is the idea that the phrase “community of nations” should be given some meaning.

Indeed, if the Catechism, a committee created statute book of sorts, uses a phrase, then we should presume the phrase has meaning. In context [“the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations”], the phrase must be interpreted to broaden the definition of self-defense from the strict, nation A can only use force in defense of nation A. The phrase is not used on its own, but as an alternative conjunction to the singular “nation”. Therefore it implies a broader interpretation of what may be considered a grave danger than merely dangers posed, aimed or directed at, in my example, the single nation “A”.

Let us draw examples. A declaration of war followed by a full-scale invasion would, of course, constitute a grave danger to the invaded nation. E.g. Poland to Germany in 1939. That would be an easy case. Further along the scale into difficulty would be aid to a sworn ally. Britain to Germany for Poland in 1939. Still further would be aid to a neutral, a mere business partner. The US to Iraq in Gulf I for Kuwait. Seemingly more difficult, and I will argue, deceptively so with regard to the grave danger element, are situations where a nation poses grave danger to its own. Think Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao. (What a century, huh?)

It is my position that those last situations are not really difficult cases with regard to the grave danger element of Just War Theory. In fact, it is not, or was not, difficult to know whether those tyrants posed a grave danger to the community of nations. They did. No, those were hard cases because of doubts as to the other elements, such as e.g. whether ordering Patton to keep going and rout the Red Army would have produced “evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated” or whether such a use of military force had a “serious prospect of success.”

Or, to put it another way, would having a thug and his family of bullies on your block constitute a grave danger to your community of families or not? I submit it would. I submit resolving debate with regard to the danger element of Just War theory would take the least amount of time.

Thus, given that Saddam, as all acknowledge, “inflicted” damage upon innocents within his power, and given that this damage was “lasting” and “grave,” —in that it was murder, torture, rape, etc.— and it was “certain” —in that it seemed both beyond a reasonable doubt to have occurred in the past, and almost certain to occur again in the future (his sons, groomed and likely to take over upon his death, were, by seemingly reliable accounts, at least as depraved as Saddam if not more so), Saddam, his reqime, the government of Iraq and the nation of Iraq as a whole —even without considering their influence, if any, beyond their borders, constituted a grave danger of aggression to the community of nations.

See above posts and other accounts. Do you doubt the stories of rape and torture? Is that not aggression? Is that not damaging to the community? It at least raises the question, the focus of other elements, of, “Do we have to live with this?”

Further to Matt,
I did not assert that you are an American exceptionalist, but directed the argument at any to whom it might apply. In the same regard please refrain from making unknown and directed assertions at me. To whit:
“Indeed, in actual fact Mr. Salzer has made it clear that he won’’t be satisfied even if ALL reasons given prior to the war prove to be unequivocally true.”

You do not have the knowledge to make this assertion, besides its being false.

Mr. Salzer asks:
“Matt do you know what the difference between an instrumental cause and a final cause?”

I know of numerous interpretations that numerous philosophers have given to efficient and final causes, but I have no idea what point Mr. Salzer intends by bringing them up. In this thread I have not been discussing efficient and final causes of physical events, but political and moral justifications for war.

Mr. Salzer writes:
“You do not have the knowledge to make this assertion,…”

I was referring specifically to the question of WMD’s assuming that all others have been resolved. Mr. Salzer has specifically said that if WMD’s are found the war was still unjust.

Mr. Collins: I think that intellectually desperate anti-war types tend to latch onto the grave danger criteria because it is even more difficult to argue against the other criteria, e.g. chances of success, limitation of damage to necessary damage, proportionality, etc. The postmortem on the war is that the “just war” argument against is untenable; that is why paleos are now conflating political objectives with just war moral criteria. There isn’t anywhere else to go.

Auster and others critical of the anti-war right demonstrate a troubling inability to see through the rhetorical haze of the neo-conservatives and their imperialistic agenda. In a post 9-11 America it is easy to understand why most Americans — who lack information on the dynamics of power in Washington — will readily accede to Bush’s goal of invading Iraq, and possibly other Middle Eastern states. However, such ignorance is indefensible among literate bloggers, like Auster, who are familiar with neo-conservatives and their perfidious anti-American ideology.

In no way I am suggesting that our troops or the working Americans who support them are bloodlusters, but I think that is an apt description of the elite neocons who planned, devised, and carried out this war. Following our moderate success in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden began to fade from view, and Saddam became America’s number one enemy. Of course the propaganda against Hussein was subtle, but still transparent. By mentioning Hussein in the same sentence with “terrorism,” “9-11,” “bin Landen,” Americans began to think there was a “connection.” This is the same spin that Democrats practiced in 1996 when Bob Dole was running for President and Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. They would always mention Dole and Gingrich in the same sentence, over and over, and slowly, but surely most Americans began to think that Gingrich and not Kemp was Dole’s running mate.

