Thursday, January 31, 2008

Article about War Films

Every so often one comes across an article that proves that people can still write and think brilliantly. This is one of them.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

On the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan


The other day Prime Minister Harper stated in his response to the Manley Report on the Afghanistan mission that he would respect the report's recommendations. The key element in these recommendations was that unless NATO provided an addition 1000-man battle group to help in Kandahar, the Canadians would withdraw.

It is regrettable that it has come to this, having to threaten to leave a vitally important mission if our allies won't step up to the plate, and I can't help but feel that we should stay anyway. On the other hand, more troops are needed and if we don't get them, the mission may well fail long-term. Hopefully NATO will come up with the 1000 troops needed and we can continue to play our important role in the conflict. It has often been said that the government has failed to state clearly the reasons why Canada is in Afghanistan, for there are compelling reasons why this mission ought to succeed.

There are several perspectives from which a government must approach a decision like this one. Firstly, and most importantly for a government, the perspective of national interest. A government is instituted to prudently guide a nation in its dealings with others, and must think primarily in terms of its own interest; in other words, it must be selfish in the sense of the nation as "self." The invasion of Afghanistan by the Western powers, led by the United States, came about because of the attacks of 9/11. In the aftermath of the attacks, the American government quite rightly demanded that the current (sort of) government of Afghanistan, the Taliban, surrender to it the planners and enablers of the attacks; namely, Al-Qaeda. The Taliban, who had been sheltering Al-Qaeda for many years, refused this request and so it was deemed necessary by the Americans, with the full concurrence of its allies, to remove them from power. This was done, with the aid of the rebellious warlords of the Northern Alliance, and Afghanistan became a zone in which Al-Qaeda and its allies could no longer safely shelter. And here is the first reason why Canadian forces must remain in Afghanistan, and the most compelling: to prevent the Taliban from regaining territory that they can safely operate in and in which they can shelter entities such as Al-Qaeda. The attacks of 9/11 were attacks on Canada not only because of our NATO obligations, but also because around 30 Canadian citizens died as a result. These attacks were made possible because of the safe harbour of Afghanistan, a country which is uniquely suited for hiding entities like Al-Qaeda due to its lawless and decentralized nature. Therefore, it is definitely in the national interest of the government of Canada to contribute considerable resources to the maintaining of a Taliban-free and Al-Qaeda-free Afghanistan.

Secondly, a government must consider the moral perspective. The virtue that ought most to define government, prudence, is dealt with above; the other virtues, like compassion, are dealt with here. This perspective on the mission in Afghanistan is more tentative, because it is not a government's primary duty to root out evils beyond its own borders that do not threaten it directly. On the other hand, the government cannot just ignore gross injustices that occur around the world, and it is often necessary to act to end these injustices. Afghanistan under the Taliban was a place in which gross injustice happened fairly often: women had no rights, repressive religious law reigned, and there was no semblance of political freedom. In Canada especially, this perspective seems to be the best selling point for the mission, at least in the eyes of the press. It is fun, true, to bait radical feminists for their support of radical Muslim groups like the Taliban who if reinstated would oppress women far worse than in their darkest dreams, but there is a serious issue here: we may be appalled by the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, but we at least have some clout there. For example, a while ago a woman was going to be whipped for being raped (a common occurrence, alas) in Saudi Arabia; after an outcry from the West, her sentence was commuted. If the Taliban were to regain power after a Western retreat, would they listen at all to our pleas? Not likely. The Taliban is composed of brutal, barbaric thugs who richly deserve all the bullets that are shot at them, and who from a moral perspective must be prevented from regaining power.

The two reasons above are not equal in priority, to my mind; the first one is the concrete reason why Canada ought to stay in Afghanistan and provides a simple course of action in all the cases where it comes up; the second one is icing on the cake, the aroma of the steak, to use a couple of food metaphors. It's jolly good that we're preventing the Taliban from ruling tyrannically, but that should not be the main reason why we're in Afghanistan.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Death Penalty Article on the Weekly Standard

Lately I've been looking at the Weekly Standard for my U.S. presidential news, mostly because my normal outlet, National Review, happens to be having a hate-on for my preferred candidate, John McCain. Be that as it may, I found an interesting article about the death penalty and religion here. It makes some interesting points about how belief in the afterlife plays into the support for the death penalty. As well, it points out the fact that secular Europe virulently opposes the death penalty, while having almost no religious life. For the secularist, the death penalty is the truly the ultimate punishment and the end, so it must never be done. For the religious man, the death penalty is only the door to the final judgment, when God shall impose the true ultimate punishment; namely, eternal damnation.


A Bit of Latin

Sine mora curam officio dare debemus.
Sine: "without," a preposition always followed by the ablative.
mora: "delay," a noun in the ablative case
curam: "attention/care," a noun in the accusative case
officio: "duty," a noun in the dative case
dare: "to give," a verb in the infinitive
debemus: "we must/we ought to," a verb in the first person plural

Translation: "Without delay we must give attention to duty."


