I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine: Can Obama’s war on Syria be just?

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image003THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS is summoning its righteous wrath against the regime of Bashar al Assad. In the name of American unity, even the Tea Partiers are preparing to lay aside their obstructionist tactics. On 9 September (Tuesday our time) both the House of Representatives and the Senate seem certain to bestow upon President Barack Obama what the British House of Commons denied Prime Minister James Cameron: the invaluable benediction of the people’s will.

 

But, during the debates that are set to echo around the stately chambers of American democracy, will any congressman or woman invoke the names of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas? Is any American politician willing, in the full glare of the television lights, to unpick the concept of a Just War?

 

We tend to think of the international concern with upholding human rights as a relatively modern phenomenon. In fact, the discussion and debate about when the use of force is – and is not – justified goes back more than 2,000 years. The Christian fathers, in particular, struggled to reconcile the Old Testament commandment “Thou shalt not kill”, and Christ’s insistence that we should “love our enemies”, with the propensity of emperors, kings and armies to do precisely the opposite.

 

As a citizen of Rome, Augustine of Hippo (354-430AD) took a characteristically conservative and legalistic approach to the whys and the wherefores of warfare. The commandment against killing, he argued, only applied to unlawful and/or unjustified killing. It was permissible to kill in defence of one’s own or another’s life. It was also permitted to kill at the behest of lawfully constituted authority – so soldiers and executioners were likewise let off the hook.

 

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A Christian government, St Augustine decided, was morally obligated to protect the peace and punish the wicked. To take no action in the face of the kind of wrongdoing that only the judicious use of violence can put an end to – or prevent – is a sin.

 

Which only goes to show how very much the philosophers and theologians of Imperial Rome and Imperial America have in common! On the question of whether or not the United States should take action against the Syrian Government, I suspect “Congressman Augustine” would be sorely tempted to vote “Aye”.

 

Coming 800 years after the rather simplistic legalism of St Augustine, the thinking of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274AD) on what constituted a Just War was (thankfully) just a little more complex.

 

For a start, a Christian Government isn’t a Christian Government just because it says so. To determine whether the authority sanctioning war is a lawful authority, one has to examine its behaviour. If it fails to act in accordance with the rules laid down by men attempting to do on Earth what is done in Heaven, then its claim to lawful authority – and hence the right to make war – cannot be accepted. Rightful action is only born of rightful intention. One cannot engage in a Just War for unjust reasons.

 

In practical terms: Aquinas’ Just War must be waged to end wrongdoing; to protect the lives of the innocent; to restore what has been stolen or destroyed; and to punish those who have committed evil acts. In addition to these specific objectives, however, the Just War’s over-riding objective must be the creation or restoration of a Just Peace.

 

Raining down Tomahawk missiles on military targets in Syria – and then simply sailing away – doesn’t qualify as Just War.

 

Trust a Dominican to set the ethical bar so high! One suspects that “Congressman Aquinas” would not only vote “Nay”, but that he’d be a real thorn in the Obama Administration’s side on all the major TV chat shows.

 

With the passage of eight more centuries the elements of a Just War remain remarkably consistent with the stipulations of Augustine and Aquinas.

 

To count as a Just War the initiation of military force cannot serve any motives other than the interdiction of evil and the restoration of peace. Furthermore, the military agency involved must be acting under the auspices of righteous authority. This stipulation rules out any government which launches hostilities without the express support of its citizens. The concepts of a Just War and Democracy are thus inextricably intertwined: any regime which acts without reference to, or in defiance of, the wishes of its people, cannot claim to be fighting a Just War.

 

If the Obama Administration hopes to characterise its initiation of military force against Syria as a Just War, it will be obliged to satisfy “Congressmen Augustine” and “Congressman Aquinas” of the following:

 

That the use of force will be effective. If Syria is being punished for using chemical weapons, will the actions of the US armed forces guarantee that they will not/cannot be used again?

 

That the use of force will be proportionate. An attack which leads to more loss of life and material damage than the alleged Syrian Government attack, and which further intensifies an already devastating civil war, cannot be considered proportionate. What’s more, if it leaves the situation on the ground worse than it would have been had the attack not occurred, then the use of force has not been effective (see above).

