JOE SOBRAN'S WANDERER COLUMN
WASHINGTON WATCH

LIBERATING IRAQ
April 17, 2003

     In its April 14 issue, THE NEW YORKER published a 
harrowing article by Jon Lee Anderson describing the 
horrors Iraqi civilians are enduring. I note a passage 
about a 12-year-old boy who was badly scorched in a 
rocket attack; both his forearms had to be amputated. His 
father, mother, and six siblings were all killed; he is 
conscious, but he doesn't yet know that his family has 
perished, and he is not expected to live more than a few 
days.

     Stories like this don't seem to change anyone's 
mind. I've already heard from readers who support the war 
arguing (without pausing to express much pity for the boy 
and his family) that the civilian casualties are all the 
fault of Saddam Hussein for bringing this war on them. So 
whatever the U.S. forces do can be charged to Hussein's 
account. That takes care of that.

     The phrase "minimizing civilian casualties," is odd, 
when you stop to think about it. It certainly doesn't 
mean *avoiding* civilian casualties; it means a policy 
of trying not to kill and maim people unless in the 
course of striking military targets. This presupposes 
that the war is justified on other grounds. If it is 
unjustified, then not only the civilians but the soldiers 
who defend their country are victims of mass murder. So 
it behooves us to make sure the arguments for war are 
extremely strong.

     That seems pretty doubtful, when most of the world, 
including the Pope and many orthodox moral theologians, 
thinks otherwise. Let us consider an analogy.

     Let us posit that killing an abortionist is 
justified by arguments like those for toppling Saddam 
Hussein (who may have been killed in a recent attack -- 
the fact is still in dispute as I write). Since the civil 
authorities refuse to act, I decide to blow up his home 
in order to save the many lives he would otherwise take. 
But I can only do this at risk -- a near certainty -- of 
also killing his wife and children. Can I justify the act 
on grounds that their fate will be his fault?

     Clearly not. The argument is too tortuous. We may 
not commit crimes against some innocents in the hope of 
preventing other crimes against many more innocents.

     The same moral principles apply to states. Yet in 
this age of state-worship, it is widely assumed that 
"legitimate" governments, however legitimacy is defined, 
may do things it would be criminal for individuals to do. 
This is the essence of the heresy of statism: The belief 
that *the state is somehow above the moral law.*

     That is why we are now far less shocked -- if shocked 
at all -- when, say, a President Bill Clinton orders the 
bombing of Kosovo, which is sure to kill many civilians, 
than by a suicide bombing in Israel that kills far fewer. 
Both are murder, but one is "authorized" and the other 
isn't. Our state-conditioned moral reflexes tell us that 
"authorized" killing is tolerable, but that an individual 
decision to kill is anarchic, and wrong for that reason.

     During World War II, Allied bombing campaigns 
resulted in maximum civilian casualties with the aerial 
bombing of cities. Ironically, one of the justifications 
the government offered for the war in the first place had 
been that the Japanese had bombed Chinese cities. We soon 
became so inured to war that we forgot how horrifying 
this practice had once been. The airplane was still a 
wondrous new invention, most people had never flown in 
it, and its use as an instrument of death seemed a 
diabolical and terrifying perversion of human ingenuity.

     But by now we take aerial bombing for granted. It 
seems downright humanitarian for a government at war to 
promise not to overdo it. We are comforted by the 
assurance that the latest weapons are so sophisticated 
that any bombing will be "surgical" and "precise," 
confined to "military targets."

     Once the hostilities commence, however, such talk is 
quickly forgotten. The entire enemy population may be 
considered a military target; Harry Truman called the 
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki military targets. In any 
case, military targets become so broadly defined that 
nobody is safe.

     American tanks have now fired on Baghdad's Palestine 
Hotel, killing several foreign journalists. An Army 
spokesman said there was sniper fire from the hotel, but 
no witness heard it, and tank fire against rifles is a 
bit disproportionate, especially against a hotel known to 
be full of civilians.

     As the American forces advance victoriously, more 
and more Iraqis are welcoming them. The hawks claim 
vindication from this fact, saying it proves that 
"liberation" is the real purpose of the war and not just 
a hollow propaganda slogan. That remains to be seen. No 
doubt many Iraqis are glad to be rid of Hussein's 
thuggish rule; but victorious armies always find eager 
collaborators, as well as people who are simply relieved 
that the worst of the fighting is over and, liberated or 
not, are grateful just to be alive and unharmed. 

     We have also seen that many Iraqis are willing to 
fight to the death against a foreign invader. And of 
course Hussein's regime forced many to fight by means of 
threats against them and their families. It's too early 
to say that "the Iraqi people" have a single opinion, let 
alone a positive one, of their putative liberation.

     But it is necessary to repeat an elementary moral 
principle. A war is not justified solely, or chiefly, by 
its results. No triumph can restore the dead, or atone 
for them. Victory parades will only help us forget them.

     Can anyone imagine our Lord cheering a parade of 
conquering soldiers? Yes, I suppose some people can -- 
namely, those who have been coming up with inventive 
applications of Just War theory in order to defend 
Operation Iraqi Freedom. It is a great comfort to me that 
they have received a cold reception from the Vicar of 
Christ himself. Not that they are likely to question 
their own position now; victory rarely begets humility. 
In their minds, the U.S. success will prove that they 
were right and the Pope was wrong. As Humpty-Dumpty says, 
"That's logic."

HANDS FULL

     But at least the debate on the war has focused sharp 
attention on the designs of the neoconservatives who for 
decades have been striving for war between the United 
States and the Muslim world. It won't be so easy for them 
to get the wider war they still thirst for. They are 
being watched, not only in this country, but all over the 
world.

     And observers haven't failed to note that there are 
more women than neoconservatives out on the battlefield. 
Did anyone think these men were about to shed their own 
blood for their propaganda?

     Occupying Iraq will also keep the Bush 
administration's hands full for a while. 


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