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Monday, August 10, 2015

"Can Modern Warfare Ever Be Just?"

Much to his credit, Pope Benedict XVI posed this crucial question: 'Can Modern Warfare Ever Be Just?' http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/07/pope-benedict-xvi-questions-if-modern.html 

Over at "The Thinking Housewife" Mrs. Wood and her correspondents are conducting a discussion of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man." 

Their conversation culminates with Bill R's postulate that "radical pacifism" is the only "intellectually respectable argument against the atom bomb attacks on Japan." 

Radical pacifism also seems the default position for Benedict's axiom that NO modern war can ever be just. 

People who glimpse the intrinsic injustice of modern warfare's uncontrollable firepower (a kind of brute force that necessarily kills civilians) realize that we are now "playing" an "entirely new ballgame." 

Christian "Just War Principles" Established c. 500 A.D. Vs. America's "just war" Tradition

From now on, every time human beings agree to wage war, they participate in unspeakable evil. 

The depth-and-breadth of today's "lesser evils" trump every "greater evil" that occurred prior to explosive force being measured in megatons. (It may be that the advent of gunpowder marked the end of Just War and the beginning of just war...) 

Earlier today, I made reference to Air Force general Arthur C who once confided: "It seems we have not fought a good war since World War II." 

From now on, there are no "good wars" and "Just War" is now an impossibility. 

Consider: 

"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq" 

"Do War's Really Defend America's Freedom?"
(Homage Marine Commandant, Major General Smedley Butler)

Martin Luther King Jr. is humankind's prophetic voice crying in the modern wilderness, noting the inevitable downhill slope of violence even when violence seems to accomplish short-term goals - rather like "winning battles but losing wars." 

"Pax On Both Houses: A Compendium Of Martin Luther King Posts"

Marshall McLuhan, who taught at University of Toronto when we were there epitomized humankind's new condition: "To the spoils belongs the victor."


"War Is Hell. But You Can't Keep Young Bucks From Playing With Their Pistols"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/03/war-is-hell-but-you-cant-keep-young.html



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