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| Why Force Would be Justified | |
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Jeremiah Denton on Why
Force Would Be Justified Retired U.S. Admiral and Ex-Senator on the Problem of Aggression MOBILE, Alabama, MARCH 8, 2003 (Zenit.org).- As the Holy See continues to press for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis, debates continue over the justification of a U.S.-led military intervention against Saddam Hussein. As part of an ongoing survey of views on the situation, ZENIT interviewed retired Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, a former U.S. senator and highly decorated one-time prisoner of war who is an expert in military affairs and foreign policy. Here, he explains his support for President George W. Bush's proposed action in Iraq. Q: As a practicing Catholic, are you uncomfortable that your positions vary with recent Vatican statements regarding the legitimacy of the use of force by the United States and its allies in a war against Iraq? Denton: No, because I disagree with them. I do not consider myself as disagreeing with something on which the Holy Father has ruled ex cathedra. Let me say that I have tremendous respect for the huge part His Holiness Pope John Paul II played in coordinating with Ronald Reagan the peaceful resolution of the Cold War. I regard him as a hero for that and many other achievements. But during the 1970s and onward I have found myself increasingly disagreeing with opinions of various organizations of bishops, and find them shockingly presumptuous and unqualified when they take pains to express emphatic opinions outside their realms of expertise. My present archbishop, Oscar L. Lipscomb, has helped me in many ways, especially with his counsel and support of my One Nation under God Program and my TRANSFORM Program under the National Forum Foundation http://www.nff.org/, but he does not necessarily agree with me on the issue under discussion. During my Senate tenure, Cardinal Obando y Bravo and Cardinal Pio Laghi were two of my heroes when they played important roles in helping me convince Congress to switch U.S. aid to El Salvador rather than to then communist Nicaragua which, with Soviet and Cuban urging and support, was attacking El Salvador and intimidating Honduras and Costa Rica. Many bishops and much of the Maryknoll order clamored and worked for Nicaragua. The situation today seems similar, and the majority is the vocal, quoted group. My criticism of any of these bishops is not categorical; I consider them well meant. My criticism is limited to their naiveté in world affairs and their eagerness to offer aggressively expressed and frequently wrong opinions aimed at policies of American presidents in their role as commander in chief. I visited Pope Paul VI in 1973, and having read much anti-war sentiment ascribed to him, I was anxious about the meeting. As soon as he understood my curiosity, he eagerly sat me at his desk and then spent 45 minutes alone with me intensely confiding about his views on war and peace. I was delighted at what he said, and charmed and educated as he took me through page by page of his encyclical on war and peace, in which he made clear that war is hell but there are other forms of hell that can be worse, that the definition of peace is not the absence of war, and that Vietnam was a just war for the U.S. Q: On a different note, has there been significant progress by international organizations in terms of eliminating or reducing the number of unnecessary wars? Denton: Yes, I believe there has been accelerating progress. Some examples have been the Concert of Europe, The Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions, the League of Nations, and the United Nations. The United Nations and the other previously mentioned international organizations were or are helpful, and generally capable of doing good. But none of them has been perfect, nor are they conceivably effective in all cases. For example, the League of Nations could use only economic sanctions to stop aggression, which was not enough to deter the Italian-Ethiopian war, the step-by-step aggressions of Hitler's Germany, World War II itself and the takeover of Eastern European nations by the Soviet Union. The limit of economic sanctions was not the only limit in the case of the League of Nations. The League shared with the United Nations -- which can authorize military force to stop aggression -- the dilemma of having the incapability to absolutely define to the satisfaction of all parties in any given case whether the offensive action being taken is indeed "aggression." Q: Do you believe that in the present condition of international affairs, the United Nations Charter and the votes of the Security Council should be considered the ultimate authority by which the United States is permitted to wage war for any reason? Denton: No, I do not. The United Nations method of solving this dilemma -- the application of a Security Council vote, the council being composed of nations, with some having veto power, each having different national principles, different established reputations for international behavior and correspondingly different interests and moral and ethical standards -- does not constitute an all-inclusive, nor necessarily just method of resolution of the issue. This does not mean that the United Nations is useless in its power to inhibit aggression. But it does mean that it is rendered incapable in practicable terms of making decisions that settle a matter in which the vital interests of superpowers are concerned. The United Nations, though incapable of its ultimate purpose, does constitute a very valuable contribution toward rendering war less likely. It presents inhibition against immediate unilateral action and presents a forum for deliberation among the contending nations. The debate on the issues which takes place is aired to the entire world, with the possibility that a potential aggressor will have second thoughts and drop its plans. In the case of a non-superpower aggressor, the United Nations can effect corrective military action. However, the United Nations was virtually powerless to affect the Cold War, being saddled with the necessary absurdity of having the United States sitting on the Security Council with the already-proven aggressor nation -- the Soviet Union -- both having veto powers. With the accelerating speed in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the rapid growth of terrorism, it would seem fatally ridiculous to rely on the slow-moving, impracticable process of the United Nations. ZE03030802 |
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| TAKEN FROM: www.Zenit.org | |