Vatican_justified

Vatican Says Use of Force by U.S. Can Be Justified

By Sharon LaFraniere

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, September 25, 2001; Page A14

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Sept. 24 -- The Vatican's senior spokesman said today that John Paul II understands the United States might need to use force against terrorists as a last resort to protect its people from further harm.

The spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, described the Vatican's views in an interview with the Reuters news agency at the end of a three-day visit to Kazakhstan, during which the pope repeatedly called on the world to maintain peace. Navarro-Valls's statement added a new dimension to the pope's pacifist message, seeming to allow for support of a military response to the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in which more than 6,000 people were killed.

"It is certain that, if someone has done great harm to society, and there is a danger that if he remains free he may be able to do it again, you have the right to apply self-defense for the society which you lead, even though the means you may choose may be aggressive," Navarro-Valls said.

The pope today referred more directly than he has in the past two weeks to allegations that Islamic extremists were responsible for the U.S. attacks. He told a group of artists, scientists and teachers here in the Kazakh capital that the Roman Catholic Church respects "authentic Islam, the Islam that prays."

Mentioning acts "of the most recent past" -- taken as a reference to the Sept. 11 attacks -- the pontiff said that "hatred, fanaticism and terrorism profane the name of God."

John Paul's views on the crisis are significant not just because he leads the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics, but also because people of many faiths look to him as a moral compass. His trip to this predominately Muslim nation between Russia and China was a fresh illustration of his popularity. On Sunday, the 81-year-old pontiff drew a crowd of 20,000 to an open-air Mass in a country where Catholics make up less than 2 percent of the 15 million inhabitants. He leaves Tuesday for three days in Armenia.

Navarro-Valls's comments surprised Vatican observers because he rarely breaks ground on sensitive topics in interviews, especially with the pope near at hand addressing the same topic. The pope's own remarks were all but forgotten as journalists scrambled to interpret what Navarro-Valls had said, and why.

"The pope understands the difficulties of a political leader who has to respond to such issues," said Navarro-Valls, one of the pope's top advisers. "Sometimes it is more prudent to act rather than to be passive. In this sense, the pope is not a pacifist, because one must remember that in the name of peace even some horrible injustices can be carried out."

The threat of war has dominated the pope's trip to this vast nation, whose southern border lies a few hundred miles from Afghanistan. The country's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has used the visit to highlight how his country has steered clear of conflicts with the Islamic extremists who have troubled other Central Asian nations.

At a news conference today, Nazarbayev repeated that the United States is welcome to use Kazakhstan's military bases and airspace to fight terrorists in Afghanistan. The United States has not requested his country's help, but if it does, "Kazakhstan will answer them positively," he said.

Until today, the Vatican has called for a peaceful solution to terrorism. The day after the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, the pope said he was praying that the "spiral of hatred and violence will not prevail." On Sunday, he said that "we must not let what has happened lead to a deepening of divisions" and urged people of all religions to strive together for peace.

His spokesman, however, emphasized that the pope also wants justice to be pursued in a manner that does not lead to new injustices. "Some people in Europe would like to present the pope as a pacifist, and some people in America would like to see him as someone who wants to see the application of justice by any means. Both are wrong," he said.