“On occasion scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly.- Rick Santorum
Yesterday, one of my readers was explaining that when you kill a an Iranian civilian in cold blood, that’s “pre-emptive killing, not murder”. “100% Prolife” candidate Rick Santorum holds precisely this view, dissenting from two millennia of Catholic teaching which says that you may never, for any reason, deliberately take innocent human life. Our country is not at war and the Iranian scientist who just got offed was not a combatant. He was a murder victim–which Santorum thinks is wonderful.
One reader, an actual self-identified “FrancoFan” and a fascist responded by saying that no Muslim anywhere is a noncombatant. Therefore it is always legitimate to kill Muslims. Strangely, this apologist for cold-blooded murder of innocents can no longer post here.
Others argued the old “Wouldn’t a well-placed car bomb in 1937 have done wonders for the peace of the world?” Why stop there? Freakonomics fans argue that well-placed abortion clinics in populations prone to a high crime rate have saved us a world of hurt by killing criminals in the womb. Would a well-placed abortion in 1889 have saved the world a lot of trouble?
100% Prolife candidate Rick Santorum, already on record in favor of torture, is now on record as in favor of the murder of civilians on the chance that something or other might happen years from now to justify it. Some people will try to make the claim that he was not a civilian. Sorry, but we are not at war with Iran. The scientist is part of the military-industrial infrastructure of Iran–just like the occupants of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were. If you say it is legitimate to murder him, you are saying it was legitimate for Osama bin Laden to murder his victims on 9/11.
There’s a reason for Just War theory. Santorum should try learning about it. Particularly since if you grant his logic, there’s no reason why you should confine “pre-emptive killing” to swarthy foreigners. As Freakonomics fans make clear, you can (and should) apply the same logic right here at home to unborn babies from the lower classes. Santorum has laid the groundwork for prolifers to find their way back into the pro-abortion fold of the American Empire. How good and pleasant it is when Planned Parenthood and Santorum are on the same page about “pre-emptive killing” of the potentially dangerous. Maybe he can head up the Department of Pre-Crime for our God King.
Amen. Can we please find a candidate who is pro-life across the board? Wait, what about Ron Paul … ? No, he’s an unelectable ego-maniac (as right-wing radio has been calling him). He’ll probably say something nutty about having sewed the seeds for retaliation and further violence. Sheesh. What a kook! It’s like he’s read the Gospel!
Ron Paul thinks marriage needs no protection, so any type of marriage is okay with him. Marry as many people as you want, and Paul has no problem.
As far as Santorum, and the scientist. I think, it could be justified to kill a scientist, IF, and this is a very big IF, we had very credible evidence that it would be used to attack a country without, provocation. The Catholic Church has taught, that if enemy combatants are lining up across the border, preparing to attack, you do not have to wait for the first shot.
A police officer does not have to wait to be shot at, to defned himself. He may need to fire the first shot. I think Santorum could be correct in part of his belief.
Not true about Ron Paul. He favors traditional marriage but acknowledges that the matter is up to the States, unless the Constitution is amended.
That’s the problem, the states would force it upon us. Then traditional marriage is over. Once one goes for it, all will be forced to accept it. Here comes men with multiple wives. Paul doesn’t think the state has a obligation to protect marriage. Thereby, he doesn’t think it has need to protect children, which is the same thing. You protect marriage, you protect children. The government has a vested intrest to do so.
Well, I agree in that I do think that government has an obligation to uphold traditional marriage, to ensure its own future health. No matter who is President, though, unless we get a Constitutional amendment, things will continue down the current path.
Ron Paul would nominate judges who favor a reading of the Constitution based on original intent, and that’s good enough for me.
So, in the case of abortion, returning the decision to the states is the right path, but in the case of marriage it’s wrongheaded and dangerous? Why?
Are you asking me or taad? I think abortion and traditional marriage are important enough that Constitutional amendments would be justified, but until there is enough support for said amendments, returning the matters to the states is the path to take.
If you look at the states that have passed amendments protecting traditional marriage you will find that the majority of them have done it, the next largest number are consdering amendments, and a small minority of the ususal suspect states have passed same sex marriage.
So Paul saying it should be up to the states would not be a bad thing…AND, it is easier to influence state and local pols because they live in your neighbourhood and not in the DC Ivory Tower.
CK, or is it Louis CK? Son, you obviously aren’t a practicing Catholic, but you may be what we used to call a “New England Catholic”. Your problem.
It’s always been Existential, Ron will win because everybody knows he’s right. All you have are dead voters, smoked-filled rooms and martial law.
(Sigh) eventually you will “get it” and start smiling like the rest of us.
Why do so many people not trust the states to do the “right” thing, where the people have the most influence, and yet have complete trust in the federal government, where the people have the least voice?
Why not world government? after all nations can’t be trusted to do what’s right.
Why not just get rid of states, and the 10th amendment too?
I can’t speak for everyone Dave, but I for one trust the states, it’s the Supreme Court that I highly distrust. In the late 60′s early 70′s this was the mentality with abortion – that it’s a state issue. Well that didn’t work out too well for us. If a couple gets married in New Hampshire and moves to Idaho where the state says they are no longer married, it won’t take long for a case to go before the SC on this issue too.
Ok, what the hell do you care what other people do with respect to marriage? How the hell is it your business whether any two, or three or four adults want to call themselves married? How does it affect your marriage? Why all this concern over what other people do if they are doing NOTHING to you? All this talk about “protecting marriage” is a crock. Gingrich is real big on “protecting marriage” and you can see how much marriage meant to him. In what way is your’s or anyone elses marriage threatened if two gay people want to be marriage. The thing about “morality” is this – it should determine how you live your life and you have no business applying it to the lives of others. Let them live by their own morality, just as you would expect as long as they are doing nothing to harm you.
Why do I care about homosexual marriage? Or other types? First, it is the duty of the country to protect it’s young people. This would put children at risk. It would eventually lead to more and more confusion as to what real marriage is about, and ultimately destroy our social fabric, ultimately the country. Also, I do fear God. It is a good fear. God will not bless a country that promotes and defends active homosexuality. How that will work out, I do not know. But I do know it will not go well for us. And we are all in the same boat together.
It’s the responisibility of the *country* to protect its young? I thought this responsibilty fell to parents. Perhaps you can point me to the authority who declared this to correct my error.
I thought it was the obligation of the country to defend our liberties, not our lives?
Why else, then, is murder not a federal offense, but a state one?
Some states might. But influencing at the state level is MUCH easier than the Fed level. Once the Feds get to define marriage do you REALLY believe they will protect ANYTHING “traditional”? Government thrives on our dysfunction, divorce, chaos..they get more power. Giving government the power to define and regulate marriage is a HUGE mistake and immoral, that power will eventually be in the hands of those who are anti-traditional marriage. Live by the sword (violence and force), die by the sword.
What you seem to be missing in “caring about marriage” is the fact that it is the government that promotes alternative lifestyles. When the govt is in-charge of marriage, it can define it however it wants. Bring it back to the states, and you have a lot more control. Get the govt out completely, and now the people and – heaven forbid – the churches will have more influence. You will never get rid of immorality (there’s a lot of it in the churches, in part because they trust the govt more than God), but our influence and example has a lot more impact when we can use it without the heavy hand of govt defining what “marriage” is, and telling us what we can say or do.
I’m not sure I agree with Ron Paul on marriage, but I think it is important to be clear about his views, which he expresses here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul207.html
I think NOM did him a great disservice in their ad against him in Iowa.
I agree. I canceled my support for NOM after that ad came out, and wrote them a letter saying why.
Paul also thinks abortion is a states rights issue….really it should be up to the states to determine if you can murder someone.
For all other prolifers, wanting to repeal Roe is a feature. For Ron Paul, it’s a bug. Some people will believe anything they are told by their tribal elders in the GOP.
Abortion was a matter for the states until the pro abortion crowd pushed through Roe v Wade. Getting it repealed will send it back to the states.
Ron Paul just saying it -even if elected President -will not automatically make it so.
The ssm crowd -at some point -will try to do the same thing. Right now it is with the states. Someone will bring a law suit at some point–just like what happened with R v W.
The Supreme Court Justice nominations are critical at this point– along with Dems Loosing control of the Senate and the committee that approves the nomination and sends it on to the full Senate for a vote.(Judge Bork come to mind) Why do you think the pro abortion loons fight so hard for all of this. They certainly won big time in the last Presidential election–with some Catholic
help I am sorry to say.
Do you believe making abortion illegal will stop it? Only evangelization can do that. Change “hearts and minds and you won’t need a government club. Although it IS so satisfying to get government to force people to live the way YOU think they should, make their decisions for them, make them perfect and keep them from sinning.
Murder itself is a state offense. A state could, if they really wanted to, repeal their laws against homocide. They would be nuts to do so.
You aren’t going to stop abortion unless you can convince people that is, in fact, murder. That can and should be done – but it is a lot easier to do it in a few states FIRST, than go “all or nothing” with Federal legislation on the subject.
You’re wrong, taad. He takes a very Catholic position and first asks, “why is the government even in the business of marriage?” The matter of marriage should be left to the Church, and in cases of gays, they should be allowed to enter into mutually beneficial contracts (not marriage), but they deserve no special rights.
You are wrong. The bishops have stated the government needs to protect traditional marriage. Ron Paul does not believe this. It’s a fact. He is a libertarian to the point of legalizing drugs, or any thing the states want to do. This will destroy our country. We will fall apart.
Really, prior to the 1930′s there were no drug laws. Your great granny had actual cocaine in her Coca-Cola. One can argue that this country achieved its greatness in a period when currently illegal drugs were legal and prevalent.
Leave his granny out of it!!!
Try Pope Leo XIII and Pius X, both coke heads. Pope Leo went so far as to award a Vatican Gold Medal to his favorite producer, Vin Mariani, going so far as to allow them to use his likeness, and a likeness of the medal, in their labeling and advertising.
Since so many here seem to have different loyalties, maybe Popes won’t work.
US Grant was also a coke head. He too discovered Vin Mariani in later life. he drank American coca products prior to that, which were even more potent in cocaine than Vin Mariani.
“In 1886, John Pemberton developed Coca Cola, a drink that contained cocaine and caffeine. Cocaine was REMOVED from Coca Cola in 1906 (but it still has the caffeine). The Harrison Narcotic Act in 1914 made cocaine illegal.”
They realized a little earlier that there was a problem with some drugs that were available.
“The bishops have stated the government needs to protect traditional marriage.”
So, does this make it so? How can the Bishops expect the government to protect a sacrament? Does the government have to protect Baptism and Eucharist, too?
Shouldn’t the Bishops have taken Marriage OUT of the purview of government “protected” status after no-fault divorce? At what point do the Bishops develop the spine necessary to protect our sacraments FROM Government?
I think a transplant from Ron Paul’s spine to a few Bishops would be the best thing for all of us, if only Ron Paul’s spine was like a liver so that just cutting a small piece off and transplanting it to another spine would cause the new spine to regenerate into a full backbone!
I am no theologian by any stretch of the imagination but seems tome that asking the government to protect the sacraments is borderline idolatry.
You know, Taad, a lot of guys I read on these forums lambast RP, and don’t realize that they have a skewed understanding of his position. As far as “legalizing drugs”, he wants the Federal Government to get their noses out of the States business. He doesn’t believe the feds have the Constitutional authority. How many people that you know are going to run out and start buying heroin if it became legal….I know I wouldn’t. If the Coauntry is going to “fall apart” from anything, it going to be from the empty suits who are more presidential looking than Ron. Wake up, man!
It’s all about protect our future generations! The youth. They are the ones most at risk with drugs, with homosexual marriage and the like. It is an obligation for the government to so, for the future of the country. If you or Ron Paul don’t see that, your both blind.
I have seen the destruction of drugs. People become like animals, and it destroys them. We must not authorize this by government nod.
How close did you come to doing drugs or becoming homosexual as a child, and in what ways did govt protect you from such circumstances?
WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDRENS?!
Seriously? As a current college student I can tell you this – the war on drugs is stopping NO ONE from choosing to use them. I don’t use them, not because the government is “protecting” me from them, but because I recognize the harm they can do. Besides, alcohol is more dangerous than many of them, and people drink that all the time.
I don’t know if alcohol is more dangerous than methamphetamine. I don’t read stories about drunkards beheading people or torturing them to death for fun, like I have read in the news about some deviants on meth.
Ron Paul can’t be elected. Rick Santorum won’t be elected. Mitt Romney better be elected unless we want to watch our way of life to completely unravel in the next four years.
no, he is not in favor of legalizing drugs. He is in favor of letting the states have their constitutional rights given back to them so that they can control what drugs are illegal.
The bishops say they need govt protection? Really? Have they ever read about Jesus in the wilderness, being tempted with the power of the world’s govts? Have you?
If Jesus rejected such violent state power over others to spread his peaceful ways, what can you offer, to ensure you won’t fall to the political-statist temptations Jesus was careful to avoid?
Exactly, Marriage is a sacrament. Do we want the government to oversee who is eligible for Holy Orders or the eligibility or the administration of any other sacrament: Baptism, the Eucharist, Confirmation, Confession or Extreme Unction? I think not. Any government powerful enough to dictate that marriage is only between a man and woman is a government powerful enough to dictate that we have to accept that marriage can exist between two members of the same sex.
Government has overseen and managed the institution of marriage for quite a long time and look at the wonderful shape it is in.
Amen and Amen, Marv!!!
Government has never “managed marriage,” only licensed it. If you are somehow implying that government is at fault for the decline of marriage, you are sorely mistaken. Contraception is the culprit. Yes, since no-fault divorce became legal divorces have skyrocketed. But let’s be honest, government only legalized it because the people demanded it. The fact is it is contraception that severs marriages.
No ‘good’ marriage ever ended in divorce.
I don’t think divorce is such a terrible sin. Not as bad as marrying the wrong person, anyway. Remaining in a bad marriage might actually foster more sin than getting out. So I will abstain from passing judgment, and defer to those closest to the situation to make their own decisions in their own lives.
And who will protect the children in these different types of marriages? Does not the government have a vested intrest in the future generations? Pope JPII said it is an abuse to put children in these types of marriages.
the govt does such a wonderful job of taking care of children, doesn’t it? Again, when did individuals decide govt knows best? It’s fascinating watching so-called Christians putting their faith in govt rather than God
Do you serve govt, or God? You seem to serve two masters, if I may be forgiven for the judgment inherent in my criticism. Which do you love, and which do you despise?
That you look to govt for solutions to such human problems indicates to me that we might not be serving the same master, and that gives me pause.
The bottom line on the marriage issue is money- your money. Homosexual couples are looking for one over the world legal protection of their unions in order to maximize access to some financial benefits they currently cannot access. The bishops are exactly right in maintaining the position that the rule of law is to protect and defend the common good along the lines drawn in the Bill of Rights (US Constitution) with as little interference as necessary in the individual lives of the citizenry. As long as the law follows the Christian principles under which it was constructed, the citizenry can be reasonably sure of general welfare. When the government usurps authority, attempts to redefine moral boundaries, contrary to the free exercise of the practice of religion by a majority of the citizenry- the state begins to sound its own death knell.
Are you OK with ss adoption?
Sorry-the ss adoption question is for Mary.
“why is the government even in the business of marriage?”
While at first glance this seems like a “Catholic position,” as you claim. Could the Church adequately step in to protect and provide for women whose husbands leave them, with no income and no property? I understand this to be the reason why the Church eventually came on board with government sanctioning marriages.
Before the modern era, the common and ordinary view of the Church was that marriage and the rights incident thereto, including property distribution, was the domain of the Church. The civil authorities, legitimate or otherwise, had no right to intervene or regulate the matter. They had no sovereignty to do so.
The Church was a separate government on this matter with exclusive authority, except it was more legitimate given that it was actually based on consent.
In modern terminology, getting married in the Church should mean submitting yourself and consenting to its sovereign authority over that marriage. Starting with our Protestant friends, people outside the Church have found in the State a friend who can overrule the Church on marriage. This was always nothing more than an egoistic power struggle on the part of civil government and those who support it to set up a competing authority on marriage. It has no legitimacy before the eyes of God. We are Catholics first before we are citizens of any country.
That’s a nice essay, Mr. Torello and while I agree on principle we must live in today’s reality. And so I’ll ask the question again: Could the Church adequately step in to protect and provide for women whose husbands leave them, with no income and no property? If the answer is no, then the state has a legitimate role here.
Actually, the church has done this historically through religious orders who INVENTED the concept of the Hospital, the orphanage, homes for widows and orphans, unwed mothers, boarding schools for vocational training, universities, etc. All these functions have been taken over by the state when religious orders were villainized by some who suffered, then “regulated” out of existence and then the state took over completely yet still today we have institutionalized suffering at the hands of a predatory system that cost millions and depends on ever more “customers” to continue growing the bureaucracy of “caring”.
Can the govt? I mean, can the govt do that, without taxing someone else, or forcing someone else to accept her responsibilities on her behalf?
If it requires such violence to do something good, is that effort still good?
At least the church will not violate anyone’s rights in its efforts, like govts would.
Traditional marriage doesn’t need a government license.
Traditional marriage is between husband, wife, and God.
You know there is no perfect system and while I agree with marriage being between a man and a woman to some how take the fact that Ron Paul would leave marriage in the hands of the states and then turn around and use it to justify preemptive murder of another human being based on an assumption is one of the most absurd things I have ever heard. To say someone is a threat based on their occupation one would require omniscience and I don’t believe Rick Santorum meets that qualification. You need to rethink a few things If you are truly concerned about the Issue of life. You sound like someone who has been influnced by those who use fear and propaganda to go to war whenever they so choose. Americans have forgotten how to think critically of the vast amount of information they are fed by the agenda driven MSM who are nothing more than messengers for their corporate masters. Please, do your best to find accurate information in a day where lies have run amuck.
“To say someone is a threat based on their occupation one would require omniscience and I don’t believe Rick Santorum meets that qualification. ”
LOL understatement of the century!
Actually, Dr. Paul believes the state should not be involved in marriage, at all. He believes in the traditional definition of marriage, and he believes that marriage is best protected by removing state involvement in marriages.
Think of it this way. If there were no such thing as civil marriages witnessed by a justice of the peace, the institution of marriage would exist only in churches. There would be no drive-through “marriage” chapels in Las Vegas, and there would be no institution to recognize “gay marriage.” The radical homosexuals probably wouldn’t even be pursuing the “gay marriage” agenda. If you were to see a gay couple in public, there would be nothing to distinguish them as “married.” It is only the state’s recognition that gives them the public legitimacy that they’re looking for. Let’s remove the state from the game entirely, and we will have already won.
I really can’t see the big deal over the marriage fuss. For some reason we don’t seem to object when gays say they “love” each other. We confidently rest calm in assurance that they are just twisting the language and using terms illegitimately. So what if they want to twist the whole dictionary? I know what marriage means and I know what love means. And if you want to get all huffy about it, then why don’t you go on a crusade against their hijacking the word “love” instead? The bible never says that “God is marriage” but it does say “God is love”. Dr. Paul is right that gov’t has no role in the institution marriage which he correctly notes “predated the institution of the state.”
Thats’ a huge IF – only the US and Israel seem to insist that the uses of nuclear technology are for nefarious purposes. The IAEA stands with the fact that controls are in place and no flagrant violations have occured. If that scientist was helping produce isotopes for the purposes of helping cancer victims and someone just ‘offed’ him – tell it to God when that someone stands before Him and that man demands justice (or do Muslims have no claim on justice from the Divine?)
As far as thwe marriage issue – that is seriously complicated – how does one define a ‘traditional marriage’; one man/one woman. Well, a man and his sister are one man/one woman. Marriage has always been defined by church or local cultural customs.
First, that is NOT Ron Paul’s position on marriage. RP’s position is that it is not the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S job to determine what is and is not a legitimate marriage. This is up to states, local communities, and the church itself. Personally, I think government at all levels needs to stay out of marriage. What if the government tomorrow decided that fundamentalist Muslims and Mormons were right, and suddenly declared that only plural marriages would be recognized by the state? Would you agree with that? Keep the government to its ordained Biblical role of promoting justice and punishing criminals. Anything beyond that is over stepping the ordination of government and is unchristian at best.
Second we did not have credible evidence the scientist was involved in making an atom bomb. In fact, we do not have ANY credible evidence that the government of Iran is seeking to build a bomb. Our own CIA has stated that. So did the IAEA. So have the Iranians themselves.
Third, if the Iranians WERE seeking a bomb, would they not be justified in seeking it for self defense? After all the US government DID overthrow theirs in 1953, and established a dictatorship there. And ever since that dictator was deposed, we have been provoking and antagonizing them. the US government is the aggressor in this instance, not Iran. By your logic, Iran is justified in seeking a bomb for self defense.
Third, a cop is NOT justified in shooting someone, unless there is a very clear and very present danger to himself or others. this was most definitely not the case with the scientist.
CK, or is it Louis CK? Son, you obviously aren’t a practicing Catholic, but you may be what we used to call a “New England Catholic”. Your problem.
It’s always been Existential, Ron will win because everybody knows he’s right. All you have are dead voters, smoked-filled rooms and martial law.
(Sigh) eventually you will “get it” and start smiling like the rest of us.
I must apologize to Mr Santorum. In the past I have glibbly labeled him as the second incarnation of the Bush I presidency, or Bob Dole number 2. This gives him far too little credit.
He is clearly in his own class of idiocy.
hear hear I second you Chris!!! Perhaps he needs remedial ethics
The two extremes. On one hand, you have Santorum who seems so overly worried about Iran’s nuclear weapon capability that he’s willing to say such things, on the other extreme you have Paul who, well, doesn’t seem to think anything can go wrong if we’re not messing it up. Why doesn’t this election offer something other than extremes?
Personally, I’m more worried about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons than Iran getting nuclear weapons, not to say that I’m not worried about the latter.
Whatever happened to the belief that if we act justly, God will bless us? I guess Santorum doesn’t go for that one.
on the other extreme you have Paul who, well, doesn’t seem to think anything can go wrong if we’re not messing it up.
Well, since Paul is only seeking to be president of this country and not the whole world, I’d say his priorities are in the right place.
The main diff is not between us destroying them now, or them destroying us later. It is living honorably.
If we live honorably, and they attack us, we have every right to defend ourselves and our actions. Oh, and our souls may qualify for salvation. If we live dishonorably, and they defend themselves, what right do we have to complain? What claim would we have on salvation, then?
