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War in the Obama years
by Mike Sweitzer-Beckman on Dec. 10, 2009
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Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionIt hasn't even been a year since Barack Obama took office as President of the United States, but he already has 24/7 analysis on what he's done (or not done). Liberals are craning their necks wondering when he is going to do something that earns him the Nobel Peace Prize he received today, and conservatives are pouncing on him for spending so much money. Last week, Obama made his first big move in terms of the war in Afghanistan, deciding to raise the troop levels by deploying 30,000 more troops in the middle of 2010. What does this mean for Catholics who voted for Obama on the basis that he was the anti-war alternative to George W. Bush and John McCain?
A year ago, bloggers and other commentators were saying that American Catholics who were voting for Barack Obama in the November 2008 presidential election were going to hell and that the church has lost its soul. Whether you agree or not, it's fascinating to realize that somewhere around 54 percent of American Catholics voted for Obama, risking their souls (and possibly a chance to receive the Eucharist, depending on who their bishop is). According to the Whispers in the Loggia report from Election Day, states with high Catholic population densities went for Obama, including Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey.
Many supporters and liberal lawmakers are against his decision to raise the troop levels in Afghanistan. While it's disappointing for many supporters to hear of his decision, some could argue that it fits into the rubric of the just war theory. Just war theory is an ethical reflection on whether a war is justifiable or not. Obama has already authored some national bestsellers; he's a prolific writer and thinker. He no doubt poured a lot of thought into this decision. With Afghanistan, he has to think about Osama bin Laden, the roots of the horrific September 11, 2001, attacks, and how to quash another one from happening. One of the arguments of a just war is that the number of lives lost from participating in this war will be less than if no action is taken. Of course, it's hard to measure two parallel paths of history and what could have been. The truth is that this war has been going for eight years, and while Obama offers a timeline for withdrawal (a difference from the Bush administration), it's unclear who or what can hold a president to a war timeline. It seems that nothing ever has.
On the flip side, Obama has chosen to support a regime in Afghanistan that is widely disregarded by the people it supposedly represents. Generations of Afghanis have only known being at war with a big national superpower, previously with the Soviet Union and now with the United States. Brave New Films produced a recent video about how Afghanis really don't want to see this war continue. Over 850 American troops have already died in this war, and another 600 troops from other coalitions have died as well. It's unfathomable how many Afghani civilians have died in this war, as a UN report estimates that 2,100 Afghan civilians have died in armed conflict in the last year alone.
Some Obama supporters would say that President Obama inherited this quagmire of a war in Afghanistan from George W. Bush and he's just stuck with trying to resolve it. However, we are now in December 2009, and we are clearly now in the era of the Obama presidency and not Bush-Cheney. This war may not have been started by Obama, but he is the one in charge now, and his administration's actions are going to start speaking louder than poetic speeches.
The time has come for those who voted for Obama on an anti-war premise to begin mobilizing as feverishly as they did when Bush began declaring wars with Middle Eastern countries. Obama has said that he would use his accepting the Noble Peace Prize as a call to action for the American people. It is time to follow his call to action and hold him and his administration accountable for this war. The antiwar movement is already in full swing: noon hour demonstrations took place all over the country the day after Obama's speech at West Point. Veterans who have served in the Middle East this decade are calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops. After a decade of lies and broken promises to the troops under the previous administration, it's time for the Obama administration to live up to its campaign visions and give us hope for a world without bloodshed on the hands of Americans.
Mike Sweitzer-Beckman recently earned his master of divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkley, Calif. He lives with his wife in his hometown in Wisconsin and co-founded the blog www.youngadultcatholics-blog.com.
None of America's wars (we
None of America's wars (we are in hot wars in at least 5 countries that I know of) come anywhere close to meeting just war principles. And yet you still hear people making references to just war theory to try to justify all our wars of aggression.
See NCR columnist John Dear for more details, but I don't think just war theory is really Christian. The church before Constantine flat out considered all wars to be contrary to the gospel. The jsut war theory is an accommodation to the principalities and powers.
Pope Benedict, more so before he was elevated to that position but some after, has suggested that just war theory needs to be reconsidered. He has also indicated that he can not conceive of any war occurring in our time that would meet just war criteria.
