What is in Kelvin's Head?

Intervention in Syria – does not meet criteria for a just war

28/08/2013
I am not a pacifist. If I was, then I would simply argue against intervention in Syria because armed intervention was always wrong.

Instead, I think that there are circumstances where it is right (not by any means good) for armed force to be used.

Christians have a fairly well developed tradition of thinking about this which is called Just War Theory. This attempts to work out whether it is legitimate to go to war. There’s a reasonably good Wikipedia page about it if you want to take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory and there’s a helpful summary on the BBC website which I’ll use below to show how I come to the conclusion that there is not a case for regarding military intervention in Syria at the moment as a just war.

The first thing to note is that Just War theory is a developing tradition. There are people working on it all the time looking at new situations that arise. The particular thing that we must ask ourselves in our own time is whether intervening for humanitarian reasons is justification for armed conflict.

Let’s take the basic criteria though and work through them.

In order for a war (or armed action) to be considered just then the following conditions must be met:
1. The war must be for a just cause.
2. The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority.
3. The intention behind the war must be good.
4. All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.
5. There must be a reasonable chance of success.
6. The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.
1 The war must be for a just cause

It is certainly the case that any intervention in Syria that could be said to be aimed at ensuring that further lives would not be lost could be said to be a just cause. This condition is probably met though there are significant questions to be asked about why we might be intervening here where there is said to be a dictator doing bad things to his own people and not in, for example, Zimbabwe.

2 The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority

There would be no ambiguity about this if the UN Security Council authorised action. In that case this condition would be met. If that is not met, then a case has to be made by the government justifying its actions. We have seen no arguments yet so this is as yet, not proven.

3 The intention behind the war must be good

This is a highly subjective area. There will be those who argue that if we believe chemical weapons are intolerable then we must act against whoever has used them. The complicating factor is that we don’t have any conclusive proof in the public domain that such weapons were used by the Assad regime. Proof that the weapons were used is not proof that Assad authorised them. An obvious argument is that there was an obvious motive for using such weapons by armed opposition groups in Syria if they were attempting to draw foreign powers into the conflict to finish off Assad. The danger for the government if this is the case is that it will be accused of firing missiles for Al-Qaida and other unsavoury elements. There are not many good guys to get behind in this conflict.

Again, if the intention of an action were to surgically remove from the Assad regime any possibility of launching chemical weapons attacks by removing chemical weapons production plants then this might meet this condition. Once again, this is not proven. We simply don’t know enough about government plans to draw a conclusion here.

4 All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.

With the UN desperately asking for more time for diplomatic solutions, it is clear this condition is not met.

5 There must be a reasonable chance of success

Again this is subjective. It might be argued that “surgical strikes” against chemical weapons plants could meet this condition. However, there seems to be a strong view both from commentators and the general public that involvement in this conflict could well have unforseen consequences. If we don’t know what success would look like then this condition is not met. I don’t believe that a convincing case has been made that there is a successful outcome to intervention that is possible. My judgement is that this is not met.

6 The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.

The government will argue that “surgical strikes” are precisely designed to be a proportionate response. However, it needs to answer the question as to what it will do if the consequence of such strikes was further chemical weapons attacks. Without some idea of this, it is difficult to argue that this condition is met.

Because I don’t believe these conditions are all met, my conclusion is that military intervention is not at this stage justified. That does not mean that I am opposed in principle to the use of force. It simply means that I’m not convinced today. I suspect a very great number of religious and non-religious people will agree.
just war, syria

7 responses to “Whither the Kirk?”

Pausing Place

25/08/2010

I missed last night’s programme, but I thought your comments were interesting.

In a sense, perhaps it’s unsurprising if the SEC is inwardly more positive about itself than the CofS. My take is that in the recent past, at least, the SEC started from a lower common denominator, not being the “local” church in the same way as the Kirk, and so it doesn’t have to contend with others saying of it “look how the mighty have fallen” in quite the same way.

As to the health of the Kirk (and the SEC for that matter), I think we need to reflect on our self-perception and to consider carefully the points and places in which a dying church (congregation or denomination) should be allowed to die gracefully, and the ways in which we might see new life emerge from the rubble.

