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Selective Memory: Augustine and Contemporary Just War Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2012

Peter Lee
Peter Lee*
Affiliation:
King's College London; RAF College Cranwell, Sleaford, NG34 8HB, [email protected]
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Abstract

Recent moral justifications of military intervention in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq have drawn upon just war concepts set out by Augustine of Hippo in the early fifth century. Augustine, writing as the political hegemony of the Roman Empire was ebbing away, provides a valuable touchstone for anyone engaged in analysing the complex interplay of power, war, morality and religious faith. Like most of the problems Augustine addressed in his writings, his attitude to just war was rooted in a potent mix of imperial politics, concern for individual souls and establishing and defending church orthodoxy. Though his personal telos was to be found in the Heavenly City, Augustine did not try to avoid the difficulties of dealing with the contradictions involved in the Christian's encounter with the decidedly ungodly Earthly City. Though he never ruled out the need for political power to be wielded through the medium of martial force, Augustine would only accede to such action with great reluctance. This article investigates aspects of the use and misuse of Augustine and his ideas in both the political and academic arenas in the justification of recent military interventions. Analysis of statements made by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the book Just War Against Terror by American political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain will show how Augustinian concepts have been used selectively to serve broader political agendas. Blair and Elshtain have been chosen for this study because they were both, in their respective fields, influential figures who advocated the 2003 invasion of Iraq; they are both declared Christians; Elshtain has explicitly associated herself with Blair's approach; and they both rejected any notion of religious crusade in the aforementioned interventions. By considering casus belli which included self-defence, opposing evil and liberating the oppressed, this article will demonstrate that the selective use of Augustine would eventually weaken the very case it was meant to strengthen. In the process, commonalities and discontinuities between Augustine's ideas in their original context and their application in the present will be highlighted. The article concludes that, in the process of using Augustinian concepts to justify recent military action, his renowned reticence regarding the use of force was undermined.

Keywords

AugustineBlairElshtainIraq Warjust warmilitary intervention
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , August 2012 , pp. 309 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2012

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References

1 Charter of the United Nations, located http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter (accessed April 2012).

2 A. Blair, ‘Prime Minister's Statement Opening the Iraq debate’, 18 March 2003. Unless specified otherwise all subsequent quotes from Blair's speech transcripts are located at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20061004085342/http://number10.gov.uk/output/Page5.asp (accessed April 2012).

3 Idem.

4 Elshtain, J. B., Just War Against Terror (New York: Basic Books, 2004), p. 192Google Scholar.

5 A number of historic just war traditions can be found in different cultures and locations around the world; this article focuses specifically on a distinct Western just war tradition.

6 This and similar claims are made or repeated in a number of texts, a sample of which include: Christopher, Paul, The Ethics of War and Peace (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1994), p. 30Google Scholar; Reichberg, Gregory M., Syse, Henrik and Begby, Endre (eds), The Ethics of War (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), p. 71Google Scholar; Ramsey, Paul, ‘The Just War According to St. Augustine’, in Elshtain, Jean B. (ed.), Just War Theory (New York: New York University Press, 1992), p. 8Google Scholar.

7 Mattox, J. M., Saint Augustine and the Theory of Just War (London and New York: Continuum, 2006), p. 1Google Scholar.

8 Augustine, Against Faustus the Manichean 22.74, in Reichberg et al., Ethics of War, pp. 81, 82.

9 Augustine, , Confessions and Enchiridion (397), trans. Outler, A. C. (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2000), p. 70Google Scholar.

10 Ibid.

11 Lynch, T., ‘Confessions of the Self: Foucault and Augustine’, Telos, 146 (Spring 2009), p. 134Google Scholar.

12 Augustine, , City of God, trans. Bettenson, Henry (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), 1.26, p. 37Google Scholar.

13 A more detailed version of this argument can be found in my PhD thesis: ‘A Genealogy of the Ethical Subject in the Just War Tradition’, King's College London, Aug. 2010.

14 Augustine, City of God 8.5, p. 304.

15 Ibid.

16 Mattox, , St Augustine and Theory of Just War (London and New York: Continuum, 2006), p. 92Google Scholar.

17 Augustine, City of God 19.13, p. 870.

18 Ibid.,19.7, pp. 861–2.

19 Reichberg et al., Ethics of War, p. 73.

20 Blair, 7 April 2002, Speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library.

21 Ibid.

22 A. Blair, A Journey (London: Hutchinson, 2010), p. 433.

23 Blair, Interview with British Forces Broadcasting Service, 23 March 2003.

24 Augustine, Against Faustus the Manichean 22.74, in Augustine: Political Writings, ed. E. L. Fortin and D. Kries, trans. M.W. Tkacz and D. Kries (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), pp. 221–2.

25 The most high-profile incident occurred when Blair's Press Secretary Alastair Campbell, intervened during a press interview to famously declare: ‘We don't do God’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1429109/Campbell-interrupted-Blair-as-he-spoke-of-his-faith-We-dont-do-God.html.

26 A. Blair, ‘God Will Judge Me, PM Tells Parkinson’, 4 March 2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/mar/04/labour.uk2 (accessed April 2012).

27 Charter of the United Nations, article 2, para. 4: http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter (accessed Dec. 2008).

28 These are the criteria set out by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in his evidence to the Iraq Inquiry on 27 Jan. 2010: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45317/20100127goldsmith-final.pdf (accessed Aug. 2010).

29 Ibid.

30 UN Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed on 8 Nov. 2002 and warned Iraq that it would face ‘serious consequences’ if it did not co-operate with the UN weapons inspections teams and demonstrate that it had no weapons of mass destruction capability. See http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/1441.pdf (accessed April 2012).

31 Blair television interview with Fern Britton, BBC1 TV, 13 Dec. 2009: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8409266.stm (accessed April 2012).

32 Blair, A Journey, p. 79.

33 Elshtain, J. B., ‘A Response’, International Relations, 21/4 (2007), p. 505Google Scholar.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., p. 506.

36 Elshtain, Jean Bethke (ed.), Just War Theory (New York and London: New York University Press, 1992), p. 323Google Scholar.

37 Elshtain, J. B., Augustine and the Limits of Politics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), p. 114Google Scholar.

38 Ibid.

39 Elshtain Just War Against Terror, p. 152.

40 Augustine, City of God 4.7, p. 142.

41 ‘Coalition of the Willing’ was a label applied by President Bush to those states who supported, either militarily or at least in principle, the US/UK-led invasion of Iraq. On 27 March 2003 the Coalition was made up of 49 countries, only five of which (US, UK, Australia, Denmark and Poland) contributed military equipment and personnel to the invading force. A diverse membership included Japan, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Mongolia, not all of whom even have armed forces. See http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030327–10.html (accessed Nov. 2010).

42 Augustine, Questions on the Heptateuch 6.10, quoted in Mattox, St Augustine and Theory of Just War, p. 46.

43 Elshtain, Just War Against Terror, p. 61.

44 G. W. Bush, 20 Sept. 2001, Transcript of President Bush's Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the Nation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html (accessed May 2005).

45 J. D. Rockefeller, 5 June 2008, ‘Press Release of the Intelligence Committee – Two Bipartisan Reports Detail Administration Misstatements on Prewar Iraq Intelligence, and Inappropriate Intelligence Activities by Pentagon Policy Office’: http://rockefeller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=6c0e8179-05a6-4747-a9a2-ace5ffe68997 (accessed April 2012).