OMNI
JUST WAR NEWSLETTER #2, May 20, 2016.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice.
(#1, Oct. 15, 2013)
Contents Just War Doctrine Newsletter #2, May 20, 2016
Principles of the Doctrine: last resort, legitimate
authority, redress a wrong, chance of success, re-establish peace, proportionality,
discriminate combatants from non-combatants. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/justwar.htm
2 Articles in The Free
Weekly on Vatican Just War Conference
Erica
Chenoweth, “Did the Vatican Just Throw Out the Just War Doctrine?” 4-21
John Dear, “The Church’s Turn Toward
Nonviolence” 4-28
Recent Critiques of Just War Doctrines 2013-16
Meagher, Killing from the
Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War
Editor’s
Comment
Dick, LTE on Chenoweth, Dear, Meagher
Reviews, Google Search
President Obama on Just War, Including His Nobel Peace Prize
Speech
Newsletter #1 Contents
Editor’s Corkscrew: Our two
most urgent concerns for the planet are nuclear war and CO2(and methane)/warming. The Just War Doctrine is used to justify the former and in ceaseless
wars to distract us from the latter.
Ironical Corkscrew long in use: In contrast, the principles of the
Doctrine can function to critically examine a specific war.
2 ARTICLES IN THE FREE
WEEKLY ON VATICAN JUST WAR CONFERENCE
Erica Chenoweth, Did the Vatican Just Throw Out Its Just War Doctrine?
RECENT BOOKS AND ARTICLES on Just War Doctrine 2013-16
MEAGHER, KILLING FROM THE
INSIDE OUT: MORAL INJURY AND JUST WAR
Publisher’s Statement,
Sept. 12, 2014
I’ve just
completed work on an important new book on war by Robert Emmet Meagher
titled Killing from the Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War. The
book includes a foreword by Stanley Hauerwas, who extols
Meagher’s transgression of standard disciplinary boundaries in his pursuit
of the roots of our collective failure to address the profound moral injuries
experienced by warriors:
I am
convinced [Meagher’s] emphasis on what
war does to combatants is a decisive intervention that helps us better
understand the morality of war. As a person committed to Christian
nonviolence, I fear that many assume a commitment to nonviolence carries
with it a negative judgment against those who participate in war. Meagher
challenges that presumption by helping us see that those who dissent from
war and those who have participated in war share more in common than the
stereotype of either would suggest. That war wounds us morally is not only
true of those who prosecute the violence of war; it is true of all whom
war touches.
One
of the most provocative arguments, pursued by Meagher throughout the book, is
that the Christian church’s widely celebrated doctrine of just war, though
conceived honestly enough as a way of constraining the evils of war,
has functioned in the main to conceal from us the troubling injuries suffered
by those who sacrifice their normal unwillingness to kill. Such a claim
turns by no means on the naive suspicion of an ivory-tower academic squeamish
about bloodshed, but rather on testimony after testimony of decorated soldiers
who, having returned from war, have shown extraordinary courage in writing
honestly about their wounds. This is an
anti-war book that is underwritten by a life’s work of honoring the experience
of soldiers.
Meagher
begins the book’s conclusion in typically incisive and eloquent fashion:
Just war theory is a dead letter. This is
the argument advanced, if not proven, in the preceding chapters. It was
never more than a theory, and at its worst it was a lie, a deadly lie. It
promised at least the possibility of war without sin, war without
criminality, war without guilt or shame, war in which men would risk their
lives but not their souls. At its headiest, it promised war in which men
would win eternal life, and now, in the fullness of wartime, these same
promises have been extended to women. Whether or not these promises were
first or ever made in good faith is something we can never know, and it
doesn’t matter. What we can know is that they have not been kept. We know
this from experience, the experience of war, the killing lab in which the
theory of just war has been tested for sixteen centuries. It is time to
declare its death and to write an autopsy.
Meagher’s
book deserves a very wide reading, and I’m happy to report that it has already
received significant pre-orders, and more endorsements than any book I’ve ever
had the privilege to edit.
DICK, LTE on Chenoweth, Dear, and Meagher
From Just War to Just Peace
Dick Bennett
Thanks to The Free Weekly for publishing two articles on
Just-War Theory (Erica Chenoweth, 4-21; John Dear 4-28: www.freeweekly.com).
They inform us of an extraordinarily significant new initiative to create a
peaceful world—the rejection of the Just War Theory by the Catholic Church, and
the creation of a Just Peace Theory. The problem? The old Theory,
intended to prevent wars, increased them in number and ferocity, and offered
little guidance for the conduct of war or for life after war, particularly
regarding “moral injury.”
Pope Francis, via the Catholic
Church’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, along with Pax Christi
International, hosted a conference on the theme of “Nonviolence and Just
Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to
Nonviolence.” The conference members recommended: 1) rejection of
Just War Doctrine, and 2) a new encyclical committed to the nonviolence of
Jesus. The Vatican’s conference to critique its 1700 years-old
doctrine was surprising to most; its recommendation to the Pope for a
drastically new encyclical was astonishing. Together they will
inspire radically new thinking about war and violence not only by Catholics but
by all Christians, and perhaps many others. A new encyclical asserting
the nonviolence of Jesus as central Catholic doctrine will be astounding, for
it will possibly lead Catholics and millions of Christians for the first time
to search seriously for nonviolent alternatives to armed
aggression.
