Theresa May and the Nuclear Option

During yesterday's debate on the renewal of the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent, the Prime Minister affirmed in a most unambiguous way her willingness to authorise a strike using a weapon of indiscriminate mass destruction. The reporting of her answer to a question during the debate suggests that this explicit affirmation does not have any precedent from previous Prime Ministers, who have avoided directly answering such a question in public. It is certainly quite chilling to listen to the exchange, as embedded in the Independent's report. We should perhaps allow Theresa May some moral leeway, in that this affirmation has been made in a hypothetical context and does not reflect an actual decision made to deploy nuclear weapons "live" so to speak.

But, nevertheless, according to the teaching of Gaudium et Spes n.80:

The men of our time must realize that they will have to give a sombre reckoning of their deeds of war, for the course of the future will depend greatly on the decisions they make today. With these truths in mind, this most holy synod makes its own the condemnations of total war already pronounced by recent popes, and issues the following declaration.

Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.

The unique hazard of modern warfare consists in this: it provides those who possess modern scientific weapons with a kind of occasion for perpetrating just such abominations; moreover, through a certain inexorable chain of events, it can catapult men into the most atrocious decisions. That such may never truly happen in the future, the bishops of the whole world gathered together, beg all men, especially government officials and military leaders, to give unremitting thought to their gigantic responsibility before God and the entire human race.

Gaudium et Spes continues, in n.81, to speak of the money spent on developing new and better weapons of war, making a point that all those MPs voting in favour of the renewal of Trident might consider:

.... While extravagant sums are being spent for the furnishing of ever new weapons, an adequate remedy cannot be provided for the multiple miseries afflicting the whole modern world. Disagreements between nations are not really and radically healed; on the contrary, they spread the infection to other parts of the earth. New approaches based on reformed attitudes must be taken to remove this trap and to emancipate the world from its crushing anxiety through the restoration of genuine peace.

Therefore, we say it again: the arms race is an utterly treacherous trap for humanity, and one which ensnares the poor to an intolerable degree. 

The statement made on behalf of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales ahead of yesterday's debate is more circumspect, being geared to a particular political occasion, but is also clear in arguing against the renewal of a nuclear weapons system.

The challenge of dialogue in opposing Daesh

By accident, as the House of Commons was debating (or indeed actually voting on) the motion to extend RAF air strikes to Syria yesterday evening, I re-read Fr Julian Carron's article published in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera after the earlier Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. It bears re-reading. Do read the whole at the website of Communion and Liberation - The challenge of true dialogue after the attacks in Paris - to put the following extracts in context:

We Europeans have what our forebears desired: Europe as a space of freedom where each person can be what she or he wants. The Old Continent has become a crucible of the most varied cultures, religions and visions of the world.

The events of Paris [ie the Charlie Hebdo attacks, though the reference might equally have application to the more recent attacks] document how this space of freedom should not be taken for granted as self-perpetuating: it can be threatened by those who fear freedom and are willing to impose their own vision of things with violence....

....the problem is primarily within Europe and the most important part is played here at home. The true challenge is cultural, its terrain daily life. When those who abandon their homelands arrive here in search of a better life, when their children are born and become adults in the West, what do they see? Can they find something able to attract their humanity, to challenge their reason and their freedom? The same problem exists for our children: do we have something to offer them that speaks to their search for fulfilment and meaning? In many young people who have grown up in the so-called Western world there reigns a great nothingness, a profound void that constitutes the origin of the desperation that ends up in violence. Just think of the Europeans who go to fight in the ranks of terroristic formations, or of the lost and disoriented life of many young people of our cities. This corrosive void, this far-spreading nothingness, requires a response.

It makes interesting reading compared to my earlier post in which I argued that aerial bombardment did not offer a proportionate - ie correctly directed - resistance to the evil of Daesh.

Bombing Daesh in Syria

Members of Parliament here in the UK are currently being asked/cajoled as to how they might vote on a motion that would extend the participation of British aircraft in attacks on Daesh targets in Syria and Iraq.

At the time of an earlier vote on British involvement in air strikes in Syria, Pope Francis called a vigil of prayer in St Peter's Square, to offer intercession in favour of peace. It occurs to me that we have for some months now been facing a threat to peace at least as significant as on that occasion, and in all probability more so.  I took advantage of the Liturgical option of the Saturday memorial of Our Lady today (last possibility for a little while .... though I might well exercise a certain discretion in this regard during Advent!) to pray a votive office of Our Lady Queen of Peace.

In examining the moral question with regard to the bombing campaign currently being waged against Daesh, it seems to me that there are two questions. That Daesh are an evil that should be resisted is beyond question; and that that resistance requires the force of arms appears equally beyond question. However, to be proportionate (in the sense in which that word is used in Catholic teaching on the just use of arms) that use of arms must be directed to resist the threat as it is actually presented, and not only to the people of the developed nations remote from Syria and Iraq, but also as it is actually presented to the peoples of Iraq and Syria, and indeed the near neighbours of those countries. An aerial campaign to "degrade and destroy" Daesh, to use the language of the Western backed campaign, is not doing this and does not have that as its aim. [Some air strikes in particular tactical situations may be doing this - but that is clearly not the stated aim of the air campaign as a whole.] It leaves the ordinary people of Syria and Iraq the potential victims of collateral damage and fails to resist the threat at the point that the threat exists.