Of course the CIA has not found any link between Hussein and Osama, and such link probably does not exist since Hussein is a a secular leader who rejects fundamentalist Islam, and Osama embraces it. Even worse for Bush and the neoconservatives, the CIA released declassified documents last year suggesting that Saddam was not likely to use bio-chemical weapons against the United States, unless provoked by US aggression. Saddam’s threat to America was deliberately manufactured to scare Americans and rationalize an unjust war.

The plan to lay waste to Iraq started long before 9-11. The neo-conservatives had a blueprint for America’s foreign policy that favored increasing military spending, eliminating hostile regimes, and insuring that America face no geopolitical contenders. If you don’t believe me, then here is what Robert Novak wrote in a syndicated column, “The real reason for attacking the Iraqi regime always has been disconnected from its public rationale. On the day after the U.S. launched the military strike that quickly liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban, my column identified Iraq as the second target in President Bush’s war against terrorism. I did not write one word about weapons of mass destruction because not one such word was mentioned to me in many interviews with Bush policymakers.”

To those who follow the webs of deceit weaved by the neoconservatives, this should come as no surprise, because their view of foreign policy is not to safeguard America, but to promote a “benevolent global hegemony.” Here are a few choice quotes from Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol articulating their vision for America:
—“Support for American principles around the world can be sustained only by the continuing exertion of American influence.”
—“And sometimes that means not just supporting U.S. friends and gently pressuring other nations but actively pursuing policies in Iran, Cuba, or China, for instance — ultimately intended to bring about a change of regime.” (Notice: no mention of weapons of mass destruction).
—“What should that role be? Benevolent global hegemony.”
—“The appropriate goal of American foreign policy, therefore, is to preserve that hegemony as far into the future as possible.”

So our insistence that Saddam “disarm his WMD” was a canard, a ploy, a ruse, a lie plain and simple. Saddam — even if he does possess such weapons — has never had any intention to use them against the United States and doesn’t even have the delivery capability to do so. Consider this scenario: would you rather be driving across a bridge and have that bridge hit by an American MOAB, or by an Iraqi mortar shell with filled with liquid anthrax? Since liquid anthrax degrades over time and is only fatal if digested, an attack on a bridge would most likely result in zero casualties. However, a US MOAB would destroy the bridge and kill everyone. Calling Saddam’s arsenal of liquid anthrax — assuming he still has it — a weapon of mass destruction really distorts the threat he poses.

Auster then suggests that my “rhetoric” betrays an anti-American animus. I find this quite odd since my only effots are to insure that American foreign policy protect Americans — their liberty and property — and not fanatically pursue a radical Jacobin agenda. Of course, Auster defends Bush and the neoconservatives who think that Mexican irredentism is quintessentially an American ideal, and initiating World War IV, as Norman Podhoretz suggested, the right policy for America. Sadly, I guess nothing can quench neo-conservative’s twisted, inhuman, and devilish lust for blood. How American…

Reply to Cris Collins,
If a country claims as its justification for war, a defense of another people against their government, and thus act as ally to the people in rebellion against an unjust government, the war can be justified. So if you are attempting to persuade me along this line of reasoning, there is really no reason to do so, because I agree. I have further never argued the contrary because it is a position I do hold.

In particular, if the US government acted as ally of the Iraqi people in rebellion against their own unjust government, war in all likelihood can be justified if certain other stipulations have also been met. That being said, and this is my contention, the US government did not base its argument for war in defense of the Iraqi people, but in self defense of the US. The US government stipulated that it was necessary to overthrow the current Iraqi government in order to protect US interests, the cause of the war was self defense of the US. The overthrow of the current Iraqi government was simply a means to an end. The ‘end’ is self defense of the US, the ‘means’ by which to obtain this end was the overthrow of the Iraqi government. This means is the instrumental cause serving the final cause or end, i.e. self defense of the US.

The US government did not act in the interest of the Iraqi people except as a means to an end. This end, which is this particular self defense of the US, has not been rigorously proved justified. Shifting the ‘means’ into the position of ‘end’ after hostilities have commenced is simply unacceptable to meet just war doctrine. Both the means of war and the end may require justification, but they are not the same. No less so than an army is the same as self defense. An army may be required as a means of self defense, but it is not self defense per se and cannot be substituted logically in place of the end, i.e. self defense.

The justification for such a grave act as warfare must be met prior to hostilities not afterwards. The argument given by the US government for its justification of war against Iraq was that a future ‘Iraqi terrorist nexus’ was a threat to the US. This argument by the US government was simply never proved beyond hypothetical speculation. Hypothesis is not a rigorous proof. This complete abrogation of just war doctrine where mere hypothetical speculation of some possible future threat is substituted in place of lasting, grave and certain, is why the US aggression against Iraq was so completely condemned by virtually every ordinary in the world.