What makes you think that if Iran got a nuke they’d use it, or give it to someone else to use against us? Why wouldn’t Russia, China, or N Korea do the same things? Maybe they know as well as we do, that allowing questionable forces to get nukes from them might result in those weapons being used against their own interests. That means the only possible benefit for Iran to develop weapons is for national defense. Any offensive use would be traced to the source, and result in terrible retaliation. In light of this and other history, if a nuclear weapon is ever used against western targets, we should first assume that it is a false-flag attack to rally our sentiments against the enemies of the State, and refuse to ally ourselves with that state unless given convincing evidence. And even then, we should remain skeptical.
Objection: “Catholic teaching which says that you may never, for any reason, take innocent human life.”
That would be a gross oversimplification of just war theory. Just-war thinking begins with a basic moral judgment: that legitimate public authorities have a moral obligation to defend and pursue the peace of order, which is composed of justice and freedom. History has shown that that kind of peace can be advanced, in certain precise circumstances, by the proportionate, discriminate and strategically wise use of armed force. The use of the word “innocent” is not helpful. None of us is innocent in the eyes of God, yet my own father who shot a Japanese soldier dead on the island of Tarawa, was convinced his entire life that he killed an innocent man. Mr Santorum’s choice of words is unfortunate and unhelpful, but you cannot say that his sentiments are prima facia outside of Catholic moral thinking which asks the following questions: Was the action proportionate? Were other non-force alternatives exhausted? Did the action advance the cause? And finally – here is where you may have a debatable point – was the perpetrator essentially a non-combatant? I suppose if the man thought he was working toward the production of nuclear power, he was. If, on the other hand, he had full knowledge that he was contibuting to the constuction of weapons of mass destruction for a rogue state, one could argue he was not a non-combatant.
I agree; Mark’s sentence was badly phrased. It should read, “Catholic teaching which says that you may never, for any reason, deliberately take innocent human life.”
The rest of your post is nonsense. Again, if no one is innocent (much less the unbaptized baby in the womb), can’t we find proportional reasons to kill them?
Finally, Just War Theory applies to states, not to individuals. If applied to individuals, your own logic fails you:
(1.)Was the action proportionate? An unarmed civilian was deliberately killed while engaging in a non-combat action. What constitutes proportionate reasons to kill an unengaged citizen on purpose? Keep in mind that these reasons can be used to justify 9/11.
(2.)Were other non-force alternatives exhausted? Probably. After the US and its allies negotiated a trade embargo against this particular scientist, they have gone on to pester the UN and other governments for further sanctions. Since this civilian chose not to respond, they killed him. Understandable. We had no choice but to kill this unarmed, nonthreatening civilian.
(3.)Did the action advance the cause? What cause? Are we at war with scientists?
(4.)And finally – here is where you may have a debatable point – was the perpetrator essentially a non-combatant? Weasel words. “Essentially” has nothing to do with it. Was he a part of a military or para-military organization, actively engaged in war against us? Then he wasn’t a combatant, essentially or otherwise.
Fair enough. That wording is better. But it is precisely the deliberate killing of an innocent Santorum applauds. 100% Prolife my eye. When it suits him, Santorum applauds cold-blooded murder. As to the rest, I again agree. Lisa’s argument is nonsense.
These nuclear scientists are not innocents. They know what they are doing, what their research is going towards, and are fully aware that their government intends to use these in the active sense.
It is very likely that there work could be what deters the death of millions…….that is how the Soviet/American relationship worked.
Is it somehow different because Iranians tend to be a little browner?
The difference, Paul, is that Aahmadinejad has said quite plainly what he intends to do once he has a nuclear weapon–for Allah. He has already invited us to become an Islamic nation–those who understand his beliefs say that is an important step in his beleif system. That happened during the Bush admin.
He would not be making these statements if the Ayatollah behind the scenes actually running things did not approve of what he has threatened. Killing infidels -innocent or not -seems to be an OK thing for them to do. Allah gives a great reward for that in heaven apparently.
I think we would be foolish not to take him at his word.
We nor the Russians ever threated to use nuclear weapons first. Even they understood what a nuclear war would do and that was not what they wanted either.
Umm, you not only did threaten to use Nukes first.
You did use nukes first.
We started this arms race in violence and death. It’ll probably end in violence and death unimaginable.
Are ya’ll going to continue pressing toward that end though?
Looks like.
Yeah, and didn’t Khrushchev say “We will bury you!” But we made it out of that with diplomacy. Why can’t we do the same with Iran?
I’m a practicing Muslim that has and is studying Islamic law with traditional scholars – this is nonsense – killing innocent people in Islam is an aberration as it is in any religion worth its salt – please check your facts. This especially, unequivocally – beyond a doubt – applies to women and children.
I also did research into this question of nuclear weapons and their legitimacy in Islamic law. considered scholars (that have the requisite knowledge to claim the right to state an authoritative ruling on the matter) these are split into two basic camps.
1) Nuclear weapons are never justified because of their indiscriminate an overwhelmingly destructive nature.
2) They are justified in a response attack in-kind.
Those considered scholars (that have the requisite knowledge to claim the right to state an authoritative ruling on the matter) are split into two basic camps.
1) Nuclear weapons are never justified because of their indiscriminate an overwhelmingly destructive nature.
2) They are justified in a *response* attack in-kind.
Please site one reference of a *scholar*, anywhere that has ever claimed these can be used in a first strike.
Demagogues and their minions routinely confuse scholars and politicians.
Talha,
Thanks for the perspective.
You’re making awfully confident assertions about their inner beliefs here, assertions that we can’t possibly know are true. I would imagine that these scientists DO know that their research will bolster Iran’s weapons program, but apart from that we can’t say much of anything about their intentions. We don’t know that they believe the weapons will be used offensively. We don’t know that they really have much of a choice in their current career. And either way, they are working in a strictly civilian capacity doing work that is morally neutral (developing nuclear technology, or even weapons technology).
Did you, in your unerring wisdom, ever give space to the possibility that some, perhaps even many of these scientists may well be doing this against their will, with the Iranian government holding a threat over the lives of their loved ones?
Carry on in your certainty.
Paul – grow up and get off the skin colour crap! Iranians are Persians and have the same complexion as Greeks, Italians and other Mediterranean countries.
But they are not as white as your typical Russian.
I’m fine. I will stay where I am.
Neither am I, nor are my wife and children…but I don’t go round pointing it out all the time.
The skin colour statement is a strawman that is void of any intellect.
So all nuclear scientists are up for assasination?
By that logic, military contractors and arms manufacturers here in the USA are not innocent, either, and are fair game for the Taliban.
Making or even possessing weapons does not lead to the forfeiture of one’s right to live. Besides, we’re not even at war with Iran.
Precisely the reasoning employed by Osama bin Laden to justify murdering the enablers of the military-industrial complex in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. On this reckoning, no civilian of a militarized nation state is a non-combatant.
There is a huge difference between the murder of bankers, traders, and a nuclear physicist that is working for the military, and leading program to develop nuclear weapons. He is not a civilian.
Yes. He was a civilian. You can’t murder people and then declare them soldiers afterwards. So were the victims of 9/11, who helped provide the financial infrastructure that supports our militarized state. If he was a “soldier” so were they said bin Laden, since they help to write the paychecks of the country that was the enemy of Al Quaeda and Islam. Sorry, but that’s where your logic goes. It eradicates the distinction between combatant and civilian and makes excuses for cold-blooded murder.
Rick Santorum seduces the faithful into supporting murder.
You are both right and wrong. 1. The Iranian scientist and the victims on 9/11 are different. Some, such as those who worked a the Pentagon, were clearly government or military and thus legitimate targets in time of war. Others would fall under past precedent as legitimate strategic targets (a la Dresden or Tokyo in WWII) such as the World Trade Center. Others, however, were clearly innocent civilians, protected under international law and conventions, most clearly the passengers on the various flights, which included children. The death of a government scientist is clearly different from the death due to collateral damage of those working in the WTC.
That being said, the Iranian scientist is not a legitimate target for assassination, since we are at not at war with Iran. I wonder if Santorum understands the implications of what he is saying:
a. If it is legitimate to assassinate those who are engaged in the military of Iran because the US is in a state of hostilities with Iran,
b. Santorum himself in his role as former Senator and presidential candidate is engaged in hostile military activities
Then, it seems that it would be legitimate for an Iranian to assassinate Santorum. And we could not take recourse to international law or precedent.
Frankly, that is the main reason that we have not gone the assassination rout. Politicians may be venial but they are not stupid. If they legitimize assassination as a political tool, they know that it is only a matter of time that they will be targets of assassination. Better to keep it off the table.
A thought experiment: Imagine a Lawrence Livermore lab is blown up tomorrow and we suspect the Iranians. Would we say “well, all’s fair in war?” I don’t think so. We’d say that it was immoral, illegal, and cowardly.
And speaking of cowardly, Santorum couldn’t even say explicitly that he supported assassination, rather using the term “end up dead” which is too cute by half.
Yes, he damned well is a civilian.
Killing him – and I hope Clinton was telling the truth, and it wasn’t us – is exactly the same kind of murder as killing bankers and traders.
1. Achmeninejad’s rhetoric re Israel is as likely to be boilerplate as a real declaration of intent.
2. You don’t know what the scientist was working on. Maybe he thought he was suporting a civilian energy program. Maybe he thought his country needed nukes to forestall our bringing Jeffersonian Democracy (TM) the way we did in Iraq and didn’t in Pakistan.
3. Number (2) doesn’t matter – the man was NOT engaged in hostilities against us, nor personally holding his finger over a button muttering “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” in Rodian. He was a civilian, doing his job – just like the bankers and traders, whose jobs, like as not, involved things that had unpleasant 3rd-order effects on people far away. No one is completely innocent, in terms of human sinfulness – and the global economy illustrates this in some weird ways. We do not lose our right to life by being an Iranian nuclear scientist, or a US military contractor, or a banker, or an iPhone consumer.
Killing this guy – whoever did it – was murder.
*break*
Can we all say a Rosary tonight for our leaders, and the Iranian leaders, to have the wisdom NOT to find an excuse to go to war?
The US didn’t bring Jeffersonian Democracy to Iraq. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not that.
Besides, the US doesn’t have Jeffersonian Democracy itself, nor would know what it is if it bit them in the leg, so how could they possibly export it?
And here I thought the (TM) would serve for the sarcasm emoticon…
Sorry…didn’t to infringe upon your copyright!
Excellent idea to say the rosary for peace. Thanks.
Amen, S Murpy. Does anyone remember the guy who shot the CIA employees as they drove in to work a few years ago? What’s the difference between what he did and what happened here? Are we better than that, or not? Santorum has lost my vote.
Also, who’s to say that some of the scientists might be working against their own regime? It’s not like the Iranian population is thrilled with their leadership. Maybe there are Iranian scientists who are deliberately slowing down the process, etc. That has occurred many times in history.
Are you suggesting that the Iranians themselves killed him and are using it as a propaganda tool in order to blame the US or Israel?
Doesn’t matter who murdered him. What matters is that our 100% Prolife Catholic candidate thinks murder in the first degree is “wonderful”.
Was Einstein a civilian?
The church teaches that one does not have to wait to be attack to defend oneslf. You are not correct here. It is COULD be permissible to kill the person or persons working on the bomb. Pope Benedict has recently said that the world community must not permit rogue states the ability to have a nuke. So, what do we do?
As I said before, and I know this for a fact, a cop does not have to have bullets flying at him to protect himself. If you believe that then you have put every cop in compelte disatvantage. And being a cop is a small scale. But our governement does have duty to protect innocent from the nuts running some these countries. It is a DUTY, not an option. By the time some of these get the bomb it may be too late to save lives. It is easy to sit in your comfortable chair and make decisions, but when it’s all on your shoulders, you would not make such statements so lightly.
The Church teach that it is never–ever-justifiable to deliberately take innocent human life. This was an act of cold-blooded murder against a civilian, found guilty of no crime, in a regime with whom we are not at war. It was, by every definition known to civilized nations, a cold-blooded act of murder of an innocent man. If it is right to kill such a person because they are part of “the system” of a state hostile to us, then it was right for Osama bin Laden to commit cold-blooded murder of the victims of 9/11 since they were part of “the system” of a state hostile to Radical Islamists.
You are arguing for a *radical* perversion of Just War teaching and acting as an apologist for cold-blooded murder of civilians.
Mark, I am sure the church teaches, that you do not have to be in an actual state of war, to attack another country. As I have read, if one country is massing troops on the border, one does not have to wait for the first shot to be fired, to defend oneself. The act of massing troops can be a declaration of war, without any formal declaration being declared.
Making nukes, and threatening to use them on other countries could be an act of war in itself. You are very drastically over simplifying the Just War Doctrine. It is many variables to it.
You are wrong. As Pope Benedict said, “Pre-emptive war is not in the Catechism.” You are making excuses for cold-blooded murder.
So as a cop, I have to wait to be shot at to defend myself?
A country has to wait to be attacked to defend itself?
Nonsense.
As a cop, do you have the right to shoot an innocent man driving to work on the theory that you suspect that he might do something dangeous in a few years? You are apologizing for murder.
Man. we should have bombed India and Pakistan into oblivion when we had the chance. Oh, wait…they have the bomb. What are we waiting for? “Those people” can’t be trusted with the Bomb!
“A country has to wait to be attacked to defend itself?”
So you are OK with Iran developing a nuclear weapon to deter any possible attacks from Israel or the US? Moreover, you are supporting Iran’s pre-emptive use of that nuclear weapon against Israel?
Or is the US the only nation to which God has given permission to use the pre-emptive strike?
If I may: While it is true that, in the performance of one’s duty as a police officer, one is given the prerogative of deciding whether in fact the perp represents a clear and present danger in the moment, there is a reason we also have a review process for cases.
Let us say that someone gets pulled over. The officer comes over, asks for their license and registration, and the person being questioned reaches into an unfamiliar place without first stating that their license etc. are there. They appear to be reaching for a hidden gun stashed in the backseat; the officer pulls their sidearm. At that moment one has a decision to make, as an officer, because they may come back with a gun. If all signs say it’s a gun, it is the officer’s prerogative to fire.
BUT.
Let’s say it wasn’t a gun. Let’s say the driver was just stupid and put their L&R in an unusual spot. Was the officer then doing the best thing in shooting them? Well, no. It was a prudential decision; the officer COULD theoretically have not fired. It could have gone either way and the officer makes the best of a bad situation by making a decision to err on the side of caution.
In that case the officer would probably be vindicated. But ONLY in such a case, where the prudential decision could go either way. The analogy to pre-emptive war simply does not fit, because pre-emptive war would be like the officer who, knowing that the person has a gun, shoots them INSTEAD of even remotely trying to apprehend them; or perhaps the officer who follows convicts until they purchase a gun (for whatever reason) and then shoots them. There is no IMMEDIATE proximate reason in a pre-emptive war, because a pre-emptive war is not even an anticipatory response; it is not a response at all.
Now, if an officer sees someone waiting around a corner with a gun to shoot their partner, they may by all means shoot if the possibility or the prudence of apprehending the ambusher is not there. But this is not pre-emptive, even though “the bullets are not yet flying”, because, so to speak, the “bullets of the mind” are: the ambusher fully intends and is moving to carry out the misdeed. In that circumstance, the war has already begun, because the intention is being carried out, which is why the second we had learned about the full intention to issue the order to attack Pearl Harbor, we would have been within our rights to prepare our defenses and battle plans.
Perfect.
In football, the quarterback can try to trick the defense into coming offsides. The defense is penalized if they jump, not the offense.
The defense can not legitimately attack until the ball is in play.
This analogy could fit with the troops on the border scenario or with making nukes, I think.
Bad analogy. The offense in football can go too far in trying to provoke the defense. Illegal procedure against the offense is often called in those instances.
Mark, I am going to make the assumption that the US government DID NOT kill this scientist. As such, I am not sure it is relevant to the analysis whether the US is at war with Iran or not – except maybe in discussing the beliefs of the presidential candidates.
Assuming, for arguments sake, that the Israeli government was behind the killing, does that in any way change the analysis; especially given that the head of the Iranian government has publicly stated his government’s intent to destroy the state of Israel?
Can you differentiate this case from the 1981 bombing by the Israelis of an Iraqi nuclear plant they believed was to be used to produce weapons grade nuclear material for use against Israel?
At what point would a government faced with a credible nuclear threat be justified in acting preemptively (I am assuming that we all agree that it is before the weapon is actually used) and what would be the justifiable scope of such action?
Final question: At what point – if ever – would the British have been justified in killing Wernher von Braun?
Let’s not labor under the illusion that the Iranians have threatened to wipe Israel off the map. This is more war propaganda of the kind that got the USA into Iraq. Google;Rumor of the Century.
It is the USA and Israel that constantly threaten the Iranians, and have them practically surrounded. Who could blame them is they want such weapons as deterrents? Certainly the possession of nukes is no cause for war. A preemptive attack on Iran for weapons they have a right to have as a deterrent to war would be completely unjustified. Santorum is unfit for office.
Don’t blame me. I only know what I read in the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html
“The church teaches that one does not have to wait to be attack to defend oneslf. You are not correct here. It is COULD be permissible to kill the person or persons working on the bomb.”
So COULD it be permissible to kill an abortionist, the way Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed? If not in his kitchen, how about when he was driving to work, the way this Iranian was?
That’s certainly how this group sees it, Seamus.
http://www.armyofgod.com/
Yeah, but those guys are nut cases.
A provocative question Seamus. I will have to ponder whether it is ever permissible to take a life in order to save an innocent life. The answer must surely be yes – but which holocaust is justifiably opposed with force, and which is not?
If you are in the abortion clinic, and the doctor is about to hook up the suction machine, and the only way to stop him (and thus save the innocent life that is being endangered) is to kill the doctor, then I’d say that killing would be justifiable as defense of others. the harm to be averted must be imminent. Thus, you can’t kill the abortionist when he’s merely on the way to work, much less when he’s cooking breakfast in his kitchen, like Dr. Slepian. (Of course, most of us don’t find ourselves in abortion clinics next to doctors who are about to hook up the suction machines. That’s why, in most cases, we don’t have the right to kill abortionists. It’s also why the whackjob pro-life right would like to bend the rules and say it’s OK to kill them when they’re merely on the way to work.
So, if most cops are shot with 9mm ammo, a pre-emptive attack against the employees of the American plant that makes those rounds would qualify as a justified pre-emptive strike, right?
Who could a cop kill, then, without overstepping his authority? A plausible case could be made against virtually anyone, using your logic.
Ignoring the flaws in your other points which the other commentators have addressed I need to point out the peculiarly American myopia inherent in the question
“Did the action advance the cause?”
Assuming by cause you mean “preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons” the answer is obviously no.
Do the same exercise as that Ron Paul commercial substitute China for USA and USA for Iran and consider the likely reactions of you and your fellow citizens. The USA has no nuclear weapons.China has invaded and occupied both Mexico and Canada (who also had no nukes) and maintains massive troop presents in at least one of them. Chinese spies have just killed several US nuclear physicist & a couple bystanders on the public streets of Seattle (or wherever) including shooting one in front of the kindergarten he just dropped off his child at.
Can you honestly say your reaction and that of your friends/acquaintances would be “We ought to abandon our plan to develop nuclear weapons”?
____________________________________
Again I don’t want Iran (or anyone for that matter) to develop nukes.But the suggestion that they have no rational reason for desiring them and the only explanation is that they want to start an apocalyptic nuclear exchange with Israel is idiotic. I think that many Americans genuinely fail to grasp just how frightening your country actually is to the vast majority of 3rd and 2nd world countries. (Which is ironic since so much US foreign policy is fear based….)
Let’s take a more subjective approach:
If my neighbor (Iran) keeps telling me (Israel) he’s going to come over and burn my house down and make certain that my family dies, and the cops won’t respond, and he keeps threatening it over and over again, is it unreasonable to act in a way that anticipates he will follow through with the constant threats? If I (Israel) do nothing, and one day, my family is obliterated by the belligerent, am I not guilty of failing in my duty of protecting the lives of my own innocents?
What everyone is leaving out of this discussion, is the fact that there is no reason to believe that Iran is pursuing a peaceful use for nuclear power if the head of state keeps insisting on the destruction of Israel. This is conveniently forgotten when trying to boil this down to a Jewish/neo-con escapade for – “sigh, yet another war.” This can’t even be categorized with Iraq. The IAEA has confirmed that they are using processes and equipment which has no application for simple nuclear energy. Iran has admitted as much.
So while we should all agree that killing scientists is abhorrent, it does not mean that Israel has no case for war against Iran. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no international pressure for Iran to knock off the saber-rattling and join the rest of the world in recognizing Israel’s right to exist. If Iran wants to go peaceably about its business producing “non-weapons-purposed” nuclear energy, they need to extend the olive branch to Israel, not the other way around.
Chris, if I may:
Suppose that you have a violent neighbor in a frontier area who, every day, suggests that they are going to do loathsome things to you, but never follows through, and you have some suspicion that they have no intention of doing so, perhaps because they are posturing in order to impress someone else or even their own household. Could you initiate actual hostilities? Sure, you could prepare a contingency plan, you could keep your guns polished, you could even pursue the diplomatic solution of threatening that you will shoot back and other things of that sort, but you could NOT go over and kill them before they actually start to act intentionally to kill you. But the second they do so, and that includes the second you find that they are even definitely PLANNING to do so in a concrete way, they have initiated the action, and you can respond. You can even respond in a preparatory manner by telling people “if they attack me, please attack them or defend me.” But to initiate that sort of hostility without the gravest of reasons is a fearsome thing.
That being said, I suspect that if Israel feels thus threatened, they have a right to defend themselves, but only if their fear (which can be irrational or rational) coincides with evidence that Iran is directing their focus into attacking them. And since making an actual bomb takes a bit more than what Iran has done so far I am not sure they have that yet.
You forgot to add the detail that if my house is burned down, the “smoke” from the fire will choke my attacker and his whole country to death and further, my house is “booby trapped” to blow up my attacker and his whole entire country, should my house accidentally catch fire. Plus, both my attacker and myself are aware of this.
Chris,
The Iranians have not threatened Israel. Google; Rumor of the Century.
Still, that wouldn’t quite get you off the map.
