Moralism's Collapse in Iraq

by Joseph Wakelee-Lynch

America's moralism, as many writers have noted, is one of this nation's defining characteristics. Particularly in times of war, the American state draws on a civic religiosity - amorphous in its Christianity, muscular in its patriotism - that spans almost all population groups and classes.

...the Bush administration's attempt to define the United States military policy in virulently moral terms has been striking, especially in terms of its theological language of crusade.

Since the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan and especially throughout the Iraq adventure, the Bush administration's attempt to define the United States military policy in virulently moral terms has been striking, especially in terms of its theological language of crusade. Although U.S. governments usually resort to a posture of moral superiority when committing themselves to war or intervention, the Iraq war, perhaps unlike any war or military action since Vietnam, has required a moral framework in order to guarantee its acceptance in the eyes of the American public.

After Vietnam, Americans have been reluctant to commit to major war efforts. Briefer interventions that entail little loss of American life have been tolerated and even supported. The war on Iraq from the outset, however, has required a significant commitment of troops, material and time. Developing popular support, therefore, has been essential. But, a convincing moral framework has been even more important, because the Iraq adventure was blatantly pre-emptive. It was launched against an enemy residing far away and known to be far weaker, according to every military calculation, than ourselves. Only a strong, unambiguous moral justification was likely to garner support. The administration understood that before the war began it had to win a battle of moral persuasion at home.

The Bush administration chose to argue that the ultimate threat forced us to resort to a pre-emptive war, the kind that Americans would usually consider contradictory to their nature and their beneficent self-image. Saddam Hussein possessed and was ready to use weapons of mass destruction - that was, in effect, Bush's moral trump card. Also, White House officials, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, made other assertions, some of which have been revealed as patently false. Two of the most egregious were that Saddam was consorting with Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, and that he attempted to purchase nuclear materials in Africa. These comments were attempts to delineate the moral context of a nation in extreme danger and that would have to take extraordinary measures at home and abroad to secure its safety.

One of the most striking features of the administration's efforts was its attempt last spring to argue that the war conformed to the just war theory. The fact alone that the attack was pre-emptive immediately placed the administration's argument on shoddy footing, even before applying the remaining standards. Yet prominent U.S. intellectuals, such as Michael Novak and George Weigel, attempted to jimmy the war into the just war theory box. Novak was invited by the U.S. ambassador to present that view to the Vatican, which must have seemed a ludicrous attempt to teach Rome about a theory it devised. Those efforts were summarily rebuffed.

The ghost of another U.S. president from Texas, whose war in Vietnam brought about economic instability, political turmoil, and the end of his administration, is haunting George Bush.

This is the moral framework that is now in collapse. For much of the month of October 2003, the Bush administration has been buffeted by widely reported setbacks and revelations that undermine its case for war, largely from what might be called a practical point of view. The Iraq project, which germinated in the minds of President George Bush's advisors for almost a decade before the attacks of September 11, 2001, appears to be verging toward a short road to chaos. The steady pace of fatal attacks on U.S. soldier - more than a hundred are dead since the president declared victory in May - is demoralizing to both soldiers abroad and Americans at home. The ever-expanding financial cost of reconstruction may drive our own economy into recession. Iraqi society itself appears increasingly ungovernable by outsiders - that is, us. Part of the administration's response is the quotation of optimistic statistics supposedly demonstrating progress on the ground. But, the ghost of another U.S. president from Texas, whose war in Vietnam brought about economic instability, political turmoil, and the end of his administration, is haunting George Bush.

Throughout the month, administration officials frantically climbed into public pulpits to firm up the nation's resolve. In the nation's capital, Vice President Cheney falsely claimed the war's opponents advised inaction regarding the Iraq problem. To the contrary, political officials, religious leaders, and even nuclear weapons inspectors themselves proposed United Nations participation as a possible solution to the crisis. In comments that make the administration appear two-faced, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice asserted in Chicago that the U.S. war was necessary because Saddam defied U.N. resolutions, as if the Bush administration had been a defender of the U.N.'s honor. The United States, or course, abandoned the United Nations because the organization would not go along with its intent to wage war and resisted its suggestions for resolving the crisis without force. With each successive justification that is offered, the government admits that its original cause for war was a lie.

During the same period two additional voices joined the fray, and their presence in the debate, though less widely reported, has threatened the Bush administration's moral argument itself. On October 14, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican Communion, criticized the attempt by Catholic writer George Weigel in October 2002 to argue that the pre-emptive attack on Iraq was compatible with just war reasoning.

Williams suggested that for a state to act on its own in launching a pre-emptive war, with no appeal with any larger community that would affirm the morality of its conduct, is contrary to the just war tradition because that state is acting under a "self-referential morality." In other words, there is little ground that a state may stand on in arguing that its war is a just one when it acts as sole arbiter of the morality of its own actions. The archbishop's rather gently worded critique is nonetheless profoundly damaging to the White House, because it strikes as the heart of the administration's claim that it alone rightfully define the moral context of this war.

On October 6, 2003, the Catholic News Service posted an article that also harkened back to the Bush administration's outreach to the Vatican. The story reported on Catholic Cardinal Pio Laghi's recounting of a meeting he had with the president last March. Laghi was sent by the Pope, who was one of the most eloquent opponents of the resort to war, and his recollection of his attempt to stop the invasion confirmed what many suspected.

The meeting began with the president lengthily explaining the administration's justification for war. The cardinal interjected with the Vatican's views. The president, Laghi recalled, countered the Vatican's position against using force, including its stand against preventive war and its warning about the chaotic aftermath of the U.S. invasion. Laghi said that the president "seemed to truly believe in a war of good against evil." He left the meeting concluding that the administration had already made up its mind to go to war, and, three weeks later, it did.

The deeper threat to the government is that ineffective policies confirm the ambiguity Americans feel about a moral framework that has never been fully convincing.

The crisis now being faced by the Bush administration appears largely to be a colossal failure of policy - political disarray and social chaos in Iraq, spiraling costs at home, and mounting casualties and deaths of U.S. soldiers. However, the deeper threat to the government is that ineffective policies confirm the ambiguity Americans feel about a moral framework that has never been fully convincing.

Perhaps the most important contest of the Vietnam War was the battle for the mind of America. When a critical mass of Americans realized they could no longer believe what the Nixon government told them, an irreversible turning point was reached. That is the war that the Bush administration is fighting, one it may be losing even now.

Joseph Wakelee-Lynch is a Witness contributing editor, and his regular online column is The View from Sardis. He lives in Berkeley, California, and may be reached by email at wakeleelynch@earthlink.net