CrossCurrents A Catholic Reflects on Faith in Our Times

# 169 Bernard F. Swain, Ph.D. www.CrossCurrents.us

A Tragic Anniversary

In December 2002, while planning a Lenten series on Catholic social doctrine I was to conduct in March 2003 for a parish in Amesbury, Massachusetts, I proposed we include the Just War Theory as one evening’s topic. The planning committee hesitated, thinking this topic might be too pessimistic for a devotional program.

When I responded, “What if, by March, we are at war?” the committee decided to go with the plan. And so I presented “Just War Theory” four years ago this week—the very week the U.S. invaded Iraq!

During my talk, I expressed my personal view that the invasion could not meet a single one of the seven traditional Catholic criteria for a just war.

Four years later, my view has been confirmed many times over by the consequences of our unprovoked invasion: more than 3,200 U.S. military deaths; unknown numbers of “contractors”—really mercenaries—dead; nearly 50,000 U.S. military casualties, many of them permanent mutilations; up to 20,000 veterans with MBI (massive brain injury), many untreated; more than 130,000 Iraqi dead, mostly women and children; more than 2 million Iraqis have fled Iraq, and now live in homeless exile; widespread civil war within Iraq; Iraq transformed from a stable (though brutal) secular society into a chaotic breeding ground for religious fanaticism and terrorist action; the entire region destabilized, threatened by porous frontiers and renewed conflicts among Moslem factions; Israel made more vulnerable; an American Presidency derailed by failed war management; hundreds of billions of dollars spent on destruction while urgent domestic and international needs go unmet; our allies divided, our enemies united, our reputation and moral standing and diplomatic leverage and military preparedness all weakened. Small wonder that Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, a Vietnam veteran, has called the invasion of Iraq the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history.”

How did this happen? How did the U.S. start a war that could not be won by military means? How could it invade a sovereign country, without provocation and over international opposition, to engage in a conflict that, at its fourth anniversary this week, has already lasted longer than our engagements in the US Civil War, World War I, and World War II? How could we trap ourselves in a war that might now last as long as Vietnam?

I’m afraid the answer is tragically simple: We never learned the lessons of Vietnam!

Many Americans, of course, began to learn those lessons even while the war raged on in Vietnam. By 1968, for example, the US Bishops had begun to realize that, however noble the cause in Vietnam, the war’s conduct was violating the principles of a just war and could no longer be supported. By the early 1970s, most Americans believed the war had been a mistake—but only after did they begin to understand its lessons for the future.

But perhaps the most definitive long-range view of Vietnam’s lessons came in 1994 from the man who had directed the war effort to begin with, Robert McNamara, the Secretary of defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

In his book In Retrospect, McNamara spends hundreds of pages recounting the decisions that were made leading to war and conducting the war, and devotes a final chapter to the lessons that America should have learned from its failure in Vietnam—lessons that could help us avoid the same mistakes in the future.

The First Lesson, says McNamara, is that the US should have clear criteria for using military force and should understand that military force is not an all-purpose remedy:

Above all, the criteria governing intervention should recognize that, as we learned in Vietnam, military force has only a limited capacity to facilitate the process of nation building.

Unfortunately for us, the invasion of Iraq confirmed this lesson, for while it succeeded in dismantling Saddam’s regime, it failed miserably at maintaining and re-establishing national order. Armed might is often helpless against powerful social, political, and religious forces that fuel conflict.

The Second Lesson that McNamara cites is the need for multilateral action and the necessity of avoiding actions that do not enjoy the broad support of our allies. US decisions, he said, must be checked:

Against the willingness of other nations with comparable interests to join in the decision, to assist in its implementation, and to share in its costs…We should act only in a multilateral decision-making and burden-sharing context.

In the case of Iraq, of course, the “Coalition of the Willing” left out most of our major allies and, with the exception of Britain, included merely token support. The fact is the US went to war over the objection of most of its allies, the United Nations, the international community, and Catholic Bishops the world over.

Vietnam’s Third Lesson, according to Robert McNamara, is that “we must learn from Vietnam how to manage limited wars effectively.” He predicts most future wars will be “limited wars”—wars where our most powerful weapons (nuclear weapons, for example) cannot be used and where popular support will weaken if the war lasts too long, costs too much, proves too deadly, or seems to be a losing cause. We should never go to war unless all those limits are acceptable to everyone involved:

The American people must understand the difficulties we will face; the American military must know and accept the constraints under which they will operate; and our leaders—and our people—must be prepared to cut our losses and withdraw if it appears our limited objectives cannot be achieved at acceptable risks or costs.

The Fourth Lesson of Vietnam is that modern warfare is too unpredictable and dangerous to take lightly. What McNamara means is that we can no longer settle for trumped-up pretexts for war (“weapons of mass destruction” comes to mind!). We must instead exercise the self-discipline and moral restraint to avoid the use of military action unless our national security is at stake:

Finally, we must recognize that the consequences of large-scale military operations… are inherently difficult to predict and to control. Therefore, they must be avoided, excepting only when our nation’s security is clearly and directly threatened.

Naturally, governments that go to war will always argue that they are responding to a threat to rationalize their actions. That’s why this government has continued to connect the Iraq invasion to the “War on Terror” even though there was no connection until after the U.S. invasion created the vacuum that Johnnie-come-lately terrorists have rushed in to fill. But, as the “domino theory” used to rationalize Vietnam proved, such rationalizations often persuade a gullible public—and lead to disaster.

The slogan “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” is true enough, but so is this: “The lessons of history come at a high price.” Remember, 50,000 Americans sacrificed their lives in Vietnam—for what? Did we gain no wisdom from their suffering? Robert McNamara, at least, gained wisdom in hindsight. Why couldn’t we all? Why must yet another generation of young have to suffer and sacrifice because those earlier sacrifices were ignored?

The tragic truth: life is a brutal and harsh taskmaster: either you LEARN then lessons of history—or you PAY the consequences.

The whole point of the Catholic “just war theory” is to subject military action to moral judgments. It aims to brake the engines of war—fear and hatred, greed and vengeance—by subjecting them to prudential judgment about the causes and consequences of war. But our ability to exercise such prudence—to be moral about war and avoid mistakes in the future—depends on our ability to learn from mistakes in the past.

If the war whose anniversary we observe this week proves that we have learned nothing from past failures, then I fear we will continue to fail again and again—and because we’ve failed to learn these lessons, others will have to pay the price needlessly.

And so, for me, Robert McNamara’s closing words in 1994 provide the only fitting way to observe the anniversary of our four years of folly:

“These are the lessons of Vietnam. Pray God we learn them.”

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2007

Send Your Comments and Questions to bfswain@juno.com

Dr. Swain’s opinions do not represent the views of this parish or any other official body.

Bernie Swain has devoted more than 30 years to adult spiritual formation in dioceses in the US, Canada, and France. Since 1991 he has maintained a private practice as trainer, teacher, and consultant to leaders in parishes and other religious organizations. He holds degrees in theology and political science from Holy Cross, Harvard, The University of Paris, and The University of Chicago.

His writings include Liberating Leadership (Harper & Row, 1986) and more than 200 articles in periodicals such as The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Miami Herald, The Catholic Free Press, The Pilot, Harvard Theological Review, and Liturgy.

A lifelong layperson, he lives in Boston with his wife and three children. Visit his website at:

http://www.CrossCurrents.us

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