All that trouble, to NOT obtain the primary objective? What a waste.
This attack will not convince moderates in Iran to stop building a nuclear bomb, rather it will seriously inhibit the bombs construction; a point overlooked. I am a nuclear physicist, but not trained in the field that would be useful in weapon manufacturing. If someone knocked out the experts of bomb making in the USA, and my government drafted me to collect the notes and pick up the bomb-making project where they had left off, without the any teachers/experts to help me, it’d probably require ten years of effort to continue the work. Knocking out all of the senior nuclear-fission experts in Iran will effectively shut down their program. So, if they are making weapons, I say they are legitimate targets and useful to remove. The Iranians have been very clear (as Bin Laden did) that we are their enemy and at war with them since the 70s.
Interesting comment,Michael. That would seem to be the purpose if outsiders are responsible.
As I asked above, at what point would the British have been justified in killing Wernher von Braun?
Don’t forget, Cinlef, that in your exercise, China would have overthrown the US government in 1953.
What on earth are we going to do about those uber-aggresive Iranians…
Lisa,
you are so much smarter than these self appointed, self-serving blogger messiahs!
mark
However, if you are not at war, then how does the “just war” theory apply?
Three words: ius ad bellum.
“The use of the word “innocent” is not helpful. None of us is innocent in the eyes of God…”
*blinks*
Kill all! God will know his own!
Actually it’s “Kill ‘em all! Let God sort ‘em out.”
Comparing Rick Santorum to Freakonomics is unfair to Freakonomics and Leavitt’s research. Freakonomics makes it quite clear that it’s attempting to isolate cause and effect and makes no claim that because abortion reduces the crime rate we should encourage more abortion. He’s merely arguing (which is still being debated among academic Economists, who tend to be pro-choice) that one leads to the other. I certainly believe that bombing Hiroshima led to Japanese unconditional surrender. Given that Japan attacked us, ending the war with Japan was a good thing, but that in no way suggests I believe that bombing Hiroshima was a morally justifiable act. For another example, it was necessary for Jesus to be crucified in order for him to rise from the dead, but that does not mean that murdering Jesus Christ was a “wonderful” thing.
No, Rick Santorum is arguing here that the ends justify the means, doing it so gleefully that he’s essentially arguing the means really aren’t so bad at all. This is a far more evil thing than you can accuse of a pop Economics textbook.
Does one thing actually lead to another, or does it merely predate the other?
Freakonomics is interesting, but has its flaws.
Just a word of defense for “Freakonomics”: if I recall correctly, the authors do state the correlation and even make a causal connection between increased abortion and reduced violent crime rates, but nowhere in the book do they say that this has been a good or just thing.
CIA chief Panetta has stated on TV within the last few days that there is no evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, only a nuclear “capability”. Now any country which has mastered the fuel cycle and has a full-fledged nuclear power program has the capability of producing a nuclear weapon in pretty short order. This would include Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Brazil, South Africa and probably others. Iran admittedly seeks a complete nuclear power program and is entitled to one as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The leaders of Iran have stated that they consider nuclear weapons to be immoral and un-Islamic and they have no desire to obtain one. They may be lying, but US intelligence services have stated that there is no evidence they are. The US, of course, has no moral standing to complain about anyone else’s nuclear weapons since it has more than any other country and has actually used them to slaughter innocent civilians, including thousands of Catholics. Yet the US regime and its supporters think it is perfectly OK to murder Iranian scientists who are working on a peaceful program and to sabotage Iranian facilities with computer viruses which could conceivably cause a Chernobyl style nuclear accident. This covert war is completely against Christian principles.
Ah, I forgot that Santorum was running for president of the whole world. That does make a difference.
Sorry, that was for a comment up above. Oops – and no delete feature that I can see.
Nope, he’s running for the same office as Paul.
Paul wants to address our problems, you know, stuff under our control. Whether I like his form of address or not.
But that won’t satisfy a people so convinced of their own rightness and power that they fret over whether to “let” evil occur.
FWIW, here is what Panetta said:
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb and called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step.
From the Washington Post
Santorum is a real scandal-these stupid things he has said make his pro family arguments seem just as stupid to the unchurched, who will lump all his ideas together as zany.
Let’s pray for him to rethink this.
Nuclear Pakistan is far more dangerous than a nuclear Iran would be.
Shame on Santorum. He’s proving yet again that power corrupts.
Well, it’s only a matter of time before he suggests ‘tough talk’ with Pakistan. But, of course, not for their blasphemy laws or the blatant oppression of Christians there.
Iran recently condemed a man to death for being Christian. I remember it being put on hold–but have not seen more on the story.
In our fallen state, sin has caused us to rely disproportionately on subjective ideas of right and wrong instead of objective truths. One can’t say with certainty that, subjectively, the Iranian was “innocent”. He may have been a terrible human being all the way around, and hellbent on helping build WMD. But Christian charity must presume his innocence as a civilian, and given that it was Iran, may have quite possibly been acting under coercion. Objectively speaking, then, we can only presume he was unjustly killed. Subjectively, we have no way of knowing if he were a good man or an evil man. Only God knows that answer.
Needless to say, we are entering an era of warfare that will be dominated by computer viruses and surgical assassinations. Application of “just war” theory is going to become more and more difficult as it becomes less and less necessary to actually *declare* war. Suffice it to say, no one wants to go back to the “good ol’ days” of openly declared conventional warfare and the slaughter of tens of millions across the globe. But when the action is in the open, it’s much easier to draw a moral conclusion. In asymmetrical warfare, there may be far fewer innocent lives lost, but we can only presume a civilian is a civilian and not a state combatant or state-sponsored combatant (terrorist). If we act justly, there is nothing to fear, ever. Global society is sick with disease, from head-to-toe. If we descend into the pit with everyone else, we will share the same outcome.
Mark, your dislike for Sen. Santorum is well known, but you hardly make the case that he is a dissenter with your unfortunate equivocations.
Your case rests on the strength of two premises, neither of them Catholic.
1. Iran is not engaged in war or acts of war.
2. Even if it were, killing a scientist is an intrinsic wrong.
First, as Sen.Santorum says, Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, is responsible for several overt and covert attacks on US forces, support of Hezbollah and the like. IED’s used against troops in Afghanistan were manufactured in Iran. He authored the Iran Freedom and Support Act, it was almost unanimously opposed, then likewise unanimously passed. He was on the Armed Services Committee for 8 years. Is this the sign of a man who has no idea what he is talking about?
Even if, all this and more notwithstanding, you for some reason disagree with him, statement 1 has nothing to do with Catholic faith but with a present reality, that may be true or false, but at least can be credibly believed to be true by a Catholic of good will.
As for statement 2, it is simply untrue on Catholic faith. It is not an intrinsic wrong. Therefore it can be justified with sufficient reason. Now, to justify it we would need proportionate reasons, and once more, whether or not there are proportionate reasons in reality requires informed judgment, and doesn’t either way entail a denial of Catholic faith.
I believe he is right, there is no other way to confront and defeat the treat Iran poses, than to speak openly about it, and seek every possible means to deter Iran from taking so foolish a step. It’s not as if former presidents have not viewed certain Soviet actions as crossing a line, and being acts of war, from which there would be no going back, and making that clear. And building up nuclear weapons while lying to the world about it does include material cooperation in evil, and individuals forfeit their right to security by doing so, and can be justly warned of it.
This is what justice requires, this is not warmongering, if Iran’s democracy protests had been successful, and the US had helped, then the prospect of war itself may have passed. If this turns out to be so, history will not forgive those who stood idly by and allowed Iran to build up, doing nothing to thwart the immediate danger.
Again, this is not warmongering, this is doing all that can be done to prevent open war.
Pacifism would have doomed Europe in WWII. It would have doomed Christendom, humanly speaking, earlier as well. It has never been taught by the Church.
“Two millenia of Catholic teaching”? Sigh. I suppose you oppose the Crusades as well, believing the secularist revisionism about an evil Church that suddenly, out of nowhere, decided to kill and attack innocent Muslims for sport. Rather, it was after years and indeed centuries of patience, against pillaging Muslim Turks, that the Crusaders arose, combining their forces in defense of themselves and of their Faith, the Pope giving approval at the request of Eastern Christians for immediate aid.
http://answering-islam.org/Authors/Stenhouse/crusades.01.htm
Very briefly.
1. We are not at war with Iran, whatever Santorum’s private idiosyncratic definition may be. Show me our declaration of war if we are. If you seriously mean that any nation in the world that is hostile to us is ipso facto at war with us, then we are at war with half the world.
2. Deliberately killing a civilian in cold blood is, quite simply, murder under just war teaching.
All the excuse-making in the world for this will not render Santorum’s scandalous celebration of murder acceptable. You should be ashamed.
3. Dragging in the Crusades? Really?
You may never deliberately kill innocent human beings. For any reason. Ever.
I hate to say it, but you are guilty of rash judgement here. I am certain that a moral theologian would first say, it is to complex to make the statement that it is in fact murder. We do not know all the facts. It is completely impossible to say at this point if it is. And you are linking Santorum to it. You do not know the facts, nor what exactly Santorum is thinking when he made those statements. He may be able to justify what he said under the Just War doctrine. This is completely unfair, and I have lost respect for your opinion.
I am certain that a moral theologian would first say, it is to complex to make the statement that it is in fact murder.
Uh, somebody placed a sticky bomb on the dude’s car and blew him up. What is that, an accident? Did we just really hate his car and he’s collateral damage?
He is working for someone who has and is making threats to use a nuke on other countries without provocation. Would you want the cops to wait until a nut who threatens to blow your house up, actually does so? When they go to the door of his house do you think they are going to just knock, and say hey, give us the bomb your making? Not. They will bust in, and may have to use lethal force. Is this murder? No. It’s self defense. Yours and their own.
The problem is, we do have the opportunity to ask the guy in Iran if he knows that his leader is going to use this bomb correctly or not. We do know that his leader has proclaimed to world he would do so. We do know that they have committed other aggresive acts against other countries, including our US Troops in Iraq for the past ten years.
Would you want the cops to wait until a nut who threatens to blow your house up, actually does so?
Of course not. According to your logic, I’d be legally justified to go over to his house and shoot him before he even gets close. Try that one in court. “But, but, he threatened to blow up my house.”
When they go to the door of his house do you think they are going to just knock, and say hey, give us the bomb your making?Not. They will bust in, and may have to use lethal force. Is this murder? No. It’s self defense.
Nope. It’s the police exercising their legitimate authority. In your effort to set up this fantasy, however, I notice you neglected to have the cops surreptitiously strap a bomb to the guy’s vehicle.
1. There was no declaration of war for Iraq or Afghanistan but it is clear that we are at war or at least were at war. Absence of a declaration of war doesn’t mean there is no war. War is complicated to define and is a bit circular in it’s reasoning. I wrote my philosophy/theology masters thesis on Just War and Terrorism (I was classmates with many Dominicans you know). I used this definition of war: “an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities”. Iran is not actually at war with us, but only potentially or metaphorically, a Cold War of sorts.
2. Since we are not at war, it cannot be a just war, so the Just War tradition is mooted. So we must amend your statement: “Deliberately killing a civilian in cold blood is, quite simply, murder
under just war teaching.” We don’t need to distinguish between civilians and non-civilians (In my thesis I distinguished combatant and non-combatants) because for our purposes they are all civilians BECAUSE WE ARE NOT AT WAR. Even if we had killed the major-general of Iran we would be guilty of murder. Putting on a uniform does not make your life forfeit. Imagine if someone killed an American soldier in Korea, while he was sleeping, while robbing his house. Would it matter that he is a soldier? Of course not. What matters is his combat status. Is it legitimate for Iran to target a bar in Quantico or Coronado frequented by Marines with suicide bombers? No, because they are non-combatants while still being soldiers.The Church forbids direct OR indirect intentional killing. I am glad that no one seems to be justifying the murder of the Iranian scientist by the principle of double effect, btw.
“First, as Sen.Santorum says, Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, is responsible for several overt and covert attacks on US forces, support of Hezbollah and the like. IED’s used against troops in Afghanistan were manufactured in Iran.”
You really do need to study your history much better than this. If you are saying that the hostage taking was an act of war against us by Iran, can you tell me what this was?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
Using your logic I think the Iranians could make the case that the US declared war on them in 1953.
It was about a British Oil Company.
You mean you undermined their legitimately elected government so Britain could try to keep her claim to their resources?
You intentionally funded and supported a coup d’etat in a country on the other side of the world so the wealth from the sale of petroleum would stay in the hands of a few Limeys?
I’m gonna run out of sick bags eventually.
For years, the pro-life movement has tried to marginalize those few deluded consequentialists who believe that it is permissible to use violence against abortion clinics and abortionists, in order to prevent future abortions. They have been a blight on our movement, and are constantly thrown in our face in an effort to discredit us.
Now, the pro-life movement is embracing a man who believes that it is morally permissible to kill civilians who are believed (by our infallible CIA or the infallible Mossad) to be working on a nuclear bomb that may, someday, be used against Americans.
Has nobody read Evangelium Vitae 53 to 57?
As pointed out above, the CIA (I don’t know about the Mossad) does not even believe the Iranians are working to build a bomb, merely to have a capability to someday build a bomb if they want to, which they say they don’t.
What about the crusades? Weren’t Catholics killing?
Wow. Devastating.
What about the sack of Constantinople?!?!?!
Matt – mum says to get off of her computer and wash up for supper!
Heh!
Mark,
These are far more complex issues than you have phrased them. Civilian are not necessarily innocent. The issue here is what was this civilian doing that put him in the cross-hairs? Since he is a nuclear scientist and works at a location where there is every likelyhood nuclear weapons are being produced it makes him suspect at the very least. We did not “off’ this gentleman in all likelyhood-no droan involved. Israel however may have had some interest in it. Since the leader of Iran has made outrageous threats against Israel, and this leader is a bit unstable and since his spiritual advisors are hoping to bring on the end of the world perhaps they have cause to be interested. Now is it better to pick off those who are building weapons of mass destruction or bomb the entire factory into oblivion with hundreds if not thousands of workers present? I can assure you that Israel has no intention of waiting until one of their cities is blown off the map or the whole country to act. It may be hard to see but this seems to be a defensive attack on a much more limited scale than is normal for Israel. Sinful? Perhaps. But it does not fit the bill of the murder of an innocent non-combatant.
It doesn’t matter who did it. What matters is that Santorum applauds the cold-blooded murder of civilians. His rationale is identical to bin Laden’s. He was “part of the system” so he deserved to die. It’s also the same as Planned Parenthoods: the victim *might* cause trouble in the future, so it’s okay to murder him now.
And you guys are making excuses for this and boasting about being “faithful Catholics”. Appalling.
“Civilian are not necessarily innocent.”
Are the civilian scientists at Lawrence-Livermore Labs in California innocent? What about the secretarial staff, or the building maintenance people?
What about the civilians on Wall Street who help finance our war effort through buying and selling treasuries and other government bonds? Are they innocent?
What about the folks out at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant here in SE Iowa? Are those civilian workers who are producing depleted uranium ammunition innocent?
You’ve already said it’s OK to kill civilians. I’m just wanting to see if you can honestly draw a line anywhere that would protect any civilian. I don’t think you can do it and be morally consistent.
No one seems to be commenting on the fact that the driver was also killed. Does driving a scientist to work, where he might or might not be involved in making bomb components, for a nuclear weapons program that might or might not exist, also turn you into an enemy combatant? What if the scientist took a bus? Would that then be a legitimate target?
I detect more than a bit of naivete in this discussion. The U.S. “regime” as well as Japan and German are hardly in the same ballpark as Iran, which has indicated its longing to wipe Israel off the map. Its “peaceful program” is enriching uranium at a level seven times that needed for peaceful purposes, and coincidentally the right amount for a nuclear weapon. It’s true that they might not be working on a weapon yet, but to compare what they’re doing to the innocents who were in the World Trade Center? To call it cold-blooded murder? Governments authorize assassinations. Obama did it recently with an American born al-Qaida operative. I don’t maintain that it’s right, but it’s not cold-blooded murder. Finally, Santorum doesn’t support torture. He’s open to waterboarding, about which there’s much debate on whether it’s torture. He doesn’t believe it is.
Wonderful when objection to a murder is called “naivete”. You argument boils down to “Governments do this, so it’s not murder”. No. Governments do this, and it’s *still* murder. And a “100% prolife Catholic” thinks that it’s “wonderful”. He is a seducer of the faithful.
Mark,
To suggest that racism is behind his comment should be beneath you. Yeah, Santorum is only worried about the “swarthy” complexion of Iranians and not at all about the country whose whose leader has repeatedly made threats about destroying Israel and has devoted himself to bring about the return of the 12th iman; something that is supposed to happen after an apocalypse. Because if he wasn’t a racist, he would be equally concerned about all the white nations developing nuclear weapons and making threats against Israel to bring about Armageddon, like…well…um I don’t know of any, but there there must be some because you are sure that Santorum is a racist who only goes after swarthy foreigners.
Your implication that Santorum is motivated by racism is calumy. How Catholic is that?
I said nothing about race. My point is that Santorum makes a completely artificial distinction between foreigner who might possibly maybe do something bad someday (and says it’s “wonderful” to murder them) while somehow pretending that exactly the same logic can’t be applied to our own citizens here in the Empire of Fear. But, of course, as the recent move to strip citizens of habeas corpus has shown, once Caesar starts depriving foreigners of fundamental rights, it doesn’t take long for it to occur to him that not every heel is in Iran and Afghanistan. If you can pre-emptively murder an Iranian civliian, you can also pre-emptively murder an American civilian. Catholics who cheer for this are not only apologizing for cold-blooded murder, they are also cheering for suicide.
Roll that Rachel Madow tape with the “Future Crimes Division” clip from “Minority Report” again.
Consequentialism über alles.
“The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end. It is in fact a grave act of disobedience to the moral law, and indeed to God himself, the author and guarantor of that law; it contradicts the fundamental virtues of justice and charity” (Evangelium Vitae 57)
Even if you assume away this person’s “innocence” (no doubt with full faith in the infallibility of our intelligence community), you must also consider CCC 2267, which deals with the death penalty and the authority of the state to protect its citizens against aggressors: “If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.”
Bravo, you hit the nail right on the head!
Hey! No fair appealing to things like “facts” or “The Church!”
You heretic scum!
Thanks for the info, sir.
“Our country is not at war and the Iranian scientist who just got offed was not a combatant.”
We are not in direct war with Iran, but since when are they our best friends? We’ve had tension with them for years, they allegedly let Al-Qaeda hide within their borders, and numerous other things that the United States should be worried about. The scientist who was killed may not have been a combatant by definition; however, how do you know that he was not making a weapon of mass destruction for Iran so that they could attack the U.S.? Could he have been forced to be a part of the making of bombs? Of course. Is that likely? No. The odds are, he hates America just as much as many others from this country. Santorum should have chosen his words more carefully; however, I think you are wrong to assume that the scientist was “innocent.” Do you also believe it is not ok for our soldiers to “murder,” as you put it, enemy soldiers? Your thinking is flawed, even from a Catholic perspective.
“Not being best friends” is not a criterion for murdering civilians in cold-blood.
Could be, might be, maybe, assumptions, presumptions. Those are now the justifications for the taking of another human life?
“We’ve had tension with them for years”
You deposed their elected government and supported a brutal dictator in its place. Also you backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, in which Iraq was the aggressor and which killed something like 1/2 million Iranians….
“they allegedly let Al-Qaeda hide within their borders”
I’d like a source for this if only because I find the prospect of a Shia theocracy harboring a Sunni terrorist organization (you know who Al Quaeda hates as much as Westerners? Shia Muslims) unlikely
“however, how do you know that he was not making a weapon of mass destruction for Iran so that they could attack the U.S.? Could he have been forced to be a part of the making of bombs? Of course. Is that likely? No. The odds are, he hates America just as much as many others from this country. ”
So since the if Iranian intelligence officers start assassinating US nuclear scientists in front of kindergartens it is permissible as long as 1) said US scientist is involved in military projects and 2)can reasonably be assumed to hate Iran/Iranians?
And if not why? That’s not rhetorical sarcasm by the way I’m quite intrigued
Are our nuclear scientists and weapons makers open game for Iran (or the rest of the world)? They are making weapons of mass destruction as well. Of course we wouldn’t actually USE those weapons like we assume Iran intends to(cough…Nagasaki…cough…Hiroshima..cough)
Brian, our leader has not announce publicly the intent to wipe Iran off of the face of the earth either (again, I am assuming that the US did not kill this man – but that the Israelis did).
Chris,
The Iranians have not threatened Israel. Google; Rumor of the Century. They wish to see an end to the Zionist regime in the same sense that the USA wants to see an end to Castro’s regime in Cuba or Chavez in Venevuela. This is not a threat of genocide. This is agitprop.
Dave, the New York Times disagrees with you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html
It’s pretty scary to think about how many many people in this world are okay with killing other human begins (just as long as they’re not the ones pulling the trigger, inserting the needle, etc..,). Kinda makes you believe in original sin. We all have the capability to take this “live and let die” approach.
You are clueless as to why you are able to make such a comment. Police may have to kill some to protect you. So killing is not always immoral. Murder is. Know the differnece. Your words are foolish.
Gunning down an innocent civilian on his way to work in his car on the theory that five years from now he might do something bad is, quite simply, cold-blooded murder. I assumed cops understood that.
These are the kinds of attitudes that should be revealed in confession, IMHO.
My head is exploding from these rationalizations.
Joining the military, like I have, puts one “in the game” so to speak. I accept that danger.
We have a distinction between civilians and soldiers. There are rules to war that keep us from descending into barbarism. Attacking non combatants is an evil act, and all the Jack Bauer fantasies will not make it anything but.
If the Iranian nuclear scientist was a Christian, would you still be for his execution?
Cricket’s chirping? Well said Jeff. Chickenhawks are stymied by your observation and your station.
God bless you Jeff.
I’m not sure some of our old definitions about just war and combatant vs innocent can apply anymore in our age of terrorism. In WWII it was easy to know who our ‘enemy’ was, even if they might have been innocent conscripts fighting against their will. In Vietnam, guerilla tactics changed all that and it just keeps getting worse as conflict becomes more de-centralized and options for ‘surgical’ strikes decrease the need for battlefields and battalions.
