Canadian bishops and Iraq. (News in Brief: Canada).

Ottawa--Rather than issuing their own declaration, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), decided to join other Canadian church leaders and their respective ecumenical task forces. Consequently, the statement Prepare for peace in Iraq is the product of Kairos. Kairos, in turn, stands for the Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, the Justice and Peace Commission of the Canadian Council of Churches, and Project Ploughshares. The document is meant to be circulated among Protestant congregations, Catholic parishes, and community groups. Responses from these groups will then be forwarded to the Prime Minister.

War is no answer

The authors of the positively-titled statement believe that war is not the answer in Iraq. The country, they say, has suffered enough under the repressive rule of Saddam Hussein and has been further burdened by twelve years of sanctions. They note that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction is not the only problem in the region because other Middle Eastern countries have also acquired them, resulting in an arms race. Alongside continued U.N. inspections in Iraq, this general trend towards an armaments race in the region must be discouraged. What is needed is diplomacy, not war. "Reinvigorated diplomatic efforts" to deal with problems in the area, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, should be undertaken, and sanctions should be ended. Iraqis must be "authors of their own change."

Prepare for Peace in Iraq recognizes Hussein as an ogre, but holds that outsiders cannot bring relief. War would only add to the suffering, the authors say "The only reasonable certainty" the Iraqis face, they say, "is that the costs of war would be even worse than the current situation and would delay, not hasten, the advent of sustainable change."

Thus the document a) rejects war; b) encourages the continuation of the present containment policy; c) calls for diplomacy to disarm all Middle East countries; d) wants a stop to the sanctions against Iraq; e) asks that Iraqi citizens be provided with support for human rights; f) work on settling security and cooperation of all partners in the region, including in the Israeli-Palestine conflict; g) asks nations to explore how to resolve and halt crimes against humanity.

Reaction: morally bankrupt!

Clifford Orwin, professor of political science at the University of Toronto, ridiculed the bishops in a National Post article of January 27, under the title "The bishops' position is morally bankrupt." While George Bush has a plan to forcibly depose Saddam, he wrote, "the bishops have none except for opposing his."

Their proposals are like "peddling bromides." As for "moral and political support (for Iraqis), the bishops' offer is not worth squat." Their idea of putting the Iraqi people first, Orwin charged, is to leave them groaning under Saddam while reminding them that we feel for them deeply.

He recalled how past wars against Germany, Italy, and Japan, in Greece in 1974, Argentina in 1982, and Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan more recently, inflicted defeats on military dictators, sparking a transition to democracy.

The bishops "float seven high-sounding precepts, not one of which holds any promise of improving the situation in the Middle East." Orwin concludes: "Because the bishops have no strategy for actually doing anything, their position is morally bankrupt."

He quoted the Hebrew prophet of long ago, accurately anticipating, he said, "our bishops," crying "peace, peace, but there is no peace."

Comment:

Space is too short to comment fully but, briefly, one might work one's way back over Professor Orwin 's arguments beginning with the last.

The Hebrew prophet's cry may just as well be applied to his own examples of victory. Is there peace in the Muslim world now that the Taliban have been defeated? Are the ethnic groups in Bosnia now reconciled seven years after their war ended? Is Argentina now a flourishing democracy? Has he forgotten that after the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany, the victory was accompanied by consolidation of the ruthless totalitarian dictatorship of one Joseph Stalin and his successors, who together exported the Bolshevik terror to China, VietNam, Laos, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Cuba, not to mention East European countries and last, but not least, North Korea which is now threatening the free world?

Who is right? War in itself never brings peace, and violence is not a tool for justice and reconciliation. Still, Saddam Husein's past and present views and deeds are such that his removal appears necessary. But once removed, let us not assume that this regime change will bring democracy. For that to happen, Islam must rethink its principles.

Tragically, our own liberal-democracies are in no position to help Islam do so. In rejecting principles of the natural moral law as taught in the Judeo-Christian tradition, they themselves are heading towards their own collapse.