 

That the use of force is the best and only viable option available. An attack on Syria must be the last possible resort of the Administration. If there is even the slightest possibility that the desired outcomes of a military strike: the punishment of the perpetrators of the chemical attack; the elimination of all chemical weapon stockpiles; the securing from all sides of undertakings that there will be no further use of Sarin gas – might be achieved by other, non-lethal means (through the UN, for example, or at the International Criminal Court) then those means must be utterly exhausted before force is used.

 

Clearly, President Obama – a man who claims to be a Christian – cannot give a positive answer to any of these questions. An attack on Syria would, therefore, be evidence of ulterior and unrighteous motives – most of them to do with the United States’ geopolitical relationships with Israel, Iran and Russia. Such motivations do not even remotely entitle the American President to characterise his planned attack on Syria as an act of Just Warfare.

 

Few will be surprised at this conclusion. Even in their own time, St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas struggled to persuade the Powers That Be that the initiation of force was something to be contemplated only as a last resort – lest those responsible forfeit their immortal souls.

 

Or, as Bob Dylan expressed it in his 1967 ballad I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine:

 

I dreamed I saw St. Augustine
Alive as you or me
Tearing through these quarters
In the utmost misery
With a blanket underneath his arm
And a coat of solid gold
Searching for the very souls
Who already have been sold.

 

12 COMMENTS

  1. Sometimes, Chris, I wish the Commonwealth was a much greater force for good in the world. Could speak with one voice, in truth, and remind the US that they are but one nation among many, one vote among many. Time to calm down and put aside the drums of war. There’s serious talking to be done, in the cause of peace.

    Not the UN, where it is nation by nation and the small fish can be bought or frightened: the big commercial blocs – Commonwealth, ASEAN, EU, South American and African Unions. For this now, that is possibly what is needed.

    “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke

    I deeply enjoyed this piece. It reads like a further step on a quest.

  2. the thing that I find the most hypocritical are the pointed self righteous chemical weapons lines trotted around.
    I have 2 words on that – depleted uranium.

    and I bet they all sleep so well at night because they work so hard on their little plans all day.

    Thanks for the great piece Chris

    • I regard depleted uranium as not only a ‘chemical weapon’ (owing to its high level of toxicity), but also as a ‘nuclear weapon’. One might deny this, but what argument could one present in support of that denial in the face of the known damaging effects of ingesting radioactive dust created by the impact of such projectiles upon its target?

      The US and its running dog cronies (Is there anyone on the planet who can stomach David Cameron? Just asking) can boast as much as they like about nuclear weapons not being used since 1945. Aurochs ordure. They lie in their teeth. Nuclear (and chemical) weapons were used in Iraq by the United States and its pals.

      (Curious thing about depleted uranium ammunition. It was invented by a German, but the Germans themselves [I’m told] don’t use it).
      Cheers,
      Ion

      • Too true!
        There is a US army video also that showed soldiers the health hazards of DU.
        But the US army banned it because it spooked the soldiers and told the truth about how dangerous DU is. So now the US army prefers that soldiers dont know about the dangers or why they are getting sick rather than the truth be known.

  3. You can make this a lot simpler…How about
    We’ve seen it all before..
    The pattern..
    ..the lies.
    Syria is just …part of the pattern..
    (The agenda of ..the Bullies who like to pose as Cops/Rescuers of the Planet …hint hint..”we’ll bring democracy (Fix it) to YOU, he he with our bombs etc”)

    OH! SO OVER IT!~!!

  4. Saddest thing is the history of wars and the hypocrisy and hyperbole many dont know, are too young to have studied or will never remember because they were never told.
    I studied war history anf the language used to justify it in the ‘christian’ environment of a convent where I lost Jesus, found cynicism but learnt how to critically think and reflect about the irony of effective proportionate punitive actions as retribution or humanitarian? on my knees at times!

    Morality and military I quickly realised are mutually exclusive after going a little further than I was meant to, into what happened to many millions of civilians and children courtesy of the UK and USA in Germany during WWII and questioning the morality of that!

    Add what the USA & UK have since similarly used in Vietnam, Iraq and have facilitated or been blindeyed to the use of such weapons of horror by Israel as well
    and I’m with the Aquinas camp too.
    Enjoyed this, but even here in “Godzone’ hell on earth feels closer with the current coalition of devils in charge here, tasked to act with ‘conscience’ as well as consider ‘moral support’ to another WAR not ‘intervention’ of terror!
    If the UN was the last barrier and there isnt even the pretext of waiting for that?
    Where are we headed? Just war there has never been a just war for the children.

