I normally devote my other blog to matters religious, but I decided to break with protocol tonight.
It has been a while since I read the OT so I decided to refresh my memory. Tonight, I read about the account of Abraham and Sarah in the land of Gerara, where Abimelech saw Sarah and took her as his wife (although he already had at least one). Scripture tells us that God appeared to Abimelech in a dream, and warned him not to touch Sarah, for she was already married. Now Abimelech didn't know this, and so God warned him about it, giving him a chance to do the right thing. What does this account tell us about marriage?
First, let us consider Abraham's request of Sarah: "Say, therefore, I pray thee, that thou art my sister: that I may be well used for thee, and my soul shall live for thy sake." This is from his exhortation when the went to Egypt, but he used the same ploy when they went to Abimelech. It seems to me that Abraham values his life over the sanctity of his marriage to Sarah. In fact, what is Sarah to him that he is willing to have her treated as a concubine to serve at the whims of a king (two kings, in fact)? Abraham is not the only one at fault here. Sarah agrees, both times, to be used for another man's pleasure so her husband can live. Now, I can see the whole life and death thing, to be sure. Having one's life threatened is a pretty serious thing. But what of this "that I may be well used for thee" thing Abraham says? What does the Bible say about that? "And they used Abram well for her sake. And he had sheep and oxen, and he asses and she asses, and menservants and maidservants, and camels." He wasn't just trying to save his own life, he said "that I may be used well for thee", meaning he meant to profit from her beauty!
It should be clear that Abraham and Sarah either A) didn't understand the whole "man shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" thing, and B) if they did, they valued life and property over each other. Enter God.
We know God is Unchanging. Because God is unchanging, so are His Laws. The decree against adultery wasn't Revealed until the Decalogue was given over 500 years after Abraham. This doesn't mean that adultery wasn't sinful, just because it wasn't revealed. God punishes Pharoah for this action, causing Pharoah to suspect that Sarai is Abram's wife. Consider the words God uses with Abimelech: "Lo, thou shalt die for the woman thou hast taken: for she hath a husband." God is willing to punish Abimelech with death for his adultery, which, coincidentally, is the same punishment for adultery in Leviticus. There is more, however. Abimelech professes not to have know that Sarah was married, and so acted innocently. God responds: "And I know that thou didst it with a sincere heart: and therefore I withheld thee from sinning against me, and I suffered thee not to touch her."
God is acting to prevent an innocent man from sinning so greviously against Him, such is His His forceful adherence to the concept that the marriage bond is sacred. He would not let Abraham and Sarah's marriage bond be desecrated. What is even more interesting in this is that God wouldn't let Sarah or Abraham commit this act of adultery, although they were perfectly willing to do so. To me, this indicates 1) the importance of the marriage bond to God, and 2) God's tremendous mercy.
St. Paul talks about Christ and the Church in terms of a Bridegroom and Bride, clearly indicating that participating in Holy Matrimony is partaking, in a veiled way, the Life of Christ. God retrofits that sanctity, that meaning in Genesis by preventing Sarah from violating her marriage bond with Abraham. He protects the Sacrament even before His Son assumes Human Nature and becomes True God and True Man, even before the Sacrament is instituted on Earth. This is huge.
God's infinite mercy is also at play here. He acts to prevent His prophet and his wife from gravely sinning. Not only that, but He prevents two Heathens from greatly offending Him, as well. This is also huge.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Libya, Iraq, and Just War
By now, the partisans in the country will be lining up either the comparisons between Iraq in 2003 and Libya today. I will attempt to look at the situation from a Just War perspective. I have prepared a chart to help with the discussion:
A couple of points about the Just War criteria.
1) Lasting, grave, certain damage: The Twin Towers are gone, and over 3000 Americans are dead...that is lasting, grave damage. We are morally certain al Qaeda committed this act (moral certitude is perhaps the best we can get in today's day and age, especially with no one--or everyone--claiming responsibility for certain things). Just like a moral certainty is sufficient for who committed the acts, likewise a moral certainty that a grave act of aggression will occur is sufficient. In this case, one could argue that the Iraq War met this criteria. I don't think there is any case in which active engagement, that is actively and directly causing injury or death to people who did us no harm, can meet this criteria. Advantage Iraq.
