scholar on a missile strike against syria and alternatives to it. also, 12 years after the 9/11 attacks, kim lawton has a special report on the complex moral questions in the debate about closing guantanamo bay. >> it's kind of a moral abyss. and, fred de sam lazaro on india's attempt to shore up buddhism, now the faith of a small minority in the land of its birth.

major funding of newsweekly is provided by the lily endowment, an npgs base private family foundation dedicated to the founders interest and religion, community development and education. additional funding also provided by mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> welcome. i'm bob abernethy. it's good to have you with us, as we begin our 17th season on the air. there was strong and widespread religious opposition this week to the obama administration's proposed military strike against the assad regime in syria. from the vatican, pope francis called military action futile. u.s. action could save thousands of lives. meanwhile, the refugee crisis has escalated dramatically.

about a third of syria's population has been displaced. more than 2 million people have fled the country and another 4.5 million have left their homes, but remain in syria. the u.n. described the situation as "the great tragedy of this century." we get a religious view now on the possibility of a missile strike on syria, and alternatives to it. kim lawton, our managing editor, joins me for a conversation with father drew christiansen, currently at boston college. he is the former editor of "the jesuit magazine america," newly appointed to the faculty at georgetown university. father, welcome, congratulations on your new appointment. what's the most important reason that you oppose a missile strike against syria? >> well, i think the missile strike doesn't do the most essential thing, which is saving

the people of syria. and we could do more if we spent the money we're spending on bombs on caring for the refugees. we're the leading donor still, but still, so much only a third of the money needed for refugees has been given. >> but assad used chemical weapons, apparently, on his own people. isn't that reason enough for a military strike? >> it's no more reason than the 120,000 people he's killed by other means. it's a crime of war to kill innocent civilians under any conditions. >> some people say, though, that this does, the chemical attack did make a moral difference because it was something the international community has said we will not tolerate, and we need to send a message to other dictators that we will not tolerate that kind of activity. >> i don't think that outweighs the need to do something to protect people, generally in syria, from the kind of

destruction that their government is wreaking upon them. >> how could we do that? how would you -- >> well, for one, i would give support, as i suggested, to the refugee programs -- >> i understand. but within syria. >> well, within syria, i think work has to be done again to get the access to the people in need through the international committee of the red cross. beyond that, i think that the diplomatic surge, if you will, is needed to try to bring about negotiations among all the sides. >> some people see this, though, as one of those instances where we need to send a strong message. would that appear to be, in some way, a cop-out from our stated goal of protecting, you know, the responsibility we have to protect people? >> and losing a lot of credibility? >> i think it's a legal and political nicety. the fundamental issue is saving the people. and credibility doesn't stand up

to the justifications for going to war at all. that's not a just cause for going to war. >> and so, what do you propose? >> well, in addition to the refugee work, i would propose that there really be a campaign at the general assembly in september, beginning that time, to get the nations of the world on board the negotiation route. and if they do that consistently, as the german foreign minister suggested yesterday, it seems to me that there's a chance that these things can be resolved. >> some people talk about using the international instruments like the criminal court system to try to, again, send a message, "we won't tolerate this." >> there are problems there, particularly because you need the u.n. to do it, you need it to come from the security council, and the russians will veto it. an individual nation could bring charges, but that would -- it's

hard to say how that would work. >> what are you hearing from your fellow christians in the region, specifically inside syria, a minority inside a religiously very divided country? >> well, we're hearing from some people who we know are normally vocal. i haven't heard many new voices. and the community is divided. some of the leaders on the political side of the resistance are christians. but the bishops, in particular, have clung to the assad regime because it's protected them for so many years. >> is there a concern that acting -- if the u.s. did act, that it could stoke some of those interreligious tensions? >> oh, there's a deep fear that if the west intervenes, it'll be seen as a crusade of christians against muslims. and so, you would expect that al qaeda and others would go after the christians in the country. >> but for you, again, the most important reason for your opposition has to do with --

