Agape Community

In an influential article prior to the 2000 elections, “Campaign 2000:
Promoting the National Interest,” Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2000, Secretary
Rice laid out her vision for US foreign policy, a vision which helped her
win the position and title of “architect of US foreign policy.” In her
conclusion she says that “[America’s] national interest has been [and should
continue to be] defined . . . by a desire to foster the spread of freedom,
prosperity, and peace . . . not from the interests of an illusory
international community. America can exercise power without arrogance . . .
When it does so in concert with those who share its core values, the world
becomes more prosperous, democratic, and peaceful.”
What is good for
America, it seems, is good for the whole world–and vice versa.

One piece toward the realization of this vision, she thought-even before
9/11– was the removal of Saddam Hussein, since “his people live in poverty
and terror, and he has no useful place in international politics. He is
therefore determined to develop WMD. Nothing will change until Saddam is
gone, so the United States must mobilize whatever resources it can,
including support from his opposition, to remove him.”
Thus, it is not really possible to separate Secretary Rice’s power,
prestige and service from the way in which that power, prestige and service
have been used in pursuit of her vision. It would be unfair not to judge
her-at least in some considerable part–in terms of US Iraq policy. As she
herself says, “power matters” in foreign affairs. And for our part as
responsible citizens, the more power a person has-especially in a
democracy-the more carefully we should scrutinize its use. We are all to
some extent accountable for and implicated in what the government does in
our name. It would be irresponsible not to question it at every turn.

So what about Iraq policy-and specifically the ongoing war there? Much of
the debate on campus has been focused on it. Let me try to summarize briefly
what I think have been three main tendencies in the debate.

1. One view–presently shared by only about 30% of Americans according to
   the latest polls–is that the war was, and still is, ultimately a good idea.
   It agrees that, as Secretary Rice argued in 2000, Saddam had to be “removed”
   in the interest of peace, prosperity, and freedom for Iraqis, Americans, and
   the Middle East as a whole. Admittedly the task has proven to be more
   difficult than expected, and “perhaps thousands of tactical mistakes” have
   been made, but we need to see it through. As Colin Powell once said–citing
   a sign he once saw in a pottery shop, “You break it, you own it.” Things may
   not have gone as planned, but it would be morally irresponsible simply to
   walk away from the tangle that Iraq still remains. Almost no one is wholly
   uncritical of the Iraq effort, but her supporters say that Secretary Rice’s
   part in it is not sufficient grounds-given her other accomplishments–for
   refusing her an honorary degree: “She’s not a monster, after all,” said one
   faculty supporter. Demonizing her does no good. Besides it is not fair.
   Final judgment will depend on whether in the end the world is a more
   peaceful place, its poor are less desperate, and its oppressed people are
   freer because of her policies.
2. Another view, rarer by far than the first and–in the interests of full
   disclosure– my own personal position, is that of Christian nonviolence, the
   lived conviction that any resort to violence is a bad idea. “Moved by the
   example of Jesus’ life and by his teaching, some Christians have from the
   earliest days of the Church committed themselves to a nonviolent lifestyle”
   (Challenge of Peace, 111). In this view, all life is sacred and no killing
   of one human being by another is ever justified: from unborn fetus to
   terminally ill old folks to convicted murderers-the seamless garment
   argument, the tradition of Jesus, Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy
   Day, MLK, the Quakers, the Menonites-and their followers today. (You may
   meet some of these folks around the edges of campus tomorrow, praying and
   fasting for peace.)
3. Thirdly, the main thread of Catholic tradition has long held that some
   wars can be justifiable, even necessary, in self-defense and to protect
   innocent life. The rules for wars of this kind are called “just” or
   “limited” war theory. The theory has much in common with secular ethical
   thinking, international law, and just plain common sense. US policy is based
   on it, we claim. In their 1983 letter on the subject, The Challenge of
   Peace (80), the US Catholic bishops put it this way: “We should do no harm
   to our neighbors; how we treat our enemy is the key test of whether we love
   our neighbor; and the possibility of taking even one human life is a
   prospect we should consider in fear and trembling . . . . . [But] faced with
   the fact of attack on the innocent, the presumption that we do no harm, even
   to our enemy, yielded to the command of love understood as the need to
   restrain an enemy who would injure the innocent . . . . ‘As long as the
   danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the
   necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of
   lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’[my emphasis]
   (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution, 79).”

