Dr. Timothy Ball, the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology:

The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970’s global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990’s temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I’ll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

Well, wait and see.

Douglas W. Kmiec, considered to be a conservative Catholic, recently wrote an article “Time to face the error of Iraq,” carried by The Tidings (publication of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles) and carried by the Catholic News Service. In it he states that he used to support the war in Iraq:

I did support the war. Indeed, in the weeks leading up to the war my pastor in Washington, D.C., where we were then resident, asked me to present the case for intervention before the parish community. I agreed, though it was no easy task, as Sen. Ted Kennedy and his wife were fellow parishioners.

Things have changed for Mr Kmiec:

But it is 2007, and we know the justifications for the war were illusory. Whatever Saddam’s motivations for bluffery, the weapons of mass destruction were not to be found. The 9/11 commission established the absence of a connection to al-Qaida. As for humanitarian intervention, well, the insurgency long since has wiped out the humanity of our assistance.

The president’s justification for escalating the Iraq war with an additional 22,000 troops is unconvincing. More, it is deeply disappointing. It manifests little respect for public sentiment and makes no genuine effort at convening a diplomatic summit with European and Middle Eastern nations that share the desire for a stable, peaceful Iraq.

And he offers this solution:

However well-intentioned the initial intervention in Iraq may have been thought to be, and however noble the sacrifice made for those original intentions shall remain, the time for American troops to leave Iraq is now.

I supported the war four years ago and unlike Mr. Kmiec I remain steadfast in my support for the need to win it.

The question that haunts me most from my service in Afghanistan nearly four years ago came from Haroun, the mid-twenties Afghan man who managed the safe house we lived in. He asked then, as many Iraqis have also asked friends of mine serving in Iraq, “How long are you going to stay? Because they know who we are.” The days we are now experiencing in Washington and in the media are the days that many Afghans and Iraqis feared would come: the day that we turned our backs on them when the going got tough.

They knew from suffering under decades of institutionalized evil that the Baathists, Taliban, and al-Qaeda would not just simply succumb after a few years; that Shiites and others would seek revenge if they found our sense and means of justice too slow or inadequate. Unfortunately, we were too naïve to realize what they knew.

Mr. Kmiec claims that the justifications for originally going to war have proven to be “illusory” - that we have found no WMD, that there was no Iraqi connection to al-Qaeda, and that the insurgency has “wiped out the humanity of our assistance.” The facts are not that simple. Unfortunately they somehow seem to get lost in emotional angst, today’s debate and in the press. Let’s look at factual counterarguments to Mr. Kmiec’s points through the context of the generally recognized conditions necessary for a Just War.

The threat must be grave and certain and other means to quell it found insufficient.

We know from the Iraqi Survey Group that in the years after 1998 - after UN inspectors were kicked out - Saddam was within 1 week of producing bio-weapons, days to weeks away from producing chemical weapons such as mustard gas, and had given his nuclear scientists a 10 fold raise in salary as a sign of his intent to be back in the WMD business. What we did not find in 2003, he maintained the capability to reproduce on extremely short notice. The 12 year embargo that was intended to prevent this capability was being undercut by the very nations that were to enforce it. After 12 years it was getting weaker and Saddam was getting stronger and merely biding his time with his profits from Oil-for-Food. Clearly the threat from Saddam remained grave and other means to remove that threat had not only failed but had enabled his threatening posture.

We also know from intelligence exploited by the Iraqi Survey Group that the Iraqi intelligence service had contacts with al-Qaeda representatives in 1999. Iraq had developed an intelligence sharing and training relationship with the Taliban in 1999 including Iraqi trainers in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the use of poison gas (no doubt from the their own experience in poisoning Kurds and Iranians). We know that Saddam had been seeking to expand his influence in the jihadist movement – efforts that were being well-received. Saddam’s developing links to al-Qaeda and expansion of his support to jihadis was grave and indeed certain and on the increase.

A likelihood for success and proportionality.

As to the value and success of our humanitarian assistance, too many of us are failing to look at this war through the lens of history. In previous wars we have experienced tens of thousands of military deaths and millions of civilian deaths on all sides. It is amazing that we can fight a war such as we are fighting in Iraq with the current comparatively low casualty figures after four years. Today we are not only fighting but reconstructing simultaneously. It took nearly 5 years of full scale combat (called Total War) and an additional decade or more of reconstruction for the Civil War and WWII each and we consider those to be almost undisputed successes and moral wars. It’s been much tougher than we anticipated in Iraq and with setbacks, but we have also made impressive achievements to date with far less human cost across the board than previous wars.

The only moral course we have today among many poor choices is to successfully finish what we started. We have the technology. We have the military and industrial resources necessary. The question is do we have the will – the question asked of me personally in Afghanistan and of my comrades in Iraq. If we leave now as Mr. Kmiec demands, make no mistake that there will be a bloodbath of proportions we have yet to acknowledge or realize. It will make the casualty toll of the current insurgency look like a schoolyard fight. That, if for no other reason, should cause us to exercise our responsibility in Iraq. Anything less would be inhumane. We will succeed if we have the will to succeed.

Many people question the proportionality of our war in Iraq asking if we’ve done too much damage. However, it is the other side of the proportionality coin that should be questioned. Have we done enough to win? For just as we are morally obligated not to wage war more than necessary, we are equally obligated to do what is necessary to win it. A surge of 22,000 troops at the very least is needed to fight this war with proper proportion for victory.

This war was a just war in 2003 and still is in 2007. Being a tough war doesn’t make it less just. Abandoning Iraq to assuage our emotions while leaving the Middle East to a blood bath and/or return to institutionalized terror would be a vicious and immoral thing to do. As Christians and in the tradition of Aquinas, and Calvin for that matter, we are just to wage this war and we are morally obligated to win. Fortitude and perseverance are the gifts that are needed today – the fortitude to win and the wisdom to recognize our moral obligation to persevere.