REV. J. BRYAN HEHIR ON JUST WAR:

The [just war] position stands between a position which would say that all use of lethal force is morally wrong — a pacifist position. And then it also stands over against a position that says that when you go to war there is no time or space or possibility of imposing moral restraints, that you can use moral restraints in other dimensions of life but when you go to war there's no possibility.

That's sometimes called the realist position, if you will. So the just war position stands between those two. It is a position that has its origins in the fifth century with a Christian saint [St. Augustine of Hippo].

And so his basic position was that war is the result of sin in the world, and war is the remedy for sin. What he meant by that was, war is the result of sin — meaning that people are not perfect and so they will do evil things to other people. And therefore in that kind of world you may need to use force to protect people from evil being done to them.

He entrusted the use of force to those who had responsibility for the common good, as he would call it. That is to say, the political authority of the community.

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"I found out that what I thought was the basic law of the Quran on criminal issues, I understood it wrong. I thought it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. What I didn't realize is that people who quote the Quran never go — to the rest of the verse which says: but forgiveness is better. And it is this idea of forgiveness and conflict resolution that we have to bring forward in all our societies. The only time the use of force is allowed — is for self- defense, and there are statements by the Prophet, that would indicate that even in self-defense sometimes it's better to be the victim than the perpetrator of the violence. And that therefore, somehow you can teach through your being a peaceful person and refusing to be pulled into violence because somebody else pulled you.

But generally Christians, Muslims and Jews have missed a lot of this Abrahamic message in their religion. Look at Christianity. We say turn the other cheek. When was the last time did we turn the other cheek when we got hurt?"

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