A Clergyman Speaks Out on the Clergymen

A worthy essay by Fr. James Schall at NRO yesterday:

.... There is a well thought out, clear, empirically based case that not to do anything in the present moment would be immoral. This case was made by President Bush in the State of the Union address and Secretary Powell in his speech to the U.N. It is impossible to read these statements without seeing that they are written and spoken with high moral purpose and their authors fully cognizant of the facts at issue. No side has a monopoly on the ethics of the matter: It is certainly not the exclusive preserve of the clergy. The American leaders do not conceive of themselves as operating in a moral vacuum. The "I-am-still-not-convinced" position has the advantage of not actually having to do anything to protect anyone from danger.

But the responsible politician has no such luxury. The president has spelled out the number of times since 9/11 that further attacks have been prevented. We live in a period of illusion if we think that further attacks have not come forth because bin Laden, wherever he is, or his friends, have changed their minds or their methods. Targets in Europe and the United States have been selected. Our efforts to defend ourselves have worked. The conclusion is not that no danger is near, but that danger has been thwarted and must continue so to be....

The "humanitarian" war advocates of recent years have often made every effort to suggest that it is our "obligation" to intervene in extreme cases, any place in the world. We have been blamed mostly for inaction. Now, these same voices demand inaction. Perhaps it is true, as Franklin Roosevelt said, that we all hate war. But the question remains: Is there something worse than war, something worse than not preventing what needs to be prevented? If it takes a war to prevent this something worse, and we do prevent it, it will always seem, to the anti-war faction, that no real problem existed, because they could not see the evidence for it.

Those who do see the evidence are in charge. There is a certain comfort in that....

Hhhhhmmm. Does this mean that when Sean Penn said he didn't see any WMD in Iraq, maybe he was wrong? Wow. Whodathunkit?

(Thanks Dom.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 02/14/03 09:54:20 AM
Categorized as Religious.