Just War

It clearly shows that these bishops still approve what in theology is called the "just war". It appeals to the idea of retributive justice as seen particularly in civil punishment. Just as the government of a state has the responsibility to punish those citizens that harm the common good, so too the government has the responsibility to punish those who are not citizens and harm the common good. The problem is that while an individual citizen may appeal to the state as an arbiter and judge in matters of internal political quarrels, there is no such judge in international affairs!

Strictly speaking many theologians question the concept of a just war because there is NO clean war. Let's consider some facts: (a) war makes everybody a loser; (b) it creates a lot of unnecessary hardships; (c) it's impossible not to hit innocent victims; (d) one won't persuade his enemy after all; (e) it's the eye for an eye philosophy rather than a thirst for justice; (f) Bin Laden is the creation of the US intelligence after all; (g) the US is getting rich partly by selling military equipment to other countries.

It is a great surprise how the American Bishops forgot all this information! Maybe they need some lateral thinking in this time of crisis!

The first and most important question to pose ourselves is: How do people reach this level of anger, hatred and frustration?

Anger of this sort is identity-based anger is constructed over time through a combination of historical events, a deep sense of threat to identity, and direct experiences of sustained exclusion.

How can we break free from the vicious violent circle? We must avoid doing what they expect which is the lashing out of the giant against the weak, the many against the few. This will reinforce their capacity to perpetrate the myth they carefully seek to sustain. They are under threat, fighting an irrational and mad system that has never taken them seriously and wishes to destroy them and their people.

I'm sure that the US military men/women will fail miserably in their war against terrorism because this is a different kind of war. The key does not lie in finding and destroying territories, camps and certainly not the civilian populations that supposedly house them. We need to change the game again. The image of a virus maybe conveys the idea because it enters unperceived, flow with a system, and harm it from within. This is the genius of Osama Bin Laden. He understood the power of a free system, and has used it to his benefit.

Conflict is the process of building and sustaining very different perceptions and interpretations of reality. This process is how we end up referring to people as fanatics, madmen, and irrational. In the process of name-calling we lose the critical capacity to understand that from within the ways they construct their views, it is not mad lunacy or fanaticism.

On their side they have always considered the Western values as immoral by their religious interpretation, or the construction of an enemy-image that is overwhelmingly powerful and uses that power in bombing campaigns and always appears to win! If both sides keep the same mentalities then peace is very far away.

Suggestions

Energetically pursue a sustainable peace process to the Israeli/Palestinian. Do it now. The US has much it can do to support and make this process work. Sincerely the US has to confess its own sinfulness in this area.

Instead, bomb Afghanistan with butter, with rice, bread, clothing and medicine. It will cost less than conventional arms, poses no threat of US casualties and just might get the populace thinking that the Taliban don't have the answers.

Saturation bombing with hope will mean that some of it gets through. Send so much that the Taliban can't collect and hide it all. The Taliban are telling their people to prepare for Jihad. Instead, let's give the Afghani people their first good meal in years. Seeing your family fully fed and the prospect of stability in terms of food and a future is a powerful deterrent to martyrdom. All we ask in return is that they, as a people, agree to enter the civilised world. That includes handing over terrorists in there midst.

Invest financially in development, education and a broad social agenda in the countries surrounding Afghanistan rather than attempting to destroy the Taliban in a search for Bin Laden. The single greatest pressure that could ever be put on Ben Laden is to remove the source of his justification and alliances.

Finally a call to the Maltese diplomatic service. In order to justify the use of such service, which uses a lot of our money, why don't we take the initiative in order to bring both sides together? We are very near the Arab world and we understand the Anglo-American culture.