Whereas an ethical critique of
war appeals to an ethical principle, typically that is against humans being
harmed, especially the innocent, a theological critique can be based on a
divine degree or on the nature of the divine in contradistinction to human
nature as anything but. That is, a distinctly theological critique of war itself
or people who wage war is typically based on some obfuscation of the divine and
human wherein the latter has sought to appropriate divine nature or attributes
to what is in Nietzsche’s famous phrase, human, all too human. Although Kant’s “kingdom
of ends” formulation of his categorial imperative looks a lot like Jesus’s
Golden Rule, for example, offending rational beings by treating them only as means
to one’s own goals is distinct from offending God by violating the divine command
of universal benevolence, or “neighbor love,” which is Jesus’s second
commandment, which is like unto the first (i.e., to love God). Having probably just
now lost, or “blown away,” just about every normal reader, I want to illustrate
my point of distinguishing the ethical from the theological by analyzing pertinent
comments made by Pope Leo, the first Midwestern (Illinois) pope, in April,
2026.
I contend that the furtherance of democracy in general and more specifically in the Middle East can be regarded as a strategic pathway toward regional peace. The philosopher Kant wrote a treatise on a global federation as a means toward achieving world peace. The founders of the United States reckoned that all the republics within that regional federation must be democratic for the Union itself to be sustained. A United States of the Middle East would also stand a better chance were it's states republics in form. It follows that especially when democratic bystanders put short-term tactical and strategic advantage above furthering or just permitting the development of a young, unstable democracy, the hypocrisy puts off rather than furthers peace. The reactions of Israel and the United States to a Palestinian achievement in 2011 are a case in point.
According to the 2010 U.S. Religious Census of Religious Congregations & Memberships Study by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, less than 50 percent of the people living in the United States identified themselves as Christian adherents in 2010. There were more than 150.6 million out of 310 million. Even so, candidates for the U.S. presidency still felt the need to vocalize the fact that they are Christian (while the opponent doesn't quite measure up in that respect). President Obama made a point during his first two years in office to stress his Christianity as if it were the membership card to the Oval Office. It would seem that the litmus test was already antiquated and thus needlessly constrictive on potential candidates.
In 2010, it was proposed that the E.U. have an increased role at the UN in order to boost Europe’s profile as major player at the international level. One proposal would have given the E.U. the powers enjoyed by fully-fledged UN members, such as the right to make proposals and submit amendments, the right of reply, the right to raise points of order and the right to circulate documents. While there is no demand in the draft for a more prominent seating position for the EU, it was possible that the E.U. could have been moved to the center of the UN’s assembly chamber. Wherever the E.U. would have been situated, additional seats alongside a new European UN ambassador would have been made available for High Representative Catherine Ashton, the E.U. Foreign Minister, and her staff. Experts believed at the time of the proposal that such a role for the E.U. in the General Assembly would not significantly enhance the E.U.’s ability to influence policy at a UN level; instead, the proposal would have provided an opportunity for the E.U. to portray itself as a unified power on the international stage.
In “defiance
of retaliation threatened” by the United States and the state of Israel, the
Palestinian Authority announced in November 2012 that it planned to hold a vote
in the U.N. General Assembly on the Authority’s request to become an observer
state. According to The Wall Street
Journal, “(s)uch a designation would give the Palestinian Authority the
right over its airspace and territorial waters.” The Authority could
participate in General Assembly debates, sponsor resolutions, and nominate
candidates for Assembly committees. The Authority would be able to accede to
treaties and join specialized U.N. agencies, such as the International Civil
Aviation Organization, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and the International Criminal Court. The Authority could thus press
charges against Israelis before the Court. The full essay is at "Keeping the Palestine Authority Down."
The New York Times labeled Jamal Khashoggi “a journalist critical of the Saudi government.”[1] His day job was being a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Articles he wrote “included criticism of Saudi Arabia’s government. On [October 2, 2018], he entered the [Saudi] consulate in Istanbul and never emerged.”[2] Khashoggi was also a double agent, and it is for this rather than merely critical articles that he was really killed and cut into pieces in the consulate. The U.S. Government had a self-interest in letting Saudi Arabia get away with the crime.
All bets are off when it comes to regulating war. Such a
condition is virtually by definition beyond the confines of law. Even
international law is but an impotent dwarf next to the raw force of a
governmental regime at war—whether with its own citizens or another country. To
be sure, the International Criminal Court had by 2017 made a dent in holding
some perpetrators of atrocities such as genocide accountable for their deeds.