2) Last resort: People use the phrase "in the run up to the Iraq War", as if that period was only a few weeks long. It goes back much, much longer than that; it goes back to the cease-fire agreement between Iraq and NATO in 1992. Since that ceasefire agreement and the re-outbreak of hostilities in 2003, about 200 American servicemen lost their lives enforcing the no-fly zone over parts of Iraq, as Saddam violated the cease-fire agreement. Iraq faced numerous sanctions, and ongoing weapons inspections, which it was famously secretive about. In addition, Saddam was able to twist a humanitarian oil-for-food program into a corrupt cash-grab between French and Russian officials and Saddam. In the end, intelligence gathered by the US (both Democratic and Republican administrations) and Great Britain showed the Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction (it should be noted that while an advanced nuclear program was never found, UN-banned WMD programs like the SCUD missile were found, as well as evidence of chemical weapons depots). In addition, Saddam never curbed his pro-terrorist rhetoric. Contrast that with Libya and Gaddafi. After 1988's Lockerbie bombing, Gaddafi all but fell of the US foreign policy map. The only news we heard about him was him abandoning his nuclear program after Iraq was invaded. Again, one could conceivably argue that all other methods were attempted to no avail with Iraq. Nothing else but humming and hawing was done in regards to Gaddafi's treatment of his own people, not Americans or Europeans did a single thing to help them. Advantage Iraq.
3) Serious prospects of success: Getting rid of Saddam was foregone conclusion. After the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, the Iraqi air-force was all but eliminated. In addition, the only loyal troops were Saddam's Republican Guard, the rest were drafted citizens. Iraqi equipment wasn't much newer than what they used during the Gulf War, whereas the US and its allies were using state-of-the-art military equipment. In that regard, success against Saddam's Iraq was never really in doubt. In this case, the Iraq War meets this criteria, hands down. However, if one expands this criteria to mean the post-war Iraq, there was a reason why the Secretary of State James Baker urged George H.W. Bush NOT to push on to Baghdad: a post-Saddam Iraq would be unstable and unpredictable. The current conflict with Libya is nothing like the Iraq War at all. We are not invading a country, we are bombing strategic installations to stop Gaddafi's forces from pounding the rebels (at least that is what a no-fly-zone is supposed to be). We are assuming that with the Libyan air-force out of the picture, the rebels will defeat Gaddafi. Everyone knew Saddam would topple because he was facing the might of the US and its allies. The same cannot be said of the Libyan situation. Advantage Iraq.
4) Use of arms must not produce greater evils than that which are to be eliminated: James Baker knew a few things about the Iraq and the Middle East that apparently George W Bush and Dick Cheney forgot: Saddam stabilized Iraq and politics in the Middle East. While Saddam was not a benevolent dictator, it was clear that his malevolence was for his opponents, Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, or Christian. He had all but eliminated partisan conflict (except the Kurds) and at the least the Christian community in Iraq was without hostility. Since the overthrow of Saddam's regime, partisan conflict has resumed. The body count of the post-Saddam Iraq turmoil is hard to get, and thus it will be nearly impossible to compare the carnage of Saddam's despotism with the aftermath of his overthrow. Still, it is hard to say that the carnage of a post-Saddam Iraq would equal an Iraqi sponsored and facilitated terror attack against the US. However, none of this could be known for certain by the Bush Administration or the generals planning the entire operation. Who could have foreseen the regular infantry deserting their posts en masse and then resurfacing as militant "terrorists" trying to make a buck (these same infantrymen were targeted by the US command to be trained as a police force and national guard type force to keep the peace)? Who could have anticipated the ineptitude of the American ambassadors and leaders of the rebuilding effort? I don't think we can blame Bush for these failing when he made the decision to go to war (note, however, that when things were going really bad in the aftermath, he switched personnel and switch strategies, so at least he tried). On the contrary, President Obama has history as his guide. He's seen what happened when two despots in Arab/Muslim countries are deposed (Saddam in Iraq and Mubarak in Egypt): partisan strife, increase in militant, anti-American sentiments, support for al Qaeda, etc. His decision to participate in the round-about removal of another despot of an Arab/Muslim nation means that his guilt is greater than Bush's. Advantage Iraq...kind of.
