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Moral aspects of military action
Topic Started: Friday, 10. June 2011, 17:51 (2,018 Views)
Penfold
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valleyboy
Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 07:33
Penfold
Tuesday, 17. July 2012, 23:59
Valleyboy when you get your facts right you might have something useful to say.
Penfold, browbeating people into submission with your supposed superior knowledge may impress people in this little fiefdom but it won't wash with me. The numbers are disputed with the far right making a meal of them. That's what happens when you let moral standards slip and venture down the means justifies the ends route, it rumbles on for generations. As it happens my wife is in Dresden at the moment, still trying to re-build bridges.
Vallleyboy I have simply posted the facts arrived at by an independent commission, if you prefer to accept the propaganda of the Neo-NAZI movement as published by holocaust denier David Irving in 1963 (The Destruction of Dresden),and which have been not only disputed but totally discredited by reputable historians then that is your prerogative, personally I prefer the truth if you find that browbeating then too bad.

As for the bombing of cities, in the Total war being raged in 1945, it was not then possible to target as accurately as is done today but as has been the method of warfare for centuries the civilian populations on both sides were caught up in the struggle. Since then many have reflected upon what had once been considered acceptable and the world drew up new conventions and rules which have resulted in a greater degree of precision targeted weapons and a revision of the rules of engagement and the moral conduct of war far from slipping are now stricter than ever before. War has always been horrific, if you study the civilian casualties and affects of war on citizens in besieged cities in the wars prior to 1939 the moral conduct of war had never been particularly well observed . The world came away from the second world war and there was a moral regeneration which demanded a change. The Cold War with the understanding that MAD was the only outcome of any conflict dominated most of our lives until 1989, since then the struggles in the Balkans, the Middle East and Asia have all gone hot. There is an imbalance in the world and I am concerned that the voice of moderation and reason is being shouted down and the forces of good are being disarmed by the lies of banner waving do gooders who are so ignorant of history that they swing from flags on the Cenotaph and insult the memory of those who secured the freedom that was won. I do not justify the ends buy the means, in the desperation of the second world war many regrettable things were done but the only other option was to allow Hitler to rule Europe and the Japanese to continue their reign of terror in the Far East. War is a horrific business and is best avoided but we are more likely to fall into the traps of appeasement that allowed the rise of Hitler and the Japanese Military regime if we ignore the truth and out of fear think it better to concede and compromise than to stand our ground and resist the advance of evil. If the world had listened to cries for help from Germany, Manchuria and china during the 1920s and 30s we might have avoided WW2 but they went unheard because people were afraid to return to the horrors of WW1 and that is understandable but in truth if firm action had been taken sooner, on the principle that "a stitch in time saves nine" WW2 could have been avoided. Since then NATO and the UN have been patching and stitching all over the world. We have a tatty cloth but the alternative would have been to allow Europe to be dominated by Stalin, the middle East by a succession of despots, of which Saddam Hussain would have been considered mild, India and Pakistan to have wiped each other out in a Nuclear war to name just a few possible outcomes of sitting back and doing nothing, fair enough. However you are free to pick your mock moral high ground because true moral activists stood up and chose to be counted. If a way can be found to avoid war then I do not know a soldier who would not choose it but sometimes there is no choice and in 1939 all other options were exhausted and Dresden was but one of many unfortunate consequences. If the forces on the Rhine Bridges had fired upon the advancing German Army in 1936, perhaps a brief battle, a stitch in time, would have saved us from WW2 but we shall never know for sure.
Morality is not simply avoiding doing the unpleasant things it is about having the courage to do those unpleasant things when it is necessary for the salvation of others. If you have any doubt, look upon a crucifix.
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It goes without saying that the decision to take your country to war is an extremely complicated moral, practical problem and like Bernard I would not like to be in the position of a government called upon to make such a decision. I understand fully the argument about a just war and the need in extremis to defend your country against evil aggresion.

However, we are supposed to be followers of a Man who told us to love our enemy , who instructed us, when struck on one cheek, to offer the other to our assailant. He rebuked his apostle for wounding the High Priest's servant with a sword. He did not say " Turn the other cheek unless your assailant is a bad man in which case hit him back". In fact the only violent action I can find relating to him is throwing the money-changers out of the Temple in a display of low-level non-lethal force. Yet he was living under a tough unforgiving alien regime where He could easily have allied himself with the Jewish resistance but didn't.