>> with the need to protect the people in whatever ways we can and that are now practical. >> and do you think that there is -- that we can do that? >> i think that means can be found internally through the committee of the red cross, which does that normally. >> father drew christiansen, many thanks to you. >> thank you, bob. thank you, kim. this coming week, the nation once again marks the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which led to the war against terror. one of the ongoing legacies of that war is the detention center at guantanamo bay, cuba, where nearly 800 detainees have been incarcerated over the last decade. 164 are still there. amid accusations of torture and other mistreatment of detainees,

there have been many calls for gitmo to be closed. but no agreement on how to do that. kim lawton has our special report on the many moral issues in the debate. >> in front of the white house, protesters -- including many people of faith -- have gathered to urge president obama to make good on his promise to close the guantanamo bay detention camps. in 2008, obama said one of his first acts as president would be to shut gitmo down once and for all. but five years later, the debate continues, in part because of complex ethical and moral questions. >> gitmo has been called a legal black hole. but what people forget is that it's also a moral black hole. >> the detention center on guantanamo bay was set up in january 2002 to imprison, interrogate and prosecute people captured in the war against terror. it was complicated from the start. >> we were not fighting a

sovereign state, we were fighting a terrorist organization, a non-state actor. so at the very onset this brought up enormous legal and moral questions. >> retired army colonel jeff mccausland is a professor at dickinson college and a national security consultant for cbs news. >> the decision was made to decide that these people would be enemy combatants and therefore not necessarily be afforded all the rights under the geneva convention. that being said, they certainly had the right to be protected and safeguarded when they were in our hands. >> but many say that was not the case. >> they've been subjected to what we now know are torture techniques. >> nancy sherman is professor of philosophy at georgetown university and author of the book "the untold war." >> i don't think anyone had visions that it would go on for so long or that the conditions would be as abusive as they had turned out to be. >> mccausland, who is a senior fellow at the carnegie council for ethics in international

affairs, agrees that some of the actions taken in response to the september 11th attacks violated u.s. values. >> the government has gone through a long and drawn-out process in trying to identify as clear a fashion as possible what techniques can be employed legally to interrogate prisoners. and we know those norms are now established and they're a lot more stringent than they were at the onset of this conflict in 2001. >> traditionally, prisoners of war have been released at the cessation of hostilities. but this conflict has now extended longer than any war in american history. >> the big moral principle that we have to wrestle with is this question of, you know, when is the war over? and sadly, i don't see that occurring in my lifetime. and sadly, i don't see that occurring in the lifetime of those being detained at guantanamo. >> mccausland agrees guantanamo should ultimately be closed. but he says there are many reasons why that can't be done immediately.

congress has placed wide-ranging restrictions transferring gitmo detainees to the u.s. or other foreign countries. legal proceedings have been moving forward slowly for some of the remaining 164 detainees. a large number have been cleared for release or transfer, but in some cases their home countries don't want them back. in other cases, the u.s. says it fears for their safety upon their return. above all, mccausland says, the u.s. has an obligation to ensure that the detainees do not pose a threat. >> even if they appeared in front of a military commission, that process continued and they were found not guilty of the criminal act, they could still frankly be retained indefinitely because they are an enemy combatant. if we released them all tomorrow because we've held them now for a long period of time, how many of them would immediately go back to the fight? >> we need to understand what detention centers of that sort do to the moral fabric and psychic fabric of a soul.

they are killing. >> for many, including in the faith community, gitmo continues to be a blot on u.s. moral authority around the world. >> i can't overstate the power that the symbol of guantanamo has had for the rest of the world. people who have been interrogators have said that probably it's guantanamo and torture that have motivated more people to join al qaeda. >> this summer, the national religious campaign against torture sponsored an interfaith fast and prayer campaign advocating that guantanamo be closed. faith leaders, including a representative of the u.s. catholic bishops, condemned the fact that detainees have been held for years without trial or charge. >> the indefinite detention of detainees is not only injurious to those individuals, it also wounds the moral reputation of our nation. >> like many americans, anne-marie drew is torn about

what should happen to gitmo now. as an english professor at the u.s. naval academy, she knows many people involved with gitmo, and as a committed catholic, she worries about the moral implications. through some of her military connections, drew had the opportunity to visit gitmo in 2009. >> i was startled by how civilized it was and how terrifying at the same time. >> she recalls one instance of seeing five detainees in a row. >> the first one looked at me with more hatred than anyone has ever looked at me in my entire life. and the next man gave me the finger, again more rudely than anybody has ever done that. the next two were doing this as if to say, "don't believe anything you hear. don't -- it's really bad." it's as if that's what they were saying. and the last man, whose face still haunts me, looked at me with the dearest, most human