Lastly to your query in your final paragraph. There have been far too many horror stories for me to doubt much when it comes to the gross actions of government upon their own people, as well as others. So no, I don’t doubt the atrocities committed by the Iraqi government against its own people. I expect they are probably true. I am also not an exceptionalist when it comes to my own. Are you?

Thank you Edwin Weller for all your great posts.

Mr. Salzer writes:
“The US government did not act in the interest of the Iraqi people except as a means to an end.”

Actually, the US acted in the interests of both the Iraqis and the US. Bush has been quite consistent about that from the beginning, and Mr. Salzer can defend his contention that the war is unjust only by denying it.

This appears to be the lynchpin of Mr. Salzer’s position; the last tuft of grass to hang onto before tumbling down the cliff. Apparently Mr. Salzer thinks that a war in defense of others is just only when there are no other motivations (for example, a more loosely coupled, indirect, prophylactic and perhaps even speculative defense of self) for that war. I wonder why he thinks that?

Mr. Salzer’s intellectual tuft does not come from traditional just war theory as I understand it (though I admit it isn’t something I’ve studied at great length). Just war theory lays out specific criteria by which a war can be judged just. Mr. Salzer will find that if the criteria are sufficiently met, the war is just (according to the theory, which is an important theory but is not itself some de fide teaching). Mr. Salzer would like us to believe that if the theory is sufficiently met, but there are any ulterior motives or side benefits involved, the war is therefore not just. Perhaps he can quote where Aquinas says that.

Bush’s message has consistently been “this is a good thing to do in itself, and it will also prevent Hussein from getting the nuclear weapons he has been trying for decades to acquire, which will in turn prevent those weapons from being used by terrorists against us”.

Would we have embarked on this just war if there were no self-interest involved? No. Does just war theory require us to fight all possible just wars? No.

Mr. Salzer doesn’t understand the basic intellectual concept of sufficiency. Bringing down Hussein’s reign of terror is *sufficient* moral justification for the war. Would we have done it without additional self-interested *political* justification? No (well, it is hard to say — see Kosovo). But Mr. Salzer will not be able to provide quotes from Aquinas to support a “purity of purpose” criteria (as opposed to sufficiency) because there isn’t one.

Maybe there *should* be. Just war theory is after all just a moral theory with a long tradition. But to my understanding adding a requirement for purity of purpose (rather than sufficient justification) would be the Salzer just war theory not Aquinas’ just war theory.

By adding criteria to just war in order to be able to categorically oppose war unless a nuke traceable to Saddam goes off in an American city, paleos have discredited themselves and have annointed the neocons as the interpreters of the just war. That’s too bad, and if the nightmare of neocon imperialism is realized then it will be partially the paleos’ fault for committing intellectual suicide rather than putting in place a principled resistence.

Back to Mr. Salzer’s criteria for a moment. If Bush had shouted “free the Iraqi people” before going in or even named the war “Operation Iraqi Freedom” then it would have been a just war, I suppose. Too bad he didn’t… hmmm…

I am struck at how odd Mr. Salzer’s position is here. Apparently under his theory it would have been OK for us to free the Iraqis from Hussein’s reign of terror as long as that was our sole purpose:

He said:
“…if the US government acted as ally of the Iraqi people in rebellion against their own unjust government, war in all likelihood can be justified…”

But if the war has any other good motivations and effects (whether sufficient in themselves to justify war or not) it becomes unjust. So a just war with additional positive goods becomes an unjust war. How peculiar. I can’t see any other way to interpret Mr. Salzer’s theory, though.

Matt,

You rewrite my position into an absurdity and then proceed to argue against your invented absurdity. If you can’t refrain yourself from rewriting my arguments and positions, at least get them correct or leave my name off of them.

But more to the point:

The US consistently based all arguments for war against Iraq on self defense of the US. The arguments were invariably pre-emptive use of force against a hypothetical speculation that Iraq would at some future date use WMD against the US or had violated the treaty with the UN etc. The arguments were not those as ally with the Iraqi people where the intent was to liberate Iraq.

Although Novak spoke as a private citizen, he was asked to do so to defend the US government’s up coming war on Iraq, and was the US government’s strongest effort to defend its position according to just war. Please note, there is not a word about overthrowing the Iraqi government for the sake of the Iraqi people. The only mention of the Iraqi government’s unjust actions against its own people was used as justification for a further end, not as an end in it self.

http://www.nationalreview.com/novak/novak021003.asp

Or how about Bush’s State of the Union address. There is not one word about liberating the Iraqi people.