Be aware, that I am not making a moral judgement on Iraq one way of the other. The arguments for Iraq not being a Just War are compelling, as are the arguments for Iraq being a Just War are compelling. All I am saying is that while one could legitimately and rationally make the case for Iraq to be a Just War, I don't think that is possible with Libya.
UPDATE:
It appears that the USCCB has decided that while Iraq was not a good thing and did not support it, this Libyan "kinetic military action", to them, "seems to meet the criteria of a just war". They simply have "reservations" concerning it, while they criticized outright the war in Iraq. I mean, Iraq had been actively and overtly harming Americans since the end of hostilities in 1991, and even supported Al Qaeda with money (and who knows what else). In addition, we clearly stated at the beginning, that our mission's intent was the overthrow of Saddam ("Operation Iraqi Freedom"). We don't even know what the point of this excursion is ("Operation Odyssey Dawn"), and it seems to change every day ( and now it appears we want to arm the rebels, which have numbers of Al Qaeda operatives in them. Smart.), and yet they only have reservations?
The Bishops derided Bush's decision to invade Iraq as "unilateral" (even then-Cardinal Ratzinger had the same concern), despite the wide spread support of his decision among the international community (49 nations actively supporting the war effort). France and Russia both critics of the move, it was found out later, had backroom deals with Saddam in the oil-for-food program scandal. Obama gets a pass because the UN votes for involvement (with Germany and Russia, among others, abstaining), however he actually has less international support than Bush did. Still, Bush acted unilaterally, while Obama is acting justly.
Just War Criteria | Iraq | Libya |
1) Lasting, grave, certain damage inflicted by the aggressor | Saddam had supported terrorists before, paid the families of Palestinian terrorists, and asked Osama bin Laden to settle al Qaeda in Iraq. In addition, he was openly anti-American, and had openly sought weapons of mass destruction. Also, he violated UN cease-fire agreements, and violated UN weapons agreements. If anyone was morally certain to be a potential deadly threat to the United States either directly (using WMD himself) or indirectly (selling WMD to terrorists), it was Saddam. | Ghaddafi is supposed to have personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. Since then, Ghaddafi, or Libya, has done nothing to the United States or any of its Allies. The only thing Ghaddafi has done is use relentless force to curb rebels in his own country. |
2) Last resort: all other options have played themselves out | Saddam had flouted UN and cease-fire agreements for nearly 20 years. He turned the oil-for-food program into a way to line his own pockets, and sanctions did little to curb his policies. No-fly zones and cease-fire agreements resulted in nearly 200 American soldiers dead, since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. | Libya paid a monetary compensation for Lockerbie in 2002. If the problem is Ghaddafi’s treatment of his own people, then the aggression is not against the US or any other nation. Supporting the rebels or even sending peace-keeping forces in early in the situation were never tried or considered. |
3) Serious prospects of success | Defeating Saddam was not the issue, it was when. The Iraqi military had no airforce of which to speak, and only its Republican Guard had any real loyalty to Saddam. The real question was how to establish peace and stability once Saddam was toppled. | The current situation in Libya is almost a full scale civil-war. Who is the enemy, though? Certainly Ghaddafi’s forces, but how are we to know the rebels are friendly to the United States? Will the rebels even defeat Ghaddafi with our help? |
4) Use of arms must not produce greater evils than that which are to be eliminated | Although the numbers differ depending on who is doing the counting, the aftermath of the invasion isn’t pretty. Say what you want about Saddam and his sons, at the very least, the country was stable. Now, inter-tribal and inter party conflict is on the rise. Christians are persecuted now more than ever. It is nearly impossible to judge how many people could potentially have died from a WMD Iraq sold to al Qaeda or used itself, but we do know that Saddam and his sons had no problem gassing their own countrymen, or torturing people for the fun of it. Perhaps, just perhaps, Saddam’s death total equals that of the post-war aftermath. I don’t know if we’ll ever know for certain, though. | Libya’s different tribes are held together by Ghaddafi. The rebels, much like the Afghan rebels against the Taliban, are allied only against Ghaddafi. Once he falls, what will happen? Hard to say. We could be looking at another Iraq. If Iraq and Egypt are bell-weathers, expect a sharia-based constitution with Islamist and jihadist leanings. Then expect open season on Christians, much like Egypt and Iraq. |
A couple of points about the Just War criteria.
