Being a Just Soldier in an Unjust War
By Charles P. McGathy,Chaplain U.S. Navy (Retired),
Madison, NC
In the summer of 1992, I was leading a retreat for military personnel and their families in the mountains east of Naples, Italy. I had recently returned from war to resume my duties as a chaplain assigned to the Chaplains Religious Enrichment Development Operation. Our primary function was to lead personal growth retreats and marriage enrichment workshops. On this particular retreat I met some brother and sister Baptists who were Italian and pacifists. When one of these Baptist brothers learned that I was both a Baptist minister and an officer in the United States Navy he was dumbfounded. He wanted to know if I had been involved in the recent war with Iraq. I admitted that I had served in a support role in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Further confused he wanted to know how I, as a believer in Jesus the Prince of Peace, could participate in war. I squirmed a bit and tried to explain that I was merely caring for those who were combatants, that I myself was not a warrior. Nevertheless he pursued the matter. He correctly pointed out that although I was a noncombatant I had contributed to the war effort, even though I didn’t fire a weapon or drop a bomb. He was right of course.
His line of questioning prompted a renewed search on my part to understand what it means to be a Christian in the military. In the end I confirmed my initial assessment that the war I had participated in was indeed one that could stand the test of just war theory.[1] I felt satisfied that the nations that formed a coalition to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait had chosen the only alternative left to them. Once they had accomplished their stated aim, combat was concluded and peace restored. I am not proud that I participated in that effort, neither am I ashamed. I am confident that we did some good, yet sad that it took war to do it.
Louis V. Iasiello, former Navy Chief of Chaplains has written extensively and authoritatively about the subject of just war. Like me, Father Iasiello has struggled with what it means for a nation and for Christian people to go to war. He states, “just war tradition is a living doctrine. It is a philosophy in process: ever challenged, ever evolving to meet the contemporary demands of each new historical epoch. Its categories and criteria remain open to continual scrutiny, study, interpretation, and reapplication.”[2]
The ongoing quagmire in Iraq presents a growing and difficult problem for the soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who also happen to be Christian. From the outset these soldiers of faith had to become convinced that preemptive war was justified. Like most of the general public, members of the military were convinced that the only way to prevent another 9/11, or worse, was to compel the Iraqi dictator to allow inspections. The world had to know that weapons of mass destruction were not a dagger aimed at their collective throats. When diplomacy failed, war seemed the only answer.
The search for WMDs proved futile.[3] The rationale for war had vanished, yet the soldiers did not come home. Now the war has morphed into insurgency and civil war. War continues.
Preemptive war is hardly a classical construct in just war theory. Just war is conceptualized as a response to aggression. Even so, there does appear to be a loop hole. What if a first strike is so devastating that there cannot be an effective defense?
This dilemma has been the ethical legacy of the nuclear age. The terrorism of September 11, 2001 brought that reality into the laps of Americans. Americans with the corporate memory of Pearl Harbor still intact had to be convinced that a preemptive action was the only answer possible. Thus an invasion against a nation we were convinced had such weapons and the intent to use them against us was justified. Or so we thought.
If you are going to war preemptively, you had better be right in your reasons. We were wrong. There were no WMDs. The Iraqi dictator was incapable of mass terrorism. Furthermore there was animosity that existed between Hussein and Al Qaeda.[4] When all of this became apparent the ethical justification for war disappeared for the soldier who happens to care abut Christian values. A just war had become something else.
So how do they continue to do their duty? Perhaps they should resign if they are an officer or refuse to engage in combat operations if enlisted by electing to change their status to conscientious objector? No doubt some have done just that.[5]
But what about the rest of the good and ethical Christians who recognize the war as unjust and yet continue to participate? Can they be just soldiers in an unjust war?
The answer to that is yes. Here is why. When volunteers join the military they take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, follow the orders of the president, and defend the nation against all enemies. It is not the burden of the individual soldier to figure out the justice of every combat situation. He or she must follow orders and act according to the Code of Conduct which is designed to codify ethics within their functioning as a warrior. They may even disagree with the course of war, however as long as there remains a means for corrective action they can still serve with good conscious. As long as citizen soldiers are afforded the right to express their opinions through a free press, to legislative representatives, and certainly through the ballot box there remains the power of democracy controlled by checks and balances. Thus they can feel confident that in the end the nation will end the war. The Constitution will allow the will of the people to prevail.
Of course the same cannot be said for the Christian soldier who voluntarily serves in a totalitarian state. Where there is no form of redress, no reasonable hope of course correction it may be impossible to serve without ethical compromise. To serve as a warrior is to further a dictator’s lust for blood.
I know that such an answer will most likely not satisfy my Italian Baptist brother. We will just have to disagree within the priesthood of all believers. I am however, not only a Christian, I am an American. I still have faith that my fellow Americans know and understand right from wrong. Of course only time will tell if I am right. I pray it will be soon.
[1] Brian Orend, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.); available from plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2005/entries/war/; Internet; accessed 6 June 2007.
[2] Louis V. Iasiello, Jus In Bello: Key Issues for a Contemporary Assessment of Just Behavior in War, (Newport: Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation, Salve Regina University, 2003), 233.
[3] “Search For Iraq WMDs Ends,” CBS News, 12 January 2005; available from www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/17/iraq/main667376.shtml; Internet; accessed on 13 June 2007.
[4] Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank, “Al Qaeda-Hussein Link is Dismissed,” The Washington Post, 17 June 2004, A01.
[5] Joseph Wake-lee Lynch, “Conscientious Objection and the War in Iraq,” The Witness Magazine, 22 December 2004; available from www.thewitness.org/agw/wakeleelynch122204.html ; Internet; accessed on 14 June 2004.