Are we morally responsible for killing innocent children of a Taliban chief, in a drone attack, who keeps them close by 24/7 as human shields while he goes about planning attacks on US soldiers – or does that rest solely on him? Is the assassination of a scientist or the bombing of a factory full of workers working on a weapon of mass destruction amount to the taking of innocent life just because they are not wearing uniforms? Are they any more innocent than the man drafted into the service in a ‘just war’ who fights against his will only to avoid court martial?
I think these are issues that cannot be compared equally to the typical meaning of “the taking of innocent life” under usual daily life circumstances where innocent vs aggressor, attack vs self-defense is much easier to sort out. To have it any other way is to be a committed passivist I think, which I have no argument with.
The difference is in who is being targeted. If a combatant takes human shields to protect himself or his weaponry, it becomes certainly much more complicated a decision to attack. However, if there is no other proportionate solution but to attack, it is not the “deliberate” killing of innocents, even though innocents may perish.
Think of the Church’s moral teaching on the death of a fetus during treatment of a disease that likewise threatens the mother. If the disease is the mortal enemy, and the only remedy is one that puts the fetus at risk, it is not considered an “abortion” if the child dies in combating the disease; because an “abortion” is not the purpose of the treatmentan the child is not the *target*. It’s a side effect, as tragic and appalling as it may be to our senses. Conversely, deliberately terminating a pregnancy to save the life of the mother *IS* gravely sinful. Therein the objectively innocent scientist, versus the subjectively “guilty” military or state-sponsored terrorist combatant.
I agree with the thrust of this argument. It was easier to line up in battle and shoot the other guys carrying guns. Things have gotten more complicated, but we’ve also become less decent. In the civil war, people didn’t resort to killing the other sides surgeons or flag boys, but now anyone remotely connected seems to be fair game.
The blurring of the lines between soldier and civilian establishment which is helping the war effort still exists, however much this has been effected by the military industrial complex. And so does the line between a real combatant fighting for his country and some hooligan with a missle rpg launcher.
In a just war, one uses proportionate means to render the other side unable to wage war. This allows for the destruction of non-military installations – for surely calling it the US bomb production facility or the haliburton bomb production facility really doesn’t matter.
Maybe the GOP just ought to just damn the torpedoes and just reinvent itself as a Khmer Rouge for the new millenium! (but you know, one with a pro-business bent). The old Khmer slogans are actually word-for-word like those you hear in corporate America these days, and let’s face it: What neo-con DOESN’T like the imagery of “weeding the rice field” or “cutting out the deadwood” of society?
Except for the Mao suits and hinky economics of forced subsistence collectivization, Khmer ideology is a perfect ready-made template for the nihilist conservative who feels justified, even excited about their mission to “clean house” here and abroad.
Take a look at the following Khmer sayings. I can’t see any daylight between them and what Santorum, Romney (and Obama) preach and practice in foreign and domestic policy:
“To destroy you is no loss, to preserve you is no gain.”
“Angkar has [the many] eyes of the pineapple.” (Patriot Act/surveillance state parallel)
“You can arrest someone by mistake; never release him by mistake.”
“Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake.” (If you launch enough drone strikes, you’re bound to kill SOME of the enemy!)
“Better to arrest ten innocent people by mistake than free a single guilty party.”
“If you wish to live exactly as you please, the Angkar will put aside a small piece of land for you.” (A burial plot)
If the Khmer template isn’t your style, Baathism would work fine too. Extreme nationalism and consolidation of state power works just as well for good old boys as for Arabs. In fact, I see a win-win solution to the Syrian crisis. Santorum could tap Bashar al-Assad as his running mate! He could exit Syria with dignity (a job promotion, no less), and he could continue doing what he does best and what we want more of: pre-emptive assasination, “iron-fist” law and order and militarism.
Some conservative think-tank should bring me on board and I’ll write up all the particulars!
Perhaps, although GOP or Dem doesn’t make any difference, since both are just as culpable & cheerfully supportive of the ideas….
Testing this. Is Santorum’s statement no different from any one deploring the way OBL was killed, but not unhappy he is dead? I think most of us don’t mind that OBL is dead, but I found the terms of his death morally questionable.
Unfortunately, Santorum didn’t even offer a qualification. He thinks murder is “wonderful”.
I agree with the general thought-that OBL’s assasination was unethical too. There is one difference-OBL is responsible for reprehensible acts of violence. The nuclear scientist (and let’s face it, this could mean a chemist or an electrical engineer) had only advanced a nuclear weapons program, which has not used it weapon or even likely realized its actuality as a weapon. Work like this happens in many National Laboratories across the US.
The distinction is between potential violence (years away) or perpetrator of past violence.
The consequence of the scientist’s actions are unknown.
This discussion reminds me of the one last year about the rightness of Live Action infiltrating abortion clinics. If I recall, Mark was adamant that Live Action had acted in a sinful manner when it lied to Planned Parenthood staff. Mark’s argument was based on a premise that giving abortion clinic workers false information is lying. Others said it wasn’t, that it was like spying or a police sting operation. In this case, you’re questioning our Catholic credentials and suggesting we need to go to confession because we raise the question of whether a government-sanctioned assassination of someone working on a nuclear weapon for a leader who’s got you in his crosshairs fits the definition of murder. It might, and misleading abortion workers might be lying, but it’s not unCatholic to discuss these morally complex issues.
Yes. People making excuses for grave evil such as cold-blooded murder always suddenly find everything “morally complex”. Catholics for a Free Choice is likewise perpetually bedeviled by “moral complexity” and always frowning on those simplistic prolife Catholics who say that you can never deliberately take innocent human life for any reason. Some of them, I suppose, even charge the baby with being guilty of original sin and therefore not “innocent”. One can always find a sophist to back up the evil one wishes to justify.
To tell you the truth, I do find much of life morally complex. That’s what’s so stark about abortion: any way you look at it, it’s inherently evil. And yet we don’t rush to judgement on the women who end their babies’ lives. We pity them, we pray for them, we counsel them, but we don’t rush to call them cold-blooded murderers, despite the fact that’s how I’d feel about myself if I did it.
Well you can’t really baptise in utero can you?
Of course they aren’t innocent!
Hezekiah,
The Church as ruled that children CAN be baptized in utero. I’m not sure of the point you’re trying to make, but your statement is incorrect. If the baby has to undergo surgery during development, then the baby can be baptized, and it is valid.
Amazing the things you learn and bully for us!!!
I was trying to be sarcastic. Thank the Lord we can baptise in utero, of course then!!!
” In this case, you’re questioning our Catholic credentials and suggesting we need to go to confession because we raise the question of whether a government-sanctioned assassination of someone working on a nuclear weapon for a leader who’s got you in his crosshairs fits the definition of murder.”
If it were an Iranian agency killing a US or Israeli scientist, would you have the same difficulty?
Well, one thing about it, at least we’re not going overboard in our criticisms and reasoning here. The Khmer Rouge? Really? Perhaps we should examine libertarianism, the ideology that says I would ignore the screams of a million dying babies in order to have my freedom from the federal government.
Having enthusiastically stepped onto the path that justifies killing for expedience and as a routine policy tool, the only difference between us and the Khmer is a difference in degree, not a qualitative difference.
I’m not sure I get the libertarian reference, but abortion is not a separate issue. Once you decide that killing non-combatants pre-emptively is OK, you’ve established that a human being is really just a sack of meat. A resource or unit of production that is either a useful commodity or a liability in your own strategic interests, and can be dealt with accordingly. In that system of moral reasoning, a fetus is nothing special, any more than an Iranian scientist.
Conservatives these days harbor this delusion, that they can create a “pro-life” culture at home while maintaining a “kill-em-all” amoralism in foreign policy and even domestic criminal justice. They’re off their meds if they really think it will play out that way.
Did I mention abortion? No, I didn’t. But if we can’t tell the difference between the Khmer Rouge and the US today, then we shouldn’t be upset with folks who can’t tell the difference between Nazi Germany and the Vatican. Because quite frankly, it’s doubtful either group is trying.
I shouldn’t HAVE to try very hard to find a distinction between us and the Khmer, should I? You and I may well disagree on how fuzzy that line has become, but the fact that there’s any haze in it whatever is disturbing..
I was pulling for Santorum, but this has convinced me otherwise. Sadly, it really seems like he is a right extremist, while Obama is a left extremist, which as John Cleese brilliantly explains, is no different:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4
Yeah, ditto. I was kind of hoping he would soften up on the errors of the right wing (torture, unjust war, etc), but it seems he’s just the Mirror, Mirror of Obama. Now he just needs a goatee.
“Strangely, this apologist for cold-blooded murder of innocents can no longer post here.”
I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly.
Mark,
After some thought I withdraw my comments above at 1:57PM. Regardless of the thinking we cannot go around condoning the murder of someone we suspect of going to do something. The act is one of desperation but is not justifiable for any number of reasons. I apologize for any scandal I may have caused. They are indeed complex issues;but the solution is to do what is right not what is expedient.
God bless you! Thank you! You give me hope!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TylvUGJIi_w
Whenever Iran comes up, the only two options we hear are “appeasement” or “pre-emptive war.” Of course, our Politicians say, the former will undoubtedly lead to the world’s nuclear annihilation; the later to democracy, free elections and a world safe until the next “pre-emptive strike” against, say, North Korea, or Syria, or Pakistan, or Iraq again (see Rick Perry)…
It greatly disturbes me when Presidential candidates cannot or will not make a coherent and strong case for an approach to Iran that finds the middle ground. Even Ron Paul, whom I supported in NH in the ’08 primary, leans too far towards appeasement. Jon Hunstman, despite his other political faults, has at least tried to combine Ron Paul’s “bring the troops home” with a practical military deterrent in the Middle East. I’m suprised the remaining candidates haven’t snatched up the most honest campaign slogan still available: “Peace through War.”
I think there are 3 categories: appeasement, deterrence, and war. We’ve been doing various combinations of 1 and 2 for years without much success. Appeasement requires 2 to tango and deterrence requires a mentally stable leadership or at least one for whom holy-suicide is not a viable option.
I’ll join the mea culpa department Larry’s opened up. I have to admit I’m in the position of appearing to defend an action I disapprove of — the bombing of the scientist. I don’t support such tactics, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand why they’re used by a country like Israel feeling threatened as it is. All of which is to say, calling us Murderers for Jesus is overly severe.
I didn’t call you a murderer for Jesus. I did condemn Santorum parading as the “100% Prolife Catholic” candidate while offering open-throated praise for an act of cold-blooded murder as “wonderful”.
That said, I’m grateful for your mea culpa. This statement by Santorum fully fits the definition of “scandalous” in that it genuinely causes people to stumble and leads them into the grave sin of trying to justify cold-blooded murder. Obama, for all his faults, is not going to lead a prolife catholic into supporting abortion. But Santorum threatens to lead many prolife Catholics into cheering for cold-blooded murder.
I have not read all of the comments, (so forgive me if I am repeating something already stated) and I have 3 objections to your post:
1) Santorum is for torture? That depends what you define torture as? Waterboarding? Because as I see it, there is a lot worse than waterboarding in the world that is not torture. So there needs to be some definition of torture here.
2) Preemptive strikes are not necessarily wrong. If someone was working in the effort to fight our Country, it would not be wrong to kill them before they actually act. Of course, if there is sufficient evidence for acutal steps towards an attack. Same principle as if someone breaks into your house with a gun, you don’t have to wait for them to shoot for you to use deadly force against them. They have taken steps to harm you, therefore, stop them before its too late.
This leads me to my 3rd point:
3) The abortion comparision is faulty. You clearly realize that a preemptive abortion or whatever you want to call it is wrong. The reason for this is that a person is innocent. Once one takes actual steps towards an attack, they cannot be considered innocent.
Now as for this case, I do not know everything that goes on behind the scenes. If this man was actively contributing to the war effort of Iran (which does exist btw) then he is not innocent. If not, then he was innocent and the killing would be unjustified. In Santorum’s defense, I don’t think he believes that the man was an innocent man and murder of the innocent is justifiable. Santorum is a good guy who is openly Catholic and strongly pro-life (Standing up for the lives of millions of innocent babies who are legally murdered is much more important than one man who’s innocence is questionable)
1. Yes. Santorum is for torture. That right wing apologists for torture love to pretend that on form of torture out of the many we deployed is not torture is a peculiar form of group delusion that only fools people in the tank. Read and learn:
2. “Pre-emptive strikes” is a euphemism for murder here. Deliberately killing an innocent civilian, guilty of no crime, in a state not at war with us has a name in every civilized nation in the world: murder in the first degree. You are a Catholic making excuses for cold-blooded murder of an innocent man.
3. The abortion comparison is apt. The only difference between Santorum and Planned Parenthood is the metric they use for deciding to kill innocent human being based on the likelihood of FutureCrime. They want to scotch the victim in the womb. He wants to kill the victim a little later in life.
Standing up for the lives of millions of innocent babies who are legally murdered is much more important than one man who’s innocence is questionable
It is better for one man to die than for a whole nation to perish! Very biblical, Caiaphas.
No. When a man calls cold-blooded murder wonderful, he forfeits the right to be called “a good guy who is openly Catholic and strongly pro-life”. He is somewhat prolife, when it suits him. When it doesn’t, he is pro-murder and he is a seducer of the faithful who leads Catholics like you to cheer for and excuse cold-blooded murder on the theory that opposition to abortion justifies support for cold-blooded murder.
“Standing up for the lives of millions of innocent babies who are legally murdered is much more important than one man who’s innocence is questionable.”
Let us call this what it is. Leaven.
1) I guess we should stop waterboarding our own troops in training? And I did not see a place on the link which states when interrogation becomes torture? There has to be some definition here.
2) Maybe I was not clear: Yes, killing the innocent is murder in all circumstances no matter what you call it. No, not all preemptive strikes are killing the innocent. Someone is not innocent if they are actively participating in the unjust war efforts of a country even if the war didn’t technically start (note I am not saying this necessarily applies to the situation just in principle )
3) Once again, you must misunderstand. It is wrong to kill an innocent person no matter what good that may do. BUT if the person is not innocent, then they can be killed. So, yes he wants to “kill the victim later in life” but what is wrong with that? If the victim becomes not innocent “later in life”
Lastly, your comment on Santorum “he is prolife when it suits him” is I think not being fair. Even if he is wrong on these issues, it would be rash judgment to assume that although he has fought continuously as a US Senator and now as a candidate for pres. that really he is cold blooded or the “seducer of the faithful”
And on a side note, am I cheering for cold-blooded murder like you said? I have repeatedly stated that I am discussing more than just this individual case, the overall concept.
“I guess we should stop waterboarding our own troops in training? ”
I really really hate this as a torture defense.
There is a difference between consensually submitting to something done by people you trust [either individually or institutionally i.e. I trust other members of the US armed forces] and for training purposes than to have the same process inflicted on you without your consent by interrogators of a hostile nation who as far as you know have no reason to care about your well-being.
The consent of the troops is what matters here, think sex vs rape as an analogy
1. You obviously did not read the link since the hoary excuse about waterboarding troops is dealt with there.
2. No. Killing the innocent is not always sinful (accidents happen). Nor are all pre-emptive strikes killing the innocent. But this one was and your excuses for this act of murder in the first degree are a disgrace.
3. You and Osama are peas in a pod. He too decided that innocent civilians were not innocent and murdered them, just as you advocate.
My comments on Santorum are eminently fair and your apologies for the murder of civilians are the proof that he seduces his co-religionists into excusing murder in the first degree. God have mercy on him and you.
Wait a minute, this is taking it far too personal, I am just arguing a theological point to the best of my ability, neither of us are authorities. And it is WAY out of line to call me peas in a pod with Osama! You do not have the authority over an internet blog to call someone you do not know anything about at all , peas in the pod with a mass murderer and idolater.
Have I made excuses for THIS act of murder or just argued the principle? How many times must I say this? My point, and what makes me different than Osama (among many things I hope) is that there can be situations in which a preemptive strike against one who is involved in the unjurst war effort of another country are justified.
Contributing to unjust war effort=not innocnet
9/11 terror victums=innocent
You are arguing in defense of cold-blooded murder. Repent and stop it. What “unjust war effort”? We’re not at war with Iran. Indeed, we don’t even know who murdered the guy. But murder it was, not “just war”.
Mark if I am ever in the Seattle Area I promise that I will buy you a large scotch (or whatever your favorite poison is), you are a great credit to Holy Mother Church, not only because of your apologetic works (themselves deserving of a papal knighthood? better you than Murdoch), but also because unlike the majority of ‘orthodox’ Catholics you have not been bamboozeled by talk radio and Fox News into substituting one intrinsic evil for another.
ALL HAIL The Dark Lord Shea of Terra Rouge!!
Mark- I think you have taken this to far calling me Peas in a Pod with Osama. You must realize you have no idea who I am or anything about me, don’t get so personal. I am done talking, I was just trying to argue a theological point.
Cinlef- we do things to prisoners against their will. I would argue that executing them is worse than waterboarding yet the death penalty is clearly accepted by the Church.
I’m not getting personal. YOu are perfectly right that I don’t know you. All I know is your ideas, which are identical to bin Laden’s when you say that it is licit to murder civilians in cold blood since they are part of ‘the system’. I don’t care who you are. When you say that, it’s wrong.
I agree with your last point Tom. To claim that Santorum is not Pro-life is self-defeating for pro-lifers. Pro-life does not equal pacifism.
It is not pacifism to oppose cold-blooded murder of civilians. it is not prolife to cheer for it. Santorum is, at best, anti-abortion (good as far as it goes). But he seduces the faithful by claiming to prolife and persuading them to cheer for cold-blooded murder as somehow compatible with Catholic faith.
Yeah, “good as far as it goes”. I still can’t consider Santorum “pro-life” after his strong endorsement of Arlen Specter, a strong supporter of abortion against authentic pro-lifer Pat Toomey. The pro-lifers in PA had plenty to say about it when they made sure Santorum didn’t get reelected to the Senate.
“Men who begin to fight the Church for the sake of freedom and humanity end by flinging away freedom and humanity if only they may fight the Church.” –G.K. Chesterton, probably forseeing the woeful state of 21st century American politics.
All this talk about killing and when it is justified and who’s at fault is just so tedious. Both sides, and here I mean very loosely the west including Israel and the Middle East (those against Israel) need to just stop all this talk of war and al the killing. Just stop. Neither side is ever going to ultimately win or convince the other side, so why don’t they, we, all humans just stop fighting? The only one who ever made this case clearly was Jesus. Why don’t we all just stop and listen? Maybe our only hope is children if they hear the proper message of peace.
Great post, Mark. Santorum loves to tout how strongly pro-life he is, while saber-rattling for another war with Iran. This is a total contradiction as war with Iran will end in the death of countless innocent people, all supposedly awful for Santorum when talking about abortion. It comes down to this: either you are pro-life all the way, or not at all. Pro-life is not an a la carte idea where we can be pro-life when it fits us, and ignore it when it doesn’t.
Pro-life does not mean a president must also be a pacifist. Iran has long made clear their intentions to use such weapons on Israel. Pro-life does not mean one must sit by and watch a rogue state use nuclear weapons to kill millions of Israelis.
Jason, with us having participated in killing a civilian in their nation in the name of what their national government is doing, can you ethically criticize them if they choose to do likewise to a civilian here? If yes, then by what logic?
We don’t actually know that *we* had anything to do with it. Pretty sure the Israelis (if it was them, either) don’t tell us everything they’re going to do.
I’m sure AQ is thrilled with the idea that the Shia heretics on one side, and the ‘Jews and Crusaders’ on the other, might tear each other apart.
Are they justified in having such weapons in that the U.S. and the U.K. in the past over threw an elected government of Iran and installed their puppet the Shah in order to protect Western oil interests – and is threatening to do so again?
I think we have such weapons to prevent other countries from doing such things to us.
No one is saying the president needs to be a pacifist. The issue is Santorum and the vast majority of the warmongers that make up the US government refuse to even consider the idea of diplomacy. They are perfectly content with murder so long as it suites their ends, plain and simple.
What EXACTLY is the “wonderful thing” to which Santorum referred? He was speaking conversationally, so the referent for “thing” cannot reliable be traced back to the grammatical elements of the sentence. Let me give you an example. If I say, “My uncle died and left me a million dollars!” And someone says, “That’s great!” What exactly is great? The million bucks? The fact that my uncle died? The fact that I was an heir? Given that the notion that Santorum advocates anyone’s cold blooded murder is simply farcical (not to mention disingenuously sensationalistic), why not presume HE’s innocent instead of attacking HIM? Give the guy the benefit of the doubt and say that the “wonderful thing” he referred to is the setback to the Iranian nuclear program, and not someone’s murder. If that Iranian scientist is not a mass murderer in the making and therefore innocent, then why not give the same consideration to Santorum?
And by the way: These candidates are ALL politicians. They ALL say stuff to get attention, to get donations, to get votes, stuff that they don’t really mean. And they’re all dirty in one way or another. Ron Paul’s isolationist approach, for instance, may just result in nuclear conflicts in the far east, the mid east and in Africa, on account of little ol’ Iran and their innocent scientists and innocent electrical power program. Turning a blind eye can be as great a complicity in murder as praising the guy who pulls the trigger. And more cowardly besides.
It’s not complicated. Santorum said that is’a wonderful thing that Nuclear scientists in Iran “turn up dead”. He thinks murder is “wonderful” when the victim is an Iranian civilian working on nukes, in short, an innocent victim. Bin Laden felt the same way about the victims in the Pentagon and the WTC.
I’m not convinced that you are my go to guy for “Authentic bioethics” if you can’t parse a statement that plainly in favor of cold-blooded murder.
My comments were more about you than about him, but you didn’t get it.
On the other hand, you can’t be that much of a fool to truly think that “I” think that advocating cold blooded murder is ok. Can you?
Ya, what Bioethics was really saying was, “If you can forgive an Iranian scientist, why can’t you forgive an American politician?” After all, he was just being a politician.
It sounds like you might have another ultra-nationalist, here. After all, he defines Ron Paul’s position of non-intervention as ‘isolationism’. This is typical among American warmongers. Does he teach his kids to pre-emptively attack those they fear might be bullies? Wouldn’t such a policy make THEM the bullies?
Apparently, a little fear warms the blood just enough, so that such actions don’t qualify as cold-blooded.
