This Week Online: Just War and Uranium Mining

I've already called your attention to the latest edition of the America Book Club, but two other Web-only features are also worth a look.

First, our weekly archive selection comes from 2003, on the eve of the war in Iraq, when Drew Christiansen, S.J., assessed the state of the just war tradition in the age of terrorism:

After Sept. 11, moralists of the permissive school—as I call them for their willingness to justify most government policies—reasoned that the war on terror warranted disregard of what they termed the “limiting principles” among the ad bellum rules, norms like last resort and proportionality, in favor of the “legitimating” ones, like just cause and proper authority.

[snip]

From the point of view of Catholic just-war teaching, preventive war is a dangerous innovation. If the distinction between aggression and defensive war is blurred, then the world is threatened with a war of all against all.

Read "Whither the 'Just War'?"

And, this week's video commentary features assistant editor Kerry Weber, who reports on the spike in uranium mining claims just 10 miles from the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Tim Reidy