CHRISTIANS DO HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THE MORALITY OF THE IRAQ WAR

FRANK BRENNAN SJ AO*

In the confusion and the heat of the political moment, Christians do have something to say about the morality of war in the new world order, writes Frank Brennan

Just 14 years since the end of the Cold War and 18 months since the destruction of the World Trade Centre, we are only beginning to find ways for building and keeping the peace in a new world order. We are citizens in a democratic nation that seeks to play its part beyond its own territorial borders. After 8 years of the Clinton presidency, this is the first time that the Republican Hawks have been in the ascendancy in Washington since the first Gulf War. These are very early days in the shaping of the new world order and institutions. There has been no equivalent moment since the death of Roosevelt. Back then, Australia had an unequivocal commitment to multilateralism and diplomacy. Dr Evatt was elected to preside over the UN General Assembly. Richard Woolcott, our last representative on the UN Security Council, has recently predicted that it will be a very long time before Australia takes a seat again at that table.

Sadly, Australia has been party to a rash new theory based on militarism and unilateralism. War is no longer the last resort. The UN is no longer the arbiter of justified force in the absence of direct aggression on a member state. Compelling evidence of threat and overwhelming prospect of better outcomes are no longer necessary preconditions for war when the national interest of the world's only superpower is equated with the common good of all. We need to discern new paths to peace honouring the ancient humane principle that the child on the Baghdad school bus and the woman in the Nauru detention centre be accorded the same dignity and place in the balance of events as the child on the Townsville School Bus and the woman in the Aitkenvale shopping centre. There can be no peace while the innocent, powerless Other is sacrificed for the sake of those privileged to be nationals or loved ones of the powerful.

Though there was spirited debate and cabinet resignations in the UK because of Mr Blair's ready membership of the Coalition of the Willing, Canberra compliance with prime ministerial directives was complete. It was very troubling to hear the mixed messages from Prime Minister John Howard and Mr Tony Abbott about the increased risks of terrorism to Australian citizens. Abbott, the Leader of the Government in the House, told Parliament, "There is the increased risk of terrorist attack here in Australia". Next day, the Prime Minister told us, "We haven’t received any intelligence in recent times suggesting that there should be an increase in the level of security or threat alert." Regardless of who was right, their contradictory statements provided incontrovertible evidence that there had been minimal debate, discussion and discernment within our Cabinet and political party processes prior to making a commitment to war in such novel political circumstances. The thinking was done in Washington. We signed on, presuming that our national interest and the international common good would be served by Alliance compliance.

Though most Australians will want to support our troops when they are committed to battle, many of us feel manipulated when we are told for months that their engagement is hypothetical and the reason for their engagement is the destruction of weapons of mass destruction which could be unleashed within 45 minutes but which most probably do not exist. At a time of such flux when issues of such moment are being decided, we Christians need to remember that the resolution of these issues does not come down simply to supporting a Howard or a Crean.

We have been too lay back in committing ourselves to war without a clear rationale when all service chiefs who held the key command positions during the first Gulf War had questioned the wisdom of Australia's course. The Army's General Peter Gration had reconfirmed, "My fundamental judgment that it's wrong remains." Before the war began, he had said, "I have strong objections to the coming war as both unnecessary and likely to produce unpredictable and potentially disastrous consequences. The real threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is much exaggerated and that threat can continue to be contained and deterred." The Air Force's Ray Funnell (who continues to serve on the government's Immigration Detention Advisory Group) said, "It's strategic stupidity on a monumental scale." He said the rationale for war was "weak" and the timing "inappropriate". The Navy's Admiral Mike Hudson said, "It's almost immoral." The day after President Bush proclaimed war, Hudson said, "I am deeply concerned that the aggressive manner of the United States, coercing others to join them in the coalition of the willing could irreparably damage the unity of the UN."

Before the war, RSL President, Major General Peter Phillips said, "We, like most Australians, are not yet entirely convinced that we have enough to justify a ground invasion. We're trying to look to the future and just the terrible aftermath that could come from a ground invasion. We'd be looking for some reassurance that this had been thought through and was manageable." After the war, Phillips repeated, "The reason we opposed the involvement of Australian troops was entirely about what would happen after this war." The time for hard thinking and hard work about a just peace for the world has barely begun.

As we know, the Pope was always very opposed to this War. Archbishop Carroll, President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has remained constant before and after the conflict. After the victory of the Coalition of the Willing, the told Vatican Radio:

I would believe myself that even though the campaign would be judged now as successful, and please God it will prove to bring about all sorts of positive things, the morality of the original decision must still be questioned. I believe that it was not clearly shown that war was used as a last resort, in other words there were still possibilities of other solutions, other than armed conflict and invasion. And I believe that the very fact of the success of the war might encourage the thinking that war doesn't have to be the last resort.

