Bishops Suggest Apology for War

A group of bishops from the Church of England have issued a report suggesting the need for a chorus of mea culpas and heart-tugging regrets over the Iraqi theater in the war against Islamist terror. They also want to top that off with a possible group hug.

Church of England bishops have suggested Christian leaders apologise to Muslim leaders for the war in Iraq.

A report from a working group of bishops says the war was one of a “long litany of errors” relating to Iraq.

As the government is unlikely to offer an apology, a meeting of religious leaders would provide a “public act of institutional repentance”, it said.

It urges a “truth and reconciliation” meeting, but acknowledges that arranging it could be difficult.

The report, entitled Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11, was written by a working group of the Church of England’s House of Bishops.

It suggests the meeting would be an opportunity to apologise for the way the West has contributed to the situation in Iraq, including the war.

The Church of England has criticised the war, saying it was not a “just war”.

But a dilemma now exists for those within the Church – to pull out of Iraq without a stable democracy in place would be irresponsible, but to stay suggests collusion with a “gravely mistaken” war, the bishops said.

But if collusion was a necessary evil, the report says, there needs to be a degree of public recognition of the West’s responsibility for the present situation.

“It might be possible for there to be a public gathering…at which Christian leaders meet with religious leaders of other, mainly Muslim, traditions, on the basis of truth and reconciliation, at which there would be a public recognition of at least some of the factors mentioned [in the report].”

One of the co-authors of the report, Bishop Richard Harries, explains his thoughts on the report in this column. Sifting through, I found the following gem:

Our report deals not only with the threat of terrorism but with American power, perceived by many Muslims and others to be the major threat to world order today. While US power is a reality that has to be frankly faced, its mixture of deluded self-righteousness and genuine altruism make it ambiguous.

As is well known, President Bush gets much of his support from a particular Christian constituency with a distinctive slant on what’s happening in the world today, based on biblical prophecy.

I support President Bush in our anti-Islamist efforts. I am also an atheist with strong libertarian leanings who did not vote for Bush in 2000. I wonder what broad brush the dear bishop would choose to paint over my stance of the Iraqi theater, as I’m obviously harboring no hopes for Crusade or Judgement Day.

Normally, I would love to fisk this piece and the article on the bishops’ report. Bishop Harries’ thoughts on Just War and wars of intervention are just ripe for the picking. However, in this particular case, I’ll leave it to the Brits themselves. First, here’s a Daily Telegraph editorial.

A sorry body of bishops

Western Christians should show “institutional repentance” – should apologise – for the Iraq war, according to a working group of Church of England bishops led by the Rt Rev Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford. Just to make it clear what they mean, the bishops suggest a public meeting where Christian leaders would acknowledge, in front of “mainly Muslim” leaders, the wrongs done by the West.

The bishops predict that such an event will be “dismissed as a cheap gesture”. In reality it would be a very expensive gesture, for a reason that seems to have escaped the bishops in their 101-page document, called without conscious irony Countering Terrorism. First, no one – a zero percentage in statistical terms – in the Muslim world is going to read the 101 pages of nuanced, Englishly civilised, but mostly political rumination. So that would leave Muslims with the impression conveyed by a public act of apology.

The impression given to the Islamic world by such an act, or even its proposal, is that the bishops of England had confirmed that the war against Iraq was a Christian crusade against Muslims. That is not what the bishops mean to say. They opposed the war. They think it was mostly about oil and American power. The inflammatory consequences of reinforcing the erroneous notion of a war against Islam could be far more horrific than anything yet seen, even in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Stephen Pollard comes out with guns blazing in defense of Americans.

Sorry we liberated you guys

Forget all the sophistic arguments about the war acting as a recruiting ground for terror or concern about the terrorists’ victims. The real problem is the very fact of “deeply flawed” Western democracies (as they put it) taking action against tyranny.

Worse still — yes, you knew it was coming, and here it is — it was America that led the way. So consumed are they with hatred for America that they consider Saddam to be preferable to democracy, if it has been facilitated by America. In a passage of breathtakingly blinkered bigotry, we are told that “what distinguishes it (the US) from many other empires in history is its strong sense of moral righteousness”.

No. What distinguishes America is that when it fights it does so not to impose tyranny but to promote freedom and the stable democracy of which the bishops are so contemptuous. Without America sending its sons to fight for liberty, we would be speaking German.

While I like the gist of Pollard’s column, I don’t want anyone to think I support the American government in any attempt to spread or defend democracy from a purely altruistic position. In fact, I don’t want the U.S. government ever doing anything out of altruism — that is not its role. The actions of the U.S. government and military should always be directly or indirectly of benefit to the people of the United States. Let private entities, such as religious bodies, caring groups or heartfelt individuals, act out of selflessness. I do not support our military’s efforts in Iraq for the sheer good of the Iraqi people and the hope for their self-determination. Rather, I view those as aims that may eventually contribute towards the security of my own civilization. Bully for them, bully for us. But I won’t lie, it’s the “bully for us” portion that matters first and foremost to me.