Faith in War
Every so often, I get an abusive letter from a reader, who is sometimes a patriot first, a Catholic second, and a logician a distant third, along these lines: “Our brave soldier are fighting in [wherever] to protect the very freedoms, such as freedom of speech, you cowardly peaceniks are abusing.”
Ignore the accusation and examine the premise. This assumes that we owe our freedoms to war, and that our wars, no matter where, defend those freedoms. It is an odd assumption, but it has the status of an American dogma, which we are all expected to accept as an unquestioned article of faith.
Never mind that our freedoms are actually won at home (as in common law and the Bill of Rights), that wars are waged for other reasons, and that the enemy seldom if ever aims to destroy our domestic freedoms. Was Jefferson Davis trying to enslave the North? Was the Kaiser aiming to abolish free speech? Was Manuel Noriega intent on preventing us from worshiping freely? Was Saddam Hussein (or Osama bin Laden) hoping to repeal the Bill of Rights? These questions answer themselves.
And never mind that our freedoms have been most seriously abridged by our own presidents during wartime: Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and now Bush.
Nor can I think of a notable philosopher or theologian who has held that war has any inherent tendency to promote personal liberty. The idea is absurd. Yes, now and then invaders are repelled or occupiers expelled by violence, but these are exceptional cases.
Did our Lord ever celebrate a war? This question answers itself too.
