The Catholic Church and Iraq – Editorial in today’s Washington Times. It’s a now-then-now perspective. Here’s a chunk of it:
The following February, Saddam’s forces were driven out of Kuwait by the U.S.-led coalition forces.
But, if U.S. officials had followed the advice of the Vatican and many Catholic bishops in this country in 1990-91 who were outspoken critics of military action against Saddam, none of that would have happened. For example, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent a letter to the first President Bush cautioning him against going to war, and U.S. bishops endorsed a letter to then-Secretary of State James Baker raising moral questions about the use of military force in the Persian Gulf. The pope issued numerous statements questioning the wisdom of going to war.
Unfortunately, some in the Vatican today seem to have learned the wrong lesson from the 1991 Gulf War. Archbishop Martino, for example, suggested last month that the 1991 experience shows that war is always futile. “Everyone knows the way it turned out. War doesn’t resolve problems. Besides being bloody, it’s useless,” he said. But the tragic reality learned from centuries of experience is that sometimes dialogue and discussion with cutthroat dictators can be futile. Sometimes, the only way to achieve justice is to employ force.