As a young(ish!), relatively new Christian I have seen examples of (both urban and rural) SEC and Kirk congregations where there are few signs of new growth, little to draw in younger (under 50 year olds, to pick a random-ish number) new folk, and much to sustain negative preconceptions of church as boring, irrelevant and so forth.

We as a faith community need to get much better at stepping up to the mark in our creativity and engagement with our society. The sad truth is that most young adults do not know and have not heard about Jesus Christ, and unless we engage with them in ways culturally relevant to them, and which do not presuppose previous knowledge (too often taken for granted) they never will.

It troubles me, but I do think it’s true to say that in the SEC and in the Kirk we have a church sustained by the traditions and cultural reference points taught to a previous generation. Culture has shifted radically, with the result that the same will not be able to be said in 20 years time.

Our challenge is clear. Whether the Kirk and the SEC can step up to the mark to address what it means to live out the Great Commission in the 21st century is less so.

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Cal

25/08/2010

I didn’t really understand who this programme was aimed at, or even what its aim was.

Yes, numbers have fallen, but perhaps the small number of people who remain are there because they actually want to be, not because it’s the done thing on a Sunday morning.

And personally, I rather like the idea of a church “sustained by traditions”. Clearly the church has to be relevant to modern society, but in abandoning the traditions of worship then you lose the centre of why the church exists in the first place.

There was something very Presbyterian about the programme with its “we’re doomed” mentality. I find the SEC generally more positive in outlook.

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John

25/08/2010

The only book the presenter seemed to have used in his research was ‘The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000’ By Callum G Brown – indeed Callum Brown was one of the speakers. The thesis of this well argued sociological study is that “quite suddenly in 1963 something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significanceâ€. That something he identifies as new media, new gender roles and a moral revolution which has dramatically ended peopleâ€™s conception that they lived Christian lives.â€ It could be said to have happened as â€œsex beganâ€ between the end of the Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP as the poet Philip Larkin so famously put it.”
To balance this statistical decline the programme flagged up some of the “church without walls ” iniatives in a lame sort of way. All in all a most unsatisfactory programme that only told half the story.

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Kenny

25/08/2010

Good crit Kelvin. My reflection at the end of the programme was, “Lord, we visited this stuff over 30 years ago, and have come out of it stronger and better Church in the SEC.” Hopefully, we stopped longing for ‘the good old days’ a long time ago!

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MartinRitchie

26/08/2010

I thinking “Pausing Place” makes a good point about needing to creatively engage with society. From my own experience of working with a CofS congregation, this creative engagement is a weak spot for many.

As a counterpoint to the programme, interesting to note in the latest “Life and Work” a very positive article about a growing CofS congregation in Stornoway – and I mean really growing! So not all doom and gloom, and I’m sure there are many more examples of bright spots, just as there are in the SEC!

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Graham Vahey

28/08/2010

If the C of S disappeared completely we would be at a loss. During the dark and bleak years of Thatcher’s reign she refused to visit Scotland for 5 years. When she did she expressed shock that we had Royal Regalia and ordered it to be removed immediately for safe-keeping to England. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ is now historical for its condescension to the Scots. She was none too pleased to be handed two reports on poverty in Scotland by the powerful Church and Nation Committee. Indeed, it was to this Committee that the population turned to for a moral lead during Thatcherism. When James VI (‘Jamie the Saxt’) became James I in England, the population turned to senior Scottish earls for a moral lead. Unfortunately, the Piskie Church does not give a moral lead in Scotland, apart from the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the recent past. The RC Church does pronounce on moral issues. Could it not be conceivable that all the major Churches could unite in a Committee to pronounce for Scotland on moral issues as the Church & Nation Committee once did?

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Aldous N. Gaiters

01/09/2010

Speaking as a Nonjuror myself I am sure the SEC has a right to a moral voice in Scotland. Taking the US daughter church of the SEC as a model you could see where the fissures would appear. There is room for a modern liberal Christian voice, but even I an old Liberal myself, would have to fear that such a voice might appeal to only a select few.

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