The Fallacy Of Good & Evil In Afghanistan
When they heard Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech, a shiver of astonishment went through conservative circles in the United States that this man, whom they identify as a prototypical liberal, should have mentioned the existence of evil. I would imagine this is because it has become an easy assumption that liberals blame society for evil, and regard the word itself as an outmoded term used only by people such as former President George W. Bush and his Christian right supporters.
Yet they also knew that Obama is a Christian — his relations with the Christian preacher who converted him to religion were a major subject of news and comment during the presidential primary campaign in 2008. It’s hard to become a Christian without hearing something about sinners and evil.
Bush’s religious statements constantly reflected a conviction that good is identified with the United States and evil with its enemies. His final speech to the nation said: “America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in the world and between the two there can be no compromise.”
True enough in principle, but there is in this a trace of something of which any good Christian should be aware, the parable of the Pharisee and the poor man. The poor man took his place in the back of the synagogue, said to God that he was a sinner, and asked forgiveness. The Pharisee placed himself in the front row and reminded God of all the good things he had done, and his rich gifts to the temple, saying that he thanked God that he was not like other men.
Both Obama and Bush were saying in different ways that we Americans are good and Taliban or jihadists are bad. But the reason we are good is that we are we, and we are justified in punishing them because they are they. But the practicalities of the matter are a little different. Americans are the avengers of the fact that the Taliban before 2001 gave hospitality to Osama bin Laden and his people, who had been driven out of Sudan by American demands on the Sudan government.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan had no grievances against the United States until Washington attacked Afghanistan in 2001 because the Taliban were observing what they considered their code of honor, to give hospitality and protection. Today they are trying to seize back control of their country from the rival Tajik people (of the old Northern Alliance), to whom the United States in 2002 had awarded Afghanistan, in return for their help in taking it away from the Taliban.
Barack Obama doesn’t like the Taliban because they oppress women and attack American invaders. I don’t know what the theologians would make of justice in all this, but it strikes me as a huge, mutually culturally ignorant, self-righteous, fanatically nationalist and ideological clash of societies, instead of any war between good and evil.
David Brooks of The New York Times has written on Obama’s having revived the thought of the great modern Christian realist Reinhold Niebuhr, who rescued the American Protestant church in the 1930s to 1950s from the confusions produced by the coexistence of the biblical counsels of pacifism (“turn the other cheek”) and the exigencies of fighting aggressive totalitarian movements (“take up your sword”).
The contemporary error is much simpler. It is that of the proud Pharisee. We Americans wage “just wars” because we are good and righteous people who therefore have the right to use our overwhelming armies, its bombers, rockets, drones and mines, to strike and awe people, invade their countries, whom we know to be bad because they use insurrection, conspiracy and terrorism to resist us, and continue religious practices that displease us.
The problems of just war are not new. In the Western Christian tradition they go back to the theologians Aquinas and Suarez. They said that to be just, a war’s cause must be to vindicate an undoubted and internationally recognized crime; all peaceful means (negotiations) must have been tried in vain; the good to be done must clearly outweigh the evil that will be done by the war; there must be reasonable hope that in the end justice can be achieved for both sides; the means are licit (weapons must be limited and legitimate); and international law must be observed. By these criteria, I don’t see any just wars anywhere these days.
- Thanks to William Pfaff, Tribune Media & Truthdig
Keywords
Afghanistan, Taliban, Barack Obama, Bush, Campaign, Religion, Speech, Terrorism, War, Christianity, Just War, Nobel Peace Prize,
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Would we be in Iraq or Afghanistan if 9/11 had not happened? I think not.
Jon....exactly and thats why 9/11 really happened....how else could you convince congress to appropriate the funds for a non declared open ended invasion costing taxpayers trillions of dollars in military operations... which are only protecting opening and guarding the land area for the new pipeline construction planned and going through the middle east? Wow...I love big business....
Jon,
What is the connection between 9/11 and th US invasion of Iraq?
Um... bush?
Wasn't the conquest of Iraq laid out in the January 26, 1998 letter from PNAC to President Clinton?
(http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm)
And how thoughtless it was of God to deposit our oil beneath their sand in the first place.
