On ISIS: even the Pope says “maybe”
I am familiar with the Just War doctrine of the Catholic Church, and its list of required criteria for action. To me, though, it can all too easily fall under the heading of this couplet by Hillaire Belloc, who happened to have been a devout Catholic, although he wasn’t referring to Just War theory in this verse:
“Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,
But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.”
If ever there was an argument for a Just War, one would think it would be the fight against ISIS. In addition, there is the added element of persecution against Christians of a type we haven’t seen a great deal of since Christianity’s early days. It’s not much of an imaginative stretch to think that, if ISIS could build a coliseum and throw Christians to the lions, it might just do so, with relish.
So it’s not too much of a surprise that Pope Francis has come close to endorsing war against ISIS. Close, but not quite there. Which is more extraordinary, the fact that he’s come close, or the fact that he still can’t seem to bite the bullet?:
On Iraq, Francis was asked if he approved of the unilateral U.S. airstrikes on militants of the Islamic State who have captured swaths of northern and western Iraq and northeastern Syria and have forced minority Christians and others to either convert to Islam or flee their homes.
“In these cases, where there is an unjust aggression, I can only say that it is licit to stop the unjust aggressor,” Francis said. “I underscore the verb ‘stop.’ I’m not saying ‘bomb’ or ‘make war,’ just ‘stop.’ And the means that can be used to stop them must be evaluated.”
But, he said, in history, such “excuses” to stop an unjust aggression have been used by world powers to justify a “war of conquest” in which an entire people have been taken over.
“One nation alone cannot judge how you stop this, how you stop an unjust aggressor,” he said, apparently referring to the United States. “After World War II, the idea of the United Nations came about: It’s there that you must discuss ‘Is there an unjust aggression? It seems so. How should we stop it?’ Just this. Nothing more.”
The Pope is, of course, a pope. He’s not a head of state in the conventional sense (the Vatican is considered an ecclesiastical state), and he’s certainly not a military man. He is in this world and of it, but his focus is not the practical, it’s the spiritual. As such, he probably believes that Pale Ebenezer’s spiritual strength and prayer can influence Roaring Bill to stay his hand—somehow.
Francis voices the original hope with which the UN was founded. But that hope has been so thwarted and perverted at that august body for so long that it’s hard to see how it can still be maintained, even by the faithful. I understand that the Pope must speak to our better nature, and try to foster its development, but talking about the UN this way seems to be ignoring reality.
Pope Francis has voiced his hopes about violence before, in relation to the recent skirmish between Hamas and Israel:
“Never war, never war. I am thinking, above all, of children who are deprived of the hope of a worthwhile life, a future. Dead children, wounded children, mutilated children, orphaned children, children whose toys are things left over from war, children who don’t know how to smile. Please stop. I ask you with all my heart, it’s time to stop. Stop, please!
I’m not sure whom the Pope was addressing, although I understand (and sympathize with) the sentiment. If his words were a prayer to God to help, I think we can all concur. If it was to Hamas, they will fall on deaf ears and be met with derision. If the Israelis were the intended recipients, and the Pope was asking them to become Pale Ebenezers, Israel’s answer would be that desisting from defending itself would lead to Pale Ebenezer’s fate for its own children.
[NOTE: If anyone is interested in my previous writings on pacifism, please see these.]
The last time I checked, the Pope WAS a head of state: The Vatican.
Admittedly, it’s a bit thin on the military front.
The Pope, by tradition, has only fielded a mercenary army. (Swiss)
&&&
The Pope has the same problem as any American president: he must fear for unguarded citizens/ laity located all over the planet that are hostage to any untoward sentiments.
Hence the ethically bizarre pandering to Muslim sentiments… even as Islam is on the march against all and every.
&&&
Am I the only one struck by the twisted MSM narrative vis a vis Israel and living Judaism?
Who can o’erlook the MSM passion to describe Hamas’ jihad as being strictly a crusade against Zionists?
The reality is that Hamas is the ultimate loose cannon. It’s out against Abas, Sisi, … and just about every mainline Muslim authority.
Hamas, ISIS, et. al. — these are criminal networks faking it as trans-national islamism.
As for morality: both are absolutely feral.
&&&
In al-Baghdadi I see a messianic figure much in the mold of Lawrence of Arabia/ Napoleon Bonaparte — both at the same time.
Napoleon was a creature of his time — and the levée en masse was his handmaiden.
Quick inspection of ISIS agitprop indicates that al-Baghdadi is fulsomely agitating for an all-ummah, levée en masse.
The world hasn’t seen a levée en masse since WWII — at least in the Napoleonic sense.
This ^^^^ is a fearsome development. It’s something that all Arab despots have shunned going back to the ninth century.
As a social force, it’s something that the West is conceptually unprepared for. At the end of its road lies a killing field 1,000,000,000 skulls across.
ISIS is a quantum shift beyond AQ. It needs to be dethroned before “grasshoppers morph into locusts.”
&&&
On present trends, Barry Soetoro is on track to reverse the Cold War, WWII, and the Thirty-Years War!
The death of the Westphalian state is to hand.
Witness the death of a national border, the death of the American-ness of our polity.
Interesting times, indeed.
The Holy Father says to “stop” an illicit action but not to conquer a people. I presume he’s smart enough to think about illicit actions continually generated by “a people.”
blert:
Fixed, I think.
Francis is a Jesuit.
Jesuits are practical.
All of my education since grade school was at Jesuit schools.
