Yesterday, World War II ended effectively 80 years ago, when the Empire of Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers.
The War had begun with aggressions – by Germany on Poland and by Japan on Great Britain’s colony in Singapore and then on the U.S. The Japanese had previously invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China itself in 1937.
Such aggression had been outlawed by the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. Frank Kellogg, then the U.S. Secretary of State, was a lawyer from St. Paul, Minnesota (his office was right down the street from where ours is now). Later and also from Minnesota, Charles Denny of ADC Telecommunications and Robert MacGregor of Dayton Hudson Corporation (now Target) took the lead in proposing the Caux Round Table Principles for Business, which have since been internationally recognized.
Today, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, affirmed by the Charter of the United Nations, has been violated by Russia in Ukraine and by Hamas in Gaza. Though Hamas is not a sovereign government, its obligations are nevertheless defined by a duty not to cross borders and kill the citizens of another country.
Aggressions, small or large, trigger wars which can be cruel and very destructive. Japan’s aggression led to the deaths 80 years ago this month of tens of thousands of non-combatants from the dropping of two atomic bombs.
The moral obligation not to act as an aggressor applies to all terrorists, no matter how righteous they believe themselves to be.
Some terrorists, in our time, have invoked their God as legitimating their aggressions. But if that God is the Allah whose will is revealed to us in the Qur’an, to no avail. Qur’an teaches, to me, that its God is one of mercy and compassion, that only its God – not you or me, not even his Prophet Muhammad – has authority to judge the fates of people, for better or worse. Qur’an affirms that the Prophet Muhammad was sent “only to warn.”
So, if we presume to usurp God’s privilege of judging others harshly without our having regard for his willingness to be merciful (which we cannot know), we elevate ourselves to be his equal in decision-making, which, according to Qur’an, is a heinous sin.
Today, President Donald Trump meets with President Vladimir Putin to discuss Russia’s aggression against the Ukrainian people. Will President Trump stand firm in upholding the moral ideal of no aggression, no time, no where? It would be the civilized thing to do.