Everyone is finding fault with someone as far as the Republican candidates go. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Keep it up and we will ensure that a President who has no problem with partial birth abortion wins a second term. Do what the Gospels instruct: if you have a problem with someone, talk to him about it before you bring others into the argument. Write to Rick Santorum about your concerns. Likewise with Ron Paul, or any other candidate. Don’t let your first step be to complain publicly about it. May God bless our country as we elect the next President.
Have you done that with President Obama?
My “house” is the Catholic Church, not a political party. When given the choice between a war party and a eugenics party, I’m not going to call either one the “good guy”. If we don’t criticize partial-pro-life candidates, then nothing will ever change…we’ll just spend the rest of our lives swapping one evil for another.
If the issue is already public, the only thing served by continuing the discussion in private is the lie.
“The difference is in who is being targeted. If a combatant takes human shields to protect himself or his weaponry, it becomes certainly much more complicated a decision to attack.”
So is the United States engaging human shields by placing nuclear research facilities and weapons manufacturing facilities in/near populated areas? About five miles as the crow flies from my home is the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, which in the 1960s and early 1970s was home to an AEC line that assembled and shipped nuclear warheads. The building that housed this process was less than a half mile from a school building, a church, and numerous civilian businesses and residences. It was less than 5 miles from a community of nearly 30,000 people (at that time).
Was the US guilty of using human shields to protect its weapon assembly facility in Middletown, IA?
By the moral reasoning of Santorum and many here, yes, it would be entirely moral for our terrorists enemies to attack anyone associated with our war effort in any way. In fact, that is essentially the justification used by the Taliban and Al Queda and others.
If anything goes in regards to self defense tactics, it would be fine, and very sensible, for the Iranians to murder ANY person, military or civilian, who works for the military, or any defense contractor or any government scientist we employ at any time, anywhere in the world.
They can make a quite reasonable argument that we are an existential threat to them. We are the only nation to have ever used a nuclear weapon, and we have threatened Iran with war for the purposes of “regime change” and suggested that we reserve that option independent of their nuclear activities.
Our recent actions in the region make that a very credible threat. More than that, the Iranian regime owes their very existence and mandate to our history of violating their national sovereignty and propping up a brutal regime in our own interests. If all is truly fair in war, then that blade cuts both ways…
This was a very thought-provoking response, kenneth.
It really puts our foreign policy, our “War on Terror”, and this discussion into perspective.
Thank you and God bless you.
My last comment for anyone reading this article is this. Mark Shea is not a moral theologian. If you really want to know, ask a moral theologian who is faithful to church teaching. I am not one. But I do know this, what is posted above is a very over simplification of what the Just War Doctrine states. There is whole lot more to this and to what Santorum says, and believes, than what has been stated.
IT WOULD BE A GREAT ARTICLE TO ACTUALLY HAVE SEVERAL MORAL THEOLOGIANS EDUCATE US ON THIS ISSUE. I’D LIKE TO HEAR WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY ABOUT KILLING SOMEONE WHO IS WORKING ON A NUKE FOR A COUNTRY THAT HAS MADE THREATS TO USE THEM ON OTHER COUNTRIES. IT REALLY IS MORE COMPLEX THAN THE AUTHOR STATES ABOVE.
Hardly.
You lack perspective that is Catholic and is Catholic in Iran and Iraq and Israel and the US. You are a nationalist.
You will not formulate a universalizable statement from your premises because you do not perceive any opponent as acting from good will because the enemy is always evil and the US is always good. In no way is the assasination of nuclear scientists an act of justice the Church would promote. The assasin and the designers of such a plan are failing Gospel duties. Just as Iranian assasins who would target our scientists are acting out of sinfulness.
You are in serious error, fail to actually define a morally acceptable way for both combatants to behave and identify a strategy that is only acceptable in Iran BECAUSE IT IS IRAN and would be unacceptable here, BECAUSE WE ARE THE US.
Those are your premises.
When you have a universalizable action, we can discuss it.
It is more complex, true. But don’t you think we should presume innocence before guilt? We may never know all of the facts, but if the next version of Wikileaks ever comes about we may find this guy was coerced, totally oblivious as to what he was working on, or maybe he knew exactly what he was working on and is Achmadinizad’s (misspelling intended) squash partner. We may never know.
I think Mark’s point is not on the scientist killing itself, but what Santorum had to say about it.
The President of Iran is a distraction. And you know it. Promoting otherwise is propagandistic. The Supreme Leader of Iran is Khamenei. He and the Guardian Council control armed forces.
The President of Iran functions as a distraction.
Dan C – apparently you hit the submit button before me…my comment was addressed to taad, but I was merely stating that we know nothing about this scientist outside of what we’ve been told, so at this time we have to presume innocence.
True. You are correct.
But its Khamenei…he is the Supreme Leader.
The President, whose name I can’t spell without googling it, is to distract the world.
The President says whacky stuff all the time, and we shoudl be too smart to pay attention to him. He says it because it gets reported, like the Minister of Information in Iraq who would say those hilarious things on TV while the country was invaded.
He is a sideshow, and when he is the center of attention, my pet is peeved.
Could we then ask a moral theologian to educate us on the use of all-caps throughout an entire paragraph?
Good luck finding a single bishop in the world to support this.
The killing or the all caps?
Your premise also requires that Iran having a nuclear weapon must be objectively evil. That requires defense. Your detailed knowledge of internal Iranian politics must be more sophisticated than “The President of Iran is a suicidal nutcase.” This Iranian President controls no military, and in general Iranians do not often do suicide attacks. That is an Arabian trick mostly.
You would have to defend the Pakistan support, even after it has been identified that Pakistani scientists were exporting nuclear technology and expertise for most of the 1990′s. Such is the requirement of justice.
Merely being oppositional differs from war.
And by the way, Lisa above is mistaken with a premise of just war theory noting:
“History has shown that that kind of peace can be advanced, in certain precise circumstances, by the proportionate, discriminate and strategically wise use of armed force.”
Wrong. The Church has been teaching since WW2 that history demonstrates war is devastating, horrifying, and a last resort.
The premise for war with Iran over future nuclear technology has less compulsion than war with Pakistan which is likely to actually use its nuclear technology on India, or sell its nuclear technology to terrorists to make up for lost revenue from the US.
Why do countries develop and manufacture nuclear or any other weapon with out the implied threat of using them on other nations?
Well…there’s also deterrence.
Killing people is problematic. Mr. Shea is right to that extent anyway. But you are also right. The presentation here is simplistic.
That’s because the matter is simple. You cannot deliberately kill an innocent human being for any reason whatsoever. A civilian, guilty of no capital crime, was murdered in cold blood and Santorum calls that “wonderful”. He is praising murder in the first degree. And many here are defending that because they are cowards who fear something the might possibly maybe happen someday more than they fear the living God. Despicable.
Mark, you say that “You cannot deliberately kill an innocent human being for any reason whatsoever. ” I am going to state the obvious – no one posting here disagrees with this.
Lots of people posting here disagree with this. They do it by pretending that a man, guilty of no capital crimes, in a nation not at war with us, may be murdered in cold blood because he is part of the system of a nation state hostile to us, even when we are not at war. In other words, they make *exactly* the same argument Osama bin Laden made to justify the murder of civilians who worked in to the military/financial/industrial complex of the WTC and Pentagon. Exactly the same argument.
And they make the argument that you can murder somebody you believe *may* someday constitute a threat–just like Planned Parenthood does when they advocate abortion of babies from low income/high crime demographics.
The presentation of the moral problem is challenging nationalistic leanings, disrupting conservative militaristic self-assuredness, and exposing a series of conservative tribal compatriots who lack good moral foundation in Just War Theory, who inserting nationalistic imprimaturs to US violence. It may be uncomfortable, but it is hardly too simplistic, and I think has been challenged and defended quite well.
The critique here seems to be about how it upsets and exposes the failures of Catholic conservatives for whom the US military functions with a privileged imprimatur and nihil obstat from Jesus Himself. Not from the Popes, who clearly have sided in opposition to the US.
(Wait for it…wait for it….someone is typing “prudential judgement”).
Contrary to what has been stated several times above, it is not pacifism to decline to attack someone you think may attack you in the future. No one denies a right of self-defense, but pre-emption is not self-defense; it is aggression. It is also untrue that the Iranian regime has threatened to destroy Israel, let alone that they have threatened to do so with nuclear weapons. They have said that “the regime which rules Jerusalem will vanish from the pages of time” (i.e. from history). This is a prediction, maybe accurate, maybe not, but not a threat. And they have been unanimous in condemning nuclear weapons as un-Islamic and have called for a nuclear free Middle East.
The New York Times disagrees with you Kirt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html
Also, we should remember that Iran is a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and as such, has every right to produce peaceful nuclear power. It submits to international inspectors, Iran has done nothing wrong at this point.
Could you imagine if Iran killed one of our nuclear scientists to “protect itself”? Why do we have the right to kill theirs? We aren’t at war.
Enough Catholic on Catholic violence, already. Our Church is under assault from the current administration. HHS is mandating contraception and abortion coverage in Catholic health plans, the ministerial exception has been attacked, Catholic adoption agencies are being forced out of the field, the grant was denied for the Bishops to continue to help human trafficking victims, and increasingly to defend marriage is to incur the odious label of “hate speech.” Not to mention, this is the most pro-abortion president, ever. Are we prepared to attack Santorum if his every comment on every position isn’t exactly perfect? Sen. Santorum could be our first real Catholic president (JFK’s Houston speech leaving him a Catholic in name only). Who exactly, might I ask, would you support, Mr. Shea, short of St. Augustine of Hippo?
Calling murder “wonderful” is a little peccadillo we should overlook in the interest of Unit Cohesion while opposition to cold-blooded murder is “perfectionism” and “violence”. Incredible.
For real. What we’re seeing here, Mark, is the conflict between the Party and the Truth, escalating to Soviet levels.
By the Party, I take you to mean the Republican Party. Please note, I did not advocate against Republican on Republican violence, but Catholic on Catholic. If by the Party you mean the Church, then I’ll point out the Church can never be opposed to the Truth for both are Christ.
But Nathan, you cast this in political partisan terms.
“Not to mention, this is the most pro-abortion president, ever. Are we prepared to attack Santorum if his every comment on every position isn’t exactly perfect? Sen. Santorum could be our first real Catholic president (JFK’s Houston speech leaving him a Catholic in name only).”
Do I take your position to be that as long as a candidate for President opposes abortion, the deaths of innocent civilians can be tolerated? Torture can be tolerated? Pre-emptive war can be tolerated?
Are you not simply offering up innocent life in the name of saving other innocent life?
Abortion is a grave evil. An act of war against an enemy scientist working on a nuclear bomb can (under certain instances) be justified. I, as a matter of fact, do not agree with the senator on this issue, but this is simply not a black and white issue as Mr Shea is trying to make it. Supporting abortion is always wrong, war can be just. Santorum’s position might not be Mr Shea’s (or mine) but it is within the realm of Catholic thought nonetheless.
Ah! So murder of civilians in cold blood is “prudential judgement”. Greaaat!
I don’t see why we have to “settle” on anyone at this point who is not consistently pro-life across the board. Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate at this point who is against abortion AND unjust wars AND torture. So why don’t we buck up and support the candidate that actually represents more Catholic teaching than any candidate (Catholic or not) that is running right now? (Not to mention I believe he has 2 children that are Catholic-converts and therefore Catholic grandchildren as well…that counts for something, doesn’t it?=)
By the Party, I mean a person’s political tribe of choice, which isn’t necessarily coterminous with the Republican Party — but neither is it the Church.
The Church will survive regardless, but individually, we should be concerned for our souls if we’ve become so cowardly and desperate that we’re willing to paper over a murder simply for the sake of getting “our guy” in office.
Put not your trust in princes.
Come now Mr Shea, you’re resorting to a Straw Man argument here. Killing a military scientist who is actively working to create a nuclear weapon to be used against us is not, at least not in Catholic moral theology, “cold-blooded murder.”
Using your rational other countries are justified in coming to the U.S. and killing engineers engaged in designing weapons systems if those weapons might be used against their country?
According to Catholic moral theology there would have to be a more than a vague chance the weapons “might be used”, the damage inflicted to stop the weapons program would have to be less than the potential damage caused by the weapons, there would have to be a solid chance of success in stopping the threat, and other means would have to be foreseen to fail by a reasonable standard. The countries involved do not change the morality of the issue.
He was not a “military scientist”. He was a civilian. And you do not know in the slightest what he was working on. And I frankly defy you to find a bishop or moral theologian who would not call this act murder.
Santorum’s argument is premised on the Iranian scientists being ipso facto enemy combatants, i.e. military scientists. If this premise is proven faulty, his rationale for approving of the death of this scientist falls short of established Catholic norms. However, as he holds this view, his interior logic remains within accepted Catholic teaching. You’d have to prove he wouldn’t change his opinion upon being shown this was a mere civilian for the senator to deserve the invective this article has thrown his way.
Santorum’s argument is premised on the Iranian scientists being ipso facto enemy combatants, i.e. military scientists.
And bin Laden’s argument was premised on American financiers and clerks at the Pentagon being ipso facto enemy combatants, i.e. funding and enabling the American military. Your rationales for cold-blooded murder of civilians is identical. Only, you and Santorum have the benefit of the Catholic just war tradition to correct your gravely sinful support for cold-blooded murder. All bin Laden had was the false religion of Islam. So yours is the graver sin.
The only sin I see here is the sin of rash judgement, on your part Mr Shea. I have never stated that I agree with Mr Santorum’s opinion on this matter (see comments above) and I don’t. My point here is simply that this is a more nuanced case than you are making it out to be. Munitions factories are legitimate targets of a just war. If Santorum’s premises hold (and you have not proven they don’t) he is well within Catholic moral teaching. Sadly, your blog amounts to little more than screaming “bloody murder” repeatedly without proving your case. I must admit I’m disappointed.
And I think I’m done with your excuses for murder too, Nathan. Mr. Santorum’s premises are rubbish. We are not at war with Iran. The scientist was not a munitions factory. He was an innocent civilian who was murdered in cold blood. And you are defending the idiot who says murder in the first degree is “wonderful”. Bye, Nathan.
Exactly right. A just war requires proper authority, just cause and right intention AND it needs to be declared. There has been no declaration, so no war and no just war. It is analogous to a criminal getting off on a technicality. Some might argue that the police should plant evidence if they know that the person did a heinous crime and is a danger to society but there is not enough evidence to prosecute. However, this is manifestly unjust, even if the end is good and the desire for justice is there. The proper procedure is not followed and even if the end and intention are good but the circumstances are not, it is immoral.
I would, however, caution Mr. Shea in judging others sins (“yours is the graver sin”). I understand that he is passionate about the topic and frustrated that so many fellow Catholics seem impossibly at odds with him, but imputing sin is a task best left to a confessor and God. We are not privy to the level or type of ignorance or other conditions that may influence culpability.
Fair enough. My disgust at today’s proceedings allowed me to let my anger get the best of me. Still, Catholics are held to a higher standard though. What an embarrassing spectacle this parade of murder enthuasiast and apologists has been. And most disgusting of all is the mantra “Santorum is a 100% prolife Catholic!” as the justification for these apologias for cold-blooded murder.
What about the driver of the car? Was he, too, an “enemy combatant”?
Collateral damage, silly. Gotta break a few eggs to make that Murder Omelet.
“And you do not know in the slightest what he was working on.”
Exactly. None of us do. We all have to make an assumption in that respect to justify our statements.
Had the SS been able to murder Enrico Fermi during his early work in developing the Chicago Pile-1, would you also consider this not to be “cold blooded murder”?
I hate to keep beating this drum, but the moral relativism and tribalism (to borrow a phrase from Mark Shea) runs rampant. I truly have to ask…are there no absolutes in Catholic moral teaching?
By the arguments being used to support the murder of the Iranian scientist and Santorum’s support for it, those putting forth this argument are using *exactly* the same reasoning behind permitting abortions in order to save the life of the mother. The intentional murder of an innocent to save other innocent life. Is this not the slippery slope that develops when torture is accepted?
I refer you to my comment above. Changing the countries involved does not in any way affect the underlying moral issue.
Would an Iranian assasination of a nuclear scientist in the US be justifiable then?
Please see my above reply to Marv. Whether a military action is Just or not is entirely independent from the countries involved. Santorum’s argument is simply that country “A” has repeatedly threatened country “B.” Country “A” is developing a WMD which it will use on country “B.” Country “A” hires scientists AS A PART OF IT’S MILITARY to further this end. Country “B” is justly able to attack these scientists. As I mentioned above, the senator’s premises might be wrong (however that hasn’t been clearly shown here) but his argument is consistent with Catholic teaching.
Murder of innocent civilians is not consistent with Catholic teaching.
You have justified the notoriously immoral Dresden bombings. Genius.
You have described the doctrine of preventive war (as opposed to preemptive) which has been explicitly and repeatedly condemned by the Vatican and many, many bishops. The error is here: “is developing a WMD which it will use…” By this logic, if you discover that someone who has threatened your life has purchased a knife, you may sneak into his house in the middle of the night and slit his throat. That is preventive and immoral. If, however, he were to sneak into your house with his newly purchased knife and, in attempting to stop him from killing you, you slash his throat, then you have preemption, which is allowable.
The intent of the Iranian nukes are not for “us” as in the US. Think more Iraq and Saudi. They are not “us.”
As such, this further limits our interest in this.
Santorum has shown by these undisciplined statements that he lacks full union with Rome. Avoid such an association.
I think this is a moment when we need to decide whether our primary loyalty is to the truth, or to the Party. Perhaps it would be to the Party’s advantage if we remained silent about Santorum’s scandalous remarks, but that would be to do be a grave disservice to the truth.
(And for Wales? No thanks.)
Mark: Maybe I’ve missed one of your replies but I think you’re absolutely wrong in your assertion that “[O]ur country is not at war.” We have been at war with Iran since at least 1979; their avowed purpose is the destruction of the Great Satan (USA) and the Little Satan (Israel). Assuming we take their declaration of war against us seriously, would you change your position? If we assume BOTH that we are at war AND that the dead scientist is, indeed, a combatant trying to develop weapons to use against us, would your position change? If so, then more power to you; if not, then you’re parroting a lefty-liberal trope and you’ve lost my respect. We know that Iranians have killed our soldiers around the world, that they are arming and supporting terrorist operations throughout both the middle East and east Asia – and you believe we’re not at war? The Iranian mullahs try to blur the lines so that they can say that they’re the victims of “western oppression.” Sorry, I agree with Santorum on this one. Not a civilian, not a neutral country. Perhaps it will deter another “scientist” from assisting the mullahs. Justified killing. You might try living in the real world.
Charlene we have been at war with Iran since the 1950′s when the U.S. and the U.K. overthrew the duly elected government of Iran and installed the Shah in order to protect Western oil interests.
Yes, Charlene, the Iranian call us names like the “Great Satan” . . . isn’t that horrible . . . maybe they should use nicer names for countries like the U.S. does, for example Reagan’s referring to the USSR as the “Evil Empire” or George W’s referring to Iran, Iraq and N Korea as the “Axis of Evil” . . . that sounds sooo much better.
We are certainly not at war with “the duly elected government of Iran.”
“Maybe I’ve missed one of your replies but I think you’re absolutely wrong in your assertion that “[O]ur country is not at war.” We have been at war with Iran since at least 1979; their avowed purpose is the destruction of the Great Satan (USA) and the Little Satan (Israel). Assuming we take their declaration of war against us seriously, would you change your position?”
Charlene, your statement is accurate only if you overlook the US and European enabling the coup that toppled Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi as our puppet dictator for the nation. It was OUR support of the Shah that kept him in power until 1979. It was OUR support that helped train their SAVAK members, whose actions were akin to the worst of the KGB or SS.
It was this quarter century of propping up a puppet dictator in the nation, supporting a despot who tortured and murdered his opponents as well as innocent civilians, all in the name of keeping the oil flowing.
Knowing that, would you change your opinion of the actions taken by the Iranians in 1979 and perhaps see them not as a declaration of war, but instead a response to our declaration of war in 1953?
No Charlene. We are not at war. That is a matter of record. If we were at war, there would be a declaration of war from our side. We are not at war. And even if we were at war, targeting civilians is stll murder. You are making excuses for the cold blooded murder of an innocent man using *exactly* the same logic as Osama bin Laden and abortionists who argue that abortion cuts crime. And calling yourself a “faithful prolife Catholic” as you do it. Incredible.
“If we were at war, there would be a declaration of war from our side.”
By that definition we haven’t been at war since 1945. Do you really believe that?
Okey doke. Show me where a Presidential “police action” has been declared against Iran. Imaginary wars in Rick Santorum’s head don’t count. When did we say we were going to war against Iran as we did against Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, you labor to excuse murder as a Catholic and call your “faithful and prolife”? Insane.
Shea is correct. A formal declaration of war is a necessary condition (along with just cause, proper authority and right intention) for a just war. Absent a just war, we cannot legitimately kill even a combatant, let alone a non-combatant. So, IF Congress declared war formally on Iran and IF the scientist were actively working on a weapon that would immediately endanger the United States and IF it were last resort and IF it were proportional, then yes, it would be legitimate under just war to kill the scientist. However zero out of 4 of these conditions have been met, by my reckoning, although we can feverishly speculate that the scientist was working on some dangerous weapon, but then so are many US scientists. Are they all open to assassination?
Zach:
You are right but seem to want things both ways. Given that, as you yourself show, the murder of this scientist is clearly murder, why pretend the the people who are making excuses for it should be cut slack by pretending that if they redefine it as “pre-emptive killing” or “just war” that makes it okay and we can agree to disagree? They are defending murder by any reasonable criterion. I think that deserves rebuke, not mollycoddling about how everybody had different definition and gee it’s mean to call a spade a spade. Same with torture. When people die from it, it was torture.
“If we were at war, there would be a declaration of war from our side.”
I believe that our little foray into Libya may put that into question (said tongue-in-cheek of course).
And you are therefore in grave error siding with murder sue to A,ericanist heresies.
Mark:
I take objection to the way Franco has been denegrated by comparing him to Santorum.
1. Franco had lots of faults but I think his association with Germany and Italy were a matter of convenience (just as the U.S. allied itself with the USSR against Germany) since his opponents were getting lots of support from Stalin the rest of the world. However, Franco did end a regime that was one of the bloodiest in Europe and its main target was the Church and clergy.