look, and if i could have read his face, i would have said that he was just saying, "tell them that you saw me." >> when you hear the narratives and the stories and try to piece together what some of the cases are like, you realize that there's lots and lots of shades of gray. how generic we view guantanamo, the worst of the worst is that phrase, it isn't like that. it's very, very mixed. >> amid the stalemate, many detainees have been waging hunger strikes. in response, camp officials have been force-feeding them with liquid nutrients administered through nasal tubes. >> this is a matter of safeguarding an individual who is incarcerated. you know, and the same, that would hold true, it seems to me at least, whether that was an enemy combatant, a prisoner of war, or a guy in federal prison. >> but men believe force-feeding violates the detainees' human rights.

>> the world medical association views forced feeding as akin to the use of human beings in experiments. it's an abuse. hunger striking is one of the few things you can do to control what goes in your body and how you take care of your body. >> drew says during her visit, gitmo officials explained how they try to be compassionate and humane in the force feeding. she was not convinced. >> the force feeding strikes me as absolutely cruel and dreadful. and someone snapped at me, "well, what are we supposed to do, let them starve to death?" and my short answer to that would be, "yes." they're prisoners, but that doesn't mean that they've given up every right that they have as a human being. >> drew says she also came away concerned for the u.s. troops who serve at gitmo. >> troopers who guard the inmates, the detainees, before they walk into the detainee cells, put on latex gloves and

protective headgear, because the detainees save up feces, urine, spittle and sperm. they make it into a cocktail and they throw it at the troopers when they come in. now, there's no easy spin to put on that. that is despicable behavior. >> in addition to u.s. troops, sherman says being part of guantanamo has had a moral impact on a huge network of americans, including contractors, medical personnel and lawyers. >> you can be at the tail end or in the center, but it requires the whole system and i think that's why it's so insidious, that it has a whole mezzo, middle level of workers who put it in place. and you really need direction and command from the top in order to undo it. >> after visiting and wrestling over guantanamo for years, drew says there are no easy answers. >> the only thing i come up with

is this overwhelming sense of sorrow. and that's not a solution, that's not a political statement. that's how it washes over my spirit, that there's just suffering all around down there. all around. >> it's kind of a moral abyss. and i think there is definitely war fatigue, and the national public interest has deadened a bit to the issues that are alive. but it's not one that should be ignored. >> and as the political debate continues, people on all sides say the moral questions must also be addressed. i'm kim lawton reporting. in other news, pope francis this week named a new vatican secretary of state, the second

highest position in the vatican after the pope. francis chose italian archbishop pietro parolin, a longtime member of the vatican diplomatic corps. parolin is described as a moderate. he replaces cardinal tarcisio bertone, who served under former pope benedict, and faced criticism for his handling of the vatican bureaucracy. in the u.s., in the name of keeping church and state separate, the constitution forbids the government from favoring or supporting any particular religion. in india, things are different. as fred de sam lazaro reports, buddhism has almost died out in the country of its birth. but the indian government is trying to revive it, welcoming buddhist tourists and even building a new buddhist university. >> only a tiny fraction of india's population is buddhist,

but its tourist ads and foreign policy tout india's buddhist heritage, beckoning visitors to the land where one of the world's oldest belief systems took root 2,500 years ago. the ancient city of bodh gaya is one of buddhism's holiest locations. once past the street entertainers, panhandlers and trinket salesmen, pilgrims enter the imposing mahabodhi temple. >> we have people visiting from many buddhist countries -- japan, korea, vietnam, cambodia, thailand. most of our visitors are from sri lanka and thailand. >> devotees line up to enter and pray in the inner sanctum. they spend hours meditating just outside, under the ancient bodhi tree, a direct descendent of the one under which buddhists believe siddharth gautama, the royal prince, also meditated as