The conference and recommendation arose I
expect also from a new criticism of Just War doctrine. The
2014 book by Robert Meagher, Killing from the Inside Out: Moral Injury
and Just War, would, the
author writes, “pull up, from its roots, the just war tradition, to reveal its
deadly legacy [“the deceptive and destructive core of the Christian just war
doctrine”], and to point to a future beyond just war” to “just peace,” for “a
planet ever smaller, more precious, and more imperiled” by nuclear war and
atmospheric warming.
Meagher employs an aspect of war as
old as war itself and yet seeming new by its long neglect: “moral
injury.” He opens his book with facts of 20th century war slaughters and US military
suicides today. During WWI 420,000 British killed, a million
French, two million Germans. In 2012 an average of 33 US soldiers on
active duty killed themselves each month; discharged soldiers in February
2013 killed themselves 22 a day, in “the lamentable legacy of a long tradition
of justified war and inevitable moral injury.” His point is that no war
can be justified; no war is “good and right, even virtuous and meritorious,
pleasing in the sight of God.” Just War theory functions as a rationalization
for war, and what war does to the combatants further exposes its failure.
To make his case Meagher spends
five of his eight chapters “tracing the roots and branches of our Western
understanding of war and, more pointedly, of just war and moral injury” in
order to say how we might end our ceaseless wars.
The author is Professor of Humanities,
Hampshire College, and his most recent book is Herakles Gone Mad: Rethinking
Heroism in an Age of Endless War.
REVIEWS OF KILLING FROM THE
INSIDE OUT, Google Search, May 20, 2016, first page [plus some additions from Dick]
www.moralinjuryandjustwar.org/
Robert
Emmet Meagher · Home · Author · Excerpts/Reviews ·
Interview ·
Just war
doctrine was never more than a theory and at its worst it was a lie, a deadly
lie. It promised at least the possibility of war without sin, war without
criminality, war without guilt or shame, war in which men and women would risk
their lives but not their souls or their humanity. This theory has been tested
for sixteen centuries, and has failed. It is time to declare its death, write
its autopsy, reveal its deadly legacy, and point to a future beyond just
war.
https://syndicatetheology.com/symposium/killing-from-the-inside-out/
“Just War
Theory is a dead letter” (129)—this is the claim that Meagher boldly
makes and seeks to defend in his book. [a panel of four examine the book theologically—Dick]
usacac.army.mil/.../MilitaryReview_20150430_art01...
United
States Army
Apr 30, 2015
- REVIEW ESSAY -. KILLING FROM
THE. INSIDE OUT. Moral Injury and Just War. [Lt. Col. Douglas A. Pryer, U.S. Army,
praises the book. –Dick.] Pryer
currently serves as a J-5 planner in the Middle East Directorate of
the Joint Staff. He holds a Master of Military Art and Science (Military
History) from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and has
published one book and numerous essays regarding warfare’s human
domain.
Killing from the
Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War by Robert Emmet ... www.goodreads.com/.../23330715-killing-from-the-inside-ou...
Goodreads Rating: 4.4 - 11 votes
Killing
from the Inside Out has 11 ratings and 2 reviews. ... by Robert EmmetMeagher,
Jonathan Shay (Afterword), Stanley Hauerwas (Foreword).
Armies
know all about killing. It is what they do, and ours does it more effectively
than most. We are painfully coming to realize, however, that we are also
especially good at killing our own "from the inside out," silently,
invisibly. In every major war since Korea, more of our veterans have taken
their lives than have lost them in combat. The latest research, rooted in...more
https://www.lewrockwell.com/.../just-war-theory-im...
Llewellyn
Rockwell
Apr 5, 2016
- Review of Robert Emmet Meagher, Killing
from the Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War (Cascade Books, 2014), xxi + 161
pgs, paperback.
https://iamloganmi.org/.../killing-from-the-inside-out-book-review-with-...
Sep 4, 2015
- Bob Meagher is a professor of
Humanities at Hampshire College who has been a good friend to me ever since we
served together as ...
104.196.18.230/killing-from-the-inside-out-moral-injury-and-just-war-r...
Killing
From The Inside Out Robert Emmet Meagher 3.99, Killing
From The Inside Out. Wipfandstock, Adding Insult To Moral Injury And Just War From
The, ...
130.211.184.41/killing-from-the-inside-out-moral-injury-and-just-war-r...
Killing
From The Inside Out: Moral Injury And Just War -. Robert Emmet Meagher.
Libertarianchristians - Your #1 Christian Libertarian, Robert Emmet Meagher ...