2. Although the Franco admirer you cite may not realize it – he had a very close and friendly relationship with Muslims. He served as military governor of Spanish Africa prior to the Civil War and the Moroccan troops he commanded played a major part in helping him to win the Civil War. Until Moroccan independence in 1956 Franco’s main ceremonial guard (his “Swiss Guard”) was made up of Moors.
3. After he achieved victory in the Civil War I did not see him engaging in any other wars outside of Spain or its possessions (with or without his former allies) in an effort to change the world – unlike the Neo-cons.
I am not a fascist or admirer of Franco but see him as a creature of his time using the tools of his time to remove a plague from his country.
My boys ask why the country they’re about to inherit is going to hell in a handbasket and they’re going to be stuck with it. I tell them to read the interent, that will explain everything.
Mark,
I have been following you through “New Advent” for several weeks now. I find you refreshing. You and I agree on many issues. I am not the “brightest bulb on the tree” and often when I read articles on New Advent, I am troubled by the narrow reasoning of many of the writers. So much of what I read seems very, very un-Christ-like to me. I cant quite explain it but many of the New Advent writers seem to use some sort of narrow reasoning in defending and rationalizing their positions on many topics. Some of them seem like white washed tombs to me, wolves in sheep clothing. You think Santorum may be leading many faithful to except cold-blooded murder as a Christian value. I think this is true of many articles I have read at New Advent by writers who seem to justify (or totally overlook) all sorts of evil by others such as the use of torture. Some openly support political candidates that have lied us into war, champion the death penalty and openly favor the rich over the poor simply because they claim to be pro-life. You, on the other hand seem to not only think things through to their logical conclusion, but seem to be Spirit filled with Truth as well. I do not always agree with you but you make your positions clear. You present them in a strait forward way that is easy to understand. Truth is truth. In this case you are right on the money! Something has always made me feel uncomfortable about Santorum (and many other candidates) but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. I think you hit the nail on the head! He is not pro-life. He may be anti-abortion but he is not pro-life. Sometimes I think the first thing a conservative conserves is his compassion. This is of course not true of all conservatives. In my opinion the one thing a true Christian would never conserve is his compassion. Jesus Christ IS compassion. “Murderers For Jesus” was the perfect title for this piece. They will even try and justify it…if not for Jesus…then for country. Murder is still murder. Thank you for being here.
All I can say, given the nature and tone of many comments, I sure hope folks are absolutely correct about what they are saying.
“And many here are defending that because they are cowards who fear something the might possibly maybe happen someday more than they fear the living God.”
2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers {or leaders?} in accordance to their own desires,”
I really thought I’d not find a comment thread to read this week was going to be more disheartening than yesterday’s which featured an angry Falangist claiming that only by slaughtering Iranians en masse could we avoid having our families be eaten alive by cannibal hordes from Montana [I dropped a few of the intermediate steps but that was in fact his : ]
Still as depressing as much of this was at least a few people were persuaded to change their minds or at least give the issue a second look.
So I just wanted to thank Mr. Shea for his commitment to Truth over nationalism and partisan hackery.
Blast messed up the HTML tags these comments really need a preview function
I don’t like this bragging about how their presidential opinion meets the bar to execute someone. It is as disgusting as abortion. Every candidate is beating the war drum… save one. Ron Paul.
Hi Richard Johnson: The real question in my mind is whether we are at war with the people of Iran or at war with a group of barbaric Islamist mullahs who happen to control the country and who want to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to Israel and Europe. From everything I have read and heard, the Iranians despise their fundamentalist rulers. Perhaps they are responsible for the elimination of this “scientist”? If so, great! (Here’s a question for you – suppose it WAS the Iranian “resistance”or whatever they’re called – does that make the event and the conduct acceptable to you?) As a woman, all I can say is take a look at the photos of the graduating classes of university women from, say, 1970, and the present in Iran. The country is ruled by barbaric, misogynistic weirdos (can’t think of a better term for them!) We should be supporting the Iranian people in their efforts to rid themselves of these fascist, moronic heathens!
And BTW, Mark, I never called myself a “faithful pro-life Catholic” – don’t put words into my mouth. I am a Catholic, a mother, pro-life, pro-death penalty and pro-just war. I will, without compunction, kill to protect my children. If you are not willing to do so, then you are neither rational nor “pro-life.” As I said before, try living in the real world.
I have heard people claim they need to abort their child to “live in the real world.” Its a bad motto.
“The real question in my mind is whether we are at war with the people of Iran or at war with a group of barbaric Islamist mullahs who happen to control the country and who want to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to Israel and Europe.”
That is a moot point, Charlene, since those Islamists who control the country now and took control of the country in 1979 were not in power in 1953 when we declared war on Iran.
“We should be supporting the Iranian people in their efforts to rid themselves of these fascist, moronic heathens!”
They did, but we overthrew the person they put in power in 1953. Were we wrong to do that? Are they right to suspect that we might do it again?
Further, if a foreign nation were to somehow overthrow our national government and install their puppet leader, would you consider it an act of war? Would you work for 25 years to try to overthrow that puppet dictator?
Again…you cannot justify the intentional murder of an innocent civilian in one situation and still ethically condemn it in others save for allowing the doctrine of “American exceptionalism” to be your guiding teaching.
Does American exceptionalism trump Catholic teaching?
The man whose cold blooded murder you cheer was no threat to your children. And for all you know, he may have been one of the Iranians who despise their rulers. He may even, for all you know, have been engaged in espionage against the regime. Because you know nothing about him except that he was murdered in cold blood and you, a “prolife Catholic” spit on the Church’s teaching about the taking of innocent human life, preferring your cowardice about something you fear maybe possibly could one day happen to the word of the Living God. Shame on you. Your reasoning is identical to that of Bin Laden (“civilians are part of the system and deserve to die”) and Planned Parenthood (“Kill innocent people before they do something bad”). Your only quibble is about murdering innocent people in the womb or a little later. Disgusting.
For example. She disagrees with you and gets this. Uncivil name calling. Talk about disgusting. What a sorry representation of a Catholic.
You mean she cheers enthusiastically for cold blooded murder of an innocent man and receives the rebuke she richly deserves for that?
Do you use kid gloves when Catholics for a Free Choice argues that you can stick scissors in a baby’s brain and it’s okay? Do you think it’s disgusting when a Catholic tells such a person that they are apologists for murder who care more about comfort than they do about the Living God? I called her no name. I named for her what she is doing: apologizing for cold blooded murder. if that upsets you more than murder does, then your priorities are seriously confused.
I have no interest in the tender feelings of apologists for murder. If they can dish out murder, they can take a little stern rebuke.
Called her no names? You called her a coward and compared her to Osama Bin Laden. Give me a break, I’m not stupid.
And I only need read as far as Richard Johnson’s very intelligent and civil response to show an example of how an intelligent Catholic can argue an issue.
My heart is breaking for the tender feelings of excusers of cold-blooded murder. I can see how murder pales in comparison to saying it is cowardly to endorse murder.
Please do me a favor and leave in disgust. I’ve about had it with murder apologetics today.
I’m not apologizing for anything, but please be the victim and throw around another strawman if it makes you feel better about yourself. I’m happy that you are so proud of your self-righteous anger and disgust. How embarrassing.
Goodbye Megan.
Though I agree with 95% of what Mr. Shea writes, I think he is being unfair and circular in his reasoning. He is presupposing the point that is being argued: “Since you are clearly supporting murder, I will not listen to your arguments saying that it is not murder.” He explicitly says that he is rebuking his opponents more sternly today because they support murder. But that is exactly what they deny, but they would, because, hey they support murder!
He does the same with those he calls torture-apologists. He doesn’t hesitate to call them names or attack them because they support torture, even though this is the very point they are arguing against.
What name-calling? Charlene advocates for grave evil in the name of “protecting the children” and “living in the real world,” and Mark rightly called it disgusting. Any time a Catholic advocates grave evil, something that stands in direct contradiction to the moral teachings of the Church, it is right to label such advocacy as “disgusting.”
Are you his paid defender or just bored?
I am sure he can defend himself, he is a big boy.
She said as she defended an apologist for cold-blooded murder.
No, I simply agree with him (and with the teachings of the Church over and above tribal allegiances to either the United States or any of it’s political parties).
How’s this for “rational”? Those barbaric, misogynistic weirdos came to power through our actions. They would not have ever become a serious political or military force in that country were it not for our actions in the 1960s and 70s.
What’s worse is that our current war posturing and back-channel assassinations are destroying whatever meager chances existed for a democratic opposition to overthrow the regime.
We are giving the extremists of the regime the best gift they could have ever imagined. In the last few years, their hold was cracking. The economy was rotten, people were finding the courage to stand against a brutal government. That’s ALL gone now. We’ve united the Iranian people in what they see as a national cause for survival and sovereignty. We’ve done the regime a bigger favor than if we had Fed-Exed them a functioning warhead with instructions….
I’d just like to point out that character assassination is also a mortal sin that falls under “Thou Shalt Not Kill”.
What are you trying to say?
Oh I don’t know. Recklessly tagging someone a “murderer” on the World Wide Web is a start. Last I checked, whether you’ve killed a man or killed their good name, the destination is the same if a person doesn’t repent.
Splinter, plank, all that.
Who did I tag a murderer (aside from the people who, you know, murdered the scientist). Jesus does say that if you are angry with your brother (not mention cheering for his murder as “wonderful”) you have already committed murder in your heart. So in that sense, yes, Santorum is a murderer for Jesus. And if he should, God forbid, become President, he could well become a murderer in deed, as well as in his heart, should he order the death of other innocents in pursuit of his perverted theories of Just War that lie behind this piece of disgusting cheerleading.
But by all means, continue the handwringing for the tender feelings of rich and powerful pols who lead Catholics to believe they can be 100% prolife and simultaneously cheer for murder in the first degree. The delicate feelings of powerful men are *so* much more important than murder in the first degree.
Actually it false under “Not bearing false witness”
But who here is engaging in character assassination?
*falls under “not bearing false witness”
No, actually, it falls under “Thou Shalt not Kill”.
Character assassination in the sense of slandering someone? Really? (Sincere question)
Chris, like the other people energetically laboring to make excuses for cold-blooded murder of innocents and those who cheer for that, is gone. I’ve read enough nauseating apologias for one day.
If the murder of scientists or anyone else who is working for the defense department of any given country is justifiable and classified under “Just War Theory,” how come the man who murdered two CIA agents in Langley in 1997 and was executed in Virginia in 2002 was not subjected to any kind of US military tribunal/court of law, as a combatant under the Geneva Conventions would be? I know it predates 2001, but the Twin Towers had already been bombed:
“Mir Aimal Kansi was put to death in Virginia for killing two CIA employees.
In January 1993 he picked up an AK-47 and started systematically pumping bullets into cars parked at a red light near CIA headquarters in the US. He killed Frank Darling, 28, and Lansing Bennett, 66 and seriously injured three others.
The Pakistani immigrant was given the lethal injection in 2002. He was 38.”
It’s all covered in the Official Handbook of American Imperial Exceptionalism. If we do something, it’s a “blow for freedom” or self defense. If a brown guy carries out an extrajudicial killing, it’s terrorism…
I’ll assume then that you don’t actually live in America.
Not anymore, I’m afraid. I live within the geographic and political boundaries of the United States, but I have a hard time thinking of it as “America” anymore.
I proudly live in America, and am a veteran, and my (civilian) husband often works for the US defense department (not a scientist, though!) . If he were killed on the way to work one day because of where he worked, would he have been classified as killed in action, and would his killers have been tried in a military tribunal, under the terms of the Geneva convention?
Funny thing is? We’ve been trashing the country for so many decades, it’s finally beginning to live up to our criticisms. Sort of like a person who spends his whole life insisting he’s a loser. As often as not, he’ll end up being a loser. A country telling itself that it’s as bad as the worst countries in history will, shockingly, probably end up being as bad as the worst countries in history. A nice little package we’ve left our posterity.
You forced the sovereign nations around you to cede a set amount of land to you, under the obvious threat of arms, so you could expand your national territory at our expense.
And you couldn’t even be bothered to abide by the very treaties you forced our leaders to sign (when, of course, you weren’t just murdering our oldest and most peaceful diplomats under flags of truce.) And when it became obvious to everyone, red and white, that you weren’t, and never had any intention to, abide by the treaties you forced us to sign, you’d come, armed, and foist on us yet another treaty.
You used your advanced technology to take whatever land and wealth you wanted, without any regard for who or what was already there.
Once established, your national government still had to cut deals with its constituent states, again at our expense. And then a generation later had the audacity to try to pin responsibility for the concentration camps* that came out of the 1802 compact on Georgia.
But Jackson’s on the $20.
Dave G, I keep trying to tell ya, you’re backing the wrong horse.
Meant to add…
*Yes, Virginia, the concentration camp was first born into modernity in Georgia, United States, in the 1830′s. I can show you the sites of multiple log stockades used to house thousands of human beings in conditions that frankly would shame the perpetrators of the Shoah. I can even show you some of the chestnut logs used to build these hulks that my grandmothers and aunts were herded into like pigs or cattle, and left to die through winter of the filth and disease that comes when you lock 3,000 people in a hole in the ground the size of a small parish hall.
Yeah, ya’ll are just the last best hope of mankind.
Where’s my sick bag?
Further, I don’t personally believe for a moment that it was purely coincidental that the 1st and 3rd most wealthy men living on this continent at that time just happened to be Cherokee men.
And because their plantations were coveted, as well as some of the rocks on our land, many of the rest of us were driven from one-room cabins, and waddle and daub huts, under armed guard.
Hezikiah – your people and my people both….plus, my wife and children are Lakota, sooo, the Federals have not been kind to any of us.
My bad….spelled you name wrong! Sorry!
No worries on the spelling.
It just frustrates me that Americans really don’t get why so many people both hate and fear them.
Sorry guys, I just don’t subscribe to the America Sucks attitude. But then I don’t see the appropriate alternative to ‘my mother drunk or sober’ as ‘my mother: drunken slut, just give me my inheritance then drop dead.’ Perhaps I’m not good enough to only see it one way, but I’m trying.
Oh, and I’m descended from Cherokee myself, and my wife is descended from both Iroquois and – wait for it -Jenny Wiley. So there are some differing opinions for you.
I agree with this. I typically cannot stand Mark Shea’s partisan political bloviating, but as my dad says, the sun shines on a dog’s butt every once in a while.
Partisan political bloviating? You haven’t been following him all that closely, have you?
I’m curious. Who do you think I am a partisan for given that, at best, I have a modest bit of support for Ron Paul while recognizing he’s kind of a kook, a mild interest in Huntsman, while the rest of the field on both side are, I think, worthless as candidates. In which sense is that “partisan”?
I have seen you write numerous blogs that are clearly slanted toward a specific political point of view, I am not speaking to just the past few months. There is nothing wrong with that, but using the Church to advance a political agenda is wrong and you have done that. It’s not just the politics, I have always found you to be mean-spirited in your responses to people. I don’t listen to Catholic Answers Live when you are the guest because I think you are often curt and condescending to callers. You’ll probably attack me now and other commenters will too, but whatever. Like I said, at least you’re correct in this case.
I guess mostly I am just tired of politics on blogs that claim to be about the Church.
This blog claims to be about everything that interests me–from the perspective of a Catholic layman.
My blogs on politics are typically on ethical and moral questions, viewed from the perspective of somebody who thinks the Church’s teaching trumps the partisan needs of apologists for the favorite grave evils of their particular party. As such, I oppose abortion IVF, ESCR, euthanasia, gay ‘marriage’–and torture, murder, and unjust war. The latter three are particular favorites of the Right and (since my readers are mostly Righties and don’t make excuses for the first five evils but make copious excuses for the last three, I argue with them. If you can tell me what political agenda I’ve advanced beyond “Listen to the Church” I’m happy to listen. I hope you don’t think me curt and condescending for saying so.
I don’t know. It seems that your readers are split down the center. If the majority of your readers still are card carrying Conservative Republicans loyal to the party, at least half of those who comment are firmly in the camp of Paul, libertarianism, and any one of a thousand different non-conservative Christian Republican American whatever views. Assuming there are problems outside of the GOP/Conservative fold of ideas, maybe it’s time to address those problems a little more often since there are obviously many readers who don’t fall into the ‘loyal to the Republicans no matter what’ category anymore. Just an observation.
To Mark Shea: You make many good points here. Have you come out and endorsed anyone yet? Are you willing to tell us who you voted for in the last presidential election? Thanks
I vote for some third party guys whose name escapes me. Before that I had always voted GOP. This time I will vote for Paul or, if he’s not on the ballot (likely) somebody else who does not ask me to support grave evil–assuming such a candidate runs.
Mark,
Serious question, no sarcasm intended here: If you had to vote for any one of the Republican primary candidates or President Obama, who would you vote for, and why?
I have not read all of your writings, so maybe you have already said who you would support, but I respect your opinion and would like to know who you would support.
Thanks!
As I said, I’d back Ron Paul. See my archives for why–and for the qualifications on that. He is not a candidate without problems.
Joe Schriner! That’s who you vote for sometimes. I do too when I can’t bear to vote for either party candidate.
As I said in a previous comment, I have written hundreds of pages on Just War and Terrorism, here is a paragraph from my conclusion that may cause those who support “by any means necessary” logic to pause:
We are not angels, as many pacifists assume, neither are we beasts, as the total war doctrine assumes. Fallen creatures, we lie in between: rational animals with the capacity to use force in the service of justice. We do not live in a utopian paradise, where war is obsolete; neither do we live in General Sherman’s hell, where even the most heinous acts are permitted. Just War has proven itself nuanced and flexible. Augustine wrote that the true evil of war is not the deaths it causes, for they will all die anyway. Rather, the true evil of war is the anger, lust for power, and other sins that accompany it. Taking this view, it is clear that just war is meant to protect the virtue of the soldier as much as the lives of the innocent. “War brings a disproportionate increase in hatred, destruction and cruelty.” The rules of war, especially ius in bello considerations such as discrimination and proportionality, are set up to protect the soldier just as much as the civilian. These rules prevent a soldier from becoming a murderer. Thus, violence must be avoided not only because it violates the human dignity of its victims, but wounds the dignity of the perpetrator as well. War can be, if not ennobling, then at least conducive to virtue, which in Latin and Greek is a cognate of “manliness.” Proper restraint in war is not mere kindness, compassion or hope for reciprocity, but part of the virtue of justice. Practicing restraint in war will make the warrior a better person and prevent a descent to animality, all too common in warfare.
The recent example of troops in Afghanistan urinating on Taliban corpses underscores it. Frankly, the Iranian scientist is not in a position to care whether he was killed according to just war principles or not, he is just as dead. But *we* must care because we must bear the sin, if sin it be. We are cooperating with evil, however remotely, if we condone injustice, performed in our name.
In defense of Santo and others who favor the killings, may I say that they believe that their position is justified, in part, by the judgment that we ARE in a sense at war with Iran.
Are we, or aren’t we? It’s not a question just of declarations, but of reality.
And yes, Mark you are right, that this is the same logic used by BinLaden: namely, that we are at war with Islam, and that therefore, we are legitimate targets.
Again: are we at war with islam, or aren’t we? [It's not a question just of declarations, but of reality....]
As we know however, Catholic teaching on just war doesn’t only address the justice of the underlying cause, but also the means and proportion used in carrying out a war.
In my opinion it is difficult to argue, assuming arguendo that either Bin Laden or Santo et al were/are waging a just war, that the means [attacking civilians with airplanes or assassinating scientists] are proportional or just, using our best understanding of Catholic teaching on just war.
[Would I nevertheless vote for a nominee Santo over Obama? you betcha.]
Every moral idiot who endorses grave evil “thinks their position is justified”. The Nazis thought their slaughter of the Jews was justified. They even diverted resources necessary to the war effort to accomplish it, so blinded were they by their own rationales for evil. Sin makes you stupid and makes you persuade yourself that the monstrous evil you are committing is “justified”. Santo is cheering for cold-blooded murder of an innocent civilian. Those of us who still believe the teaching of the Church over the needs of postmodern relativists in the Thing that Used to be Conservatism know that there is, by definition, no possible justification for the deliberate murder of an innocent human being.
And no, we are not “at war with Islam”. That’s why, if you blow up a mosque, you will be jailed for murder, not hailed as a war hero.
What is the matter with you? Are you seriously proposing we attempt to murder a billion people?
Mark, please relax. I didn’t say we are at war with Islam nor that we are at war with Iran. Nor did I suggest that we ought to be. I don’t know if we should be or not. I just said that it might be reasonably argued that we are IN such wars. And I said, assuming that either of those arguments were correct, that it still would not be justifiable to fly planes into buildings nor to kill an Iranian scientist in cold blood under Catholic just war teaching.
I don’t want to argue with you over whether or not we are at war with Islam or Iran. I really don’t know. It depends how you define war, really. Some people assert quite vehemently that we are at war with Iran. I think they have some good arguments. And OBL had some good arguments. I tend to think OBL was wrong, but perhaps I am biased.
Isn’t God the judge of such things? Isn’t the reality known fully to Him alone? Some people say [e.g. Ron Paul] that sanctions [were they to occur] are an act of war. Presumably Obama would disagree. Others say [e.g. many neocons and others] that the 1979 hostage taking was an act of war. Others could say [e.g., gore vidal? some liberals and paleocons anyway] that our taking down Mossadegh was an act of war.
Recently some have written that our sanctions against Japan were really an act of war.
I agree that it is hard to justify Hitler’s holocaust under a just war theory. Almost all those Jews killed were very remotely responsible, if at all, for the war against Germany. And just to be clear, I am not saying that there is some way other than just war theory to justify the holocaust. As a group, they were not members of a foreign state at war with Germany, they were not giving aid or succor to Germany’s enemies, and they certainly were not giving armed resistance to Germany as a unit, nor were they even causing any problems in civil society. The killing of the Jews was justified by Hitler and the nazis, in my opinion, on false pretenses.
But the point is that this is my opinion based on my knowledge of the facts.
Catholic teaching, I think, assumes God’s knowledge of the existence of a certain state of affairs when it says for instance that ‘such and such acts during war [i.e. assuming war is the actual state of affairs] are not moral.’
I’m not saying we can’t ever know if we are at war, but I am saying that in the case of Iran or Islam the knowing is fuzzy, and that there are good arguments on both sides.
Of course, if there is even a chance to justify 9/11 or killing the Iranian scientist, we would have to be at war first. But even if we are/were at war, I don’t think those actions were justifiable, for reasons already stated.