The “rules” for a just war provide a handy template against which to judge
any war. Those who object to the Iraq war on Catholic and other moral
terms-and to honoring Secretary Rice for her large role in it–do so because
they believe that in initiating and executing the war the US has violated
one or more of these rules. The rules and some of the questions they
raise-questions for which our government has not always found satisfactory
answers:

• Just Cause: war may be waged only to confront “a real and certain danger”
  (86). Questions: Where did the claim of Iraq’s WMD and al-Qaida connections
  come from-not to mention the specter of the “mushroom cloud?” And what has
  become of these claims in the meantime?
• Last Resort: “all peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted” (96).
  Question: Was there really no other way to deal with Saddam than by all out
  war? Weren’t we on his side at one time (vs. Iran)? What went wrong?
• Competent Authority: the question of “whether or not a president of the US
  has acted constitutionally and legally in involving our country in a de
  facto war, even if-indeed, especially if-war was never formally declared”
  (87). Questions: Like Last Resort, this raises the issue of the role of the
  UN and other international bodies–did we do all we could to involve
  them? -and the complicity of Congress and a great majority of American
  citizens in 2003.
• Comparative Justice: “do the rights and values involved justify killing”
  (92)? Questions: Is it ever an issue of pure good against pure evil, as we
  have so often been told? How many deaths does it take before it is no longer
  “worth it?” 2400+ US so far and estimates of between 30,000 (GWB “thinks he
  heard somewhere”) and 100,000 Iraqis (Lancet). Hard to say since “we don’t
  do body counts” and we don’t like to show photographs of flag-draped
  coffins.
• Probability of Success: This rule aims “to prevent irrational resort to
  force or hopeless resistance when the outcome of either will clearly be
  disproportionate or futile” (98). Question: Does anyone still remember the
  sunny predictions that our troops would be showered with flowers as they
  entered Baghdad as liberators. What happened? The debate of the troop levels
  that would be necessary to win the war belongs here too.
• Proportionality asks: Is the good expected proportionate to the damage
  inflicted and the costs incurred (99)? Questions: What about the devastation
  to Iraq’s infrastructure, water supply, health care system, schools, and
  natural resources, as well as the billions of dollars already spent on the
  war-with no end in sight. And the issue of whether we are more “secure”
  today than we were before the war?
• Plunder: Wars waged merely for acquiring more territory or natural
  resources or loot–or purely out of revenge–have no justification at all.
  Question: Is this why we hear so little about OIL as a reason for fighting?
  Is that what is really meant by formulas such as: “a stable Middle East is a
  security priority for the US?”
• Discrimination: prohibits directly intended attacks on noncombatants and
  non-military targets (101). This includes proper treatment of prisoners of
  war. Question: What are we to make of all the questions about-and the
  government’s justification of–the use of torture and lack of due process
  for detainees? (GLOBE 5/20).

These are all hard but valid questions, I believe. And honest people can
differ on the answers-when and if it is possible to get answers. Still, we
as responsible, well educated citizens need to keep asking them and weighing
the answers and acting on our judgment of the plausibility of the answers.
Tomorrow at the Graduation Ceremony there will be polite gestures of protest
including armbands and other symbols. At the moment of the awarding of the
honorary degree some faculty members and students will stand and turn their
backs to show their disapproval of BC’s honoring Secretary Rice. During her
speech they will face her and listen, in order to signify that they do
respect her right to present her opinions. Some will hold small signs.
Others may walk out.

I hope that all of this will not interfere too much with your having a
joyous and well deserved celebration of all that you have achieved in your
four years at BC and that 50 years hence you will love BC-warts and all-as
much as I as a newly minted Golden Eagle still do.
On the other hand, I also hope that these reflections will have been helpful
and that you will go away from this lovely place with finely honed habits of
critical thinking and principled, passionate action about the great issues
of your time. Be informed. Be respectful of other opinions. Don’t assume
that people who disagree with you are either evil or just plain stupid. On
the other hand, don’t believe everything you hear from those in
power-especially when there is a war on–. And don’t buy everything that our
culture insists that you really must have in order to be cool. Like it or
not, for good or ill, we are all implicated in the project of America in the
world.