CRITIQUES
OF JUST WAR DOCTRINE, GOOGLE Search, May 20,
2016, first page.
www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/just/against.shtml
BBC
Some people
argue that the Just War doctrine is inherently immoral,
while others suggest that there is no place for ethics in war. Still others
argue that the ...
ncronline.org/.../challenging-just-war-theoryational
Catholic Reporter
Sep 1, 2014
- But later, St. Augustine in response to armed aggression against the
innocent set the Catholic church on the road to the "just war" theory --
quite ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory
Wikipedia
Just war
theory (jus bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred
to as a tradition, of military ethics .... Preventive war against a
tyrant who is about to attack. War to ...
againstbombing.com/justwar.htm
... Just War Iraq
and Kosovo. Americans Against World Empire, Inc.
Homepage ... A jewel of these writings is the doctrine of Just War. To
pacifists the phrase Just ...
www.catholic.com/documents/just-war-doctrine
Catholic
Answers
The most
authoritative and up-to-date expression of just war
doctrine is .... of whole cities or vast areas with their
inhabitants is a crime against God and
man, ...
https://www.ewtn.com/.../just_war.htm
EWTN
Global Catholic Network
Called
the Just War Doctrine, it was first enunciated by St.
Augustine of ... Provoked by this offense against His
Father, Jesus formed whips and drove them from ...
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/.../rethinking-the-just-war-part-...
Nov 11, 2012
- The “just war theory” has influenced the ethical
positions on violent conflict ... Within the United States people hold
radically opposing views on ...
www.academia.edu/.../Three_Problems_for_Just_War_Th...
Academia.edu
By Steven
P. Millies in Just War Theory. ... destruction, to what extent
is a preventive war against those that acquire
weapons of mass destruction a just one?
https://peacetheology.net/pacifism/just-war-thought-a-pacifist-analysis/
From the
time of Augustine until now, the so-called “just war theory” has
been .... Therefore, a nuclear war must always be opposed—as
should preparation for ...
www.iep.utm.edu/justwar/
Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Just war
theory deals with the justification of how and why wars are
fought. .... Against these two ethical positions, just war
theory offers a series of principles that ...
PRESIDENT
OBAMA and JUST WAR THEORY, Google Search, May 20, 2016
https://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/.../obama-distorts-just-war-principl...
May 24, 2013
- In his address on terrorism and America's counterterrorism
policy,President Barack Obama invoked the “just war” theory to
justify the continued ...
nationalinterest.org/.../obama-the-military-just-war-t...
The
National Interest
Mar 31, 2016
- In his recent interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey
Goldberg, President Obama specifies some key elements
of his 'theory' on the use of military ...
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22653473
BBC
May 24, 2013
- Barack Obama stated that the conflict against
al-Qaeda is a "just war", ... The just war
theory was largely concerned with the reasons for going ...
kirbyhopper.com/obamas-war-not-qualify-just-war/
Dec 31, 2014
- According to Just War Theory, President George
Bush Sr.'s war to expel Iraq from Kuwait would qualify as a just war
under Just War Theory ...
www.academia.edu/.../Barack_Obamas_foreign_policy_ju...
Academia.edu
Barack
Obama's foreign policy, just war, and the irony of political
geography .... of the selective application of just war
theory in the rationalization of conflict.
www.realclearworld.com/.../the_president_drones_and_just_war_theory...
Jul 6, 2012
- The most startling revelation was that President
Obama personally ... If Obama acquiesces to such deceits, all
the just war theory in the world ...
blogs.ssrc.org/.../obama-christian-realism...
Social
Science Research Council
Dec 15, 2009
- As President Obama noted
in his speech, there are criteria involved in the “just war”
concept. It isn't just a matter of proclaiming
that a war is ...
PRESIDENT
OBAMA, NOBEL PRIZE SPEECH, AND JUST WAR
www.wsj.com/articles/SB126043857319785183
The Wall
Street Journal
Dec 11, 2009
- OSLO -- President Barack Obama accepted
the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday ... of armed might in the service of a "just war," a
sharp change in emphasis from ... core principles of
a more traditionally conservative foreign policy.
Remarks by the
President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize ...https://www.whitehouse.gov/.../remarks-president-acceptanc...
White
House
Dec 10, 2009
- the WHITE HOUSEPresident Barack Obama ...
Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize ... The
concept of a "just war" emerged, suggesting that war is justified only
when certain .... by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign
to local cultures or ...
www.usnews.com/.../in-nobel-speech-obama-...
U.S. News
& World Report
Dec 10, 2009
- Who would have guessed that President
Obama's Nobel Peace Prize ... In his speech today in Oslo, Obama
invoked "just war" theory early
on, ...
Contents Newsletter #1 Just War Doctrine
Mac Bica, A
Partial Defense of Drones
Leroy
Walters, Five Classic Just-War Theories: Aquinas,
Vitoria, Suarez, Gentili, and
Grotius.
Grotius.
Four
Christian Critiques of Just War Theory
McSorley,
New Testament Basis of Peacemaking
Wells, The
War Myth
Trzyna, Blessed
Are the Pacifists
Dick, Just
Cause and Just Means , Iraq
No Just US
Wars?
Grayling
vs. WWII Area Bombing
For research
purposes, specific subjects can be located in the following alphabetized index,
and searched on the blog using the search box. The search box is located
in the upper left corner of the webpage.
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/
END JUST WAR
DOCTRINE NEWSLETTER #2
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