Posted on 09/15/2013 12:32:23 PM PDT by RBStealth
Might moral theology, in the form of the venerable just-war tradition of moral reasoning, point a path beyond the fantastic mess that is American policy toward an imploding Syria — a fiasco created by the Obama administration’s dangerous combination of ideological besottedness, fecklessness, and mind-boggling incompetence?
The question is not as odd as it may seem at first blush. For the better part of 1,500 years, the just-war tradition — initially developed by such sophisticated thinkers as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas — has provided a framework for collaborative deliberation about ordering various means (armed force and other instruments of political power) to morally worthy and strategically sound political ends. And as the disconnect between appropriate ends and appropriate means in Syria has become a chasm, thanks to an administration that has maneuvered itself into a situation in which Bashar Assad’s principal supporter and facilitator — Vladimir Putin — has become both Assad’s potential savior and the de facto chief strategist of the United States, some clear thinking about ends, means, and their essential relationship is a necessity.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
We need grownups in the White House.....
Nice to read that George Weigel has finally discovered just war theory. His grasp was pretty weak ten years ago.
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The Just War theory was developed to justify the crusades.
Cyber war fits the Just War theory just right
Any time you can avoid killing the innocent while stopping evil, is good.
(My Master’s thesis, FWIW)
Weigel is wasting his breath and flirting with irrelevance.
Obama does not need Just War Theory explained to him, because the reason he wants to bomb Syria is to assist Al Qaeda to gain power and murder more hundreds of thousands of Christians and Jews.
If he wanted to be relevant, Weigel would be writing about what we need to do about an American President who wants to murder Christians and Jews.
I was sick and tired of columns that started out with the premise that Obama just needed some advice even before the First Immaculation.
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