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Jesus supports the IDF and he wants his believers to be the best soldiers they can be. That was the message conveyed by members of the local Messianic Jewish community via sacred texts, prayer and talks, to a group of 18-year-olds who took part this week in a premilitary program called Netsor. "I am a soldier of God," said Boris, an intense redhead accepted to an elite combat unit, who is one of the 28 young men and women who participated in Netsor. "I will do my best during my service in the IDF to serve God spiritually and physically....

Just War According to Catholic Teaching Written by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo    Thursday, April 10 2003 The Church teaches that military action is justified as a means of re-establishing order. After the brutal September 11 attacks, the United States must once again wage a war in a foreign land.As always, the problem of the legitimacy of using military action for revenge as a means of re-establishing justice comes to the fore. Thus, it is in the interest of our readers to bring to their attention the traditional Catholic doctrine on the subject.Saint Augustine (354-430)The great Saint Augustine provided the...

"I Beg You Not to Be Misled by Confusion and Lies" Scranton Bishop's Letter for Respect Life Sunday Here is the text of the pastoral letter Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, PA released ahead of Respect Life Sunday, October 6, 2008.  The bishop asked the letter to be read at all Masses over the weekend in place of the homily, and a copy placed in all parish bulletins.  He makes clear that though Catholics should not engage in single-issue voting, that all moral issues are to be accorded the same weight in determining how to cast one's ballot in the upcoming elections. ...

Judaism And Warfare , Steven Plaut Dear Dr. H: You write about how Judaism is devoted to the pursuit of peace. You bring assorted citations from the Bible and Psalms about how nice peace can be. You emphasize that Judaism grants peace priority over competing goals. You find biblical quote after biblical quote about how good peace is. You then conclude that Israel is behaving in a manner that contradicts Jewish tradition when it wars against Hamas barbarism and Gaza terror. Israel must pursue "negotiations" with Hamas, you insist, citing the biblical desire for peace as the over-riding consideration. That...

For those individuals -- such as nearly all members of the world news media -- who, in light of Israel's invasion of Gaza -- see moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians, here are some clarifying thoughts. First, it would be difficult nearly to the point of impossibility, to find Israeli or other Jews who celebrate the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Jews both within and outside of Israel cringe when they see pictures of dead Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza. For thousands of years at their Passover seders, Jews have removed wine from their cups to ceremonially weep...

WAR HAS always had rules, even if only to protect the dead. In The Iliad, for example, Homer tells us that Achilles' desecration of Hector's corpse angered the gods. Medieval churchmen sought to limit warfare to certain days of the week and evolved an entire just war theology to constrain the use of armed force. By the Age of Reason, international law "publicists" were busily expounding on the subject, and the 20th century opened with a substantial body of law governing both the right to initiate combat (jus ad bellum) and how armed force is applied (jus in bello). These...

Question 40. War Is some kind of war lawful? Is it lawful for clerics to fight? Is it lawful for belligerents to lay ambushes? Is it lawful to fight on holy days? Article 1. Whether it is always sinful to wage war? Objection 1. It would seem that it is always sinful to wage war. Because punishment is not inflicted except for sin. Now those who wage war are threatened by Our Lord with punishment, according to Matthew 26:52: "All that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Therefore all wars are unlawful. Objection 2. Further, whatever is contrary...

The Harmony of the Gospels, Book I Chapter 26. Of the Fact that Idolatry Has Been Subverted by the Name of Christ, and by the Faith of Christians According to the Prophecies. 40. For truly what is thus effected by Christians is not a thing which belongs only to Christian times, but one which was predicted very long ago. Those very Jews who have remained enemies to the name of Christ, and regarding whose destined perfidy these prophetic writings have not been silent, do themselves possess and peruse the prophet who says: "O Lord my God, and my refuge in...

If you happened to be in a crowded room at The Beacon Drive-In one Wednesday in late August, you would have heard a man in a suit reference Genesis Chapter 50, the book of Isaiah, and using two fish and five loaves of bread to feed thousands of people. It wasn't a sermon. It was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a 2008 presidential contender, during a stump speech in front of a room full of Republicans. Using biblical references on the campaign trail isn't unusual, especially in the conservative core of South Carolina. Often, they can be heard when candidates...