I had an interesting awakening about a month ago. I was watching Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and in a conversation with Moriarity, Holmes decries the fact that “People are dying.” Moriarity responds: “That’s what people do!” Likewise above, Blert notes that: “As for morality: both [Isis and Hamas] are absolutely feral.”
Go one step further, Blert, in fact it is life that is absolutely feral. We have created an urbanized Western society in which we shield ourselves not only from that inevitability but from the reality of the need for peace through strength. The left thinks it can engineer a utopia through legislation, and in once sense, the Pax Americana, we have. The error is that people think we can create peace simply by wishing it into existence; they choose not to recognize that it is the presence of underlying strength and the willingness to use it, albeit reluctantly, that secures that peace. It may be time to remember the quote from Robert Heinlin:
This is, unfortunately, also true of and violence and war. In this story that small minority, historically speaking, is the Exceptional American Experiment. Those who choose not to realize that fact are doomed to repeat the violence and war which is native to a feral life.
“So it’s not too much of a surprise that Pope Francis has come close to endorsing war against ISIS. Close, but not quite there. Which is more extraordinary, the fact that he’s come close, or the fact that he still can’t seem to bite the bullet?” neo
My initial thought was that its a toss up but after a bit of reflection, IMO what is most extraordinary is “the fact that he still can’t seem to bite the bullet?”
If genocide, crucifixions and sawing off children’s heads isn’t evil enough for the Pope to call for war, what is? I thus have to conclude that according to his calculus, nothing qualifies. But that’s a formula for genocide and enslavement for those left.
I can’t imagine that to be what Jesus meant by “turning the other cheek” but if so, I’ll have to disagree until he hopefully can explain it to me.
T,
To further confuse, prior to Pax Americana it was Pax Britanica, following the same Anglo-Saxon traditions, including strong rule of law going back to 1688. Anglo-american navies have dominated the world’s oceans for over 200 years. That is THE key factor in creating the relatively peaceful world we live in.
A pope from Argentina is unlikely to ever really grasp it.
Popes and poets have their moments, but when it all comes down to dust, death is the only solution when it comes to the evil ones.
DonS,
I stand corrected and the point I made above stands expanded. Thanks.
This pope comes across as a very personable good man but one who has not been able to escape the prejudices he picked up in Argentina. The most troubling part of his speech was his apparent slap at the US when he called for the UN to lead out in the fight against radical Islam and rejected the right for any single nation to do it on their own.
As Stalin pointed out, the Pope has no divisions.
The Catholic church’s embrace of the UN is one of the most infuriating things I deal with as a Catholic. Ignorant and in many cases, deluded. It represents a rescission of the understanding and duty of the Church as it has historically functioned.
This wave was also distinct from all those which preceded it
I>ecause no one fussed about with taking the head of the family
first and then working out what to do with the rest of the family.
On the contrary, in this wave they burned out whole nests, whole
families, from the start; and they watched jealously to be sure
that none of the children-fourteen, ten, even six years oldgot
away: to the last scrapings, all had to go down the same
road, to the same common destruction. (This was the first such
experiment-at least in modem history. It was subsequently repeated
by Hitler with the Jews, and again by Stalin with nationalities
which were disloyal to him or suspected by him.) Gulag Archipeligo
I think the Pope is unwilling to bite the bullet and call for a war as he is afraid of how any such statement will be used by the radical Islamists. I’m sure we could all imagine ISIS claiming any calls for war from the Pope are calls for a Christian crusade against Muslims.
funny… but you and everyone would do well to learn the history that they left out… ie. what you dont know CAN hurt you.
In March 1965 the First Conference of Muslims of Asia and Africa was held in Bandoeng. Thirty-five countries were represented. The Mufti of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Babakhanov, led the Soviet delegation.
The conference discussed the use of Muslim proselytizing societies as weapons against imperialism. The need to harness Islam to the service of the revolution has been openly discussed by communist strategists.
Based on Soviet experience in Central Asia, the problem of achieving this is considered difficult but soluble
-New Lies for Old…
see
Soviet Muslims Seek Leader’s Ouster
Mr. Babakhanov, who is 67 years old, is the head of the officially sanctioned Muslim religious council for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, which is based here and regulates Islamic affairs in several Soviet Asian republics……
“Official” Islam in the Soviet Union
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rcl/07-3_148.pdf
The official Muslim administration was created during the war on the initiative of the Mufti of Ufa, Abdurrahman Rasulaev, who approached Stalin at the end of 1942 with a project for “normalizing” relations be-tween Islam and the Soviet government.
Mohammed Sadiq Muhammad Yusuf (Mama Yusupov) took over for Samsuddin-Quari Babakhanov 1989
see: Radical Islam in Central Asia: Between Pen and Rifle
this name might be familiar for you, Mohammed Yusuf (Boko Haram)… (not the same man, but named after him)
but if you want to hear what the rest of the world is reading…
Terror In Iraq: Roots And Motivation
http://www.globalresearch.ca/terror-in-iraq-roots-and-motivation/5388084
As of writing this essay, it has become public knowledge that the group referred to as ISIS was trained by the United States to topple Syria’s President Assad. The purpose of this article is to give a comprehensive, chronological overview of events leading to the present day crisis, which by necessity may repeat some of the points raised in various excellent articles on ISIS.
Anyone who wears a dress, and says “maybe”, is just asking for it. :p
Art…
That author needs a better ghost editor, for English is clearly a second language.
Further, the general constructs of thought hail from the Second World.
Such far reaching o’erleaping conclusions need facts to buttress them.
Back in olden times: http://thursdayfast.blogspot.com/2013/10/monday-was-feast-of-holy-rosary.html