1) Lasting, grave, certain damage: The Twin Towers are gone, and over 3000 Americans are dead...that is lasting, grave damage. We are morally certain al Qaeda committed this act (moral certitude is perhaps the best we can get in today's day and age, especially with no one--or everyone--claiming responsibility for certain things). Just like a moral certainty is sufficient for who committed the acts, likewise a moral certainty that a grave act of aggression will occur is sufficient. In this case, one could argue that the Iraq War met this criteria. I don't think there is any case in which active engagement, that is actively and directly causing injury or death to people who did us no harm, can meet this criteria. Advantage Iraq.
2) Last resort: People use the phrase "in the run up to the Iraq War", as if that period was only a few weeks long. It goes back much, much longer than that; it goes back to the cease-fire agreement between Iraq and NATO in 1992. Since that ceasefire agreement and the re-outbreak of hostilities in 2003, about 200 American servicemen lost their lives enforcing the no-fly zone over parts of Iraq, as Saddam violated the cease-fire agreement. Iraq faced numerous sanctions, and ongoing weapons inspections, which it was famously secretive about. In addition, Saddam was able to twist a humanitarian oil-for-food program into a corrupt cash-grab between French and Russian officials and Saddam. In the end, intelligence gathered by the US (both Democratic and Republican administrations) and Great Britain showed the Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction (it should be noted that while an advanced nuclear program was never found, UN-banned WMD programs like the SCUD missile were found, as well as evidence of chemical weapons depots). In addition, Saddam never curbed his pro-terrorist rhetoric. Contrast that with Libya and Gaddafi. After 1988's Lockerbie bombing, Gaddafi all but fell of the US foreign policy map. The only news we heard about him was him abandoning his nuclear program after Iraq was invaded. Again, one could conceivably argue that all other methods were attempted to no avail with Iraq. Nothing else but humming and hawing was done in regards to Gaddafi's treatment of his own people, not Americans or Europeans did a single thing to help them. Advantage Iraq.
3) Serious prospects of success: Getting rid of Saddam was foregone conclusion. After the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, the Iraqi air-force was all but eliminated. In addition, the only loyal troops were Saddam's Republican Guard, the rest were drafted citizens. Iraqi equipment wasn't much newer than what they used during the Gulf War, whereas the US and its allies were using state-of-the-art military equipment. In that regard, success against Saddam's Iraq was never really in doubt. In this case, the Iraq War meets this criteria, hands down. However, if one expands this criteria to mean the post-war Iraq, there was a reason why the Secretary of State James Baker urged George H.W. Bush NOT to push on to Baghdad: a post-Saddam Iraq would be unstable and unpredictable. The current conflict with Libya is nothing like the Iraq War at all. We are not invading a country, we are bombing strategic installations to stop Gaddafi's forces from pounding the rebels (at least that is what a no-fly-zone is supposed to be). We are assuming that with the Libyan air-force out of the picture, the rebels will defeat Gaddafi. Everyone knew Saddam would topple because he was facing the might of the US and its allies. The same cannot be said of the Libyan situation. Advantage Iraq.