Our way of life is tolerant, spirited and full of humour. We should make no apologies for fighting the moral descendants of Stalin and Hitler who would destroy it On a rare dry evening last week I walked to a meeting in London. The streets were full and the pubs overflowing with drinkers, many of whom are on the pavements because of the smoking ban: people having a good time at the end of an average working day, smiling and joshing each other. Too often we forget that we have built a successful and good-natured society over the last 10...

When Ayn Rand wrote about the moral code she originated, the code of rational self-interest, she stressed that morality is a matter of life and death. The right ethics, she held, leads to individual (and societal) survival, prosperity, happiness; the wrong ethics leads to misery, poverty, death. This is true in every field but is especially true in the realm of war, as the present struggle has made clear. We are losing the war on Islamic Totalitarianism because our leadership, political and military, is crippled by the morality of altruism, embodied in the tenets of Just War Theory. The moral...

Don’t ask me what I think of the war. I’ll tell you anyway. I won’t tell you what you want to hear. I won’t tell you whether I am for or against it. I will tell you only that I think the same way G. K. Chesterton thinks about the war. Which war? Any war. I refer to his position because, curiously enough, it coincides with the Catholic Church’s position. We all know all the arguments against killing. And even against fighting. The Bible is pretty clear. Thou shall not kill. If your enemy strikes you on one cheek, offer...

Iraq War Debated at Asbury Seminary Ray Nothstine Two teachers at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky debated the Iraq War at a forum on the campus in early October. Philosophy of Religion Professor Jerry Walls defended traditional Christian just war teachings, and affirmed that those teachings could justify the Iraq War. Philosophical Theology Professor Charles Gutenson affirmed pacifism and opposed the Iraq War, even though he supports unspecified ?police? actions that involve lethal force. Asbury Seminary hosts more United Methodist students than any other school. Professor Walls emphasized the enormous danger of what he dubbed ?Islamic Jihadists? by quoting...

“I have come to light a fire on the earth. How I wish the blaze were ignited!” Luke 12:49 “Hombre’ – noun. A man. A fellow. A man among men.” There lived, and there live today, Holy Hombres. Since Holy Hombres will be the focus of this light reflection, we must first look at the greatest lady who stood behind the most important man of all time, and even non-time. “Behind every great man, there is a woman,” says the adage, and we can certainly apply this adage to the God Man, Jesus Christ. We Catholics recently celebrated a great...

As a Roman Catholic I believe the words of the Holy Father must be treated with the utmost respect, particularly when it comes to issues of faith and moral judgment. At the same time, respect for reason is one of the hallmarks of the Catholic tradition, which has never embraced the notion that faith involves the sacrifice of intellect. It must be a special challenge, therefore, when a statement by the Holy Father about the consequences of moral principle appears to fail the test of logical reasoning. According to media reports, when speaking to a gathering of pilgrims in St....

I’ve touched upon “just war” several times in this space, during the last few weeks. I will continue touching it today. The issue is already an urgent one; its significance can only grow in the foreseeable future, as the encounter between fanatical Islam and the West spreads from mere terror incidents to open guerrilla warfare on various fronts.We see in the Middle East just now, how the conflagration is spreading. Hezbollah enjoyed little support in the Arab world, when it kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, and began firing rockets at an unprecedented rate into northern Israel. The Arabs feared Hezbollah’s aggressive...

Judaism does not regard violence and war to promote justice as always wrong. It accepts that certain kinds of war will be ethically justified, and that it is sometimes morally acceptable to kill people. Before declaring war or starting a battle there must be a genuine attempt to make peace and avoid the conflict. Jewish law only permits combatants to be deliberately killed in war. Innocent civilians must be given every opportunity to leave the field of combat before a battle starts. Old Testament In much of the Old Testament God gives his clear approval to war. He is identified...

Fighting the wolves at the gate by John Krenson The shepherd tends his flock at night as the wolves are ever present. He increases his control of the space around his pastures to establish a buffer for his sheep; to keep the wolves out of range. Finally he yields some of that space back to the wolves only to see the attacks against his sheep increase to the point that he begins to lose them to the wolves. What do we expect shepherds to do? We expect them to protect their sheep - to provide tranquility for their grazing and...

Author Fouad Ajami Says US-Led Invasion of Iraq Was A Noble War By Judith Latham Fouad Ajami, director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University, comes from a Shi’a family in Lebanon. Professor Ajami is the author of numerous books on the Middle East, the latest of which is The Foreigner’s Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq - to be published in July. Unlike many Arab intellectuals, Professor Ajami is a strong advocate of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He says the war in Iraq was a “noble war” and a “gift”...

