Unjust and Indefensible

While on this trip I have had the time to catch up on my reading. One of the articles I read was a wonderfully written piece in the October 6th issue of Commonweal, entitled Unjust and Indefensible, by Chris Dowd, a former officer in the U.S. Navy. The article was an award winner in Commonweal's 2006 Theological Essay contest. What makes it theological is that Mr. Dowd takes the Iraq war through each element of the Just War theory, and demonstrates why accepted Catholic moral teaching renders the verdict that it is an "unjust and indefensible" war.

I also appreciate his remarks near the end:

Writing this essay has been a difficult task. I supported Bush in the 2000 election. In the days after 9/11, I fully supported our military action in Afghanistan, and still do. Moreover, I was inclined to believe the Bush administration's assertions about Iraq in 2002 and 2003 and to trust its case for war. Though I never thought the criterion of last resort was met, Colin Powell's appearance before the UN on February 5, 2003 did much to convince me that the time had come for military action. I believed there must be intelligence, too secret to share with the world, that justified it. I trusted that the administration was making morally responsible decisions, even as I wept over what would ensue when the bombs began to fall.

I now know that what Powell put before the world in February 2003 was an amalgam of speculation and misinformation, exaggerated to support our decision to go to war. That decision had, for all intents and purposes, been made just months after 9/11, and the rests was simply preparation and maneuvering. I believe that we were indeed misled, and that saddens me deeply. Knowing that this was an unjust war makes the violence and bloodshed of the occupation in its aftermath even harder to take.

I also appreciate his comments about where we are now. As much as I believed at the time that the war was immoral, I believe, as Mr. Dowd does, that we cannot simply withdraw. We owe it to the citizens of Iraq to help rebuild their country. We cannot simply leave the situation to chaos and civil war, and possibly intervention by neighboring Iran.

Unfortunately, I have no confidence in the current administration to carry out that rebuilding.

Follow the link, read the article, and let me know what you think.