The Catholic Hawks 

Bush administration spokesmen assure us that “civilian casualties will be minimal” in Iraq. Whatever this mantra means, it doesn’t mean zero. Can’t we at least have an estimate? And — this being a democracy and all — can’t we have free press access this time, to keep us informed on the carnage?

Civilians cope with war as best they can. Pregnant women in Baghdad have been begging their doctors to deliver their babies ahead of schedule by cesarean section, because they dread going into labor during the American bombing. Other pregnant women will miscarry, while still others will die carrying their children. “Collateral damage,” you know.

If only some of our conservative Catholic hawks, who doggedly insist that this “preventive” slaughter meets their Church’s standards of just warfare, could be brought to see war as a form of abortion. Would that change their minds? Or would they say that abortion is permissible in cases of rape, incest, and the need to topple Arab dictators?

These Catholics clear their consciences adroitly. If the war can be justified abstractly, they don’t worry unduly about the actual victims. You might think they’d at least feel the necessity of killing innocent people for geopolitical reasons as posing a painful dilemma.

Yet I haven’t heard a single one of the Catholic hawks express moral anguish, or even suggest praying for the victims. After all, they seem to reason, it’s all Saddam Hussein’s fault. In the words of the legendary Crusader, “Kill them all! God will know his own.”

“One death is a tragedy,” Joseph Stalin observed. “A million deaths is a statistic.” There’s perspective for you. If we could get rid of Saddam Hussein by killing one child in Baghdad — a child whose name and face were broadcast like Elizabeth Smart’s — who would want to do the honors? But killing countless nameless, faceless children by remote control is easy.

The Pope, who has warned against the modern “Culture of Death,” has condemned this war. But again, Stalin speaks for the Catholic hawk: “The Pope? How many divisions does the Pope have?” One Catholic to whom I put the question sidestepped it by pointing out that the Pope hasn’t spoken ex cathedra (with full papal authority) against the war, and anyway, “We are not a theocracy.” Ergo, President Bush is entitled to kill, and good Catholics are entitled to support him.

Well, the Pope never speaks ex cathedra on current events. He can’t make his opposition to this war a dogma of the Catholic faith, right up there with the Trinity and the Resurrection. That is no excuse for ignoring a clear application of the moral principle that killing the innocent is wrong.

Of course Bush won’t intend the deaths of the victims. If he could depose Hussein without “collateral damage,” no doubt he would. But does he let the prospect of that indeterminate “collateral damage” interfere with his plans? Evidently not. Do his supporters even ask for an approximation of the number of innocent victims he foresees and is willing to accept? Evidently not. In the words of Madeleine Albright in answer to a similar question some years ago, “We think the price is worth it.” To whom? Isn’t anyone curious? We ask about how much money the war will cost, but not how many innocent lives.

A just war, according to Catholic teaching, is, among other things, one which avoids producing evils disproportionate to the cause. Since Iraq hasn’t even threatened to harm the United States, let alone done so, even the “collateral damage” is criminal. It can’t honestly be called unavoidably incidental to the “common defense of the United States.”

This is a war driven entirely by disingenuous propaganda. The idea didn’t bubble up to the government from Americans who were personally afraid of Iraq and pleaded with their government to protect them. Nor is it so urgent that the United States would fight on equal terms, risking defeat and devastation at home. Even after all the propaganda, Americans aren’t afraid of Iraq; they’re afraid of al-Qaeda. It’s Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, who has been a boon to the duct-tape industry.

As usual, the American people have been drawn passively into war. Even after such farces as the war on another “threat,” Panama’s Manuel Noriega, they trust their presidents to decide who their enemies are for them. I’m mortified to see my fellow Catholics supplying excuses for the perpetual war racket.

Joseph Sobran