Obama tried to rewrite history (consistent with what his predecessors did) to make a glorious past for America. In fact, the U.S. has been involved in wars of aggression most of its history, and has frequently intervened against democracy. But he talks like it is other nations and groups which are the real problems, when the #1 problem remains the USA.
Incredible. How quick the NCR
Incredible. How quick the NCR is to dismiss the Church when it does the right thing, yet also how quick it is to offer an apologia for Obama when he does something wrong.
Well, I guess that really
Well, I guess that really depends on what you consider right and wrong.
There is a wonderfully
There is a wonderfully descriptive word for people who buy into the promises of the Democrats or the devil (but I repeat myself): SUCKERS!
Your comment really does a
Your comment really does a diservice to yourself and any discussion. It is the kind of comment that gives the writer some self-satisfaction, but really adds nothing to an adult discussion. Why don't you take the time to share your perspective in a way that can give the reader something to ponder. Than you may actually have made a contribution to the discourse and influence others. Peace and prayers to you, Steve.
I can't say I'm surprised
I can't say I'm surprised that our pro-abortion, pro-death penalty, pro-assisted suicide, pro-embryo destroying President has found another problem that he believes the killing others will solve...just wait till he gets his hands on your health care problems.
He is Correct! Bill Samuel
He is Correct! Bill Samuel [above] indicates he doesn't think that the Just War Theory is Christian - and he is absolutely right. How could it be 'Christ - centered' when it has no compatibility with the Gospel of Jesus Christ whatsoever? For more on this see the free downlaod booklet by Emmanuel Charles McCarthy entitled Christian Just War Theory: Logic of Deceit...Just go to http://66.151.177.215/data/Media/CJWT_Booklet.pdf
Here is the first paragraph of the Prologue:
The secondary purpose of this little book is to critique the Christian Just War Theory(CJWT). Its primary purpose is to invalidate CJWT forever. Just War Theories have been around for about 2000 years. However, they did not
infect Christianity until three hundred years after Jesus’ Resurrection. St. Ambrose and St. Augustine were their original carriers into the Church. However, in fairness it must be acknowledged that by the time these two politically powerful bishops released the perpetually mutating moral virus of CJWT into the Christian community, the Church by its choices in favor of acquiring wealth and political power had lost just about all of the spiritual immune system that protected it from the moral pathogen of righteous homicidal violence. Over the last 1700 years no effective method has been found to restore the Church’s spiritual immune system against the disease of holy homicide. If anything, the Church’s immune system against this spiritual Black Plague has, by the Third Millennium, completely collapsed.
Today, no form of homicidal violence and no amount of homicidal violence
is beyond the Church’s ability to tolerate and justify.
The hope then of this little book is that it can serve as a partial but effective antidote for the catastrophic spiritual malaise of divinely supported homicidal violence that has metastasized throughout the entire catholic Church. The only complete cure, of course, is for the Church to unreservedly embrace the truth of the Message of the Nonviolent Jesus Christ. Hopefully this book, by exposing the intellectual and moral vacuousness of CJWT, will bring the hour of that embrace closer.
the same Catholics that had
the same Catholics that had blood stained hands (and hopefully cleansed in confession) from voting for a pro-abortion president and disobeying God's law, now have blood stains from the very thing they wanted to avoid. How ironic! This is not an "I TOLD YOU SO!!" brothers...This is a wake up call and I am glad to see you have egg on your face, not to humiliate you, but to strengthen you, that we may all finally become as one and follow the ONE Lord, under the ONE Church, and at the same time that YOUR new found God-given strength may strengthen the rest of us that voted against Obama and saw everything lost and gave up "hope". Do you now understand why abortion IS the PRIMARY issue???? If life is not respected, from the beginning, it will never be respected at any other point in time, and there is your proof! Let the congressmen know that it is not ok to kill your own people, starting with the most helpless....We worry about external wars, but neglect the one regarding our own people and our own family??????? I pray we finally wake up and stop being the mindless political sheep we have been proving to be....and finally follow the One true Shepherd. Amen. Merry Christmas to all!
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