The wall that didn't come down

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has spelt out as clearly as anyone the rules for justice in combat. They require three things: noncombatant immunity, proportionality, and right intent. Noncombatant immunity means "civilians may not be the object of direct attack, and the military must take due care to avoid and minimize indirect harm to civilians." Proportionality means using "no more force than is militarily necessary to avoid disproportionate collateral damage to civilian life and property." And right intent means "even in the midst of conflict, the aim of political and military leaders must be peace with justice, so that acts of vengeance and indiscriminate violence, whether by individuals, military units or government, is forbidden."

These rules of morality are indistinguishable from the rules of engagement governing U.S. forces.

Justice is our tactic as well as our goal. The Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz said war is politics by other means. When diplomats fail to persuade with arguments, warriors persuade with guns. But the political goal remains the same. Saddam's regime would never be persuaded to disarm and stop threatening us, so it will be destroyed. But an even greater U.S. victory will be won if liberated Iraqis and would-be terrorist recruits elsewhere in the Middle East are persuaded there is a better destiny in store for them than signing up to kill Americans.

This is the political message behind the remarkable discrimination of the U.S. guns. The still-standing wall at the headquarters of Saddam's internal security force gives witness to something more powerful than cruise missiles: a better moral order. We are tempting our enemies to embrace our values, not despise them.

Even when our prisoners of war are executed in cold blood, and even when Iraqi soldiers lure our troops into ambush by pretending to surrender, we stick by our moral guns and use force only with proportionality and discrimination.

Will it work? If the evil empire Stalin built could crumble in the face of truth, so will Saddam's.