Let us make war on the phrase "violence doesn't solve anything." It is a lie, and anyone who utters it cannot be taken morally seriously. Take, for example, the American use of violence against the Taliban. Thanks to it, Afghani women may get an education, attend public events without a male escort and otherwise ascend above their prior status as captive animals. Thanks to American violence in Afghanistan, Islamic terror has started to decline in prestige among many Muslims who had previously romanticized it. Though many Muslims still glorify Muslims who blow themselves up in order to murder Jews and...

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon presided over a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday in which the commander of the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) acknowledged that the degraded chemical munitions revealed in last week’s report constitute weapons of mass destruction. While the usefulness of the approximately 500 pre-Gulf War munitions is disputed by weapons experts, Weldon said in his opening statement their discovery over the past three years justifies the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime. "I want to be absolutely clear about what we are talking about here. These 500 chemical munitions are weapons of mass...

Silenced Trappist struggled with obedience while trying to lead the church on peace By Father Robert Nugent5/7/2006 America (www.americamagazine.org)NEW YORK (America) - Thomas Merton spent almost half his life in the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. Strict silence was an integral part of the Trappist way of life when he entered in 1941. Merton took readily to the rule of strict silence, but circumvented it when necessary. By the mid-1960’s the Second Vatican Council’s renewal of religious life reached even contemplative orders, relaxing the rigorous observance of silence. During that time, Merton experienced a...

This is something I found on a Christian forum written by an evangelical Christian: --------------------------------------------------------- "In 1992, I graduate high school and went off to the Marines. I grew up in a Baptist church, where we would say the pledge during church and honor veterans during Memorial Day and July 4th holidays. We believed in “just war”. I grew up believing it was God’s will to fight for America, we were one nation under God and it was honorable and Biblical to do anything and everything to defend God’s nation. I served my four years as an 1833. That’s the...

"JUST" WARS & DOUBLE-TONGUED DEMOCRATS On May 2, 2003 Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, (Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) stated: “He (John Paul II) did not impose this position ('Iraq War not necessary') as doctrine of the Church but as the appeal of a conscience enlightened by faith” (Zenit News Agency). Unlike many U.S. Democrats, Pope John Paul's thoughts on the Iraq War were not voiced in an arrogant, judgmental manner. He loved America, and praised President George W. Bush's moral leadership (Zenit News - June 4, 2004). Pope John Paul II never praised...

The project in Iraq can succeed, and leave its critics scrambling. Almost everything that is now written about Iraq rings not quite right: It was a “blunder”; there should have been far more troops there; the country must be trisected; we must abide by a timetable and leave regardless of events on the ground; Iraq will soon devolve into either an Islamic republic or another dictatorship; the U.S. military is enervated and nearly ruined; and so on. [snip] Strangely, I doubt whether very many would agree with much of anything stated above — at least for now. But if the...

"There was a lot of reason to be concerned about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein," he told WABC Radio's Mark Simone. "I always thought that he probably had chemical and biological weapons and biological precursors as well."

The project in Iraq can succeed, and leave its critics scrambling. Almost everything that is now written about Iraq rings not quite right: It was a “blunder”; there should have been far more troops there; the country must be trisected; we must abide by a timetable and leave regardless of events on the ground; Iraq will soon devolve into either an Islamic republic or another dictatorship; the U.S. military is enervated and nearly ruined; and so on. In fact, precisely because we have killed thousands of terrorists, trained an army, and ensured a political process, it is possible to do...

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) - Waging war for the cause of freedom can be justified but not in the case of Tibet's dream of autonomy from China, the Dalai Lama told an audience at Stanford University. During the first of a two-day visit to the university in the state of California, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader Tenzin Gyatso touched on topics ranging from television viewing to abortion, cloning and the idea of just wars. The allied victory in World War II "saved Western civilization," and conflicts fought in Korea and Vietnam were honorable from a moral standpoint, the 14th Dalai...

US bishops mark anniversary of atomic bombings, condemn ‘total war’Washington DC, Aug. 04, 2005 (CNA) - The 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provides an opportunity to reflect on the lessons of the Second World War and to recommit to efforts for a lasting peace built on justice, said the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). “Hiroshima and Nagasaki are permanent reminders to the entire human family of the grave consequences of total war,” said USCCB president Bishop William Skylstad yesterday in a letter to Bishop Augustinus Jun-ichi Nomura, president of the bishops’ conference of Japan.The...

Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that trade in illicit drugs is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Richard Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who...

"When arms clash, the law is silent." So runs a well-known Latin tag. In the days of the Roman legions it was an exact description of procedure. Roman law was brutal in the extreme, legions fought to win victory with no concern for the fate of the losers. Prisoners were usually killed, unless they were spared to be sold into slavery. In later centuries, the awfulness of Roman war was a little softened. Medieval Christian theologians tried to establish a code of behaviour, which came to be known as the Just War doctrine. It laid down, among other things, that...

In a stunning admission, the Washington Post said Sunday that President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq deserves at least some of the credit for the fact that terrorists have not been able to launch another 9/11-style strike against America. "A broad cross section of counterterrorism officials believes al Qaeda and like-minded groups, in part frustrated by increased U.S. security measures, are focusing instead on Americans deployed in Iraq," the paper said, "where the groups operate with relative impunity." Bush administration officials have long argued that taking the war to the terrorists' doorstep was the best way of...

Two years ago this week, the American invasion of Iraq was underway. Why had we gone to war? In the months leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, President Bush repeatedly gave his reasons.  Saddam Hussein, he said on Oct. 7, 2002, “has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States.”  The President added: “Some al-Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al-Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year…” He was...

What was the Iraq war about? Two years after the war started, the question is as hotly debated as in 2002 when the use of force to topple Saddam Hussein was first raised as something more than mere rhetoric. Although this year's anti-war crowds on Western streets have been much smaller than last year's and insignificant compared to 2003, the issue still arouses a great deal of passion as we witnessed in a debate in London the other day. The anti-war position is still based on the same three claims as 2003. First, the war was illegal because it was...

The invasion of Iraq, which ousted Saddam Hussein and has cost the lives of some 1,300 U.S. military personnel and billions of dollars, was "absolutely" worth it, despite the absence of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, President Bush told ABC News' Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview that will air this Friday.The White House acknowledged today that there is no longer an active search for Iraqi weapons. The final report from chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, due out next month, has concluded that "the former regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of...

News you might expect: In an academic journal, a Lutheran minister who holds two master's degrees in theology criticizes the invasion of Iraq. He says the United States failed to meet all the requirements of Christianity's Just War Theory. The unexpected twist:That Lutheran minister is also a U.S. Army colonel who holds a master's degree in strategic studies. And the academic journal for which he wrote is Parameters, published by the U.S. Army War College.

Senior Vatican officials have decided to put aside their differences with Tony Blair over the war in Iraq, calling for multinational troop reinforcements to secure the country's fledgling democracy. In February last year, both Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, offered some of the fiercest denunciations of Mr Blair and President George W Bush for their strike on Saddam Hussein. Cardinal Angelo Sodano Their private criticism of Mr Blair was made embarrassingly public by Vatican officials, who revealed at a press conference that the Pope had urged him to "make use of all...

Britain, Other U.S. Allies Defend Legal Basis For Invasion Of Iraq AFP: 9/16/2004 LONDON (AFP) - Leading allies of the United States defended the legal basis for the US-led invasion of Iraq and their involvement there after UN chief Kofi Annan reignited the debate over its legitimacy. The governments of Britain, Australia and Poland, which have supported the war by sending combat or humanitarian troops of their own, insisted the war was backed by international law, while Japan asked for clarification. They based their case on past UN resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm. In an interview Wednesday with the BBC,...

Use of Force in Iraq Was Justified, Rumsfeld Says By Gerry J. GilmoreAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2004 – War is "a ugly, tough business," but sometimes it's necessary to resort to war to achieve important goals, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on PBS' "Newshour With Jim Lehrer" Aug. 17. And the use of U.S. military force to depose former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a worthy endeavor, Rumsfeld told host Jim Lehrer. Some people, Rumsfeld acknowledged, may believe that military force should never be used to solve the world's problems. However, he observed, "history suggests...

So many people according to the Liberal media have spun the so-called facts that most American's were against the Iraq invasion. Could there be other reasons we invaded other than Sadaam and MWD's? Absolutely. We are an economy of oil and not even the Eco-terrorists so determined to detroy our society in order to save the enviornment can travel without this precious commodity no matter how green and efficient their vehicles. Iraq is a flash point for the Middle East. It is strategically centered between all players in that regional abyss. It is here that we must begin the process...