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:ZiyHT8m1LzYC:www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html+bush+iraq+%22state+of+the+union%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Or Colin Powell’s remarks to the UN Security Council. The only reference to the Iraqi government’s treatment of its own people is to prove a point. There is not one word of the US acting as ally in defense of the Iraqi people.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/17300.htm

All arguments for war against Iraq were consistent, and they were consistently about WMD, failing to disarm, self defense of the US and not about the US acting as ally of the Iraqi people against an unjust government as and end in itself.

The arguments were consistently to justify pre-emptive warfare as self defense, and all arguments were condemned because they were based in arguments on pre-emptive warfare.

F. Salzer writes:
“You rewrite my position into an absurdity and then proceed to argue against your invented absurdity.”

No, I quoted Mr. Salzer directly in order to avoid an unfair strawman. Mr. Salzer said:

“…if the US government acted as ally of the Iraqi people in rebellion against their own unjust government, war in all likelihood can be justified…”

So apparently the war was just, but because there were OTHER reasons for doing it in addition to the ones that are sufficient to make it just, that fact transforms it into something unjust. This is not a misrepresentation of what Mr. Salzer said, it is exactly what he did in fact say.

Whether other justifications for the war — in the mind of the proper authority G. W. Bush, mind you, which is something Mr. Salzer can never know — were morally sufficient in themselves is irrelevant if there is already a morally sufficient justification for the war.

“The only mention of the Iraqi government’s unjust actions against its own people was used as justification for a further end, not as an end in it self.”

I could assemble quotes in the public war debate about how the war was justified because of the things Hussein did to his own people, but I wouldn’t expect that to move Mr. Salzer. Mr. Salzer appears to adhere to a strange and rigid philosophy, though: the distinction between “a further end” and “and end in itself” carries great moral weight with him, apparently. That sort of clarity doesn’t generally apply to public debates about things like war, though, so like St. Thomas More Mr. Salzer seems to think — and again I can only go by what he says — that an offensive just war is possible in the abstract but not possible in reality. In any case the trouble seems to be with Mr. Salzer’s own philosophy rather than with actually objectively meeting just war criteria.

Mr. Salzer seems to be trying to argue that with this war the United States has done an objectively good thing for the wrong reasons. Is that really the case, or does Mr. Salzer actually think that going to war and deposing Hussein was wrong? Which is it: was it the right thing for the wrong reasons in Mr. Salzer’s view, or was it just plain wrong? Mr. Salzer’s other posts have led me to think he was against the war in a more general sense of thinking it was an objectively bad thing, rather than an objectively good thing done for the wrong reasons.

Incidentally, it is precisely this line of argument that could have saved paleos from intellectual suicide, to wit: deposing Hussein is an objective good, but doing it for the wrong reasons and enshrining those reasons into doctrine will cause big problems later. That hasn’t been the paleo approach, though. The paleo approach has been to take the side of a vile monster like Hussein.

Inspired by Matt, Mr. Auster wrote some intriging ideas in case anyone missed it:

“In order to deny the morality of any actual act of which they disapprove, liberals commonly appeal to some impossible, utopian standard of justice. Thus one of their most common arguments is to say that a conservative’s claim for the morality of a particular course of action is ‘hypocritical’ because the conservative is not battling all injustice and inequality everywhere, which is of course impossible. Since any practical assertion of morality is hypocritical, it follows that the only way to avoid being hypocritical is to drop the very idea of morality and simply adopt the ever-changing whims of liberals as one’s standard.
In the same way, the antiwar right and left say that unless one is fighting all tyranny everywhere, to oppose some particular tyranny is hypocritical. Which leads to the conclusion that one should not fight tyranny anywhere.”

Answering Matt’s questions first:

The removal of Hussein and the entire unjust Iraqi government is an objective good. But the US government should not have done it at all because it could not prove a necessity of its own self defense. The end does not justify the means, ( to put it another way, we cannot commit evil for a good end ), and although the end was a good, the means was not.

The primary title of right to war exists only in those who are in a state of self defense. With the Iraqi people, there was just cause for rebellion against the former unjust Iraqi government. And with their just cause for rebellion, there also rested solely in the Iraqi people the primary title of right to war.

The only title of right to war that the US could make claim concerning the good of the Iraqi people suffering from unjust government was a secondary one. But a secondary title also requires that a primary title also be held, otherwise the US government is obligating its own subjects to make an act of charity towards another country. But a State cannot demand of its subjects to make such an act of charity because it is beyond its own competence to do so because a State exists for the common good of its own subjects, not for the good of those outside it.

Further,
You probably “could assemble quotes in the public war debate about how the war was justified because of the things Hussein did to his own people”. But the three examples above which I gave, along with Bush’s address to the nation: http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:EvlJdDhIwgsC:www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june03/bush_3-17.html++%22my+fellow+citizen+events+in+iraq%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
are the seminal speeches by the US government justifying the war.