Wednesday, January 2, 2008

I Am Not Pro-Life


It has often been said, especially by some Catholic thinkers, that one ought to have a "seamless garment" pro-life position. A person who holds such a position is opposed to all killing whether it is abortion or war or capital punishment. The accusation is often thrown around (especially against the "religious right") that people who are opposed to abortion yet support capital punishment or war are hypocritical and should oppose such things to be consistent. This accusation is favoured by those who consider themselves to be part of the "religious left." It is assumed that those Christians who vote Republican (or Conservative) must have a "seamless garment" position but are valuing abortion above the other two "deadly issues." Therefore, you constantly find the religious left arguing that one ought to be a consistent Christian and vote Liberal (or Democrat) and oppose two out of three of the "deadly issues." But this is a foolish argument.
The label "pro-life" was only ever a label, used for its political impact. "Pro-life" sounds better than "anti-abortion," the same as "pro-choice" sounds better than "pro-abortion." But many of those who are politically "pro-life" are not literally against all killing. In fact, probably most of those who are opposed to abortion are in favour of the death penalty and just war. Are they all hypocrites, then? Not in the least--for there is a consistent ethic here that endorses killing in the situations of capital punishment and just war. My own position--which endorses both capital punishment and just war--is based primarily on the Christian worldview, which is the "seamless garment" that I fashion from Scripture to inform my politics.
To begin a justification of capital punishment from a Christian standpoint we must begin at the beginning with the creation of the world and the fall of man. After man's fall and his exile from Eden, God began to put in place a number of safeguards to keep mankind from destroying himself in his fallenness. While it is true that man is not all corrupt, and is still the image-bearer of God, this in itself is not enough to prevent utter collapse of society. The first safeguard instituted was death; without it, we would live forever in utter misery. Although also (and primarily) a punishment and a curse that is rightfully wept over by Christ at Lazarus' tomb, it fulfills a positive purpose in the drama of history. The second safeguard is clothing, to guard against sexual lust. Although Adam and Eve made their own (inadequate) clothes to hide their shame, God in his mercy provided them with clothes of skin that both reinforced the shame and mitigated it by providing a decent covering. These two mitigations were in place before the flood, but were obviously inadequate because mankind's sin increased until God was grieved that he had made them and resolved to destroy all mankind except Noah. After the flood, several more mitigations were put in place. Animals became fearful of man, thus reinforcing the hierarchy of creation, and different languages were created to estrange men from one another. The last mitigation is perhaps the strangest one when considered as a mercy, because it resulted in racism and misunderstanding between cultures. Yet it is a mercy, for it prevents mankind from unifying and using their incredible power to oppose God, as would certainly happen if mankind were to be unified. Finally, the mitigation of capital punishment was instituted after the flood to impress upon mankind the value of human life. Fallen man easily forgets that he is made in the image of God, and so capital punishment reminds him of this. As well, it is just: a life for a life. If done by the proper authority, namely the government, capital punishment reinforces the value of human life and satisfies justice. The mitigations of natural death, clothing, animal fear of man, tensions between ethnicities, and capital punishment were put in place to preserve mankind until God's plan is completed and the new heaven and new earth come into being replacing the old universe.
So how does this theological reasoning result in a secular political position? After all, most people don't believe in the story that has been sketched out above. One certainly couldn't use this outline as a political argument in the public sphere. But it reinforces something that resonates with all people: that a murderer deserves to die. The feeling that someone should get their just deserts is strong in all of us, and is not a bad feeling in and of itself. It can break out into feelings and actions of revenge, which is sin, or it can be a positive in creating a just government. For me, however, the theological reason is the one that tips my own position from opposing the death penalty to supporting it. Based on secular reasoning, the arguments for and against capital punishment are, in my opinion, balanced: capital punishment results in justice being done, but it also has little deterrent value; it satisfies the relatives and friends of the victims, but removes all possibility of rehabilitation and restoration of the offender; there is a possibility of a mistake being made and an innocent man being executed, but such mistakes are quite rare and can be reduced through better systems and DNA evidence, among other advances. Now, using this logic I would come out opposed to the Death Penalty, narrowly: no justice system is perfect, so no matter how good you get the system innocent men will still occasionally die. However, because it is mandated in scripture as a just act of retribution and as a mitigation of mankind's evil, I support it.

This isn't the complete story: the only argument above against Capital Punishment that moves me is the mistake argument; the others are either irrelevant to my understanding of justice or outweighed by other considerations, such as a murderer losing his right to live in society by committing a crime that strikes at the base of it. However, suffice it to say that the scriptural mandate for capital punishment tips the scales in favour of the death penalty.