John D. Giorgis wrote: > Some academics have written a rather interesting 10-page piece on the > foundations of Western Civlization and why we are fighting this War.
Initial Thoughts: 1. They initially claim "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" as a self-evident truth. They later concede that this is in fact their collective personal opinion. While it happens to be my personal opinion as well, it is not the opinion of the majority of the world's population - the people of Asia, Central Asia, the sub-continent, the Middle East, most of Africa and a good percentage of South America treat females and males differently from cradle to grave. That alone suggests it is not a self-evident truth, and in terms of making a statement to middle-eastern people, smacks of the very arrogance they deplore. 2. The statement "we are by far the western world's most religious society" is probably of dubious value in places like Turkey (yes I know it is barely Western, but they are on "our" side of the divide), Israel, Greece, and a considerable number of countries in Central and South America. Again, it smacks of arrogance. If they really mean the most religious in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa then say that. If you're going to include all those countries with western values and systems in the term "the western world" when you want to show how many and how widespread we are, then you can't redefine it in another paragraph. 3. "The principles of just war teach us that wars of aggression and aggrandizement are never acceptable" While they continue to define and opine at some length, I think they miss the point that some wars are just (eg Kuwait) and while we see war x as just, other cultures will see war y or war z as just. 4. "One day, this war will end. When it does - and in some respects even before it ends - the great task of conciliation awaits us" It is my opinion that the war on terror will never end, and has raged since the dawn of time. We know it existed in biblical times, we know it existed in the dark ages (those castles were built for a reason) and we know it continues today, but even more fervently I believe that conciliation is a fundamental part of that war, not the next step after the war has been won. I'm still amazed that many of those people could agree enough to write it down... Russell Chapman Brisbane Australia
