Canadian war against Taliban is "retribution" for 9/11 attacks
Speaking at a symposium about Afghanistan, O'Connor said Canadian soldiers are in the country because Afghanistan's democratically elected government wants them there, because Canada has a responsibility to help as one of the world's richest countries and because the war is in Canada's own interest. "When the Taliban or al-Qaida came out of Afghanistan, they attacked the twin towers and in those twin towers, 25 Canadians were killed. The previous government and this government will not allow Canadians to be killed without retribution," O'Connor told his audience of roughly 200 people, many of them military personnel.
Definition of retribution - Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Main Entry: ret·ri·bu·tion Pronunciation: "re-tr&-'byü-sh&nClassically the justice of a war is assessed using three criteria: legitimacy, just cause and just intention. The Afghan mission as it has been sold to the Canadian public has met all three of these criteria. It has legitimacy in the legal sense that it is sanctioned by international law and a supranational body. It is the new articulation of our cause and intent worries me.
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English retribucioun, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin retribution-, retributio, from Latin retribuere to pay back, from re- + tribuere to pay -- more at TRIBUTE
1 : RECOMPENSE, REWARD
2 : the dispensing or receiving of reward or punishment especially in the hereafter 3 : something given or exacted in recompense; especially : PUNISHMENT
The very idea of retribution cannot be a just cause; as a cause of military action retribution implies that the original injustice that has been perpetrated against one's self deserves to be met with deadly force. There is no reason for military force other than military force. The argument slips into a deadly circle with terrible consequences. It is the applicability of the same flawed argument to the enemy's circumstances that makes this kind of reasoning so pernicious and dangerous. Moreover it inverts the normal labels of innocence; for If our innocents were lost in an attack, then retribution would seem to demand that their innocents must pay too. No justice can come from the death of innocents.
The attack of the 11th of September 2001 may serve as the basis of a just cause for military action. That day may have demonstrated the existence of a threat or that the Al-Qaida/Taliban coalition represents the kind of oppressive hate inducing regime that is both a danger to our security and the rights of Afghan people that requires immediate action. It may have been the case a week prior, but that attack could be a just cause to bring one nation to action.
When a state is spurred to military action and whose intention is to seek retribution there can be no end to the bloodshed. Military action requires an objective in order to focus the application of force; and this is why I do not believe the defence minister. Objectives in Afghanistan seem, from this distant perspective, to be focused on securing infrastructure from terrorists in order to provide security for reconstruction. To my mind that is not punishment or a form of blood lust that would expected from a mission of retribution. My faith in the justice of our war in Afghanistan would be severely shaken if not for the actions of our troops speaking louder than the words of their Minister.
[ed. Incidentally I do not necessarily endorse the theory of Aquinas that I linked to above, he is just one of the early proponents of a tripartite and very popular theory of the justice of wars.]
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