I think the key word in this discussion is aggressor.
If the scientist in question was developing nuclear weapon technology for the Iranian regime, which has demonstrated a clear intention to use these weapons offensively against peaceful countries, then he was an aggressor and therefore a legitimate target. This holds true even if the scientist was coerced, since the coercion does not take away the fact of his aggression. Similarly, a home-invader could morally be stopped with lethal force, even if the invader was coerced by a third party. This assumes that those responsible for public safety see no other less serious means of stopping the aggression.
Charlene made an interesting point… that perhaps resistance groups among the Iranian people themselves carried out (or cooperated with) this attack. In this case, they would be acting to prevent a terrible injustice while also trying to prevent their own destruction (from a retaliatory nuclear strike).
I fear that reasonable and traditional Catholics would not be able to run for office these days, with the constraints of Catholic magisterial teaching at all levels… and from all sides.
If Santorum’s position on national defense does not qualify him as “pro-life” by all accounts, then so be it. For me, it speaks loudly that he is anti-abortion. He condemns and will never permit the direct killing of babies (including Iranian babies). He also condemns and will never permit same-sex marriage. These are two strong points for all God-fearing people.
Damn that Catholic teaching, getting in the way of candidates who cheer for murder in the first degree. How can we have a functional government when the Catholic Church keeps pettifogging about murder. An election is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who. And since Santorum is against (most) cold blooded murder of innocents let just say that opposition to abortion and gay marriage takes away the sin of murder in the first degree and get behind him. Jesus’ extremism about *all* murder being worthy of the fires of hell is perfectionism, not “real world” practical politics.
I’m finding this discussion fascinating. Mark has assigned the sin of murder in the first-degree to Rick Santorum, yet he himself couldn’t help posting a nauseating, lyrical love letter to the memory of Christopher Hitchens, who made his bones actually engaging in the destruction of souls with his demonic works against the existence of God. Yeah, that Hitchens was an atheist, but he was a SWELL atheist and someone we’re ALL going to miss – never mind the carnage in HIS wake. But Santorum – he’s a hell-bound murdering reprobate? Good lord. What disoriented priorities.
No. Mark has assigned the sin of cheerleading for murder in the first degree to Rick Santorum. That’s because Rick Santorum said that when innocent civilians get murdered, it’s wonderful, so long as they are innocent civilians Santorum wants dead. A lyrical love letter? I said something kind about Hitchen on the day of his death because, you know, cheering for the death of innocents is evil. I have also strongly criticized him, precisely for his ignorant atheism. And, by the way, his own cheerleading for the death of innocents was equally appalling. But then, he didn’t have the advantage of having the Catholic faith. Santorum does, and so his sin is all the greater.
That red herring aside, your argument boils down to “Look! Hitchens! Pay no attention to Santorum cheerleading for murder! If a Catholic cheers for murder, you have to say nothing, because he’s one of our guys.” I think I don’t need you in my comboxes either. Bye.
lol pettifogging
“Iranian regime, which has demonstrated a clear intention to use these weapons offensively against peaceful countries”
What is your proof of/basis for this claim (What constitutes a “clear intention” ? can you cite anything that remotely supports this beyond that one speech where Ahmadinejad talks about Israel being wiped from history?Which Persian/Farsi speakers claim was poorly translated. Cause its doubtful that that alone justifies murdering civilian scientists ]
WMG,
Your argument completely falls apart because Iran has not threatened Israel. This is agitprop. Google; Rumor of the Century. Iran wants to see an end to the Zionist regime in the same sense that the US Gov. wants to see an end to Castro’s regime in Cuba or the Chavez regime in Venezuela. This is not a call for genocide.
Iran thinks the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved by a vote of the people of that region in a fair and impartial referendum on who will govern them. Isn’t that scary?
You’ll need to write a letter to the editor of the NYT because they don’t agree with you. They must be in bed with those Zionist you refer to.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html
Other Dave,
This story has been debunked time after time. Yes, the NYT is a mouth piece for Zionism in the USA. They promoted all the propaganda that got the USA into the Iraq War. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Dave K, just provide a link to the NYT correction or retraction, or a link to a story from a paper of equal prestige as the NYT, challenging the NYT’s reporting.
Dang I like it when Mark get’s fired up!
That was a fun read!
Now back to praying for the poor suckers that think grave evil can be justified cause “their guy” said so….
Ok ok.. if the Iranian civilian nuclear scientist happened to be pregnant, *then* it would’ve been immoral to murder an innocent Iranian civilian nuclear scientist.
“Every moral idiot who endorses grave evil “thinks their position is justified”
As a general rule, just about everyone who holds a position thinks their position is justified. That alone should give us pause.
I’m thinking that Iranian scientist might have committed suicide. Can we get a justification-of-suicide thread going here?
I find that people misinterpret what is meant in Catholic moral thought by the term “innocent”. When it is said that the Iranian scientist is “innocent” we don’t mean that he is without sin, but simply that he has not been found guilty of a capital crime by a legitimate authority. A civilian is a noncombatant and thus off-limits in war. But, since we are not at war with Iran, that is irrelevant. And since the scientist isn’t subject to our judicial system, his guilt or innocence is also irrelevant. There is simply no basis in international law nor Catholic tradition to support an assassination of a civilian in peacetime. We shouldn’t assassinate civilians in war either. We even avoid assassinating political or military figures in time of war. It is simply ludicrous to entertain the notion that it is morally just to assassinate a civilian in peace time.
I am always interested in why people of good faith, not poorly catechized can be so wrong (I have thoughts about torture as well). I think that much of the blame is on the example of our assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Think about it, the facts are somewhat similar to this case. Bin Laden was living in a country with which we were not at war (Pakistan). The US military unilaterally went in and killed him (I never saw much evidence that they tried very hard to capture him alive). The war on terror seems to know no boundaries, so why not extend it into Pakistan… and Iran. And it it was just (and worthy of celebration even) to kill Bin Laden, for motives of revenge or to correct past injustice, how much more just must it be to assassinate an Iranian nuclear scientist, for motives of preventing the nuclear destruction of America. The last ten years of drone attacks, assassinations, detentions, etc have coarsened our moral sense to such an extent that we cannot see that this is wrong. We feel that the US can do whatever it must, wherever it must in order to protect itself. This is wrong. If a Christian must choose between becoming a murderer or a martyr, we choose martyrdom. It is incompatible with Christian tradition to choose preserving your life or even the lives of others over justice. There are some things we cannot do, no matter what the consequences.
Actually not. The problem is, as children of the post-modern west, we avoid being murderers by being willing to let others become martyrs in the event we were mistaken. If we’re wrong about Iran, and 20 years from now they hand a nuclear device over to terrorists who then blow up some city, how many folks really, really think it will be them and their home town that pays the price? I’d be more impressed if the folks saying ‘what, me worry?’, were getting plane tickets to go spread the Gospel of Jesus in Iran to make sure nothing happens. But perhaps that’s the appeal of Paul and his libertarianism, especially in the Internet Age. It allows me to take the moral high ground, while washing my hands of the consequences if I happen to be wrong.
The consequences of not murdering someone in cold blood is that you didn’t murder somebody in cold blood.
Perhaps it would be better to formulate a positive solution to the problem instead of pointing out the flaws in the solutions presented. Sure, I’ve got a problem with what Santorum said, and what others have said. But I have problems with what Ron Paul says as well, which is more or less founded on lunacy mixed with complacency – neither of which is good for Christian living. I don’t support the killing in cold blood of anyone. You know that. But too much – way too much – time has been spent over the last ten years saying what we shouldn’t do, and virtually nothing said about what we should. Especially when we all know that if we’re wrong about Iran, or other similar issues, it probably won’t be us who pays the price.
One good solution for Americans might be to actually study the country you’re so afraid of…
You know, how their nation is structured, how Achmedinijad falls into their org chart, what he has actually said, versus how it was reported, his current political viability, etc.
Having some tenuous ties back there (my uncle oversaw business operations in the Shah’s Iran for GD and Grumman (I think?) He left, with his family, as the Shah fell. From what we hear, from average Persians and family-friends, is that American saber-rattling has consolidated the people, out of fear, where they were many horribly opposed to the regime just a few short years ago.
They’re just not the threatening juggernaut ya’ll feverishly imagine.
In fact, it looks like a lot of projection from where I sit. (I mean, ya’ll did use nukes as soon as you got them in your hot little hands. Even them damned red Communists were able to acquire them without use.)
Perhaps we should stop being afraid of that other country – you know, the US. How many people have I read on this blog alone who will assume the absolute worst in anything our own government says, and take the most positive, least worrisome view of any other potential government on the planet.
Iran? Sure, I know it’s not ‘we have to worry they’ll nuke Washington.’ Most who are worried about Iran don’t say that. In fact, things like ‘Iran flying jets over America’ are often words put in the mouth of folks who are worried about Iran.
Most folks I hear fear Iran in the same way we tend to fear ourselves – a problematic government trying to do something (nuclear power, perhaps eventually weapons), that through incompetence alone will allow said weapon into the hands of some terrorist organization. Maybe not now, but ten, fifteen years from now. Just like after the first World Trade Center bombing, we were told only warmongers were attacking Clinton for not doing more (the same warmongers who were itching to start a nuclear war in the 80s). Because, as we all know, there was nothing to worry about after the first World Trade Bombing. It’s not like it would ever happen again or anything.
It allows me to take the moral high ground, while washing my hands of the consequences if I happen to be wrong.
God alone has power over life and death, over all powers and principalities, over the heights, the depths, the past, the present, and the future. Not one sparrow falls to the ground, nor one hair on our heads changes from black to white, without THE LORD’S permission. We beg THE LORD that the good we seek to do He would bless with success, else our work would not be completed. Even the acts of criminals and of terrorists THE LORD permits, even though they act against His will . . . else those acts would not be accomplished. He has His own purposes and designs, all ultimately for our good, wherein He permits, for a time, evildoers to prosper, and the wicked to carry out their deeds against the innocent . . . that THE LORD permits this we may be confident will ultimately work out for the good in time and in eternity.
Meanwhile the number one priority of Catholics is to worship, praise, bless, and thank THE LORD in all circumstances, looking to Him for every good thing that they need, and that they hope to accomplish for His Name’s sake. And their second priority is like unto the first, which is, to obey God who is THE LORD, carefully observing all His laws and His statutes, and refraining from doing that which offends His holy Name.
It is a noble and worthy undertaking, when called by God, a nation and a people take up arms against the wicked to punish and subdue them, so that they may no longer strike the innocent. If He so wishes, let us become indeed a race of warriors, taking up the sword to vanquish all who threaten evil against us, if He so commands. The outcome of this undertaking, however, is not ours, it is GOD’S. We are to act within circumscribed limits set forth by THE LORD, obeying OUR GOD’S commands as to how prisoners are to be treated, what we are to do with and for non-combatants, and in general, how we are to conduct ourselves as Christian knights, obeying the laws of God in all we do.
If, after being called by God to do so, we dedicate ourselves to vanquishing evil-doers, and do all in our power to accomplish this, those evil-doers nevertheless evade our efforts and bring death and destruction to the innocent, that is out of our hands, and a matter which God alone, in His Wisdom, has seen fit to allow to come about according to designs of His own which we cannot understand.
To believe that with bombs and determination I can somehow control everything that happens in the world is the pinnacle of monstrous arrogance.
Yeah, I’d say that to believe such a thing would be the pinnacle of monstrous arrogance. Now for the tough question, does anyone who doesn’t agree with me on the solutions automatically think that? I might want to be careful. I’m the last to say we should trust in chariots and horses and just toss God out the window. But there is a balance, and I’m afraid we’re sooooooooooooooo focused on those who would do evil that good may come of it, that we’re slowly – and perhaps unconsciously- beginning to adopt a philosophy that says ‘but I’d sure as heck let evil happen so I didn’t have to get my hands dirty.’ There are other options, there’s doing good so that good may come of it, not just always railing about those with whom we disagree.
‘Let evil happen’?
nah, its not a nation of control freaks or nothing.
No, just folks insisting that it’s better that the rich man be allowed to freely step over Lazarus than the federal government get involved and mess things up.
Isn’t the killing of a scientist working in the nuclear program by a car bomb the same as blowing up the factories and killing him and many others? Yes it is. Hasn’t the leader of Iran called for the extinction of the jewish people? Yes he has. Should we believe what Ahmedinaja says? Yes we should. Should we wait until he drops the bomb on Israel killing millions? No we shouldn’t. I hate the idea of war so I hate the fact that I agree with Santorum, but I still agree with him.
This is part of the distinction here, that I don’t think many people are getting.
Full disclosure: I am a systematics guy, but I’ve been trained in moral theology and would say that it’s the field I’ve taught and use most in the parish as a priest.
In classic moral theology, there’s a direct dilemma we face. A person who works in a bomb factory is not a mere “civilian,” yet at the same time it is not correct to label them an “enemy combatant.” They directly aid in the war, in a very real way (which is why this target, even in a classically civilian area, is a morally acceptable target).
Thus, this conversation keeps getting worse and worse as Mark interjects that these people are “innocents,” and that their murder is “in cold blood,” since they would not be legitimate moral targets if they stand as “non-enemy combatants” in the classic sense. Meanwhile, others interject that they are. So the argument moves forward and nobody gets anywhere.
Mark has reached the right conclusion with all the wrong arguments. Let me explain.
Because (a) this conflict exists in categorizing these employees, who are not-quite civilians and yet not-quite military, and (b) because Just War only applies in wartime…. the tie goes to the runner, as they say in baseball, and it is not likely morally acceptable to execute these individuals.
However, we might then get into the murky area of whether or not the execution of these individuals is needed for public safety, ala Osama bin Laden: is there no other way to properly handle these individuals, and do they — as essentially breaking the edicts of the International Community — warrant death?
These are lofty questions, ones I am not qualified to answer. But as I parse the distinctions, my answer would be a “no.” While these scientists do pose a direct threat to society, I do not believe we’re in a situation where assassination is the best way to handle that.
My major point here in posting, where I was just going to let this one go, is that Mark’s emotional plea is just as misguided as Santorum’s. They’re not civilians, yet they’re not enemy combatants. Santorum is just as wrong to turn them into expendable targets, as Mark is to make them innocents.
And that’s why this thread exploded
.
Santorum did not say americans should kill any scientist by car bomb. He said he agreed with others who attempt to stop them. Like the many of attempts to stop Hitler. I believe the nuclear facilities in Iran should be destroyed completely. It’s most unfortunate people will die when they are destroyed. Mark is wrong for all his wrong reasoning.
Car bomb doesn’t really matter: it’s their execution/assassination at any level, by any method, that is at question here.
Hitler was also clearly a military target. Scientists, as I just explained, are in a gray area.
I also believe the nuclear capabilities of Iran should be destroyed, and see this as morally acceptable given that casualties are minimized and that all diplomatic approaches have been exhausted.
But we’re talking specifically about the assassination of these individuals in a gray area, not the larger picture.
However the individuals are stopped, whether by car bomb or by the facilities blowing up it is the same thing. They are dead. It is part of the big picture. Assinations have the advantage of scaring the other scientist into maybe leaving the country or slowing progress on their work. None of it would be going on if the government of Iran was not a supporter of terrorism and had not threatned to destroy Israel. There is more argument in favor of stoping Iran than against doing nothing. Avoiding a military strike is preferred by Israel, from everything I have read.
“A person who works in a bomb factory is not a mere ‘civilian,’ yet at the same time it is not correct to label them an ‘enemy combatant.’ They directly aid in the war, in a very real way (which is why this target, even in a classically civilian area, is a morally acceptable target).”
The bomb factory may be a morally acceptable target, and it may be licit to attack it knowing that the civilian employees will be killed or injured, but it is not licit to bomb it with the *intention* of killing those non-combatants.
Why is face-saving for a cheer-leader of immoral killing not called into question, but the man who notes it is a problem?
The scientist is not innocent, but does not pose a “direct” threat, his job is unclear and it is likely a “terror” action that is really at work here.
This action is on certain employees and is intended and will function like a terrorist action will-to deter further workers. As such, its moral integrity is in immediate doubt.
The worker is a low-level replaceable peon. It is like bombing the citizens of Dresden because of their support in one way or another for a war industry.
We have individuals in this country that do efforts that create technologies that are more likely to be used against Iranians than this particular technology. Think drones. Think gun manufacturers, weapons and mine producers. Are they now legitimate targets. By your assessment, yes they are.
The average peon in the bomb factory is himself not a permissible target, but because he is associated with something directly related to war (the bomb factory) it is morally permissible under the principle of double-effect to level the bomb factory with him in it.
However, things get more complicated with a scientist. He is not a mid-grade peon, and is not replaceable. He works directly for the government. These guys are most certainly housed, fed, and guarded by the military (now, especially). They work directly in military areas. And they do, very directly — based upon their knowledge — pose a threat.
Please note, however, that I did not actually say the scientist is a valid target. I said it’s an area where moral theology regarding war is rather silent because of the complexities of that particular role, and as such, your conclusion (that our drone makers, etc.) are valid targets, or that I implied that they were, is erroneous.
If the intention is to discourage other scientists by killing someone, this is certainly not a right intention. You’re right about that. However, if the elimination of a target is meant to slow progress, we might argue whether or not that’s a right intention…
…but it’s all moot. We’re not in a state of war, and one would have to argue that the only way to deal with these scientists is assassination for the public good. Good luck going down that road: I certainly wouldn’t
.
…and there was no face-saving for Santorum in my post. I called his advocacy of this — based upon the fact that he clearly believes them to be valid targets — wrong. But it’s also wrong to categorize these guys as innocents according to moral theology, as Mark has.
What has sparked a 400 comment thread is that failure to distinguish a gray area where these two realities regarding scientists butt heads. The truth is somewhere in the middle on this one, which is why the Church isn’t about to come out with a pronouncement regarding this practice/the status of scientists any time soon.
But I can tell you this: where there’s doubt regarding the just/unjust action of a behavior, don’t do it.
Good Lord, especially when there’s lives involved.
by the assinine logic being spouted by defenders of Santorum, I should have a right to go shoot the boss who downsized my wife out of her jobe because the bugger was at war with my family..he certainly did violence to my wife. Infact, my wifes former boss did more direct damage to my family than this scientist did, so I guess I’m even more justified.
Wow. Funny how it’s ok to target politicians who are Catholic and are Democrat and vote pro-choice and that is a “pro life” issue, but Santorum’s cheerleading murder isn’t. And they call the left cafeteria catholics
A profound categorical error here:
You may only use potentially lethal force when someone is threatening your person or property with physical violence (not emotional, economic, etc.), or when it’s the only way to maintain order in a society, or in war.
I would say the Iran situation still does not qualify under any of these scenario, but it’s at least in the moral ballpark and susceptible to questioning, whereas your scenario is not.
Wow.. there’s a moral ballpark?
That would be the one where good and just people disagree.
In terms of discussing these things: yes, there’s a moral ballpark.
In order to determine whether or not such a thing is a just action, for example, it has to be within the ballpark of satisfying certain criteria. Once we get there, we’re then free to discuss the morality of a certain issue.
Keith Fouriner editor in chief over at catholic.org would probably disagree with you and Mark.
Thanks for posting this Mark. Being the lone voice as these issues will not be popular, but thank you nonetheless for being principled on pro-life issues.
3 years ago, I thought you were liberal, but I really just had to turn off my Mark Levin/Rush Limbaugh/Hannity radio and my FoxNews television to be able to iinject Catholic doctrine into my politics. For this, I believe it’s much clearer and less muddy.
When I heard of stories of Iranian men being held by pirates who were freed by a US ship last week, that gave me positive hope…but, I heard no mention of it anywhere.
Conservatives need to read more about liberals and our thinking. You don’t know anything about liberals and your critques as such (Obama is a socialist!) sound ignorant and juvenile.
A little sophistication, please.
Iran has been in a low-level war against Israel and the U.S. (which are, I am well aware, two separate countries–thanks very much, I was a 1996 Buchanan delegate) for a decade, using terrorism and now planning and trying to build weapons for genocidal attacks. A scientist building weapons for a terrorist state is a combatant, and a legitimate target. I wish I had shot him myself.
That said, we may NOT target civilians in a foreign state, even in a declared war. Santorum’s willingness to fight real, BIG wars in which civilians will die in huge numbers, which will create chaos that Americans will die trying (and failing) to clean up, as in Iraq, is much more worrisome than his endorsement of an arguably justified discrete attack on a weapons manufacturer.
Some people are mistaking for bloodlust the proper anger at the genocidal intentions of the Iranians, and the satisfaction that they are one step further away from nuking the Holy Places and killing millions of civilians.
If the Iranian scientist was a combatant, then so are civilian employees of the Pentagon, Mitre Corporation, and Northrup Grumman, and al-Qaeda may assassinate them on their way to work without violating ius in bello.
This scientist was considered a key person in the development of Irans nuclear capabilities. If he was a combatant or not does not matter. His work, wether he was forced to or not, has to be stopped. Al Qaeda probably agrees with you.
That’s funny. Panetta just said Iran has no nuclear weapons program. But I guess a guy in a combox is smarter than the head of our intelligence community. So cold blooded murder is okay.
OK, change my hypothetical to “key” civilian employees of the Department of Energy (working on US nuclear weapons), Mitre Corporation, or Northrup Grumman. Are you saying that, apart from the unjustness of their waging war on the US at all, it would be OK for al-Qaeda to whack those key employees?
Ridiculous bloviating from someone who should know better.
You have formed your conscience with fear and loathing and propaganda that you should know better than imbibe. This, as someone as informed as you, differs dramatically from any magisterial teaching.
You, more than any Christopher Hitchens, are able to improperly sway and lead Christians from the truth. He (like most liberals) at least acknowledged that he was being defiant and disobedient.
John Z, when you say, “Iran has been in a low-level war against Israel and the U.S,” what do you mean? Israel, perhaps. But when did they attack the US. Please don’t tell me you mean activities in Iraq, a place we had no business being in. I mean, when did they deliberately target legitimately held US positions?
Hezbollah is Iranian sponsored.
Bombing of the Marine compound at Beruit airport was carried out by Hezbollah and sponsored by Iran.