he embraced a life of asceticism and became enlightened. >> i also would like to do the meditation here to discover myself, for my soul. and i believe this is the best place to do the meditation. >> buddhists believe that this is a very powerful place and anything that you do here is magnified, so any wishes you make for other people, any good wishes, any practice that you do, it's increased. the power is increased. so for example you see people prostrating you know, going down, i've been doing this for a month and that's a purification practice and it gets rid of pride and they believe it's much stronger to do it here. >> the arrival of pilgrims is part of a decades-long revival effort by india's government, beginning in the 1950s when prime minister jawaharlal nehru wanted to use buddhism to ally

asian neighbors, many themselves coming out of colonialism and world war ii. >> so nehru declares bodh gaya as an international city of buddhism and he starts inviting buddhist countries to come and establish their temples in buddha gaya. >> today, in bodhgaya, temples and guest houses from several majority buddhist nations welcome compatriot pilgrims. soon, the host country hopes they'll be joined by scholars as well. there's no more than a walled compound now, but beginning next year, a large campus will be built on this site in the eastern state of bihar, a place that can still evoke the era of the buddha. the new nalanda will resurrect one of the world's oldest universities that once thrived just a few miles away. today, tourists come to the ruins of the large residential campus of nalanda that

flourished more than 1,400 years ago, well before cambridge, oxford, and universities in the west were founded. >> it was not just teaching buddhism. there was astronomy. then they were teaching what you call even mathematics, carpentry, architecture, various other subjects were being taught so it was -- ihad a very comprehensive multidisciplinary approach towards education. people were coming to nalanda to of course, and all other places. >> it's one way that buddhism spread elsewhere in asia. but in india it declined or was assimilated into hinduism, as hindu rulers, and later muslim ones, replaced those who supported or embraced buddhism. by the 12th century, nalanda had fallen into ruin. >> the decline of a university like nalanda also saw a power shift in knowledge to the west

because the decline of nalanda coincides with the rise of the western university and the western system of knowledge and its transmission. and also follows -- and soon after, you had colonialism come in. now there is a desire for people once again to discover their neighbors rather than only look towards the west. >> the new nalanda is an attempt to revive the one-time pan-asian partnership. several nations -- japan, china, thailand, and even laos -- have already chipped in with financial support. the first structure to go up will be the new nalanda library, a strong symbol from the ancient campus, funded by the government of singapore. >> they're clearly inspired by the records from old nalanda, which talk about these very tall library structures that were kissing the clouds. and, you know, the myth says

that when the library was burned, it burned for many months. so i think in the whole buddhist world, that the story of the nalanda library is a story that evokes a very strong response. >> the new campus will offer studies in comparative religion and history, as well as current issues ranging from agriculture to ecology. it hopes to draw scholars from both east and west for a vigorous exchange of ideas and debate, seeking knowledge and enlightenment in a secular and classically buddhist setting. for "religion and ethics newsweekly," this is fred de sam lazaro in bihar, india. finally, on our calendar this week, monday begins ganesh chaturthi -- the ten-day hindu festival dedicated to the popular elephant-headed god, lord ganesha. hindus mark the day by offering prayers and delicacies to the deity. clay figures of ganesha are often immersed in lakes and rivers.

and for jews, yom kippur or the day of atonement, begins next friday night. it is the most solemn day of the jewish calendar. observant jews spend saturday in synagogue praying, fasting and repenting. that's our program for now. i'm bob abernethy. you can follow us on twitter and facebook and watch us anytime on the pbs app for iphones and ipads. and visit our website, where there is always much more, including audio and video podcasts of this program. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, more scenes of ganesh chaturthi in india.

major funding for religion and ethics news weekly is provided by the lily endowment, dedicated to the founders interest in religion, community development, and education. be additional funding also provided by mutual of america. designing customized, individual, and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company.

barry kibrick: today on "between the lines," how fathers and sons influence each other, with dr. michael diamond.

i'm barry kibrick. dr. diamond is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist with decades of research and analysis of the father-and-son relationship. with his book "my father before me," he demonstrates the power of this relationship and how it shapes the man and the boy, as well as the man the boy will become. linda ellerbee: i'm a writer today because i was a reader when i was 11 years old, and it was... deepak chopra: you do not need to prove your state of happiness to anybody. warren christopher: most of these speeches were as much as a month in preparation. stephen j. cannell: the characters, the heroes of this book s