Pacifists, Serious and Otherwise

[David Morris]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8710-2001Oct4.html

Pacifists, Serious and Otherwise
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 5, 2001; Page A37

[...]
"We who allow ourselves to become engaged in war," wrote the theologian 
Reinhold Niebuhr in 1940, "need this testimony of the absolutist against us, 
lest we accept the warfare of the world as normative, lest we become callous 
to the horror of war, and lest we forget the ambiguity of our own actions 
and motives and the risk we run of achieving no permanent good from the 
momentary anarchy in which we are involved."

Niebuhr offered these thoughts in an essay _criticizing_ pacifism. Those who 
believe the United States has no right to take military action against 
terror might usefully ponder the theologian's critique of those who thought 
it wrong for the democracies to confront Hitler.

"Whatever may be the moral ambiguities of the so-called democratic nations," 
he wrote, "and however serious may be their failure to conform perfectly to 
their democratic ideals, it is sheer moral perversity to equate the 
inconsistencies of a democratic civilization with the brutalities which 
modern tyrannical states practice."

That, in a nutshell, is why I decided I couldn't be a pacifist and why I 
believe a war against the tyranny of terror is justified now. But for those 
who are pacifists, there is also a lesson in Niebuhr's words. Pacifists 
weaken their claims whenever they seem more eager to condemn our own 
violence than the violence of our adversaries. Those who espouse an 
absolutist creed should be especially wary of moral relativism.

Here's the paradox: The fact that we live under a political system that 
honors the right of individuals to object conscientiously to engaging in war 
is one of the reasons why ours is a system worth defending. Osama bin 
Laden's world does not allow for pacifists. Ours does. To stand up for 
pacifists -- even when you disagree with them, and especially when they're 
unpopular -- is to protect this moral difference.



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