Archbishop Pell, the only Australian bishop who constantly gets national mainstream press said six weeks before the war, on 4 February 2003: "The public evidence is as yet insufficient to justify going to war, especially without the backing of the UN Security Council." He did not speak publicly again on the issue. This did not stop Prime Minister Howard at the National Press Club on 13 March 2003 invoking Archbishop Pell as being in support of the war when he was asked to comment on "the argument from the churches as was put by the Archbishop of Canterbury to Prime Minister Blair that the proposed attack on Iraq does not meet the criteria for a just war. The Prime Minister replied:

With great respect to the Right Reverend gentleman I don’t think he speaks for the entirety of the Christian Church any more than, so that I’m seen as completely ecumenical, any more than the Catholic Archbishop of Canberra would speak for the entirety of the Christian Church. So there is a variety of views being expressed. I think in sheer number of published views, there would have been more critical than supportive. I thought the articles that came from Archbishop Pell and Archbishop Jensen were both very thoughtful and balanced. I also read a very thoughtful piece from Bishop Tom Frame, who is the Anglican Bishop of the Australian Defence Forces. I agree with you that one of the seven principles that were distilled in both Tom Frame and George Pell’s piece spoke of the discrimination between combatants and non-combatants.
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I think in relation to the attitude of the Churches, which I respect and listen to, there is a variety of views. It reflects the different views in the community. As I say, I think the greater volume of published views would have been critical, but I think there have been some very thoughtful other views and the ones I have mentioned, I certainly include in them.

This reply of the Prime Minister should have been very concerning for those of us who take our Christian obligations about war and peace seriously. Bishop Tom Frame has since published an article making it clear that his assessment of the morality of the war was contingent on weapons of mass destruction being on hand to Saddam Hussein. Despite the Prime Minister's fudging of the issue, Archbishop Pell has never given any public indication that the war was justified. The Prime Minister's word games and the Archbishop's silence have left many Catholics confused. Presumably the Prime Minister drew solace from the Archbishop's observation, "Decisions about war belong to Caesar, not the church." Maybe in this instance Archbishop Pell sees more scope for an unformed or uninformed conscience than Christians like myself are comfortable with. I daresay many Catholics, like the majority of Australians, now think the war was justified because the ends justifies the means, and we won and the murderous tyrant Saddam Hussein has lost power, if not his life.

If we are to show our true colours, we Christians have to get much better at our own moral reasoning and at discussing these moral complexities in public. Let's recall those word's of the Pope after the Oceania Synod: "In presenting Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life, the Church must respond in new and effective ways to these moral and social questions without ever allowing her voice to be silenced or her witness to be marginalized."

Richard Woolcott who was Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade during the first Gulf War predicted before this most recent engagement that "The US policy of removing or destroying Saddam Hussein and replacing his government with a pro-American democratic administration …is not a policy that is likely to attract support throughout South East Asia". He was right. He doubted "whether it would be in Australia's long-term interests, one of which is our standing in our part of the world, to commit Australian ground forces far from our soil". Recently he told the Australian Institute of International Affairs that Australia needs to strike a more appropriate balance between the US alliance and engagement in the region. He has seen Australia go from being the odd man out in the region to the odd man in during the early 1990s to once again being the odd man out. But the situation is now more grave. Unlike the US and the UK, we have immediate neighbours, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei who have Muslim majorities. We have portrayed ourselves as the deputy sheriff to the great western Christian superpower that invokes God in Christian dress whenever the stars and stripes are unfurled on the battlefield. Our deputy sheriff status in the region is no longer a matter of semantics.

I have recently returned from the Thai-Burma border. I would like to be in a position to offer inquirers in Asia a truthful explanation as to why we went to war. Was it because of weapons of mass destruction? Afterall that is what we were told before the war. Now Washington tells us it was only the "bureaucratic reason", not one of the substantive reasons, let alone the primary justification. Was it to liberate the people of Iraq? That is what the troops were told on their return. Was it to set down a new game plan for the Middle East? That is what we are now hearing from Washington. No doubt, there was a mixture of reasons, and we are always told not to mention the oil. But for Australia to commit troops so far outside its region, without UN endorsement, and in response to a novel US theory of pre-emptive strike makes us appear a confused, uncritical deputy sheriff in the region.

We need to have a greater capacity for civil discourse, regardless of domestic party politics, about what is in the national interest and about what is the correct international political morality for armed intervention. One could be forgiven for thinking that the real debate and discernment now goes on inside the US administration. It is simply assumed that Australia's national interest and the new international political morality are fulfilled jointly and effortlessly by simply signing up to any Coalition of the Willing when the phone call comes. Until the call comes, the Australian public is to be assured that the matter is hypothetical and there is no need for engaged discussion at the Australian end. The need for detailed consideration is so modest that Cabinet members of good will cannot even agree whether participation in the war will increase the risks to our own security.

Those of us who opposed our nation's involvement in the war feel a deep sense of shame that it came to this with such little public agitation. Those who were uncertain about our involvement in the war are besieged by a profound ambiguity. Even some of those who supported the war effort have a regretful righteousness - a sense of powerlessness that we could do no other in the face of evil than to participate in evil, hoping that greater evil could be avoided.

The supporters were presumably convinced that there were weapons of mass destruction on hand to Saddam Hussein. Jessie Street who was part of the Australian delegation for the establishment of the UN back in 1945 reminds us that the control of weapons of mass destruction has been a concern of the UN from its inception. In Truth or Repose, she wrote, "The United Nations at its first General Assembly in 1946 and at later Assemblies, adopted unanimously resolutions for the banning of atomic bombs and all weapons of mass destruction. The United States, the United Kingdom and France supported this and subsequent resolutions, but on one pretext or another refuse to implement it, and those in control of the United States openly boast of the bigger and better bombs which they are proliferating."

Absent such weapons in contemporary Iraq, it is now said that we wanted to liberate the Iraqis from an oppressive dictator. That claim would ring more true if we had not been committed to keeping those who fled the dictator in detention in remote mainland locations or out in the middle of the Pacific these last three years.

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