Thanks for listening. Go, Excel!

Dear Friends,

We at Agape just received this email. Please use it with media as you see fit with Sr. Megan Rice’s permission.

We will be at Beacon St. entrance to Boston College, at 7am on Monday, May 22nd, beginning our fast and standing in silence with banners which reflect our Catholic commitment to peacemaking, such as "War No More, War Never Again" and Merton’s: "Jesus, the God who is Love, is never glorified by violence" among others. Please join us.

*****************

Nun Tears Up BC Diploma Over Rice’s Invitation

Today, here at Nevada Desert Experience, a movement of 25 years + of vigiling at the Sacred Lands of the Western Shoshone People, which , since 1951 has experienced more thean 900 Atom Bombings, rendering it the most nuclearized place on this Planet. The fall-out in radiation sicknesses in this country, and on thousands of test site workers has been immeasureable. I first studied Radiation Biology in my graduate studies at Boston College from 1958 to 1962 before being missioned as a Biology teacher to West Africa.

During the 80’s I learned that Boston College had invited Oliver North to give a lecture in its stadium for something like $12,000. I wrote from Nigeria to withdraw from my membership in the Alumni/ae Association for this activity. I saw it inconsistent with the writings and teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to whom I had been introduced by the head of our Department, Professor Wm D Sullivam, SJ, who taught us Cellular Biology, Protozoology in most illuminating styles, introducing us to the wonders of Teilhard’s "Human Phenomenon" and "Le Millieu Divine". And now I am compelled to tear up that certificate of MS in Biology from Boston College since it so miseducates a generation of graduates and students by paying tribute to the Caesars of our times, who lead the world into conflict with so devastated a people as in Iraq and elsewhere, polluting their sacred air, land and water with the effects of radiation from the tons of "depleted" uranium which line almost all weapons now in use- backed by the present mis=administration, of which Ms Rice seems to be the consistent proponant and spokesperson.

I had had hopes that attitudes at BC had changed when I discovered large contingents of students attending the School of America Vigils these past few years since returning from Nigeria in 2003. It is sad to think that the present Administration at BC cannot learn from the insights and inspirations of its students and numerous faculty members who rightfully speak by their lives for justice and compassion and above all, peace, in our suffering world as did their leader and servant, Jesus of Nazareth, with a similar Empire in his day.

Sr. Megan Rice, shcj /(formerly at BC, Sr. Frederick Mary Rice. shcj) NDE, Nevada Desert Experience Las Vegas, Nevada 702 646 4614

Dear Friends,

We invite you to a presence at BC beginning as early as you can arrive on Beacon Street in front of the BC Stadium to protest the graduation address and honorary degree to be awarded to Condoleezza Rice on Monday, May 22nd at 9 am.

[image:20061214162932572 align:right]We at Agape are calling local news outlets, radio and TV stations to tell of the dissent from among Catholic communities such as Agape and hope that you will join us from your own peace group or community at Boston College. If it rains, the location will be in the arena with less seating capacity. In any event, we hope that thousands of us will be there to express our outrage at this disgrace.

We understand that 200 faculty are opposed and that many student groups are involved in planning witness and protest. We will be bringing banners with Chrisitian themes and hope to have a thoughtful, prayerful presence with fasting as an expression of repentqnce for our crimes in Iraq.

We urge you to get information out to as many people as possible. We must plan on being at Boston College, especially those Catholic Christians among us, to say what we think about Jesus, the gospel of nonviolence and the scandal done to the truth of Jesus’ words by this invitation to speak, but more outrageously, to “honor” one of the architects of this “illegal, immoral, and unjust war” (Pope John Paul II).

Please plan on coming to Boston College as early as 8am. 20,000 people are expected at the stadium, so one can only imagine the police, the ghastly waste of money that will be spent by BC and the city of Boston for security.

We pray that people will consider fasting, praying over the enemy love holiness of Christ’s message and the desecration of the teachings of Christ that Condoleesa Rice’s honorary degree represents.

Calling Boston College, writing the President, sending messages by fax and email are encouraged as only a little over a week and this spectacle will be upon us. What you read below is from the BC website, which we urge you to consult for numbers, names and addresses for calling and/or writing.

