Pope Francis Underlines "Stop"
Ed Morrissey (a Catholic) has a pretty good explanation on where the Vatican is on ISIS. The UN and the US seem to be nowhere... so far. Excerpt:
“I underscore the verb ‘to stop’. I am not saying ‘bomb’ or ‘make war’, but ‘stop him’. The means by which he can be stopped must be evaluated. Stopping the unjust aggressor is legitimate,” [the pope] said.
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In it, the Pope actually does specify that the proper venue should be the United Nations, plus he’s a little more careful than Reuters or the AP suggested in issuing an explicit endorsement of force. In this case, though, to ask the question is to beg the answer. “Is this an unjust aggression?” cannot be answered in any way other than yes, unless we want to suggest that genocides and sexual slavery are legitimate in some circumstances. “How should we stop it?” may be a little more nuanced, but there is no way to stop ISIS now without resorting to some kind of military force.
Just what I said here, writ large. If someone needs to be stopped, you may use workable means.
Good for Pope Francis. It is long past time for the moral case to be made.
ReplyDeleteThis post and your previous post reminds me of what we were taught in CHL class. To fire our weapon in self-defense, we need to be able to tell the police officer arriving at the scene these three things:
1. "I was in fear for my life." (or another person's life, as the case may be).
2. "I had to shoot him to stop him."
3. "You need to arrest him." (the guy on the ground)
P.S. As an aside, we were taught that we are to in fact tell the police at the scene those three things, and tell them only those three things until the adrenalin wears off the next day or two.
Regarding ISIS and James Foley, our priest connects it to today's readings here.
ReplyDeleteAll religions are as much alike as all fingerprints and DNA, enough alike to be able to identify one from the other.