We have plenty of gas and oil in the USA except for the save the planet kooks that live here.
BirchBricker - I'm halfway through a book called "Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great In Afghanistan," by Frank Holt. I highly recommend it.
Alexander discovered way back in 329 B.C.E. that invading Afghanistan (then called Bactria) was easier than subduing it. Some things never change. The terrain, the climate and the volatile shifting socio-political makeup of the Afghan tribes have always created a logistical and diplomatic nightmare for foreign invaders. Alexander the Great's brutal but inconclusive war and its parallels with subsequent British, Soviet and U.S. imperial attempts to bludgeon or bribe the region into submission make for grim but sobering reading.
Jon: The problem is that fossil fuels aren't permanent. At some point we'll have to find a better way. That's a fact.
Skeptic: "Grim but sobering" is just what the US needs.
I think that most importantly, the words "to be just, a war’s cause must be to vindicate an undoubted and internationally recognized crime; all peaceful means (negotiations) must have been tried in vain; the good to be done must clearly outweigh the evil that will be done by the war; there must be reasonable hope that in the end justice can be achieved for both sides; the means are licit (weapons must be limited and legitimate); and international law must be observed" must be met in order for me to be convinced of the necessity and justification for armed struggle.
Peace
Nuclear. Hydro. Estimates are that we have over 200 years of oil and gas reserves in the US.
BB....that all sounds really intelligent, humane, nice and civil...however all the words clearly mean nothing... if the game board has been altered on purpose by those who have the most to profit and gain... from initiating the war. I could say that I want to plant palm trees from San Diego to Mexico because I want to be able to use the palm oil in to fuel generators in cities in South America. If Mexico does not go my way...I will simply claim government sponsored drug lords attacked San Diego...then claim terror on a US city and then initiate my just war via congress...and start planting like crazy based on my desire. SInce... "the good to be done must clearly outweigh the evil"...I will make millions from my palm oil and the taxpayers will certainly pay for all of it.....because I am a big political donor and a US corporation and my interests must to be protected....and if they are not going to protect my interests well... I will just then threaten to jack up the price of my palm oil... that I have been selling to these taxpayers and crush their economy... which I now have a strangle hold over. See how any scenario can be justified by those who have the most to gain...
JonGreen -
200 years....and you believe that?
Jon: I don't think we'll have 200 years to drain the Earth if we turn to nuclear and hydroelectric. All three ideas you're presenting are just not sustainable practices. I'm sure we can do better.
Obewan: You're right in that the military-industrial complex thrives on this sort of stuff. Even our scientific innovation has been stifled due to the US spending it's R&D monies on weapons research rather than anything worthwhile. The most I can hope to achieve it to keep reminding everyone how fallible we really are. I do not believe in taking someone else's freedom away in order to preserve my own, aka. the lives of Afghani's. I find the very idea of living in a kleptocracy to be utterly disturbing... but at the same time I do believe in the nobility and decency of mankind and that we do aspire for better days and we will figure out a better way to live.... someday, somehow.
"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America!!!" -- Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Wright has forgotten that God gave each of us "free will" to make our own decisions.
If the individuals, of whom he speaks as victims of the American government, decided to stay away from the life of crime that he bemoans as the snare that will ensnare them, then they would still be free men.
But every man/woman makes those decisions. Should I take the easy way, or the hard one? The easy highway is wide and well traveled, but the hard path is a narrow and difficult, and less traveled.
BB... someday Ecotopia and paradise await....until then I will live with nature all around me.
Greg... The easiest path.. is the path of least resistance....always follow the money back its source.
Skeptic...we are drowning in oil and the only problem is I can now taste it ....
Obewan: Someday we'll figure it out... perhaps not in my lifetime, but I'm sure we're evolving further than our stomachs. :)
Do you know how much it costs to send one soldier to Afghanistan? The cost for each one is $1 million. That figure was calculated by the Congressional Research Service. It is the amount required to support one soldier for one year of service in Afghanistan. One.
Perhaps these costs should not be surprising, since the total costs of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are about to exceed $3 trillion.
Just another theft... by those who control and influence congress by utilizing fear marketing techniques to accomplish their goals....of profitability and stock price increases paid by and... at taxpayer expense.