Williams warns against 'distant' conflict

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury-designate, yesterday used his first appearance on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day slot since being appointed leader of the Church of England to renew his warning against a precipitate war.

Dr Williams, who was trapped in a building near the World Trade Centre during the attacks a year ago, has courted controversy since his appointment by the prime minister in July by speaking out more forcefully about the risks of war than the current archbishop, George Carey. The next archbishop has said that he would not support hostilities unless there was a UN mandate.

Using the two and a half minute radio slot to stress the impersonal nature of the perspective of terrorists and, by implication, governments - "the sort of distance from which you can't see a face, meet the eyes of someone, hear who they are, imagine who and what they love" - Dr Williams insisted that caution did not represent a loss of moral nerve.

"Those who urge caution inevitably get accused of... a willingness to collude with evil.

"But if the great religious traditions, eastern and western, insist on surrounding war with so many questions and conditions, they do so because they know not only that the choice to go to war is at best the lesser evil, but also that there are ways of fighting that increasingly damage our own humanity," he said.

"With the hi-tech military methods we've got used to in recent years, there's a greater temptation to take for granted the view from the distance.

"If we don't see the point of caution, which isn't at all a matter of squeamishness or cowardice, the nearer the terrorist comes to winning, because it means we're getting used to the view from the outside as the normal perspective - the distant view that spares us the real cost to our own humanity."