Anyone who wants to may consult with Agape as to when we will be going to BC, most likely on Sunday night to stay with friends in Boston as traffic in the area will be intense.

In peace, in prayer and solidarity.

Suzanne Shanley and Brayton Shanley for the Agape Community; John and Carrie Schuchardt, House of Peace

***********************************************************************************************

Agape Community
2062 Greenwich Rd.
Ware, MA. 01082
www.agapecommunity.org
peace@agapecommunity.org
413-967-9369

Condoleezza Rice to deliver Commencement address

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the Boston College Class of 2006 at the 130th Commencement Exercises on Monday, May 22, at Alumni Stadium.

Rice will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the ceremony, which begins at 10 a.m. [rain location: Conte Forum]. Degrees will be presented to more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Rice was President George W. Bush’s national security adviser for four years before she became secretary of state on Jan. 26, 2005. From 1993 to 1999 she served as provost of Stanford University, where she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and an academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. Rice joined Stanford’s faculty in 1981. As a professor of political science and Hoover Institution senior fellow, her teaching and research interests included the politics of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, the comparative study of military institutions, and international security policy. She won two of the university’s highest teaching honors — the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, Rice served in the administration of President George H. W. Bush as director, and then senior director, of Soviet and East European affairs in the National Security Council, and as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. During the 2000 presidential campaign, she served as a top foreign policy adviser to George W. Bush.

Honorary degrees will be presented to three other distinguished individuals: Kenneth Hackett, president of Catholic Relief Services and a 1968 graduate of Boston College, whose career has focused on aiding the poor and disenfranchised throughout the world; Pierre Imbert, who fled political oppression in his native Haiti more than two decades ago and who last year was named director of the Massachusetts Office of Refugees and Immigrants; and Sister Elizabeth S. White, RSCJ, who influenced and helped shape the values of countless young women and men during more than five decades in higher education at Newton College of the Sacred Heart and at Boston College.

“I am delighted that students graduating from Boston College and their parents will be able to hear remarks from Dr. Condoleezza Rice, a person who has excelled in academics, diplomacy and public service,” said Rev. William P. Leahy, SJ, 25th president of Boston College. “I welcome her and our honorary degree recipients to BC on May 22.”

With a commitment to human rights and social justice, Kenneth Hackett is the driving force behind Catholic Relief Services, one of the world’s most effective and efficient relief and development agencies. As president of CRS, an organization he joined more than 30 years ago, Hackett oversees operations in 99 countries and commands a global staff of more than 4,000.

A native of West Roxbury, Mass., Hackett joined the Peace Corps after graduating from BC and was assigned to serve in Ghana. Hackett started his career with CRS in Sierra Leone and has served CRS in posts throughout Africa and in the Philippines, as well as a variety of positions at CRS headquarters. In July 1993, Hackett was named Executive Director of CRS. He was appointed president in 2003. Boston College will present Hackett with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Pierre Imbert grew up in poverty on the island of Haiti before coming to America, where he worked as a dishwasher to put himself through University of Massachusetts-Boston. He led Catholic Charities’ Haitian Multi-Service Center as its director for more than 10 years before being appointed by Gov. Mitt Romney as executive director of the Office of Refugees and Immigrants and chief advocate of immigrants and refugees in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Under Imbert’s direction, ORI administers the federally funded Massachusetts refugee resettlement program. Refugee services include case management, employment services, transitional cash and medical assistance, English language instruction, health screening and foster care for unaccompanied minors. The office also supports a network of refugee community organizations, refugee youth and elder services and refugee citizenship assistance services. Imbert will receive an honorary Doctor of of Public Administration degree.

Sister Elizabeth S. White, a specialist in English literature, came to Newton College of the Sacred Heart in 1948 as one of the founding sisters and taught there until it merged with Boston College in 1975. After the merger, Sister White joined the English Department and the Honors Program at Boston College as a professor. She entered the order of the Religious of the Sacred Heart in 1942 and made her final vows in Rome in 1950.

Sister Elizabeth will be presented with an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in recognition of her lifelong commitment as a Religious of the Sacred Heart to the ministry of teaching.

-Office of Public Affairs

***********************************************************************************************

Agape Community
2062 Greenwich Rd.
Ware, MA. 01082
peace@agapecommunity.org
413-967-9369