Tuesday night, during his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush stated, “Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay,” and received a standing ovation in support of the United States’ efforts against international terrorism.
On Wednesday night, some Washington University students got a different perspective on the war on terrorism from four guest speakers, who declined to solidly back the war effort.
The four speakers made up a panel of local religious leaders participating in the forum “Is This Just War?” in Holmes Lounge. The panel consisted of Catholic Andrew Wimmer, Rabbi Hyim Shafner, and two Muslims: Sheila Musaji and Iman Ansari. Father Gary Braun of WU’s Catholic Student Center moderated the panel.
Americans overwhelmingly support the war on terrorism; members of the panel said they were not in line with the mainstream opinion.
“I am not sure that the solution to stopping terrorism is going to be more violence,” said Musaji of the Islamic Information Center.
Although other members of the panel were more supportive of the war, none expressed unqualified support.
The panel began by explaining the positions held by Jews, Muslims, and Catholics on war.
Musaji said that terrorism was forbidden in Islamic law-punishable by death-and that martyrdom was a term used broadly by Muslims to include, for example, a woman dying in childbirth or a firefighter killed in a fire.
Shafner spoke of the interdiction of targeting civilians, and the purpose of war being to fight evil and defend the innocent. Andrew Wimmer said that a war must have a just cause and a high probability of success.
Braun then presented the title question, “Is this just war?” to the panel. Musaji and Wimmer said “No,” the war is not just. They held the opinion that other options are available to the U.S., and that war would create more problems than it would solve. Shafner seemed somewhat ambivalent.
“In theory, it could be a just war,” Shafner said.
Ansari was the staunchest supporter of the war, saying that retaliation is a justifiable reason to go to war, but also cautioned against going too far.
After some further debate, the floor was opened to questions from the audience, and the group discussed the final question posed by Braun: “What do people of faith do now?”
Wimmer suggested attending the weekly gathering of people for a half hour of silence in order to meditate on one’s thoughts.
At the end of the forum, members of the audience applauded enthusiastically, but the panel did not receive the standing ovation that Bush received the night before.
Despite the panel’s stated qualms about the war, some students think that the religious leaders’ statements were not definitive enough.
“It was all very wishy-washy,” stated sophomore Miranda Todd, saying that she wished the panel had more forcefully expressed their opinions on the war, one way or the other.
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