Is not the clear message from the Gospels a pacifist one? A very hard message to follow indeed which is why I suspect we have down through the centuries largely ignored it as inconvenient while clinging to those parts of the Gospel which seem to prove our particular viewpoint and which are comparatively easy to follow. Both Catholics and Protestants do this and we are all--in a glib phrase I have just invented--cafeteria Christians.


John
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tomais

Since 1945 how many wars/conflicts has the UK been intimately involved in?
Google that or something.

Anyway given the hostilities posted within this section,how about the individual?

Yes wars are carefully engineered by all sorts of groups,maily governments for greed; greed of land, money and power.
The individual has a choice when conflict is at his or her door;become a consciensous objector.;a pacafist in action.
OK that's you in the nick or depending on where and on whose side you are not-executed.
Or just bawl and shout fom the side lines quoting from the winners interpretation of history.
If it makes you feel better-OK
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Derekap
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Had we not gone to war against Nazism we wouldn't be having this discussion!
Derekap
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Penfold
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Rose of York
Tuesday, 17. July 2012, 21:03
Whatever the historical facts (and disagreements about them) about any particular military action, would anybody else like to discuss them in the light of Catholic teaching?

Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, a devoted Catholic, who founded and spent his post war life building up the Cheshire Homes, for the care of people incurably ill, was British observer of the bombing of Hiroshima. When asked if he felt guilty about it, his answer was that if it had not happened the war in the Far East would have continued much longer than it did and the final death toll of that war would, in his judgement, have been far higher if the Japanese been able to continue fighting that war by convenional means.
I have had the privilege of meeting many veterans from Bomber Command. Some have been tormented with guilt ever since the war, a torment added to by the lack of gratitude shown to them by Sir Winston Churchill who was ready to order them into the affray but as soon as questions were asked like a true politician he slopes shoulders and ensured the blame fell on the shoulders of Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris.
The moral aspects of military action are numerous but their are also moral implications of failure to take appropriate action in the legitimate defence of ones self or others.

I have seen first hand the horrors of war and consider myself lucky to be alive. If it were possible to live in a world free of war I would but we don't and I thank God that their are people and have been people who have been prepared to stand up and defend Our way of life. If you think the Gulf is all about oil think how you would manage in this modern age without it, it is a strategic resource vital for the modern economy that is dependant upon plastics, fuel and other chemicals that are the bi-product of oil. But that is but one reason why we were involved in the middle east. We also stood to in Kosovo after the UN had failed miserably in Bosnia and Croatia. I make no apologies or justification for any particular acts or events. War is horrific and I pray one day we shall live in peace.
I have nothing to add. If I have offended any by my remarks I am sorry, but I prefer facts to fables, war is bad enough without adding embellished and sensational accounts.
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Mairtin
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(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy of the Center for Christian Nonviolence asks the question whether an image of Jesus with a machine gun spraying His lethal enemies is a valid Christian icon. It is easy to dismiss such rhetorical questions as being too simplistic but it occurs to me at times that perhaps there is nothing wrong with the simplicity of Christ's message except our unwillingness to handle it.
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Derekap
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valleyboy. Imagine The Swastika flying on all public buildings (or even the Union Flag with the Swastika overlaid) the picture of Hitler's and his successor everywhere; the SS stomping around; the Jews and Gipsies and any slavs or non-whites being gathered and sent to concentration camps for slavework and eventual gassing and cremation; the media only allowed to publish what the leader and his (or her) followers say; the disabled, handicapped and old people put to death. The main street or square in every town or village named after Adolf Hitler and knowledge of fluent German compulsory. No forums like this! The Gestapo watching and listening what you say, do or write and asking neighbours and your contacts about you. Priests having to risk being outspoken or else.....If you yourself are prepared to accept this way of life would you accept your dear ones to suffer it?

Edited by Derekap, Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 21:41.
Derekap
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Rose of York
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John Sweeney
Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 09:53
It goes without saying that the decision to take your country to war is an extremely complicated moral, practical problem and like Bernard I would not like to be in the position of a government called upon to make such a decision. I understand fully the argument about a just war and the need in extremis to defend your country against evil aggresion.

