From Mr David Pybus
Sir, - During the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech in the House
of Lords debate on Iraq last Friday, he said: "It is the role of
the Church I serve to point beyond our imperfect responses and any
material, national, or political interest to the message of Jesus
Christ and the justice, healing, and redemption that he
offers."
This is praiseworthy, but the Archbishop went on to say: "But in
the here and now there is justification for the use of armed force
on humanitarian grounds to enable oppressed victims to find safe
space." According to some media, it was this that was the key part
of his speech, not what he had said just beforehand.
How can military force be policed? If you are dropping bombs and
missiles from thousands or even hundreds of feet, you cannot be
sure that you won't hit some of the people you wish to protect. And
suppose some members of IS are redeemable?
The Archbishop did also say that military action should be a
short-term solution, even though, the previous day, President Obama
seemed to suggest that military action could continue for years to
come.
If you are in the business of loving your enemies and praying
for those who persecute you, killing them is not an answer. There
is a better story, and indeed much of Archbishop Welby's speech was
about adopting alternatives to armed force and demonstrating a
positive alternative to the violence of IS. It is a pity he didn't
stick to that vision, because, now, a leader of that great peace
movement the Christian faith may well be remembered for praising
God while blessing the ammunition.
DAVID PYBUS
84 Wildlake, Orton Malborne
Peterborough PE2 5PQ
From the Revd Stephen Cooper
Sir, - The decision to take military action in Iraq against one,
albeit viciously violent, faction in the long-running conflict
between Shia and Sunni Muslims, while expected under the "Something
must be done" imperative, is disturbing.
I am less troubled by the political decision than that both the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope have jumped on the bandwagon
to give it their imprimatur.
Politicians will choose to involve their countries in war for
all kinds of reasons, some perhaps legitimate, and some far more
dubious. All too often, it is because the politics have got so
complex that war seems to be the simple solution - though it is
only extremely rarely so in practice over the long term. War,
whenever it occurs, is an evil; it may be the least worst evil in
the circumstances, but it is an evil none the less, and needs to be
acknowledged as such.
If we follow Jesus, who said "Love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you," and who chose the path of the suffering
servant, and the role of the Messiah of the Cross rather than that
of the Warrior-King Messiah, then it is wrong for the Church to
give the politicians the political fig-leaf of a "just war" to hide
behind when they choose that path.
Though I don't hold with just-war theory excusing war, its
tenets illuminate our choices and actions. This conflict in the
Middle East may tick some of its boxes, but it fails a number of
the tests, for example:
Probability of success (jus ad bello): there is no
likelihood of achieving the stated aim of stopping the murderous
activities of IS by air power, even when allied with local and/or
external troops on the ground. We have seen the ultimate
ineffectiveness of this approach in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.
There is no probability of success, particularly if you take the
long view: we may stop the fighting in the short term, but it will
not have gone away, and what we do now will only set the scene for
the next outbreak. It needs a political Sunni-Shia Muslim
solution.
Proportionality (jus in bello): notwithstanding guided
bombs and missiles, the clear discrepancy between the overwhelming
proportion of civilian casualties relative to the number of
combatant casualties of modern warfare, when combined with the
proved ineffectiveness of achieving the military objective seen in
similar recent asymmetric conflicts, makes this requirement
unachievable.
So just-war theory, for those who espouse it, does not make this
proposed conflict just either. That leaves us with recognising this
war for what it is: an evil into which our political leaders have
chosen to send our military, putting them in harm's way. Since we
as a nation have been so involved in destabilising the Middle East
over the past many years, now that the chickens are coming home to
roost, this is an evil that is rightly ours to own, as will be its
consequences in many future decades. Just, however, this evil is
not; neither is it the place of the Archbishop or the Pope to
declare it so.
STEPHEN COOPER
The Vicarage, Goosnargh Lane
Goosnargh, Lancashire PR3 2BN