If to attack Daesh from the air alone is not proportionate (in the sense in which that word is used in Catholic teaching), then there is a clear requirement for "boots on the ground" (to use the current phrase). This would meet the threat at its direct point of being a threat. The current political conversation in the UK recognises this - but by insisting on relying on the forces already fighting in Iraq and, in Syria, on the various forces of the opposition groups engaged in the civil war there. But, in effect, by arming and supporting short of actual direct military engagement those forces in the civil war in Syria perceived as being "moderate" (while Middle Eastern nations do likewise for the forces that they consider to be for the good of the causes they espouse, perhaps those of the politics of the Shia/Sunni divide in Islam and Russia does so in favour of the regime of President Assad), are we not engaging in precisely the trade in weapons and warfare that Pope Francis (and his predecessors in the See of St Peter) has  condemned and which can never be at the service of peace or justice?

You might be gathering that the course of action being proposed by the Conservative government is not one that I would support.....

The Shock of the Bomb

Underneath this title, a lead article in today's Times proclaims:

Hiroshima was a terrible act of war but no crime, in a just and necessary fight

The lead article comments on the annual commemoration of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, taking note of the first time participation in the commemoration in Hiroshima itself of the US Ambassador to Japan.

The American commemoration symbolised humanitarian concern and President Obama's commitment to building a peaceful world order. It was not an apology to the people of Japan. Neither this administration nor any other is ever likely to give one. That is not obduracy but recognition of historical truth. The bombings of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki were a terrible act of war. But they were no crime. ...

Was there no alternative? There was: a conventional invasion of the mainland and a blockade. It does not settle the ethical debate over the A-bomb, but that course would have cost many more lives and provided a glimpse of hell...

America's use of the A-bomb ended a necessary war against a totalitarian power. That memory places an historic obligation on the US and its allies to reflect with humility, but not with contrition, on destruction wreaked in a just cause.

Wasn't the dropping of the two atomic bombs itself a "glimpse of hell"? Doesn't the anxiety to avoid civilian casualties in current conflicts rather contradict the attitude of disregard to civilian casualties caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? And if apology and contrition is considered appropriate in other contexts, why not in this one?

From the point of view of Catholic teaching, few statements are as solemn as that contained in Vatican II's condemnation of total war in its constitution Gaudium et Spes n.80:

...this most holy synod makes its own the condemnations of total war already pronounced by recent popes,(2) and issues the following declaration.

Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.

The unique hazard of modern warfare consists in this: it provides those who possess modern scientific weapons with a kind of occasion for perpetrating just such abominations; moreover, through a certain inexorable chain of events, it can catapult men into the most atrocious decisions. That such may never truly happen in the future, the bishops of the whole world gathered together, beg all men, especially government officials and military leaders, to give unremitting thought to their gigantic responsibility before God and the entire human race.

Israel in Gaza

Video clips on the BBC news website, which I also believe have been shown on television news broadcasts, clearly show the firing of cluster munitions. As they explode in the air, these shells launch smaller bomblets across an area of the ground. The video clips show these as a widely spreading series of smoke trails reaching down to the ground, and then showing small explosions on the ground. The Times newspaper has reported these as being white phosphorus munitions, being fired from artillery, to create smoke screens that will shield Israeli forces. Their evidence is based on photographs of the shells in Israeli military positions and the nature of injuries being reported from Gaza. It is not clear from the video clips or the Times reports whether these munitions are being fired in open areas or over built up areas ...

Cluster munitions and phosphorus munitions are particularly hazardous to civilian populations ...

The BBC are also reporting the concern of the International Committee of the Red Cross about the failure of Israeli Defence Forces personnel to assist injured civilians on the ground in Gaza. Today's Times reports details of an incident in which Israeli forces failed to assist, or to facilitate the provision of assistance by the Red Cross or Red Crescent, to wounded civilians in Gaza City.

The President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has clearly spoken out on this situation, and his comments are reported here. Pax Christi UK's statement is reported here.

It is difficult to see anything that jusifies the Israeli action in attacking Hamas in Gaza; and, even if one grants a legitimacy to their attacking Gaza, it is rather more difficult to find moral acceptability in the manner of their action against Hamas.

Just War?

When I studied the theory of a just war many years ago, I recall reflecting on the way in which one of the traditional conditions for a just war is understood today. It is sometimes expressed today in the form that the expected war must not inflict more harm than would otherwise be suffered, or that the harm inflicted by the war must be "proportionate" to the evil that it is intended to resist. This suggests some kind of calculation of harm, which seems impossible to do effectively.

This never seemed to me to really get to the point of what "proportionate" meant in this case. To me, the point seemed to be that, if a nation was attacked, it was entitled to take up a military defense that really was a resistance to the evil being perpetrated against itself. So, if Israel is being attacked by rockets and mortars from the Gaza strip, they are entitled to take actions that will prevent or alleviate the launch of those rockets and mortar shells. This might take the form of targetting launching sites and units, and perhaps storage and logistical supply lines for those sites and units. Wholesale, generalised air strikes against targets in the Gaza strip fail to meet this demand of actually, fairly directly resisting the evil being perpetrated. Indeed, listening to the BBC radio news today, one Israeli spokeswoman explicitly referred to "retaliation" as a way of characterising the Israeli action. [Her context was one of asking whether or not Britain would stand by and not retaliate if her territory was being subjected to attack by some 150 rockets and mortars within a 24 hour period.]

The current situation in Gaza is reminiscent of that in Lebanon, when Israel decided to attack Hezbollah. Widespread air strikes, and ground incursions, did not prevent the rocket attacks against Israel, and caused a huge extent of suffering to the Lebanese people.

So, I condemn the Israeli action completely. The actions of those who are launching the rocket and mortar attacks on Israel are also to be condemned, and they must be considered partly responsible for the situation that has arisen. But I feel that the Israeli action is particularly to be condemned because of its systematic nature, sanctioned by a well established mandate from a political leadership in a democratic nation.