However, we are supposed to be followers of a Man who told us to love our enemy , who instructed us, when struck on one cheek, to offer the other to our assailant. He rebuked his apostle for wounding the High Priest's servant with a sword. He did not say " Turn the other cheek unless your assailant is a bad man in which case hit him back". In fact the only violent action I can find relating to him is throwing the money-changers out of the Temple in a display of low-level non-lethal force. Yet he was living under a tough unforgiving alien regime where He could easily have allied himself with the Jewish resistance but didn't.

Is not the clear message from the Gospels a pacifist one? A very hard message to follow indeed which is why I suspect we have down through the centuries largely ignored it as inconvenient while clinging to those parts of the Gospel which seem to prove our particular viewpoint and which are comparatively easy to follow. Both Catholics and Protestants do this and we are all--in a glib phrase I have just invented--cafeteria Christians.


John
I wonder, whether Jesus' instruction to turn the other cheek was intended for individuals, telling us not to retaliate if we personally are attacked? In war, politicians and military chiefs take responsibility for protecting millions of others, not just themselves so I wonder if the command to turn the other cheek applies in that situation. Jesus said we are to love our enemies. The military of a civilised country give physical and spiritual succour to all who are wounded, irrespective of whether they be friend or foe, and also treat prisoners humanely. That is love of the individual, not of the regime for which they fought.

When the centurion approached Jesus, and told him, his servant was ill, he mentioned that he came under authority and bore authority. Jesus knew the man was a military officer. He did not tell him to lay down his arms and give up his role in the army.

I do not claim to have answers, just thoughts on the matter.
Keep the Faith!

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OsullivanB

I'm not sure that I have the firmness of conviction to claim that I am a pacifist. My inclination is in that direction, but that may be no different from the abhorrence of war that many, perhaps most, other people have.

However, I would always be slow to assume that those who sanctioned such acts as carpet bombing and the deployment in Japan of the nuclear bomb were plainly wrong.

I have never had and will never have the responsibility of safeguarding the lives and freedoms of my fellow countrymen (or for that matter of anyone). I have never sought any position of power and wouldn't want it.

Someone has to take the final responsibility for that safeguarding. In WWII it was Churchill in Britain and Roosevelt then Truman in the US.

Among the many judgments that Churchill had to make were these two:
1. Would firebombing German cities during total defensive war make victory more likely and/or more swiftly achieved.
2. If so, was it/could it be justified.
It is an awesome decision to confront. We may argue (even each with him/herself) about the answers to each of these questions. My only certainty is that I am deeply grateful that such decisions are not mine.

Roosevelt had to decide whether to authorise the Manhattan Project to research and develop the atom bomb. He knew that Germany was engaged in such research. Given that such a weapon was very likely to be made, I find it very difficult to see that he had any real choice but to ensure that the US/the allies had it first.

Truman then had to decide (at quite short notice after her first learned as President that the project even existed) whether to use it. Very large numbers of US soldiers were dying in battle in the Pacific War. Saturation bombing of major Japanese cities, costing up to 100,000 lives had failed to induce the japanese to surrender. He had to decide whether the shock use of the A-Bomb:
a) might induce surrender and save untold US lives; and
b) if so was such use/could such use be justified.
That is another decision I am pleased to have been spared. It is rare for a man to have to decide whether his countrymen are to die in large numbers or whether those in the enemy's country are to die. But that was the choice and it could not be evaded. I suspect that I would have made the same decision, and carried grave guilt as a result to my own death. Others may believe they would have made a different decision. They would be answerable to the widows and orphans of the American servicemen who would have died but for the effect of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in bringing hostilities to an end.

All of which simply stated means that unless you know what it is to bear and discharge such extraordinary responsibilities, you may do well to be cautious in judgement of those who do. That does not disentitle anyone to an opinion, but I suggest it should act as a brake on the vehement and confident formation and assertion of opinion.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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OsullivanB

Mairtin
Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 20:06
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy of the Center for Christian Nonviolence asks the question whether an image of Jesus with a machine gun spraying His lethal enemies is a valid Christian icon. It is easy to dismiss such rhetorical questions as being too simplistic but it occurs to me at times that perhaps there is nothing wrong with the simplicity of Christ's message except our unwillingness to handle it.
Would it be equally difficult to imagine Jesus leading an unarmed but trained band of men to liberate Auschwitz in (say) 1944? For me it is still difficult, but much less difficult than the extreme picture of Rambo Christ.

