Those who launched the war against Afghanistan had no qualms. September 11 was an unconscionable act of terror. It was also an intolerable attack on US power. Now US power would show that it was not to be trifled with.

Regret

In a mid-October statement, Alliance general secretary Setri Nyomi greatly regretted the turn to military action "before all political and juridical options had been exhausted".

"We need to understand how the actions of powerful governments can lead to resentment and anger, especially among young people," Nyomi said. "We need to recognize how poverty and injustice can become breeding grounds for terror and support for terror. We need to identify the root causes of terrorism, and to find more peaceful ways to combat it on the basis of international consensus."

For the Lutheran World Federation, general secretary Ishmael Noko took a similar line, deeply regretting that "diplomatic efforts did not open up avenues avoiding the use of armed force".

"Military action must as soon as possible be superseded by strong, constructive efforts on other levels," Noko said. "The role of diplomacy must be substantially strengthened in order to relate directly to the underlying causes of terrorism... It must contribute in substance to the rectifying and healing of past injustices, as well as to building common visions for a better future."

Lament

US churches were torn between speaking clearly and trying to influence those in power.

"While our theological tradition as Presbyterians supports the limited use of force to protect the weak and to restrain evil, that has been understood as a means of last resort, which can never be more than a temporary solution to conflict," Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), said on October 10.

Clifton Kirkpatrick

Love of neighbour obliges Christians to act to prevent wars and seek alternatives, said presiding bishop George Anderson for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. "However, we understand that under certain circumstances, there may be no other way to offer protection to innocent people except by use of military force."

Was military force justified in Afghanistan? Both leaders ducked the question, accepting the war as a fact, but asking serious questions about its aims and conduct.

"There can be no joy for us this week, only lament," the collegium of officers of the United Church of Christ said on October 12.

The UCC officers acknowledged that "faithful people" would disagree about how to provide security in a dangerous world. For themselves, they spoke from the UCC peace tradition.

"As we wept over the images of fallen towers in nearby New York, we now weep over scenes of death and destruction in distant Kabul. As we held our own children close during the frightening hours of terrorist attack, we now tremble for vulnerable children and innocent refugees who are in danger of bombs and starvation."

"In recent years military campaigns in countless places have destroyed lives and threatened a whole generation of children while leaving in place oppressive regimes. Short-term solutions have sown the seeds of future catastrophe as we ally ourselves with the enemies of our enemy, only to discover that we have fed and armed those who would terrorize the innocent. Meanwhile, we have distanced ourselves from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, have ignored civil wars in Africa, have done little to address the poverty and hunger that is the primary terror for most in the world, and have supplied countless regimes with abundant weaponry."

Condemnation

Responses elsewhere ranged from concerned questioning to outright condemnation.

"We cannot accept that, at the same time as it is denouncing the September 11 terrorism, the US is declaring a retaliatory war," the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea said on September 25.

"We urge the US to cast off its overbearing arrogance as a supreme power. Its threat to withdraw from the ABM treaty, its rejection of the ban on the expansion of nuclear testing, its rejection of the Kyoto protocol, and its rejection of the ban on the development of chemical weapons, are evidence of the US view of itself as a country of supreme power, and evidence that it is a country blocking world peace. The US must be reborn from its imperialist arrogance to a country serving the world."

Perhaps this reads less ferociously in Korean.

The church and nation committee of the Church of Scotland issued two thoughtful statements on October 4 and November 1. If the first took Tony Blair's idealistic rhetoric too much at face value, the second was unequivocal: "Answering violence with more violence rarely overcomes the complex international problems which blight humanity...The killing of thousands is not to be answered by killing thousands more."

Perhaps the most comprehensive statement came from the Spanish Evangelical Church. Faced with George W Bush's "you're either for us or against us", the church synod preferred to choose a third option. "We stand in solidarity with the decade to overcome violence... We stand in solidarity with the Afghan people."

Spanish Evangelical Church logo This enabled the synod to condemn and denounce almost everything: the September 11 attacks, the US war, the Taliban regime, the economic order prevailing in the world which serves only to multiply inequalities.

"We ask for changes in attitudes and policies towards the poor countries of the world. We ask that democratic electoral processes be respected, even when they differ in ideology and understanding from those of the dominant nations. We ask that no form of dictatorship be supported and that human rights be defended. We believe that the time has arrived for the United States of America to support the creation of an International War Crimes Tribunal and to uphold the Kyoto accord. We call all of the believers of the family of Abraham to seek together the road to peace and brotherhood."

Fine words and worthy sentiments. But none of them made much difference. Those who brought us the war against Afghanistan live by a different spirit.

Páraic Réamonn