The Pope and CNN

[Ben Kenobi]

Kudos for posting the Catholic criterion for a Just War. Taught me something I've wanted to know more about.

I think the ratio killed to the ones that will be helped will be worth it in the end. The end doesn't always justify the means, but there are times when it will comfort those affected.

Lazerus:

I don't agree with the means used to achieve the end of freeing the Iraqi people. 'Liberation' too easily becomes justification for conquests.

Secondly, what ratio would you regard as adequate?

[GePap]

GePap, why is Africa suffering at all is the UN Security Council is all-powerful?

The answer, I think, is that it seems generally unwilling to involve itself in the internal affairs of nations.

As we have debated here at length about the merits of uprooting Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, the legal pretext for the invasion was violation of UN resolutions. We don't have such a legal pretext across Africa, do we?

If we do, however, have UN resolutions directing certain countries to observe basic respect for human rights and descist from certain actions, and those resolutions are not adhered to, I would be in favor of enforcement action. I would not, however, be in favor of sanctions that only punish the very people we are trying to help.

The UNSC was never all powerful and I never claimed so: but it was the only body trying to bring peace, and by weakening it without a substitute the US weakens the ability and will of the international community to act.

If the Invasion of iraq was all about "liberating it" then no legal pretext was ever needed: the fact that one had to be cooked up shows that simply calling for "liberation" would have gotten people nowhere. The fact that this admin. made liberation its main theme only at the point war was inevitable, and not fully then, shows that for them it was a ploy as much as the weapons of mass destruction argument.

The world has no system of "liberation", organizations like the UN are not set up to do so. perhaps that is a failure, but it is a failure based on a simple fact: no single political entity, no state, has any higher claim to morality than any other. We denounce Human rights violations elsewhere, but who decided those were rights humans have? The Bible, the Q'uran, the Torah? No, those rights were laid out by a series of international conventions and rullings, ending with the UN delcaration of Human rights. It is in this collective action that things are legitimized, since single players don;t have the legitimacy to make moral judgements of this kind. We have a cadre in power that thinks the US has that moral force, but facts show otherwise. Not only facts of our past behavior, but even current and future behavior. How many of the states in the "coolition" were not democracies? It is stunning to think that we can claim to be acting in order to "liberate" somewhere with the democratizing wishes of dictatorships elsewhere.


Many states int he past have been "libarated", but it was alway after aggression on the part of the dictator brought destrcution upon themselves. This might not be the best system, to await aggression to bring liberation, but that is the only time in which single states can claim the moral stature to "liberate". Pre-emptive or preventive "liberation" by a self-styled club simply has no moral weight of its own. By weakening and undermining international organizations, no matter how flawed, this admin, an its supporters undermine international norms without being able to porduce any other norm with even a similiar level of legitimacy. Now, this is what many of those that sought this war wnated, but their are dirven by false notions of what their power is, and how people will react to it. They think they can inspire good through fear..they are wrong. You can get people to act as you want through fear, but you taint was what built like that, and you foster hate as well.

[Ned]

Good post, GePap.

Now, what about Kosovo?

[Ned]

Originally posted by obiwan18


Kudos for posting the Catholic criterion for a Just War. Taught me something I've wanted to know more about.



Lazerus:

I don't agree with the means used to achieve the end of freeing the Iraqi people. 'Liberation' too easily becomes justification for conquests.

Secondly, what ratio would you regard as adequate?

Obiwan, Liberation was always a primary goal of the United States. However, the legal pretext for the coalition was Saddam's twice invading his neighbors, his use of chemical weapons in those wars and on his own citizens, and his unwillingness to cooperate with the United Nations in disarmament.

UNSC 1441 had found Saddam in material breach. He was given one last chance to cooperate. He partially cooperated, which created the fog of uncertainty. France and its allies would not endorse a second resolution designed to test Saddam's willingness to cooperate fully. This forced us to either give up on genuine cooperation from Saddam or to act. We chose to act.

The central problem we have now as a result of this adventure is the role of the UN in international law. GePap and others accuse the US of undermining international law by enforcing the UN resolutions. However,

Law is meaningless without enforcement.

If the UN will not enforce its resolutions, it undermines international law itself.

Even the Pope must be able to understand this.

[yago]

Q Cubed, the Pope is the leader of a two thousand year old Church. He represents over a billion Catholics. He is uniquely positioned to be a force for good in this world. To have a man in this position who is focused on critizing the United States while real evil stalks this world is an abomination.

That's funny. Maybe the pope has learnt from past mistakes and isn't siding with everything not good just because it's powerfull.

It think it's rather an abonimation not to critize the United States, while it's evil stalks the world.



(Hey, don't blame me, I just raped your words)

[Ned]

Originally posted by yago


That's funny. Maybe the pope has learnt from past mistakes and isn't siding with everything not good just because it's powerfull.

It think it's rather an abonimation not to critize the United States, while it's evil stalks the world.



(Hey, don't blame me, I just raped your words)

I also think the Pope was more intent at stopping the US than in liberating Iraq. This anti-US thinking drives a lot of the positions in large parts of the world. The pope appears to be infected with the disease as well. In this view, Saddam was a hero for standing up to Uncle Sam the bully.

