Vox Nova

15 Responses to “A Telling Example”

1. kurt Says:
   December 14, 2009 at 12:44 pm

   Kyle, I think you are tremendously misreading the President.

   First you confuse “perpetual war” for “perpetual defense.” Nothing the President said indicates that he believes in or expects to be perpetually at war. Yes, he (and I) expect because of the reality of evil in the world, we either perpetually or at least for the foreseeable future will find cause to be prepared should we determine we need to go to war.

   We’ve seen so many military operations since then that I cannot reasonably imagine most of them meet the terribly difficult conditions for just war. President Obama considers our past sixty years of sacrificed blood and shown strength of arms as having justly “helped underwrite global security.”

   Even in a just war there are unjust outcomes. But also even in unjust wars, certain just aspects can be advanced. The President did not endorse the justice of every post war military action of the United States. But he did rightly note that there are aspects of global security that have been enhanced by our postwar actions taken as a whole. The prevention of world Communist domination would be one of them, I think.

   Pope Paul VI was not wrong to say money spent on weapons of war is often a robbery from the poor. We must be warry about excessive defense and military spending. We should seek to mutally reduce weaponry with our adversaries. But a reasonable level of defense spending can be useful as a deterent to war as well as the means of defense in a just war.

   What is “reasonable” will be a passionate social debate and one in which I will be on the less hawkish side. But still, it is a legitimate debate.

2. Kyle R. Cupp Says:
   December 14, 2009 at 1:57 pm

   Kurt,

   Thanks for commenting. I grant the distinction between war and defense, though in practice, both involve active use of violence. Our instruments of war do not sit idle even when we’re not officially at war. Furthermore, Obama defends the instruments of war on defensive and humanitarian grounds and as a necessary response to evil in the world. His defense opens the door for pretty much endless use of those instruments. Lastly, Obama promises that America’s commitment to global security will never waver, and so, according to him, our sacrifice of blood and shown strength of arms will never waver. Our use of the instruments of war will never waver. Perhaps I’m misreading the president, as you say, but his thinking here sure strikes me as laying the groundwork for perpetual war.

3. David Nickol Says:
   December 14, 2009 at 2:36 pm

   . . . . his thinking here sure strikes me as laying the groundwork for perpetual war.

   Kyle,

   What are you proposing? That the United States should renounce the use of military force altogether? It would be fine to be a pacifist country in a world that had only pacifist countries (and no terrorists). That is not the world we live in.

4. kurt Says:
   December 14, 2009 at 3:39 pm

   I grant the distinction between war and defense, though in practice, both involve active use of violence. Our instruments of war do not sit idle even when we’re not officially at war.

   They mostly do sit idle. Even now with the situation in Iraq and Afghanstan most of our instruments of war are idle.
   Obama defends the instruments of war on defensive and humanitarian grounds and as a necessary response to evil in the world.

   I too, because of the existance of evil in the world, support our possession of instruments of war rather than unilateral disarment. I hope our use of them is as infrequent as possible. In fact, I would hope they would never be used, though I think that is unlikely.

5. Kyle R. Cupp Says:
   December 14, 2009 at 5:53 pm

   David,

   I don’t think it’s currently possible, practically speaking, to meet all the conditions of a just war, but then, I don’t imagine we’ll stop fighting wars anytime soon. I’d be somewhat content if the U.S. adopted a policy in which war was rarely if ever used, rather than routinely justified and fought. War should be outlawed by international consent, in my view, but that’s never going to happen if we keep making excuses for it.

   Kurt,

   Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see that President Obama shares your hope that the instruments of war should be infrequently or never used. He says such instruments are regularly necessary for peace.

6. Kurt Says:
   December 14, 2009 at 9:09 pm

   Kyle,

   I think even President Bush hoped war would be infrequent or never. You quoted President Obama calling us to strive for peace, so I think he does too.

   I don’t see much in the President’s address that indicated regular usage, though regular is a subjective term. Maybe you could elaborate as to where you see this.