Of the four speeches I list, only in Bush’s last speech prior to war is there even one complete sentence concerning the unjust oppression of the Iraqi people by the Iraqi government. And in all speeches except for the last, the oppression of the Iraqi people was mentioned solely to prove self defense of the US. And even the last example only mentions the removal of Hussein as a consequence of US action, and indicates the US will impose its will on the free Iraqi people.

None of these speeches argues that the US is acting on behalf the Iraqi people. And since the war has concluded, the US is now imposing its own will on the Iraqi people, ( for example setting up an American military Viceroy ), which is not the role of an ally acting on behalf of a free people, but that of a conqueror. The imposing by the US of a certain form of government on Iraq is simply not the actions of an ally acting on behalf of the Iraqi people because the imposition of such is beyond US competence because Iraq is its own sovereign nation.

The far and above overwhelming majority of arguments for war by the US government concerned exclusively the US’ justification for war because of its primary title of right to war in self defense. Which of course was never proved. And although it was necessary to prove such title, the lack of arguing for secondary title prior to the war, and because of US actions after the war which are contrary to secondary title, there is strong indication if not certainty, that the US did not intend secondary title beyond an attempt at public relations here and abroad.

Mr. Salzer is still not following the putative rationale (which is all one can do when attempting to get into the head of the proper authority, George W. Bush), which goes as follows:

1) It is objectively good and just to free the Iraqis from Hussein’s reign of terror. That is sufficient to justify the war MORALLY in itself. Nobody can object to going to war, then, on MORAL grounds, and indeed there is no need to even debate the MORAL grounds for going to war.

2) Suppose for the sake of argument that the threat to the US is indirect, ambiguous, unproven, and is not sufficient in itself to MORALLY justify the war (that is debatable, but lets stipulate it for the sake of argument). These things do not matter on a MORAL evaluation, because the war is already MORALLY justified (i.e. satisfies the criteria of Just War).

Therefore, the public debate was not about whether or not it was MORALLY just to initiate the war (and Mr. Salzer is wrong about defense of others being an invalid moral justification — he stands against centuries of just war tradition in that respect which is why the latest catechism includes “the nation or community of nations”). The content of the public debate was about — GIVEN A PRIORI THAT WAR IS MORALLY JUSTIFIABLE IN ANY CASE, SINCE ONLY MORAL MONSTERS WOULD DEFEND A MORAL MONSTER — whether or not going to war is a major step forward in improving our post 9-11 national security situation. That is, the only thing debatable, and therefore debated, were POLITICAL (which is to say self-interested) considerations, since the MORAL case for war (that is, an evaluation of whether going to war would be a commission of moral wrong) was beyond debate a priori.

This is all conjecture about the mind of George W. Bush, of course, but if we are to discuss Just War theory then that is the only mind that matters in this case. In the proper authority’s mind there was no MORAL debate to be had: anyone who would attempt to defend Hitler or Hussein MORALLY is himself a monster, unworthy of and incapable of entering the discussion. The entire discussion was political in nature and not about a fundamental moral justification.

I believe I said way back in the thread that paleos have conflated political and moral justifications. If it is not clear by now what I meant when I said that, I don’t know how to explain it better.

Interesting analysis by Matt.

There are a variety of evil dictators in the world it would be moral to topple, but we don’t fight all of them for prudential reasons. But in some cases prudential reasons come into sync with the moral reasons, and then we act.

Matt,

It matters not in the least what goes on inside George Bush’s head because he is not King and thus his mere will cannot set policy concerning war. If there is fault in my argument, and I think there is, it is because I relied exclusively on the executive branch to express US government policy, when I should have put much more emphasis on the congressional branch because only the congressional branch can declare war.

Secondly no one is in his right mind would defend Saddam Hussein or has defended Hussein or as far as I know ever written that it would not be objectively good for Iraq to have Hussein removed from power. The arguments have always been whether the US has a right to war.

On other threads it’s been argued that the US does not have a right to war because self defense isn’t proven. On this thread the argument has concerned secondary title of right to war.

And although you appear to think intervention by one nation for the good of another is settled, “Whether a state may find title to interfere for punishment after the destruction of the innocent who were in no wise its own subjects, is not so clear, unless such punishment be a reasonable necessity for the future security of its own citizens and theirrights. It has been argued that the extension of a state’s punitive right outside of the field of its own subjects would seem to be a necessity of natural conditions; for the right must be somewhere”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15546c.htm

And as Arthur Hipper, a TACer I might add, writes in the Wanderer / Is “liberation of Iraq” A Just Cause?:
“Liberation of an oppressed people sounds noble and generous. But when governments look to the interests of their own people, this is not mere selfishness. Governments have an obligation to protect the people over whom they rule… that is their responsibility and their competence. No government, as such, is competent to determine the good of a people in other nations…
“Are those laboring under tyranny merely left to their own resources? One would not want to rule out the ties that bind all humanity, such that we care for all those outside our own country. But only an authority that stood above the nations could direct people to act from one nation for the good of another.”