  5. […] “We tend to think of the international concern with upholding human rights as a relatively modern phenomenon. In fact, the discussion and debate about when the use of force is – and is not – justified goes back more than 2,000 years. The Christian fathers, in particular, struggled to reconcile the Old Testament commandment “Thou shalt not kill”, and Christ’s insistence that we should “love our enemies”, with the propensity of emperors, kings and armies to do precisely the opposite. – Chris Trotter […]

  6. I had a dream once, I dreamt of the world at peace where everyone was free, dreams could become reality, and humanity prospered and grew…..
    It seems that some people just don’t grow up, you might recall the bully at school with his circle of the buyer is who appreciated his strength rather than as brain and they always supported them when he wanted to pick on some small kid, simply because he didn’t like him or wanted something from him (or her, as the case may be).

    But I think we can be sure the USA will not listen to anyone else and I’m sure that many people realise this to the extent that they will shut up and ensure the consequences which could become another nuclear event.

    Peace and common sense? Yeah right http://wp.me/p3IRVb-l7

  7. Uncle SAM is BACKING alQaeda in Syria. alNusra mercenary ‘rebels’ photographed with McCain. Arrested with sarin by Turkish Police……found most likely to have used it by del Ponte. Are TOTALLY most to gain by its false flag use in Damascus ‘tipping’ NATO R2P.
    What part of that doesn’t MATTER to the sentient being!? We have just spent 12 years killing half the Muslim world on the strength of 911 being alQaeda. Now we are told they are ‘fighting for democracy and freedom’ in Syria SFA ?!
    Deceit at this level is unsustainable.

  8. It was the judgement the emerged from the Nuremburg Trials that ‘war guilt’ lay with the one that fired the first shot. In a war between nations – USA vs Syria, the war guilt will rest upon the former, did it carry out its threat of air strikes.

    War guilt rested with Iraq over its (USA-backed) war with Iran; it did also over its invasion of Kuwait (however legitimate or otherwise its complaints against that country). But it lay firmly upon the American side in the 2003, just as it did in Afghanistan.

    As far as the Syrian Civil War is concerned, there is good reason to believe that the thing was fomented by American agents provocateurs in the first place. For a start, the US has a long and crowded history of destabilizing nations whose politics and/or regimes they didn’t like, formenting civil war, political murder – anything that redounds to American advantage. Why should this be different?

    If we were looking at this from the point of view of a detective examining a case, motive and opportunity would certainly place the USA upon the list of suspects. The evidence is less clear, mainly owing to the manner in which the crime scenes have been trampled over.

    Leaving aside, then, the possibility (probability?) of American involvement in this conflict from the outset, what might be the outcome? Suppose the US succeeded in getting rid of Bashar al-Assad and his administration. Then what?

    Scenario 1: This was suggested within a year of Saddam Hussain’s downfall in Iraq: that he be replaced by some ‘strongman’ to restore order. I mean: WTFH? Basically it was suggested that Saddam Hussain be replaced by another Saddam Hussain. For mine, that went show the complete and utter pointlessness of the US war against Iraq.

    Scenario 2: Libya. Need I say more? Can anyone on the planet say, with hand on heart, that Libyans at large are better off for Qaddafi’s demise? A few, yes, maybe. But the murders, violence and fear is ongoing – just as it is in Iraq and Iran. Good heavens, the war in Afghanistan has lasted THREE TIMES the duration of the US involvement in World War Two. This from what was (and probably no longer is) the richest, most powerful nation in the world against one of the poorest and after a ten-year war in the recent past weakest.

    The United States has arrogated to itself the roles of world policeman, judge, jury, prosecutor and witness for the prosecution, and added to that Lord High Executioner. Its moral right and ground for such a position is – in ‘K’s’ deathless words: ‘precisely dick.’

    The war in Syria is already an unjust war. The (formally acknowledged) entry of the United States into it won’t make it a just one.
    Cheers,
    Ion

  9. John Wesley Harding” the record from which the song “I dreamed I saw St Augustine” comes from, is my favourite Bob Dylan album. Completely timeless, and every time one puts it on (when in the mood to listen to it) it sounds as new as ever.

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