4) Use of arms must not produce greater evils than that which are to be eliminated: James Baker knew a few things about the Iraq and the Middle East that apparently George W Bush and Dick Cheney forgot: Saddam stabilized Iraq and politics in the Middle East. While Saddam was not a benevolent dictator, it was clear that his malevolence was for his opponents, Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, or Christian. He had all but eliminated partisan conflict (except the Kurds) and at the least the Christian community in Iraq was without hostility. Since the overthrow of Saddam's regime, partisan conflict has resumed. The body count of the post-Saddam Iraq turmoil is hard to get, and thus it will be nearly impossible to compare the carnage of Saddam's despotism with the aftermath of his overthrow. Still, it is hard to say that the carnage of a post-Saddam Iraq would equal an Iraqi sponsored and facilitated terror attack against the US. However, none of this could be known for certain by the Bush Administration or the generals planning the entire operation. Who could have foreseen the regular infantry deserting their posts en masse and then resurfacing as militant "terrorists" trying to make a buck (these same infantrymen were targeted by the US command to be trained as a police force and national guard type force to keep the peace)? Who could have anticipated the ineptitude of the American ambassadors and leaders of the rebuilding effort? I don't think we can blame Bush for these failing when he made the decision to go to war (note, however, that when things were going really bad in the aftermath, he switched personnel and switch strategies, so at least he tried). On the contrary, President Obama has history as his guide. He's seen what happened when two despots in Arab/Muslim countries are deposed (Saddam in Iraq and Mubarak in Egypt): partisan strife, increase in militant, anti-American sentiments, support for al Qaeda, etc. His decision to participate in the round-about removal of another despot of an Arab/Muslim nation means that his guilt is greater than Bush's. Advantage Iraq...kind of.
Be aware, that I am not making a moral judgement on Iraq one way of the other. The arguments for Iraq not being a Just War are compelling, as are the arguments for Iraq being a Just War are compelling. All I am saying is that while one could legitimately and rationally make the case for Iraq to be a Just War, I don't think that is possible with Libya.
UPDATE:
It appears that the USCCB has decided that while Iraq was not a good thing and did not support it, this Libyan "kinetic military action", to them, "seems to meet the criteria of a just war". They simply have "reservations" concerning it, while they criticized outright the war in Iraq. I mean, Iraq had been actively and overtly harming Americans since the end of hostilities in 1991, and even supported Al Qaeda with money (and who knows what else). In addition, we clearly stated at the beginning, that our mission's intent was the overthrow of Saddam ("Operation Iraqi Freedom"). We don't even know what the point of this excursion is ("Operation Odyssey Dawn"), and it seems to change every day ( and now it appears we want to arm the rebels, which have numbers of Al Qaeda operatives in them. Smart.), and yet they only have reservations?
The Bishops derided Bush's decision to invade Iraq as "unilateral" (even then-Cardinal Ratzinger had the same concern), despite the wide spread support of his decision among the international community (49 nations actively supporting the war effort). France and Russia both critics of the move, it was found out later, had backroom deals with Saddam in the oil-for-food program scandal. Obama gets a pass because the UN votes for involvement (with Germany and Russia, among others, abstaining), however he actually has less international support than Bush did. Still, Bush acted unilaterally, while Obama is acting justly.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
I was directed to this piece earlier, and I had to comment on one phrase that struck me: "Granted, neither the War on Poverty nor Title X fell under McNamara’s purview. Yet both domestic undertakings were inconceivable apart from the mentality that the Whiz Kid from Ford personified, an attitude which presumes that there are no social, political, or economic problems that the discipline of public policy, when rationally pursued and applied by the best and brightest, cannot fix."
When I was teaching sociology, the topic of socialism came up. I knew that at least one student would be supportive of socialism, and I was right...one was. I was, however, unprepared for his illogical arguments. I mentioned that the motives of certain socialist programs were noble, but history shows that governments cannot be trusted to care for its citizenry; such endeavors always lead to great suffering by the citizenry. The student, we'll call him Ethan, responded, "But it doesn't have to be that way."
I responded, "How so?"
"If you have the best and the brightest plan it out, it will work fine."