While we do not know exactly which scriptures Jesus would have known (there was of course no bound Old Testament of the kind we know) I find it interesting that there is no record of his ever having said a word against the passages dealing with the destruction by men of wicked men. We know that he knew at least one psalm as he cited it on the Cross. It is not difficult to believe that he probably knew the others, which abound in imagery of legitimate violence. He is not recorded as rejecting those psalms.

I post this, not because I claim to have answers. I know I do not. But I am also not sure that His behaviour in the garden of Gethsemane necessarily tells us everything about resisting force by force.

I do not think that Christianity gives us many simple answers to complex problems. Perhaps it gives us the moral framework in which to seek the complex answers.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Rose of York
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OsullivanB
Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 23:56
I post this, not because I claim to have answers. I know I do not. But I am also not sure that His behaviour in the garden of Gethsemane necessarily tells us everything about resisting force by force.

I do not think that Christianity gives us many simple answers to complex problems. Perhaps it gives us the moral framework in which to seek the complex answers.
Jesus was the sole victim, and he voluntarily let the soldiers take him away. Jesus rebuked Peter, who had no authority to attack a soldier.

We do not know what Jesus would have said if Peter had drawn his sword to protect people who were not voluntary victims.
Keep the Faith!

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valleyboy

Derekap
Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 21:24
valleyboy. Imagine The Swastika flying on all public buildings (or even the Union Flag with the Swastika overlaid) the picture of Hitler's and his successor everywhere; the SS stomping around; the Jews and Gipsies and any slavs or non-whites being gathered and sent to concentration camps for slavework and eventual gassing and cremation; the media only allowed to publish what the leader and his (or her) followers say; the disabled, handicapped and old people put to death. The main street or square in every town or village named after Adolf Hitler and knowledge of fluent German compulsory. No forums like this! The Gestapo watching and listening what you say, do or write and asking neighbours and your contacts about you. Priests having to risk being outspoken or else.....If you yourself are prepared to accept this way of life would you accept your dear ones to suffer it?

The war saw a very similar outcome to the one you envisaged, except it was played out in Eastern Europe from 1945. If you look into the history of the atomic bomb, Joseph Rotblat (who went to work in cancer research in the UK) withdrew from it because he realised its use against Japan was a pretext for its implementation against Russia when the war was over.

If Jesus didn't take up arms against the most successful and oppressive power the world had ever seen, I find it impossible to imagine him doing so against other tyrants.
Liberal, ecumenical, universal and it's my church too.
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OsullivanB

Roman Imperial rule was on the whole fairly benign.

Jesus healed at the request of the centurion and restricted his condemnation to his fellow Jews.

It was not any more oppressive than earlier great powers had been. Assyria, Persia, Athens etc. had been tough acts to exceed.

And was Rome (a city) more successful than Alexander (one man)? At least a debatable question.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Rose of York
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valleyboy
Thursday, 19. July 2012, 00:26
If you look into the history of the atomic bomb, Joseph Rotblat (who went to work in cancer research in the UK) withdrew from it because he realised its use against Japan was a pretext for its implementation against Russia when the war was over.
The West could have done just that.

Quote:
 
If Jesus didn't take up arms against the most successful and oppressive power the world had ever seen, I find it impossible to imagine him doing so against other tyrants.


Jesus came to earth to take up spiritual arms against Satan.

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Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man's foes will be those of his own household. 37* He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me


Keep the Faith!

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Anne-Marie

OsullivanB
Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 23:56
I find it interesting that there is no record of his ever having said a word against the passages dealing with the destruction by men of wicked men. We know that he knew at least one psalm as he cited it on the Cross. It is not difficult to believe that he probably knew the others, which abound in imagery of legitimate violence. He is not recorded as rejecting those psalms.
Not entirely accurate, OSB:
Jesus did say, "You have heard it said 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth', well I say to you Turn the other cheek, if a man asks you for...."

Not, of course, that I would have obeyed the guidance in the (extreme) situations raised by OSB.
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
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