The moral breakdown of an army

BY a curious irony the triumph of American technology on the moon was matched within hours by the revelations of the moral breakdown of the United States army at Pinkville in Vietnam. Never was there such a dramatic illustration of the glory and the misery of man.
Although final judgment about the massacre at Pinkville must be reserved there seems hardly room for doubt that an atrocious massacre did take place; the only point at issue is its extent.
What should he our judgment on this dreadful event? The callousness of Mr. George Brown. whose disgraceful broadcast I unfortunately happened to hear while driving to the House of Commons. and the frenzied bayings of the Labour left for American (and George's) blood seem equally inapposite, The moral position is somewhat more complicated than that.
First, we arc right to he shocked, furious and outraged by the revelations. It is no answer to say that atrocities have been committed by the other side. They are responsible for their inhumanities and we for ours—and they arc ours since the Government has consistently supported American policy in Vietnam.
One set of atrocities does not cancel out another. In any case the Americans claim to he fighting in Vietnam for the preservation of liberty, democracy and human dignity; if you have those words emblazoned on your standard you must expect to be judged by them.
I need not labour the point. There must be a forthright condemnation from the British and American Governments of the events and the bringing of those guilty to justice as soon as the definitive facts have been established.
We should be clear. too, that the argument that war is a horrid business anyhow and that such things must be ex• pected to happen and therefore should be dismissed as just an example of bellicose depravity is moral sophistry. Of course war brutalises. What is it but a breakdown of civilisation when mencease to try and settle conflict by reason and compromise and resort to violence?
Yet there is a great gulf between fighting for a cause which. whether mistakenly or not, one believes to he right. and inflicting in rage and hate violence and suffering on innocent women and children purely to gratify a personal blood lust.
The traditional Catholic teaching on war has alWays recognised war as an event which brings evils in its train. but has sought to limit these as it has sought to limit war itself. The distinction between a just and an unjust war is in itself a limiting principle which however ineffective in practice is an attempt to limit the justification of war to certain con flicts. and so limit war itself.
Once war has broken out the classical Catholic teaching
endeavours to limit its bad effects by maintaining that the dignity of man has not been destroyed by declaration of war and that ends do not justify means. Every effort must be made to limit the attack on human rights which war implies.
Hence the attempts in the medieval period to evolve rules of war: hence the support given by the Catholic countries to such agreements as the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war and the support for such institutions as the international red cross. Only by abiding by such rules can one avoid a collapse into barbarism and ending by adopting the very methods and values which one may have gone to war to resist.
What will be the effect of Pinkville on United States policy? Mr. Michael Stewart may he right in logic when he says that atrocity does not discredit a policy but he is wrong in fact. He just does not understand the American people. A pacific democracy like the tInited States can only prosecute a war successfully if its citizens are convinced that they are morally right.
Widespread doubt about the war already exists in the I !rifted States: the Pinkville massacre will arouse the conscience of America and that conscience will declare more insistently than• ever against the war. President Nixon has consistently underestimated the strength of American sentiment against the war, but not even he will be able to ignore a United States morally roused. Pinkville is likely to prove the penultimate chapter in the tragedy of Vietnam.
Helping priests
I NOTE that last week Fr.
Flanagan, was back again. this time attacking my idea of setting up a full-scale counselfling service to aid priests and religious in difficulty. The publication of his letter coincided with the announcement 'by the bishops that the hierarchy were in consultation with the Social Welfare Commission sachrout the feasibility of such a vice
Some practical help seems 10 be the episcopal answer rather than exhortations to "dedicated obedience" to the Pope and a scrmonette on the prodigal son which is all Fr. Flanaganhas to offer.
Man is not body and soul. as we have been erroneously taught for too long, but body
soulln Any scheme that is to succeed must recognise that man though divided against himself by original sin has a unitary nature which is not fragmented ,h,irocrodninsecaLanted by the process