And the same argument is given in the following, with the Holy Father pointing towards the UN as the supernational authority.

http://www.rghr.net/mainfile.php/0514/502/

As I wrote before, if the US government acted as ally of the Iraqi people in rebellion against their own unjust government, war in all likelihood can be justified if certain other stipulations have also been met. But those stipulations were not met. There are several ways these stipulations could have been met such as non-tax subsidized and strictly voluntary military action. Or perhaps acting through the UN.

But since Bush, (who’s intent doesn’t matter), lied through his teeth about WMD, which is becoming obvious to all, and also attempted to connect 9/11 to Iraq, and also used forged or lifted documents etc. in his attempt to prove self defense, I don’t think there is a chance in the world that the war was fought for an altruistic reason. And congress, (who’s authority and intent does matter), certainly never authorized warfare in order to liberate the Iraqi people from oppression except as a means to an end. And since Intent concerning the end of war does matter for just cause. And since the intent to liberate Iraq as an end of war was not expressed by congress. There was not an intent for secondary title of right to war.

And so although US government and populace may boast of liberating the Iraqi people from an unjust government, the boast is hollow because it was done wrongly and without apparent intent.

““Arab” of course is an ethnic/linguistic category. The 9/11 attackers were Islamic fanatics, true. They were not Arabist fanatics.”

They wer ARABS, as in ethnically Arabs, which was my point. Regardless of which Jew and America hating ideology they happened to be following, the fact remains that they were Arabs.

“I bet one could read through the entire corpus of bin Laden without coming across a reference to Arab glory, unless it was associated with the greatness of Islam.”

So what? Like many Plaeoconservatives and those on the far Left, you are attempting through much of your response to me to make a false distinction between Internationalist Islamic fundamentalism, and Arab National Socialism. In theory these are indeed different ideologies. In practice however, they both preach hatred towards the Jews and towards the West. In practice they both promote and support international terrorism. By thier fruits shall you know them. In fighting a war against terrorism, we cannot and must not make delusional distinctions between the various motivating ideologies. Both Osama bin Laden’s Islamic fundamentalism, and the Baathist parties Arab National Socialism were and are direct threats to the Jewish people and to the West.

“Iran and Pakistan are of course not even Arab.”

Again, so what? Both countries promote terrorism. THAT is the point you fail to understand. ALL of the countries I listed were listed not because they were either Islamic or Arab, but because they promote terrorism. This is a war against terrorism, regardless of the motivating ideology.

“So who are we at war with, Shawn? Is it Christian Arab “National Socialists”, or Indo-Aryan Islamicists, or Islamic Arabs, or Indo-Aryan Christians or what?”

We are at war against any and all groups, organisations and countries that promote terrorism. How hard is that to understand?

If all of the above groups you mention are engaged in terrorism against Israel and the West, then we are at war with all of them. Again, the issue you fail to understand is that we are at war against terrorism, REGARDLESS of the motivating ideology.

The rest of your post is the sadly typical form of ad hominem attacks that paleoconservatives engage in when faced with rational argument. In point of fact, I have never watched Fox news, I have a degree in religious studies, I have read the Quran, a biography of Muhammed, several books on Arab and Islamic history, most written by Arabs, and I have made a point of learning as much as I can about the enemy we face since 911. Our government is not lying to us, your just to deluded by paleoconservative paranoia about Jewish neocons and American “Imperialism” to recognise the truth. And the truth is, once again, is that we are at war against terrorism. Not Arabs exclusively. Not Islamists exclusively. But terrorism.

Mr. salzer writes:
“It matters not in the least what goes on inside George Bush’s head because he is not King …”

Bush is the competent authority under Just War: he is the commander in chief of the armed forces with authorization from Congress. Furthermore, my claim about defense of others is that Mr. Salzer does not have the weight of tradition behind him when he condemns it as evil; it is not that there is some Just War intellectual machine that makes all prudential considerations “settled”.

I acknowledge that Mr. Salzer can quote neo-Catholics supporting the UN as the competent authority. He won’t find that in Aquinas, though. The fact that paleos have been reduced to supporting the UN — as the holder of the sovereign right of war, no less! — as a last ditch effort to justify their intellectual quagmire, is telling.

