
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991                   TAG: 9102060499
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BUSH'S MESSAGE

IN A recent speech to the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Washington, President Bush explained in the clearest possible terms the moral imperative behind his decision to engage in war in the Persian Gulf. He correctly called Operation Desert Storm a "just war," and then he defined what he meant.

"The first principle of a just war," said the president, "is that it support a just cause." He said that the principles of a just war originated with classical Greek and Roman philosophers like Plato and Cicero. Not exactly. Cicero said, "I cease not to advocate peace; even though unjust it is better than the most just war." Still, faulty though his researcher may have been, Bush quickly returned to more contemporary ground and defined what he sees as the meaning of a just cause.

"We seek nothing for ourselves . . . we do not seek the destruction of Iraq," said Bush. And, he noted, a just war "must also be declared by legitimate authority." He then recited the now-familiar litany of 12 U.N. Security Council resolutions and the 28 nations that make up the allied coalition.

The president turned a nice phrase when he observed that "every war is fought for a reason. But a just war is fought for the right reasons - for moral, not selfish, reasons."

Then he went on to tell a story of two Kuwaiti teen-agers who, he said, were murdered by Iraqi soldiers because they reportedly refused to lower their national flag in front of their home. "Then, unbelievably, their parents were asked to pay the price of the bullets used to kill them," he said.

Those who oppose this war, or all wars, need to ask what is the higher moral road in light of such atrocities. Is it better to turn away in self-preservation or to engage an enemy of the good, whether that enemy be a street mugger or one who mugs a nation and its innocent citizens? Would pacifists not even call the police? Is force never justified to protect the innocent from those with no moral code?

President Bush answered that question when he told the broadcasters, "But when a war must be fought for the greater good, it is our gravest obligation to conduct a war in proportion to the threat. And that is why we must act reasonably, humanely, and make every effort possible to keep casualties to a minimum."

If the United States, with its incredibly expensive high-tech equipment and might, cannot achieve its objectives against Saddam Hussein, more than a war will have been lost. The national consciousness will have been seared for generations to come, and America will have suffered a more profound defeat than in Vietnam. It could enter a prolonged period of isolationism that would make the world safe for tyrants and despots.

If this war achieves the objectives Bush seeks - forcing Saddam's army out of Kuwait and neutralizing him as a threat to his neighbors for the foreseeable future - Bush will have attained a noble, moral and just objective, and the nightmare of the Vietnam experience will be over.

About another war, without which the Queen of England might be on our money, Thomas Paine observed, "It is the object only of war that makes it honorable."

The object articulated by President Bush makes this war an honorable one and a just cause for all who are participating in it on the side of right. Having laid out the moral reasoning behind the war, all the president and his armed forces have to do now is win it. Los Angeles Times Syndicate

by CNB