The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has his hands full these days trying to sort out the row in the Anglican Communion over gay bishops and same-sex marriage. Despite the demands of this crisis the worthy old Druid has taken the time to lecture the United States on its wars against terror and Saddam Hussein.
In a speech to the Royal Institute of International Affairs Williams makes two points of surpassing silliness.
In the first he reminds the US that terrorists can be motivated by "serious moral goals." He said that in ignoring this, in its criticism of al-Qa'eda, America "loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality." Oh my stars, this is Root-Cause wankery at its worst. No one has claimed that 9/11 was idly motivated; quite the contrary. The West realizes that it is being attacked by grim foes who mean to destroy it and replace it with an Islamic world empire. But no matter the motivation for terror, when one's innocent fellow citizens are butchered by the thousands -- in New York, Bali or Saudi Arabia -- one goes after the perpetrators first and scrutinizes their philosophy later. Even Rowan Williams must know that al-Qa'eda has no place in its world-view for an Archbishop of Canterbury. His freedom to speak palpable nonsense is owed to other men who are less interested in anguished self-criticism and more concerned about hunting down international criminals.
The archbishop's second piece of holier-than-the-Yanks rhetoric is his assertion that no government should act as its own judge on whether to launch military action against a rogue state. "Violence is not to be undertaken by private persons," he said. "If a state or administration acts without due and visible attention to agreed international process, it acts in a way analogous to a private person. It purports to be judge of its own interest." He admitted that the UN Security Council was not up to the task of legitimating action such as the war against Saddam and called instead for a panel of legal experts to render a decision in such cases.
Williams here resembles his soul-mate Lloyd Axworthy; they are twin hand-wringers who would rather rummage in their purses for a consoling tract to hand a little old lady than actually use force to fight off the mugger who is hitting her with a brick.
Let me repeat my understanding of Christian just-war theory: both individuals and nations can take up arms in self-defence and in defence of the innocent abroad, provided the violence is proportionate and the conflict is winnable. All these conditions were met in the recent Iraq rumble. Williams and Axworthy had better take a sip of sooothing liquid and thank their respective deities that they are living in the shade of the American empire instead of under the Caliphate.
Posted by Dexter at October 15, 2003 05:09 PM