c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _ Someone is going to have to persuade me there is a good reason for the United States to drop bombs on and fire missiles at Iraq.

The answer coming from the Clinton administration seems to be that Saddam Hussein has weapons of”mass destruction.”Doubtless he does.

But the weapons do not seem to worry the neighboring countries that presumably would be his primary targets. Nor do they worry most members of the United Nations, which he continues to defy. They don’t even seem to worry the pope.

Why then should we worry? Why, more to the point, should we kill thousands of Iraqi civilians and risk the death of scores of Americans by restarting the Gulf War?

Is it to teach Saddam a lesson? If there is one one thing we have learned in the last seven years is that he is uneducable.

Is it to eliminate weapons of mass destruction? But we’re not really sure we know where they are. Most of Saddam’s playthings are likely to survive.

Is it to punish Iraq for its violation of U.N. resolutions? But if the U.N. is unwilling to do it, why should we _ unasked and unwanted _ take on the task?

Is it to bring down Saddam? But no one seriously thinks, let us say, a month of air raids will accomplish that. Only massive intervention of land forces could really sweep Saddam out of power and no one in the United States seems ready to tolerate such action. Moreover, we do not have sufficient levels of force in the region to deal massive blows to his political and military structures.

We can kill a lot of Iraqis, which has never bothered Americans much, but that’s about all we can accomplish.

Is it to establish America’s credibility as a world leader? How many times have we been suckered by that argument?

Ultimately, all we can hope to accomplish is to increase the levels of suffering in Iraq. And we know that doesn’t bother Saddam one bit.

At least two principles of a just war do not seem to be honored in the proposed attack by the U.S. government and its allies.

First, there is no reasonable hope of victory without the use of vast ground forces, which has already been ruled out.

Secondly, the evil involved _ the killing of Iraqi civilians _ is not commensurate with the good we hope to achieve, whatever that might be.

What then should the United States do?

Why can’t we do what we should have done early in the Vietnam mess _ proclaim victory and go home? Why can’t we wash our hands of our so-called allies? Why can’t we say that if no one else _ pope included _ is worried about those”weapons of mass destruction,”we aren’t either.

There is no reason why the United States should take on the responsibility of dealing with one of the world’s great criminals if no one else thinks he’s worth worrying about.

Otto von Bismark, the fabled German Reichkanzler of the last century once remarked that the whole of the Balkans was not worth the healthy young bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier. Nor is Iraq worth the healthy young bones of a single U.S. Navy F-18 pilot _ not as long as the rest of the world doesn’t care about those”weapons of mass destruction.” We bailed the Gulf states out once and have received precious little gratitude for our efforts. Why bother once again? Where is it written in the heavens that America must pull the Middle East chestnuts out of the fire for those who demonstrate little concern for their own chestnuts? Why should we kill Iraqis for them?

I conclude the proposed bombing would make an unjust war.

DEA END GREELEY