It bears repeating. There is no evidence that this scientist or any other Iranian was working on a bomb. Don’t take my word for it. This was just recently said by US Defense Secretary and recent CIA chief Panetta. Also no Iranian has threatened the Jews with genocide or Israel with destruction. There is a Jewish community in Iran which has all the rights of Iranian citizens including guaranteed representation in the Iranian parliament. Two or three years ago Iranian state TV featured a telenovela (loosely based on historical occurences) about how Iranian diplomats had saved the lives of many Jews during World War II. It was one of the most popular series ever shown in Iran. It’s time to stop this campaign of blood libel against the Iranians before the US regime and all Americans become complicit in the destruction of a 2500 year old civilization and the genocide of millions of Iranians. What was done to Iraq was inexcusable. The same applies to a somewhat lesser degree to what the US has done or is doing to Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia and Somalia. Is slaughtering nearly defenseless foreigners such an addictive habit that the US can’t break it – sort of like abortion?
To all those who say the Iranian scientists are not innocent, I ask: Would it have been just, and in keeping with Catholic moral teaching, for someone to have killed the scientists working on the Manhattan Project, who built nuclear bombs that *were* actually and deliberately used against civilian population centers?
Worth noting is that Nagasaki was the center of Christianity in Japan.
The Nagasaki cathedral was the aiming point of the bomber after the primary aiming point was obscured by fog. Ground zero was a Catholic elementary school. It is estimated that three quarters of Nagasaki’s Catholics were killed by the bomb.
Traditionally Judith has been considered a heroine for her killing Holofernes. Yet she was a political assassin. So what else is new?
And polygamy wasn’t uncommon in the Old Testament.
That reference is unlikely to be helpful.
What I have heard Dr. Paul say on the TV and Radio about marriage is that it is a matter between the individuals and the Church. My understanding of Dr. Paul’s position is that there should be no State involvement in marriage and that it should be regulated by the church.
I agree with this position.
To attempt to regulate the behavior of others is a lost cause. Sorry, that cat’s out of the bag. To allow the state to regulate marriage is to allow the blasphemy of state definitions to intrude where the church should govern. The state should be removed from marriage on the separation doctrine – for the good of marriage!
Mind, others may claim marriage without the church, and under other definitions, but this only begs the question attributed to Lincoln: “How many legs does a mule have if you call the tale a leg? Four.”
Art, I’m voting for Ron Paul, and I agree with him on many things, but in this regard he is mistaken. I am not saying he is FOR homosexual marriage as some have said, but he is mistaken as to the role the government has in society. It is the duty of the state to protect families, and therefore, to protect marriage. Allowing abuses of marriage is not just an issue that affects the “spouses” of said marriage. It affects the children and society as a whole. It is not just of society to allow children to be raised by 2 mothers, or 2 fathers, or any other odd combination we can think of. Allowing homosexual couples to become parents, via adoption, in-vitro, etc, is a major issue, an issue that should be handled by the state.
That being said, at this time I do think it prudent to kick the government out of our lives as much as possible. It has already made a wreck of everything else, we don’t need it further ruining our families. So pragmatically, I agree with Paul at this time. But philosophically, he is wrong.
Funny, because it sounds like you agree with him philosophically as well.
I also agree with you and all the things you mentioned are wrong and unjust and we should keep all these issues at the state level where we can have the most impact on a corrupt legislative process.
Politically, you are wrong. The federal government is not granted general police power by the Constitution. There are a couple crimes defined by the Constitution, treason for example, and the Constitution simply does not authorize Congress to define or proscribe any additional crimes. Trying to outlaw gay “marriage” or abortion at the federal level is simply illegal. Time to accept that. You’re still free to influence your state and try to get as many state laws as you like. Then people will be free to choose whether they want to live under your laws. If not, they can move to another state. Then you’ll start building actual empirical evidence that will prove the wisdom (or not) of your laws.
John, I think maybe I misunderstood your posting. Sorry. I would argue that it may be right and wise to outlaw abortion or gay “marriage” at the state level, but it’s flat-out illegal trying to do so at the federal level, which is what I thought you were advocating. I believe this is also Paul’s position. I don’t believe he would object to a state making laws about marriage. If I’m wrong about that, I’ll be grateful for any references anyone may have.
Lots of talk about abortion, who is a combatant, just war….all fine and good.
One thing for certain – someone set loose a killer. A team of killers more likely. And they brutally killed a man in Iran, then ran away.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know where this scheme originated? Who financed it, who knew about it, who ordered it done?
Oh, of course, it’s secret. Deeds of evil love the darkness, but the darkness has never overcome the light.
Thank you Mark Shea.
“If you say it is legitimate to murder him, you are saying it was legitimate for Osama bin Laden to murder his victims on 9/11.”
In other words, Ward Churchill was right.
“If you say it is legitimate to murder him, you are saying it was legitimate for Osama bin Laden to murder his victims on 9/11.”
I think that analogy is not quite right. Under no precept of the moral law or civil law does al Qaeda have authority to commit acts of war. Iran, on the other hand, as a state, can legitimately commit acts of war. So a better analogy would be: “If you say that the U.S. is in a state of war with Iran and that it may therefore kill an Iranian nuclear scientist, you are saying Iran is in a state of war with the U.S. and may therefore kill an American nuclear scientist.”
I think that analogy is correct under civil law. I don’t think it can be correct under the moral law, however, because (in a two-party war, anyway) only one side, at most, can be engaged in a just war. E.g., Germans killing American soldiers in WWII was OK under civil law but not the moral law.
“The Church teach that it is never–ever-justifiable to deliberately take innocent human life. This was an act of cold-blooded murder against a civilian, found guilty of no crime, in a regime with whom we are not at war.”
Thank you, Mark.
I’m wondering what kind of ‘Catholicism’ was taught to blogger ‘TAAD?’ He also butchers Ron Paul’s agendas as badly as Fox “news” does. First of all, the Catholic Church DOES NOT advocate ‘Preemptive Strikes’ which is defined as a ‘War Crime’ of NAKED AGGRESSION in both our laws and internationally. ‘Sanctions,’ ‘Blockades,’ et al, are ALSO ‘Acts of War’ which makes the purveyor of these acts the ‘AGGRESSOR.’ As for ‘Marriage’ (gay or otherwise), Ron has specifically stated that his view of ‘Marriage’ in the eyes of God is between a MAN AND WOMAN. However, he also says that ‘Marriage’ laws – as with any other law – should be the sole realm of the STATES, not the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. If that isn’t clear enough for TAAD (and anyone else who agrees with TAAD), then maybe a refresher course in 8th grade ‘Comprehension’ is due.
So, tell me, why did CatholicVote endorse Rick Santorum? No doubt these “faithful Catholics” are cold blooded murderers and their associates and apologists as well.
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=24668
“If you seriously mean that any nation in the world that is hostile to us is ipso facto at war with us, then we are at war with half the world.”
It is only inability, not want of intention, that restrains Iran. That is what makes cooperating in fulfilling that intention, as these scientists are doing, equivalent to engaging in combat. Are you seriously telling me these scientists don’t know what they are doing, that they don’t know full well for what purpose the technology they develop will be used, none of which bodes well for the world? This is just like those who glamorized the Nazis and the Communists.
Tell me which “half of the world” says they want to wipe Israel of the map? In how many nations would the expressing of such sentiments be tolerated, which for so long was deemed impossible anyway, but if they develop a weapon, is not? Hitler was mild compared to this in his day.
And finally, which “half the world” has repeatedly engaged in acts of war like killing US troops?
Your logic is “Since Catholic Vote, not knowing about Santorum’s repellent remarks, endorsed him they therefore must agree with and defend his remarks.” See if you can spot the flaw in your logic. And all to defend cheerleading for cold-blooded murder. Do you not fear God?
You are effectively questioning the Catholic faith of those who support Sen.Santorum. That is a very serious charge, so you need to follow through, if you fear God.
Your claim that they didn’t know of his position is unwarranted. Sen.Santorum had made his views on Iran very well known much earlier.
Again, I’m confident my position is well thought out, and reasonable, if not the most reasonable position. And if I err, I would definitely wish to know it. But as a matter of fact great Saints, theologians and Doctors have never dealt with matters as you are doing here, where there was a difference of opinion among Catholics (I mean between you and CatholicVote) who on both sides desired to be faithful to the Magisterium.
I know you badly want to play “Let’s you and him fight”. But the reality is I have faulted Santorum’s cheerleading for murder. As far as I know, Catholic Vote has said nothing about Santorum’s cheerleading for murder. if they defend it, they are wrong. But I am not aware they have defended it. Do you defend the proposition that it is licit to murder in cold blood a civilian, guilty of no capital crime, in a country with whom we are not at war? Yes or no. If yes, get off my blog. I’ve had enough murder defenses for one week.
Wow. “Let’s you and him fight”. You got that from what I said? I’m sorry, I really had a much higher opinion of you. Your manner is more Protestant than Catholic.
The procedure of the Catholic Church has always been that, in a disputed matter, avoid the anathemas. For one, it makes discerning the truth and settling the question near impossible.
No one is defending murder. Now you say, “Not guilty of a capital crime”. Says who? This is by no means clear, which is why Catholics of good will can at least disagree about it.
As a matter of fact, it would seem that helping Iran develop nuclear weapons is even worse than, say, giving them to Osama would have been. Or would you argue that someone who facilitates that was a “civilian” as well?
Says who?
Says all civilized nations. People are found guilty of crime in *courts*, not by anonymous drive-by murderers on motorcycles. Why ask such a stupid question if you are *not* defending the cheers for cold blooded murder?
Gee, really? You pick *that* to respond to? Try this question, “Or would you argue that someone who facilitates that [giving nukes to Osama] was a “civilian” as well?”
If Mark Shea were president, he would stand by watching and do nothing were this to happen? Really?
Osama is dead. You have zero evidence this guy was making a nuke or that “he was going to give it” to the dead man you still mysteriously fear. You are defending murder. Repent.
Excuse me, Dark Lord, but did you ever get to 400 comments on a post about us nuking Japan?
Purely out of curiosity.
Yeah, close to it at least. Don’t know if it ever hit 400, but there seems to be several different threads and subjects on this one (libertarianism, Ron Paul, the GOP), while the annual posts dealing with America’s decision to use nuclear weapons to end WWII typically stay centered on that one topic. So it’s not easy to compare.
Mark,
I’ll sleep better at night knowing you’ll never be the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S Armed Forces.
Back atcha.
Clearly genuine Catholicism requires credible threats of nuclear genocide by a nation’s governing officials and theocracy be discounted. Ahmadinejad’s is certainly hyperbole. If not, a genuine Catholic is required nonetheless to stand aside genocide as the price of faith. Conversely, a genuine Catholic has no difficulty identifying Rick Santorum’s observation as the principal evil, inherent evil, and necessarily of first concern to a true Catholic in these gathering clouds of war. He must be stripped of his claim to Catholicism no doubt (and please lets gather up other so-called Catholics the likes of Pat Buchanan, Bill Bennet, etc. – can we please exhume Bill Buckley and re-tomb him in unconsecrated ground?) Any good Catholic knows that even if he cares not a whit for the fate of an Iranian nuclear scientist, his faith requires schadenfreude at a minimum else no corpus exists over which to excommunicate so-called Catholics.Looking back, we should have allowed the Russians Werner von Braun, who could have then developed their rocketry sparing us the shocking immorality of arriving at it first. A terrible moral lapse on our part. Why do so many nominal Catholics not get the moral equivalency between nations – you know, between those brought to war by those advancing it? And once at war, why do so many Catholics not realize the true task of faith is to lose it! Let the war happen or lose it as quickly as possible – this is the path to heaven. A good Catholic realizes the only course to clean hands is not to get them dirty in the first place no matter how dirty the job is. Inactivity, indifference, apathy, self righteousness might be venial sins but they share the ability to look an awful lot like virtue in a dirty fight and they allow that type of sinner the luxury of pointing clean fingers at dirty hands while claiming exclusive access to his faith.
Yes, the white sepulcher thing does make me a little uncomfortable sometimes, but I know how to process that. In this case, excommunicate the evil Rick Santorum!
Mark Shea: Too wordy. Here’s what you meant to say
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” – Hermann Goering.
A funny thing happened on the way to the Catechism. I found this little teaching tucked away as I was looking around for things:
2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury.277 He becomes guilty:
- of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;
- of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them;278
- of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.
2478 To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor’s thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:
Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another’s statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. and if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.279
2479 Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honor of one’s neighbor. Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation and to respect. Thus, detraction and calumny offend against the virtues of justice and charity.
I’m sure it doesn’t really pertain to things said here. After all, it never does.
supposed one of our scientist got killed in very suspissious circumstance and Iran abrutly react like Santorum’s did it any one here can tell me how emotiotion can take us
Yeah.
Kind of like Saddam celebrating 9/11. We might just pull that nugget into a preconceived narrative.
are people “innocent” because they are civilians? I hardly think that is the proper description , since innocent implies that they didnt have evil intent or didnt intend to create a bomb.
wars and abortion are not quite the same, in that the parties killed by abortion, are unable to either speak for themselves or defend themselves from what is inflicted on them, it is never a “just” war.
People are innocent until they have been proven guilty in a court of law of a crime. If they are not soldiers or their commanders they are civilians. And if we are not at war with a nation, we cannot kill even their soldiers.
Mark Shea is correct about Santorum. A few points will make this even clearer. First, Iran has not threatened Israel. This fiction has been debunked time after time. Google; Rumor of the Century. Other experts in Middle East affairs who are no fans of the Iranian regime, like Juan Cole, have shown that the words attributed to Ahmadinejad have been mistranslated and blown up into threats which were never made. Since this controversy began Iranian leaders have denied over and over that they threaten anyone with war. So, there is no threat of war.
Second, Iran , as a sovereign nation, has the same right to nuclear power and weapons (if they actually want them) as does any other country. If they want nuclear weapons as deterrents for war with other superpowers this would actually make war less likely. To deprive them of this capability would be unjust and destabilizing. So, killing their scientists would be unjustified.
Third, Assassinations of this sort are illegal and contrary to international justice. To advocate such activity violates international order.
Santorum ought to know better. He swallowed all the propaganda that got the USA into the Iraq War and doesn’t seem to have any second thoughts or regrets. He seems to be blind to the perverse forces that crave war and bloodshed regardless of the consequences to civilians and the international community. He is a dangerous demagogue.
Isn’t he though? If only he could be more like Ahmadinejad. Ah, then we could all sleep better at night.
Dave G,
I would invite you to read what Ahmadinejad actually says rather than be told by others what we are supposed to believe about him. I know those who would drag this country into more war are at the same time haters of Ahmadinejad and vicious liars and war mongers. Ahmadinejad isn’t the “decider” in Iran anyway. The Iranians have threatened no one.
Where do I find the official translation, as opposed to the other translations that are apparently wrong? I can’t read the language, I have to depend on translations. So which one is the right one? That’s my question.
Dave G,
I’ve seen English translations of Ahmadinejad’s speeches from the German Magazine Der Spiegel and other sources on the internet. YouTube has video and translations of his UN speeches. He never comes off as the lunatic he is portrayed to be. In fact, he comes off looking much more intelligent and accommodating than his hysterical enemies who push the Zionist agenda.
Well, I can’t say. I can say I’ve seen many treatments from a host of competing sources that suggest he is either cracked or cunning and stands for evil either way. Certainly the people of Iran didn’t seem to share that positive view of him a few years ago. It’s hard for me to say, since I don’t know the language. Perhaps Youtube and Der Spiegel are right. Perhaps they aren’t. My gut tells me that while some of our own politicians may be overstating the case in some ways, those who are attacking them may be understating it in others. There has to be a whole lot of people, including those in Iran who protested him and tried to get him out of office, who are all wrong. Some who seem to speak his language. That’s enough to make me think that just because some of our own may be overstating something is no reason to think that there’s nothing else to worry about, and it’s all part of some vast conspiracy to make a man who seems pretty bad look bad. That’s my take, at least until I have time to learn the language.
Davd K, I’m still waiting for your link to any NYT story correcting the NYT story titled “Wipe Israel ‘off the map’ Iranian says.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html
Should I try to find it over a Hutton Gibson’s blog?
Dave (but not the Dave),
Gosh, I’m not aware of the fact that in order for something to be true the NYT has to acknowledge it as such. Is this your point? Was the NYT correct in all its reporting in the run up to the Iraq War? try this;http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/rumor-of-the-century/
Thanks for that link- interesting stuff
From the article –
“TEHRAN — Iran’s conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesdaythat Israel must be “wiped off the map” and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press agency reported.
Ahmadinejad was speaking to an audience of about 4,000 students at a program called “The World Without Zionism,” in preparation for an annual anti-Israel demonstration on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.”
Maybe Dave K. missed that speech.
We also know Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.
The link Dave provided claims, with detailed explanation, that the the inflammatory line was mistranslated. According to the article he links to, the original was more like ‘someday the Zionist state will succumb to the forces of history’ than ‘the Zionist state needs us to erase it from the face of the earth’ – as Mr Achmeninejad is assumed, by the New York Times, to have meant. Not entirely the Times’ fault – apparently the Iranian state news service did a Vatican-style PR move, and provided the mistranslation themselves. Anyway, ‘down with Zionism’ remains boilerplate Middle Eastern rhetoric. Not that they don’t really wish the forces of history would hurry up; but the statement itself doesn’t constitute a legitimate casus belli for Israel, let alone us.
How odd that the issues raised by the author are hardly discussed and the conversation turns to the sanctity of marriage. What kind of intellectual suffocation do Catholics suffer from? As to the writer who thinks that pre-emptive murder of a civilian can be justified morally is- -that’s a rationalization. Why not murder Iranian physics students? Or scientifically talented Iranian 12 year olds. Or is the killing in utero, the only place you aren’t allowed to kill?
One more thing–what about the sanctity of the scientists marriage? Strangely, no one seems to talk about that.
Yes. It is fascinating how coming face to face with 100% Prolife Catholics for cold-blooded murder forces some people to simply blot it out, issue some statement of denials and then get back to something safe and comforting like opposition to gay marriage. And yes, it is bizarre that nobody connect is with the sanctity of the scientist’s marriage. Sick.
No space for the response above.
“You have zero evidence this guy was making a nuke”
Wonderful. You keep changing the subject. Let’s take it step by step.
The question was, “Should scientists involved in a nuclear program be treated as enemy combatants?” You maintained this was intrinsically wrong and could never be done. Is that or is that not your position or are you now wavering?
Therefore you are saying it is never a crime to be instrumental in providing someone with a nuclear weapon. But that is obviously absurd, for no one would have maintained the same in the case of say, someone who helped Osama do the same. Would you? Therefore your major premise is in error.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is hardly a desirable thing, and someone who is an accessory to helping the autocratic regime in Tehran gain access to one is a perpetrator of a crime. Iran stands now in practical violation of international law, it is not the US alone who have responded by the strongest sanctions hoping this would prove a deterrent, but even the UN and the EU are concerned.
1: Non-sequitur; one does not need to be an enemy combatant to commit a crime.
2: If it is a crime for Iran to pursue nuclear weaponization then the United States is the worst offender and would have no grounds upon which to condemn Iran, a sovereign nation, until we have first disarmed our own nuclear arsenal.
Dear Christian,
1. No, but the question was whether these scientists may be treated as enemy combatants.
2. With possession comes responsibility. “To whom much has been given, much will be required”. Iran has shown time and time again that it is not a reliable and trustworthy international player, unwilling to be transparent with the world, not at all inclined to play by the rules.
What rules are we referring to exactly?
Lets look at the count, Iran vs. America.
Invasions: Since the Russian war in 1828, Iran has never been the aggressor towards another country. We on the other hand have attacked to name a few: Libya, Iraq, Nicaragua, Haiti, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Honduras, Chile, Congo, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Angola, Columbia, Peru, Panama, Yemen, Pakistan, Grenada, Mexico, etc..
Nuclear Weapons: Iran doesn’t have any. Furthermore, Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta stated last week that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. Iran’s supreme leader has publicly denounced nuclear weapons as sacrilegious and has issued a Fatwa against their production, stockpiling, and use by Muslims. The United States on the other hand has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world and remains the only country to have ever used them. Additionally, our political leaders including Obama and Santorum refuse to rule out a preemptive nuclear strike which would result in the deaths of 3 million Iranians as a result of nuclear fallout.
Transparency of nuclear program: Iran allows Additional Protocol by the IAEA in their investigations, including surprise investigations. The US however has refused such transparency within our own program.
I’m all for nuclear disarmament but we cannot honestly expect our enemies to just turn their back on the national defense that a nuclear weapon provides when we are constantly invading other countries, use our own nukes to bully other countries, and demand that countries like Iran “prove” they aren’t building bombs when we’re so clandestine about our own nuclear arsenal.
Also, the internationally-recognized laws of war state the following:
Rule 5. Civilians are persons who are not members of the armed forces. The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians.
Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was not a soldier with a gun, he was not some suicide-bombing terrorist, and he was not a military officer. He was not a member of the military and in no way armed. Therefore, he was a civilian. Did his work pose a “threat” to American national security? Obviously, many people think so. However, that in no way addresses the definition of a civilian under the laws of war and therefore is irrelevant to the “civilian or enemy combatant?” debate.
There are so many comments on this already, I doubt anyone will get way down here to read mine. But I’d like to contribute my two cents anyway.
I don’t know the Catholic teaching on assassination – can’t seem to find it anywhere. So I’m not going to say that the scientist’s death was necessarily something to be excited about. But equating the assassination of a nuclear scientist in the employ of a nation with a hateful, insane man as its president with 1) the World Trade Center and 2) abortion is totally illogical and very offensive. A nuclear scientist (who has agreed to develop a nuclear bomb, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to use on America), whether technically a civilian or not, is in a completely different category than people like janitors, secretaries, and other WTC employees, not to mention all the people on the planes. And abortion really has no equivalent as far as immorality, except perhaps something like… killing millions with a nuclear bomb.
I got down here and read your comment – and agree completely.
Mark is in error. Santorum’s comments do not necessarily equate to a break from church teaching – although he might be advised to choose his words more carefully.
Mark is also in error in assuming a non-soldier is a non-combatant, or that a declared war must exist before an enemy can be an enemy. Mark does not know enough of the scientists involvement – and neither does the former Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mark leaps a few steps in his argument – I suspect passions and emotion and disappointment in the candidate got the best of him.
Stephen White does a better job illustrating Mark’s overreach at on CatholicVote.org