Meanwhile, how many people Saddam kills, rapes and tortures remains his own business unless he threatens to invade another country. What he does with terrorists is also his own business unless a smoking gun can be found. What the international economic sanctions needed to degrade his military power do to ordinary Iraqi people is also none of our business.
The anti-war strategy thus amounts to substituting vast civilian suffering for direct attacks against military targets. Is this just? The war envisioned by the Bush administration is less a war against Iraq than a war against the bloody Hussein regime, using postmodern warfare methods, which tend to reduce civilian casualties through precise targeting.
This Lent, let all good Christians pray and fast for peace, as U.S. bishops ask. Let us pray and fast as well for moral wisdom to distinguish between true, just and lasting peace and a fearful indifference to the bloody moral consequences of inaction.