   We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.

7. ron chandonia Says:
   December 14, 2009 at 10:24 pm

   Thanks for this post. Before the election, it seemed to me perilous to elect a politician who spoke the language of Catholic social teaching as eloquently as Barack Obama did. What I feared was what the President delivered in Oslo: a defense of a military invasion and the ensuing (and evidently endless) war couched not simply in the language of “just war” but in the language of “Christian realism,” peacemaking and love itself. Not surprisingly, publications in the Jesuit tradition have come out ecstatically in support of the address, urging that we meditate on it. I am glad Kyle Cupp did just that here.

8. Pauli Says:
   December 15, 2009 at 7:50 am

   I really liked the speech, esp. his dealing with war as self-defense. It was probably his finest moment in an otherwise disastrous first year.

9. Kyle R. Cupp Says:
   December 15, 2009 at 1:14 pm

   I say regular because President Obama’s philosophy of war, so to speak, upholds war as a necessary response to evil in the world, which we will always have regularly and then some. For a concrete example, let’s take terrorism. Obama rules out the sufficiency of non-violence in response to terrorism, and he’s been clear, through his actions, that terrorism calls for a response of war (among other responses, granted). So as long as there are terrorists (or other enemies) to fight, we, according to the president’s philosophy, must remain at war. I call that a philosophy of perpetual war. Obama doesn’t think of war as a last resort action, something to be done when all else fails, an exception to the rule of peace. Obama’s “rule” involves violence and non-violence, war and peace.

10. Catholic Peacemaking » Blog Archive » Obama’s Satanic Peace Speech Says:
    December 15, 2009 at 1:52 pm

    [...] A Telling Example [...]

11. Kurt Says:
    December 15, 2009 at 3:17 pm

    Kyle,

    I still think you are misreading the President. I don’t think the President says that war must always be the response to evil in the world or always be the response to terrorism.

12. Sam Rocha Says:
    December 15, 2009 at 4:08 pm

    Kurt,

    I disagree. Obama’s carefully crafted speech makes a very clear point: War is a fundamental aspect of human nature (a la Hobbes) and, from there, we can only expect it to continue as “natural.”

13. David Nickol Says:
    December 15, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    War is a fundamental aspect of human nature (a la Hobbes) and, from there, we can only expect it to continue as “natural.”

    Sam,

    Could you support that by quoting from the speech? Obama spoke of progress over the years in dealing with warfare. He said, “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” That is quite different from saying, “There will always be war.” He further said, “I have spoken to the questions that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me turn now to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.” He is looking for further progress, not denying it can be made.

    This does not sound to me like someone who is justifying “perpetual war”:

    Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. We are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.

    But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The nonviolence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their faith in human progress — must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

    He is expressly denying that flawed human nature means there can never be peace. He is affirming a faith in human progress. I just don’t see any justification for calling someone who says we will not see an end to war in our lifetimes a “war lord” who is justifying “perpetual war.”

14. David Nickol Says:
    December 15, 2009 at 8:13 pm

    War is a fundamental aspect of human nature (a la Hobbes) . . .

    No, human nature is flawed, but that does not mean war is a “fundamental aspect of human nature.” And even though human nature is flawed, there can be progress and an eventual end to war even without perfecting human nature.

15. David Raber Says:
    December 16, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    Though Obama may be wading deeper and deeper into the Big Muddy in Afghanistan, it may also be true that he is doing as much as he can to change the United States’ overly militaristic and unilateralist foreign policy. Just think of the little he has said and done in this direction so far (albeit enough to win the Nobel) and the howls about American weakness and vacillation he has raised from right-wingers.

    I for one am still willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt–even on Afghanistan, even on health care–until these issues play themselves out–at least until the end of his first term. The successes may not have happened yet, but neither have the disasters–in spite of Pauli’s and others’ overblown rhetoric.

    Now, those Bush disasters–they have indeed happened and some are still ongoing. History, as it turns out, is “the decider” par excellence.

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