Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War

Notes

149 Notes Introduction 1. All quotations from the Bible are from the New International Version. 2. While not making this exact argument, the U.S. Catholic Bishops in their “Pastoral Letter on War and Peace,” on nuclear disarmament, come close to this (1983). Chapter 1. Harming Others 1. This is a very long and complex argument that I have foreshortened in the interest of space. For more in-­ depth articulations of this argument, see, among others, Tickner, 2001, 1992; Enloe, 2000, 1989, 1983; Sylvester, 2002, 1990. 2. Niebuhr graced the cover of Time at the beginning of the Cold War, on the 8 March 1948 issue. At a time of great anxiety, Hauerwas was named “America’s Best Theologian” by Time in its 17 September 2001 issue. Elshtain was one of the main signatories to the letter “What We Are Fighting For,” published in American newspapers in 2002 (see Elshtain, 2004: 193–218). 3. In striking contrast is James Turner Johnson’s approach to Christian realism in his scholarly work on the Just War tradition. He frequently engages 150   Notes to Pages 22–34 Christian realism and Reinhold Niebuhr, seeing them as sympathetic to the tradition and not at odds with it (see Johnson 2011, 1999, and 1981). 4. Ironically, this aligns with Niebuhr’s own thinking. 5. Additionally, Jesus does not directly confront the Romans because they are not responsible for daily life; instead it is more appropriate to address the Jewish leaders (Stassen, 2006: 153). 6. Even Jesus, being subject to the Roman Empire, was complicit “in the horrors wrought by Rome” (Adams, 2006: 71). Chapter 2. Marginal Wars 1. Old wars are related to the development of the Westphalian system and to the evolution of the Just War tradition. They were fought in Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries (Kaldor, 1999: 13). These wars were part of “the same phenomenon: a construction of the centralized, ‘ratio­ nalized,’ hierarchically ordered, territorialized modern state” (Kaldor, 1999: 15). During this extended time period, states were the legitimate authorities with established standing armies paid for via taxes raised by the bureaucracy. From this the state’s monopoly on violence developed, which was “intrinsic” to the supplanting of jus ad bellum and the reliance upon raison d’état (Kaldor, 1999: 16–17). 2. Militarization happens where countries have high defense spending as a ratio of their gross national income and disproportionately large armies in relation to their population. It may also include the cultural impact of military spending. 3. This leads to possible frustration and subsequent recruitment by mili­ tant organizations. 4. Resistance may happen because the state fears that interference may exacerbate the problem or that outside interference lends credibility and legiti­ macy to secessionist or anti-­ government forces (ICISS, 2001: 25). 5. Both of these organizations, however, are often criticized for uphold­ ing the self-­ interest of the United States and the developed West. 6. The Canadian response to human security was the creation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which uses Just War theorizing to justify an intervention for humanitarian purposes (ICISS, 2001). It is promising because R2P has addressed the issue of sovereignty in a way that aligns nicely with hos­ pitality. Instead of the United Nations acting in every instance, R2P provides Notes to Pages 37–53   151 guidelines that recognize a state’s sovereignty, which is negated only when the state can no longer maintain or abandons its responsibility to protect people within its borders (ICISS, 2001: 7–8). Further, R2P’s commitment to preven­ tative multilateral action is very important (ICISS, 2001: 22–25). Nonetheless, it is arguably too late. R2P rests on ideas of responsibility for humans’ well-­ being, but it does so in a war setting. 7. This is true even if there are those who would propose a new era of imperialism as a good (see Mallaby, 2002; Cooper, 2002). 8. Dirty wars, or guerra sucia, are wars conducted by clandestine agents of the state. They typically refer to the internal conflicts that took place in Latin America during the postcolonial period. 9. This may be changing. Recently, the Obama Administration said that it would limit the amount of military aid and increase the amount of humani­ tarian aid. 10. Glen Stassen’s Just Peacemaking theory encompasses similar ideas: confrontation of power, sustainable development, and respect for human rights. Yet his ideas stay rooted within pacifism and nonviolence, whereas...