"And what happens when those 'best and brightest' die, or are replaced? What happens when the 'best and brightest' create themselves out of a nice cushy government job and don't want to leave it? What happens when the politicians in power realize they have created an entire class of citizens entirely dependent upon them? Will it work fine then?"
"Probably not, but those things don't have to happen."
"But in every single case in which the government has taken it upon itself to care for the people, it has happened. In the issue of chances it will happen, the percentages tell us that 100% of the time, it will happen."
"But it doesn't have to."
Such an attitude is clearly illogical and not rational. It may sound great to have the "best and brightest" in government to solve problems, but not everything can be solved by fiat, by force, by law, with money, or with influence. Often what is needed is love. Government is incapable of showing love. Government can only deal with statistics, not individuals. A government program is evaluated by the percentages that a problem has gone down by their handouts; a charitable program is evaluated by how many people were truly helped. Government creates/mandates homeless shelters, but charities find them clothes, provide health care, and make them feel human again. Poverty cannot be defeated with redistributionism, or socialism, or communism. As God Himself says, "There will always be the poor." Perhaps we should treat the poor as our neighbors and friends, rather than statistics.
When I was teaching sociology, the topic of socialism came up. I knew that at least one student would be supportive of socialism, and I was right...one was. I was, however, unprepared for his illogical arguments. I mentioned that the motives of certain socialist programs were noble, but history shows that governments cannot be trusted to care for its citizenry; such endeavors always lead to great suffering by the citizenry. The student, we'll call him Ethan, responded, "But it doesn't have to be that way."
I responded, "How so?"
"If you have the best and the brightest plan it out, it will work fine."
"And what happens when those 'best and brightest' die, or are replaced? What happens when the 'best and brightest' create themselves out of a nice cushy government job and don't want to leave it? What happens when the politicians in power realize they have created an entire class of citizens entirely dependent upon them? Will it work fine then?"
"Probably not, but those things don't have to happen."
"But in every single case in which the government has taken it upon itself to care for the people, it has happened. In the issue of chances it will happen, the percentages tell us that 100% of the time, it will happen."
"But it doesn't have to."
Such an attitude is clearly illogical and not rational. It may sound great to have the "best and brightest" in government to solve problems, but not everything can be solved by fiat, by force, by law, with money, or with influence. Often what is needed is love. Government is incapable of showing love. Government can only deal with statistics, not individuals. A government program is evaluated by the percentages that a problem has gone down by their handouts; a charitable program is evaluated by how many people were truly helped. Government creates/mandates homeless shelters, but charities find them clothes, provide health care, and make them feel human again. Poverty cannot be defeated with redistributionism, or socialism, or communism. As God Himself says, "There will always be the poor." Perhaps we should treat the poor as our neighbors and friends, rather than statistics.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Quick Reflections on "Two Gentlemen of Verona"
I have completed reading Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, and here are some quick reflections on it:
1) What do you mean Julia accepted Proteus back? What on earth was she thinking? She heard with her own hears him lie about her death, forswear his love for her, and even try to give away her ring. Then, she witnesses him threaten to rape Silvia! And in the end, she accepts the cur back. What gives?
2) Silvia is an awesome character...as is Valentine. Proteus, the Duke, and Julia, not so much.
3) Speed and Launce are indeed funny. I laughed aloud while reading their nonsensical back-and-forths.
4) Despite critics discussions concerning the play's immaturity, I think it displays a remarkable depth of thought in exploring the concepts of eros and philia.
1) What do you mean Julia accepted Proteus back? What on earth was she thinking? She heard with her own hears him lie about her death, forswear his love for her, and even try to give away her ring. Then, she witnesses him threaten to rape Silvia! And in the end, she accepts the cur back. What gives?
2) Silvia is an awesome character...as is Valentine. Proteus, the Duke, and Julia, not so much.
3) Speed and Launce are indeed funny. I laughed aloud while reading their nonsensical back-and-forths.
4) Despite critics discussions concerning the play's immaturity, I think it displays a remarkable depth of thought in exploring the concepts of eros and philia.
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