If we had not invaded Iraq, French banks, French politicians and French businessmen would be richer. French, German and Russian arms dealers would be richer. Kofi Anan's son would be richer. Numerous high-ranking UN officials would be richer. The European and Middle-Eastern businessmen who sold the Iraqi people expired medicines, rancid cooking oil and spoiled foodstuffs under the UN Oil-For-Food program would be richer. Uday and Qusay would be richer (and still alive). And, of course, Saddam would be richer. And the French would be complaining about something else... To be fair, we American spoilsports (who upset the international gravy-train...

The Vietnam War was the Right War at the Right Time for the Right Reasons and it was worth it! President John F. Kennedy decided to stop the locust swarm-like advance of Communism in Southeast Asia for morally right and geopolitically correct reasons. He continued in the tradition of President Harry Truman and the old patriotic Democratic Party. President Lyndon B. Johnson loyally continued and expanded that effort to contain Communism. Contain Communism? Modern Americans are prone to laugh at such a goal because they are totally ignorant of the bloody history of Communism because the Left liberal controlled Media-Academic...

With the Left and much of the mainstream media hell-bent on delegitimizing our war in Iraq; some Americans are questioning why we went to battle — and whether it was worth it. On December 23, 2002 -- three months before the opening salvo of Operation Iraqi Freedom -- I penned a Miami Herald column titled "Swift victory in Iraq could transform the Middle East." The piece described my justifications for war and argued that a "successful Iraqi campaign and strategic follow-up effort -- if done properly -- may ultimately transform the Middle East for the better." Despite the intense media...

Justifying the War in Iraq Raymond Brown - May 4, 2004 Bowbe4me11@aol.com Following the events of September 11th, America found herself in awe and shock. Americans watched the smoke rise from the Twin Towers as people jumped from the building out of desperation and plummeted to their death. With the fall of the towers, American life changed forever. America was attacked on her own soil for the second time, the first being the invasion of Pearl Harbor. America now found herself at war with a new enemy, one that wears no uniform, that has no country of origin, but is...

The lib-left crowd will scarcely be interested in the fine print of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee report on flawed American intelligence about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Nor in Lord Butler's report on the same subject released last week in Britain. During the past year, we have been inundated with smear campaigns accusing the administration of U.S. President George Bush of lying about Iraq's WMD and of fabricating a story about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium ore from Niger in Africa. Similarly, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government have been raked by opponents of...

The lib-left crowd will scarcely be interested in the fine print of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee report on flawed American intelligence about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Nor in Lord Butler's report on the same subject released last week in Britain. During the past year, we have been inundated with smear campaigns accusing the administration of U.S. President George Bush of lying about Iraq's WMD and of fabricating a story about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium ore from Niger in Africa. Similarly, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government have been raked by opponents of...

TONY BLAIR has fought two wars, one as the ally of President Clinton, the other of President Bush. His first war was fought, with European support, against Serbia. The second, with European opposition, against Iraq. Both ended in victory. Both were fought against aggressive dictators. The first war had the sympathy of the Left; the second has faced the Left’s hostility. Was either of them lawful, and, if so, on what ground? The Kosovo case was taken by Yugoslavia to the International Court of Justice in the Hague; Britain argued on a technical point that it fell outside the court’s...

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a lead architect in the US-led war on Iraq, insisted that the war was justified even after a scathing US Senate report on the quality of pre-war intelligence. Saddam Hussein's refusal to comply with UN resolutions demanding weapons inspections, the brutality of his regime, and his history for developing and using chemical weapons more than justified the war, he said in a speech to Omaha business leaders. A Senate investigation concluded that the US intelligence community "mischaracterised" Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war through "a series of failures," and its key judgments were...

In early May, Niall Ferguson, the celebrity Scottish historian, looked out at a packed house seething with antagonism. He had come to Washington to deliver a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations defending his idea that the war in Iraq had not only been the right thing to do, but also ought to be the first step towards a wide-ranging American empire. It would be difficult to imagine a moment when the capital's bipartisan policy elite --Ferguson's audience--were less inclined to be receptive to his ideas. The first accounts of the torture at Abu Ghraib had just appeared, and...