This quote of Mr. Salzer’s is also telling: “There are several ways these stipulations could have been met such as non-tax subsidized and strictly voluntary military action.” You won’t find that in Aquinas; that is the Gospel according to Rand. Mr. Salzer’s expressed view on these matters is libertarian, not traditionalist, with all that that implies.

As I have said on many occasions now, paleo anti-war types fail to acknowledge — no doubt even to themselves — the basic nature of what they argue against. Thus they end up relegated to the tinfoil hat room, as Carl said. Saying as much isn’t an attempt to denigrate paleos. It is an attempt to wake them up, because the struggle is important and can’t be fought from the THR.

Shawn writes:
“And the truth is, once again, is that we are at war against terrorism. Not Arabs exclusively. Not Islamists exclusively. But terrorism.”

A war on terrorism is like a war on sneak attacks, though. Part of the problem is that economies aren’t the only thing that have been globalized, and our language hasn’t caught up yet. The “war on terror” is a war against global Islamist networks and their nation-state support systems — thus the “axis of evil” talk. Mr. Young’s objection-by-appeal-to-diversity is rather like objecting to WWII because we couldn’t make up our mind whether we were fighting Germans, Japanese, or Italians.

I’ll attempt to speak from the brain of George W. Bush again, with full acknowledgement of the hubris that entails. The “axis of evil” has a certain justificatory logic to it, at least with respect to Iraq and North Korea. North Korea we are technically still at war with (there is a cease-fire but no treaty). The same might be said for Iraq — the only quibbles would be of a formal/technical nature the relevance of which would be lost on the First Texan. Thus there is no need in either of those cases to go through an arduous moral justification for hostilities — it is just a matter of evaluating pragmatically the security implications. Because Islamofascism is a globalized ideology there is no individual sovereign nation to fight directly — much less so even than with Communism. So the only way to go after it is to cut off its life support systems and the power centers that make it more dangerous; starting with the ones where there are no moral impediments to action, and in the hope that the more morally ambiguous cases take notice and clean house themselves.

Yee-haw! {… raising ten-gallon hat …}

Here is the sort of thing Bush had to weigh in his Texan mind before deciding whether or not it would be moral to topple Hussein:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6292291%255E26038,00.html

“He describes how soldiers, wearing the khaki uniforms of the Baath party, climbed out of three Toyota pick-up trucks and walked behind the crowd sitting in the dirt. Some were crying, Mr al-Khalidy said, others trying to comfort the eight children he counted.

One child got up and tried to hide behind her mother. Another reached out and held his father’s hand. “Then there was shooting,” he says. “Lots of shooting, and an earth mover shovelled dirt and sand over the people in the pit without anyone looking to see if they were alive or not.”

In Bush’s mind, anti-war folks might come in two flavors: political objectors and moral objectors. A political objector in many cases would have valid things to say, worth a listen and a rumination over chow. A moral objector would be objectively on the side of the butchers.

F. Salzer quoted the following from the Catholic Encyclopedia in an attempt to undermine a defense-of-the-innocent justification:

“Whether a state may find title to interfere for punishment after the destruction of the innocent who were in no wise its own subjects, is not so clear, […]”

But notice even here that the discussion is about Just War in its employment as a PUNISHMENT for past destruction of the innocent, not as a form of DEFENSE OF THE CURRENTLY PERSECUTED; and the best Mr. Salzer can find is that it is “not so clear” that there is a right of war to engage in such after-the-fact punishment.

The article Mr. Salzer links to says the following:
“Catholic philosophy, therefore, concedes to the State the full natural right of war, whether defensive, as in case of another’s attack in force upon it; offensive (more properly, coercive), where it finds it necessary to take the initiative in the application of force; or punitive, in the infliction of punishment for evil done against itself or, in some determined cases, against others.”

There are lots of practical, political, and other reasons to question the wisdom of the liberation of Iraq by U.S. troops and our allies, how it was carried out, the public rhetoric surrounding it, etc. But to claim that it was AN EVIL THING TO DO (that is, that it violates Just War) is untenable.

“A moral objector would be objectively on the side of the butchers.”

Where then does that leave the Pope?

Mr. Eubanks asks:
“Where then does that leave the Pope?”

Objectively pro Saddam Hussein (although that may go too far, since the Pope’s statements have always been qualified to defer the prudential judgement to the competent authority, a position with which I would expect George Bush to agree).

A different result was expected? As far as I know the Pope has no special charism that saves him from the possibility of moral error in this specific case, nor any special authority beyond reiteration of the Tradition that communicates the criteria. Responsibility for the actual judgement lies with the competent authority, not the Pope (at least according to the Pope himself and the Tradition); and a Pope making errors in a moral judgement is not exactly an unknown occurrence. In fact expectations to the contrary have probably led to more apostasy than virtually any other factor taken in itself.