Such efforts were still the exception, unfortunately, when Russia, China, and
Bolivia vetoes a resolution in the U.N. Security Council that would have
penalize Syria’s Issad regime for having used chemical weapons on Syrians. The
reasons for the vetoes—and the fact that Egypt, Ethiopia, and Kazakhstan all
obstained—implies that holding perpetrators accountable by international means
had not yet become a priority at the international level.
Friday, August 16, 2013: A day of anger as proclaimed by
Morsi supporters in Egypt. A day of death and carnage. A day of intransigence on
both sides. Just a day earlier, the U.S. government had cancelled planned joint
military exercises. Besides being largely symbolic rather than real sanction,
the exercises were due to be downsized anyway due to the ongoing,
across-the-board, sequester of the U.S. Government’s budget. Can something so
convenient be counted as even “sending a signal?” Meanwhile, American foreign
aid to Egypt, $1.3 billion—second only to what the U.S. gives Israel—continued,
as if there were no sequester. As a direct result of the financial complicity,
thousands of protesters in Turkey were shouting anti-American slogans. The
protesters were so well informed that they were protesting the decision of the
Obama administration not even to decide whether there had been a coup in Egypt
when the military deposed Morsi. Turkey had emerged as one of the fiercest critics
of what it has called an “unacceptable coup.”[1]
It is not as though the American aid gives the U.S. much
leverage with the Egyptian military; aid from Middle East states, including
Saudi Arabia (whose statement on the Day of Rage voiced support for the
military), dwarfs that of the United States. Meanwhile, the U.S. Government,
fearful of something worse (for the U.S.) in Egypt than its military, was not
fooling the Turks or the rest of the world. The sad truth is that Americans
could be harmed as a direct result of their government’s attempt to hold onto
whatever leverage existed.
The Egyptian military's "No Tolerance" in action on the Day of Rage. AP/Hassan Ammar
It is not as though cutting off foreign aid to Egypt would
be so “radical” that the option was not realistic. On the Day of Rage, Germany,
ein Land—wirklich Staat—auf die Europäische
Union, suspended $25 million in aid to Egypt for climate and environmental
protection projects.[2] Meanwhile,
Germany, Egypt’s largest trading partner, joined with the French Government in
calling for a federal response from the E.U.’s Council of Ministers and
presumably the E.U.’s Foreign Minister. Indeed, one of the reasons for creating
the E.U. had been that the states would have more influence togetherthan separately. The states’ rights
ideology was yet again obstructing Europe from attaining that goal.
I suspect that the difference in the respective reactions of
the E.U. and U.S. with respect to foreign aid have to do with the power of the
Israeli lobby being greater in the U.S. than the E.U. The U.S. Government was
thus vulnerable to the accusation of hypocrisy on its democratic principles out
of a rather obsessive concern for Israel’s safety. Had both unions withheld
both foreign aid and trade with Egypt, the question would be whether the
foreign aid from within the Middle East would be sufficient to sustain the
Egyptian military in power. Ich weiß es leider
nicht. At any rate, it is unfortunate that democracy and human rights can
be so eclipsed by politics in the U.S. and even the E.U., the latter behaving
as though it had one arm tied behind its back.
Officials speaking on behalf of Pakistan’s government
claimed that Pakistani officials did not know that Osama bin Laden had been
living in Pakistan, and yet a Pakistani court sentenced a Pakistani to a
33-year prison sentence for treason in having conspired “to wage war against
Pakistan” by aiding the CIA in its hunt for bin Laden.[1] If trying to find him
constitutes treason, it follows that the Pakistani government was opposed to
the Americans finding him. Meanwhile, that government accepted hundreds of billions
of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S. Government. The reaction of an appropriations committee
of the U.S. Senate in 2012 was merely to cut $33 million from $800 million in
foreign aid to Pakistan. It would seem that the U.S. Government wanted it both
ways—to castigate Pakistan for essentially hiding bin Laden while seeking to
retain some influence with the Pakistani government by bribing it with foreign
aid.
The East African Community (EAC) is Africa’s “most advanced regional trade bloc,” according to the Wall Street Journal in 2011.[1] The EAC was already a customs union that guaranteed the movement of goods and the right to work across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. The parliaments were working at the time on synchronizing immigration and tariff laws. “We want to develop this corridor vigorously and collectively,” Mugo Kibati, director of a Kenyan government program, said.[2] But the EAC and other trading blocs in Africa, such as the Southern African Development Community, were “backing away from one prominent aspect of Europe’s economic union: a common currency.”[3] Aside from any vague similarities that the fiscal differences between Greece and Germany may have to those between Zimbabwe and South Africa, the currency question itself is out of place for a NAFTA-like trade agreement.