As I have said before, though, we Americans do not want to conquer the world or to gain territory for ourselves. We want a better, more civilized world. We are convinced that democracy and the respect for human rights are the only vehicles for making the world a better place. Our adversaries often say that we actually are against democracy, citing examples of this dictator or that and then saying that we "supported" the dictator. Some of this probably is true because the dictator who is our friend is better than the dictator who is our enemy. Thus we "support" Musharraf in Pakistan because he is allied with us against OBL. However, we did not bring Musharraf into power and are doing nothing to maintain him in power. We simply have good relations with him and are not trying to thrown him out of power.

America may not be perfect. But we certainly have high ideals as a people and we demand that our leaders act accordingly. This is why the vast majority of Americans approved of Kosovo and Iraq. We ended a brutal regime in each case and at least brought the people of Kosovo and Iraq the opportunity to live in a democracy.

[Q Classic]

whoa, ned, wait... the pope never liked saddam, nor did he ever feel that iraq was a good nation.
scroll up and read one of the official statements posted about the vatican's viewpoint on iraq.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned
Good post, GePap.

Now, what about Kosovo?

As I have stated before, the US sought the support of international organizations with some modicum of legitimacy: when attempts in the UN seemed certain to be blocked, the US sought a NATO madate.

There is another significant difference: form the start the US and allies made clear that their aim in Kosovo was humanitarian: no other claims were made but to stop ethnic cleansing. This coolition also did not seek to remove the government in pwoer but to use power to curb its behavior in one place: was it a violation of sovereignty? Yes, but not on the scale of regime change, something that without some significant act of aggression (and perhaps not even then) most international orgs have the right to do.

The US did not claim to be invading Iraq in the UN to change the regime (it couldn't) but instead made its case based on WMD arguments. You state laws need enforcement: I agree, but enforcement by whom? Kosovo was radical: Human rights as the sole reason given to intervene militarily in an internal matter (not a civil war sceenrio like Bosnia). IN Iraq the US used much more conservative claims of Iraq breaking UN resolutions: of course, if no WMD's are found in Iraq, then the fact will be that the US mislead the council and that Iraq was not violating the UN resolutions dealing with banned weapons to the extent the US and UK used to justify the continuation of sanctions in the 1990's and war in 2003 (in essence, the French will be proven right) .

In 1999 the US claimed that ongoing violations of HUman rights in the form of ethnic cleasing (possibly a crime against humanity) warranted the action of an international force (NATO, even if the US did the heavy lifting) to intervene in the jurisdiction of another sovereign state.

IN 2003 the US claimed that a state's violations of UNSC resoltuions so endangered the world that with OR WITHOUT the support of any international org (none backed the US effort) a posse of states could depose and change the legal (if dictatorial and repressive) regime of another state.

Those are not even similar claims.

[chequita guevara]

Iraqi Christians aren't Catholic. They're most likely Nestorians like most of the Christians of the East.

[Q Classic]

there are a few iraqi catholics, however.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
whoa, ned, wait... the pope never liked saddam, nor did he ever feel that iraq was a good nation.
scroll up and read one of the official statements posted about the vatican's viewpoint on iraq.

Yes I read where he said to Saddam that he must comply with UN resolutions on both WMD and human rights.

The jury is still out on the WMD issue.

On the latter, there is no question that he continued to violate the human rights of his own people. But he covered this up, fairly well, by intimidating the likes of CNN and by bribing the likes of al Jazeera. I, for one, did not know of his gross violations of human rights until Bush's UN GA speech. I remember, at the time, thinking why am I hearing about this now for the first time?

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Iraqi Christians aren't Catholic. They're most likely Nestorians like most of the Christians of the East.

I believe the Pope is concerned for all Christians. The primary differences between Christian sects concerns whether they recognize the Pope as the Supreme Pontiff, the Pontifex Maximus, which of course, is a Roman title confered by the Emperor Valentian III.

The other differences could be accomodated by an ecumenical council embracing all sects. However, one will never be convened so long as the Pope requires as a going-in proposition that he be acknowledged as the supreme leader.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Try dating one, Dr. Strangelove.

Seriously, this Pope is the one responsible for the Second Vatican Council.

Without him, we would still be 'apostate.'

So he gets a big thumbs up from me.

Yeah, but he seems to have been backsliding the past few years. Last week he admonished Catholics who have attended services at non-Catholic churches, calling such actions "grave error". Oh, BTW, in the same message he reiteraterd the age-old condemnation of gays and lesbians.
Maybe as he has gotten older and weaker he's knuckling under to pressure from the Vatican apartchicks. It's a shame. I used to really like him.

How could he have been responsible for the second Vatican council? Wasn't that in 1960? Wouldn't he have been a relatively low ranking bishop at that time?

[Heresson]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Iraqi Christians aren't Catholic. They're most likely Nestorians like most of the Christians of the East.

But remember that large part of Nestorians signed an union with Roman-catholic church. I think it was in 1841 but I'm too lazy to look it up, so do that yourself.

[Heresson]

The whole thread is either a troll, or a sign that mr Ned can't understand that in views of some, there are some things that can NEVER be done. Me myself, I agree that getting rid of Saddam in any way is a better thing than letting him stay; but I'm not angry at pope that He doesn't share my view.
Why? War is abad thing, no matter against what. Pope can not support ANY war, no matter what kind of. Is it that hard to understand that?