Being objectively pro-Hussein doesn’t mean that one is personally the moral equivalent of Hussein in intent and action, of course. But, at least on the analysis I’ve provided here, which I presume out of my own personal hubris to reflect that of Bush, the MORALLY anti-war side — the side that states flatly that Bush committed an evil (as opposed to e.g. unwise, imprudent, overreaching, etc) act in initiating the war — has backed the wrong horse.

The Pope had a special problem to solve, don’t get me wrong. His authority in this context is moral authority, but his problem was fundamentally political: to avoid the appearance of a new crusade, among other things. I can’t fault him for not ENDORSING the war, or for not expressly giving it his moral blessing — that could have had horrifying consequences. (I should also note that the this-worldly optimism of this pontificate, at times more resembling a Jehovah’s Witness tract than traditional Catholicism, continues to be painful to watch). But nothing I can do or say will make wining and dining Tariq Aziz while actively cultivating doubt in the Catholics in the 3rd infantry look better than it actually is.

Matt,
Interesting commentary. I admire you for principled stance.

The Orthodox viewed this war as a political dispute between a godless government and an infidel one. No reason to step out on a limb in defense or support of either. Although, I should say the Orthodox hierarchs in the Homelands (as opposed the Diaspora), are increasingly viewing America as grave religious, moral and political threat that should be countered.

I don’t have the references handy (got it from a blog several weeks back and the archive isn’t working on blogspot), but as I recall the EO’s in Iraq itself were pro-war and the RC’s were against (the latter perhaps influencing the Pope, but I worried then and worry now about reprisals).

If any party has done an even better job discrediting itself than paleos - to all of our detriment - in the last year or so, it is the Vatican. I used to think the “Third Secret of Fatima/Windswept House is true” crowd belonged in the Tinfoil Hat Room, but I am less sure of that these days. I’ll always be Catholic, though, and I’ll always be American. I love the Church and America; I don’t expect perfection from them, and I recognize that both are badly ill at the moment, but I belong to them.

Mr. Eubanks wrote:
“Although, I should say the Orthodox hierarchs in the Homelands (as opposed the Diaspora), are increasingly viewing America as grave religious, moral and political threat that should be countered.”

It isn’t unreasonable for them to think so, although “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is likely to get you killed in a large scale clash of civilizations. America needs to repent of her liberalism or she will self-destruct, in my oft repeated view. Her self-destruction no doubt won’t be harmless to any bystanders.

Interestingly (though more than a little off topic) Roman Catholic private prophecy predicts widespread apostasy in the Roman Rite, but not the Eastern Rite (not EO, but the Byzantine Catholics in communion with Rome). Its all Greek to me, but I’m starting to get to know the Byzantine parish down the street a little better; looking for shelter in the storm and all that with no real indult option within 100s of miles.

“The Orthodox viewed this war as a political dispute between a godless government and an infidel one. No reason to step out on a limb in defense or support of either.”

The Orthodox position as described by Mr. Eubanks is typical of all ideological thinking of whatever type, from libertarian to Marxist and everything in-between. The Orthodox, according to Mr. Eubanks, did not consider the actual issues involved in the war; instead they fitted Hussein and the U.S. into their own schema, as respectively infidel and godless, and on that basis washed their hands of the conflict. There is something profoundly wrong here. It is moral relativism, which judges good and evil not by objective criteria but by one’s own political or even religious preferences. This is also the way paleocons now think, because they have gone too far in the direction of particularism and have lost the sense of objective and universal moral truth.

By the logic of the Orthodox, if today’s America with all its godlessness (though we are by far the most godly of all Western countries) were fighting against Nazi Germany, the Orthodox would conclude that because of America’s godlessness, there was no reason “to step out on a limb in defense or support of either.” It is chilling.

Mr. Auster writes:
“The Orthodox, according to Mr. Eubanks, did not consider the actual issues involved in the war; …”

That’s true of course, but I didn’t take the comment, or the purported position behind it, as necessarily nihilistic in the way that Mr. Auster seems to see it. Of the fifty or so armed conflicts going on right now around the world, once you take away the ones involving Moslems I’m not sure I would know enough to immediately take sides in the remaining two or three, nor do I feel an obligation to urgently go inform myself and pick sides. I expect the casualties in the Iraq war and the likelihood of it spilling over into neighboring countries are on the low side compared to other current armed conflicts, let alone World War II. Plus I think it is in the nature of EO to be very ethnically centered on the one hand but far removed from the world on the other. I suppose that may be ideological but perhaps naively I don’t find it chilling in the same way as Mr. Auster.

“It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Again, believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there,” he told Pentagon reporters Friday, from his headquarters in al-Hillah, Iraq, south of Baghdad.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030530-012351-1319r

I reply to Henry’s comment on the missing WMDs in this article:

http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/001484.html