In this essay I will be explaining the just war theory which gives the conditions on when a war is just; and which situations are the opposite. Furthermore I will look at examples of believed just wars such as those on issues that revolve arou
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BA History
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Religion, Peace and Conflict
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30th November2009
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Can there ever be such a thing as a 'just' war?
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There can be said to be no right or wrong answer to the question 'can there ever be such thing as a war just'; as Michael Walzer says "war lies beyond moral judgement."1 This can be said to be because the act of killing someone is immoral; the destruction of innocent civilians although by accident at times cannot be said to be justice. Therefore you cannot look at the ethical issues surrounding this question because then the answer will foremost always be no. Instead we must look at individual cases of war and then decide if they can be said to be just.
In this essay I will be explaining the 'just war theory' which gives the conditions on when a war is just; and which situations are the opposite. Furthermore I will look at examples of believed 'just' wars such as those on issues that revolve around terrorism and racism. From this I will try to decide whether war to a certain extent can be 'just'.
Just War Theory
The 'Just War Theory' as described by N. Fotion consists of six parts; just cause, last resort, proportionality, likelihood of success, right intentions and legitimate authority. This is all collectively known as 'jus ad bellum'2. From looking at these conditions it appears to be unlikely that any war has ever truly been a 'just' war. There may be many reasons in the beginning of a war when it appears to the nation as 'just', but then over time it develops and ends up becoming unjust or apparently always was. This may be because the intentions and actions performed by the government and soldiers have changed and instead the formerly thought 'just' war becomes an excessive attack to the country under siege. For example the war on Iraq is still being debated about today; the question being 'should America have invaded and should the soldiers now return home?' This war has been said by several people to be 'unjust'. For example William Galston explained some of the reasons why he believed this to be so;
The second proposed ground for intervention in Iraq is humanitarian intervention. First, I would point out that the major humanitarian abuses in Iraq occurred at least a decade or more ago at a time when we repeatedly failed to intervene to stop them, and in the 1980s failed even to protest very vigorously against them.3
Additionally Walzer has also followed suit explaining that we cannot go to war on a country because we believe their government is unsatisfactory. Additionally he stated "we've learned when you go to war, you get a lot more violence and a lot more deaths than you anticipated in the scenarios you sketched out when you were planning the attack".4 Furthermore a speech made by President Bush stated the case for the necessity and justice of pre-emptive war. This was in the absence of evidence suggesting not only the existence of Iraqi weapons but also their imminent use; pre-emption is not an accurate description of what the president is threatening, as no one expects an Iraqi attack tomorrow, so there in nothing to pre-empt.5 It can be said from this evidence that the war on Iraq following the 'just war theory' situations is 'unjust'. Therefore even in the 21st century war is still being executed under unjust circumstances. This appears to illustrate the issue that war may never be 'just' even if it has the potential to be.
Furthermore another example of an unjust war is Kosovo (1999). What first started off as good intentions from NATO turned into a thoughtless approach, as hundreds were injured under bombing raids which were launched 15,000 from the ground; consequently from this altitude mistakes were made. Such as, what looked like a Serbian army convoys from high above turned out to be a column of refugees. These mistakes however can be seen now as easily avoidable for example if NATO planes had come in lower or there had been soldiers on the ground civilians would unlikely of been accidently been targeted6. However even if we disregard this miscalculation this war can still not be considered 'just' because it did not have the proper authority to intervene, "If the UN could not act, it must do so...NATO made the highly disputable claim that it would act as a legitimate authority."7 Therefore although NATO went to war with the right intentions, the war is still deemed unjust. However the problem with the 'Just War Theory', is that no government can ever seem to accurately follow its guidelines; therefore making its decision to go to war 'unjust'. For example take the clause, war must be a last resort, this can never be fulfilled as there can be said to always be something the legitimate authority has not yet tried.
War on Racism
To take the view that war is never 'just' might make sense at first, but this pacifist attitude has its faults. For example to do nothing and not intervene when an injustice is happening right in front of you, will only lead to further injustice. For example take the case of Rwanda where thousands were killed as the United States and France idly stood by doing nothing for years.
France closed its eyes to the to the growing racism at the heart of the system and the increasing number of massacres over the past four years and continued to support the bitter regime to the end...the United States ignored its moral responsibility as a world major power, blocking the initiatives on UN Secret General Boutros-Ghali and preventing US soldiers from using the work genocide to sidestep the international obligation to intervene.8
To not do anything is clearly an injustice in itself; of course before going to war other approaches are deemed necessary but in this case where, "By the end of April it was estimated 100,000 had been killed, by mid may 200,000, and by the end of May half a million"9 it does not seem as crucial to try other methods. As Michael Walzer said
"We have extended the notion beyond the realm of these kinds of attacks across personal or state boundaries to include the notion of a humanitarian intervention. If somebody had gone into Rwanda to stop the massacre; that would have been a just war".10 Therefore it appears that war can be said, under the right circumstances to be 'just'.
In conclusion it appears that only in cases of humanitarian intervention is war ever truly justified. This is because the legitimate authority are trying to save thousands of lives rather than destroying them in their midst of killing the opposing side. However this of course was not the case in Kosovo (1999) whereas said before NATO ended up injuring hundreds of civilians. Nevertheless their intentions were honest unlike in Iraq where the war was said to be imposed for reasons such as "to discover weapons of mass destruction. However little evidence has been found nor is there much reason to expect anything significant to emerge".11 Therefore from this research it seems safe to say that war can be 'just' although it rarely ever is.
Bibliography
Books
. Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars, fourth edition. (New York: Basic Books, 2006.)
2. Feldman, Noah. What we owe Iraq. (United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 2004.)
3. Fotion, N. War and Ethics: a new just war theory. (New York: Continuum, 2007.)
4. Destexhe, Alain. Rwanda and genocide in the 20th century. (London: Pluto Press, 1995.)
Journal Articles
Louis Fisher. Deciding on war against Iraq: Institutional failures [online]. The academy of political science. Vol. 118, No. 3 (Fall, 2003), pp. 389-410: Available from World Wide Web: (http://www.jstor.org/stable/30035781)
Online resources
. Iraq and Just War: A symposium, event transcript. Available from http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=36. Accessed November 26th 2009.
2. Just and Unjust Wars, Authors critical on Iraq. National Public Radio. Available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5073836. Accessed December 29th 2005.
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Michael Walzer. Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 2006).P.3
2 N.Fotion. War and Ethics: a new just war theory (New York: Continuum, 2007.).P.19
3 Just and Unjust Wars, Authors critical on Iraq. National Public Radio. Available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5073836. Accessed December 29th 2005.
4 Just and Unjust Wars, Authors critical on Iraq. National Public Radio. Available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5073836. Accessed December 29th 2005.
5 Just and Unjust Wars, Authors critical on Iraq. National Public Radio.
6 Fotion, War and Ethics: a new just war theory 68.
7 Fotion. War and Ethics: a new just war theory 67.
8 Alain Destexhe, Rwanda and genocide in the 20th century. (London: Pluto Press, 1995).P.71
9 Destexhe, Rwanda and genocide in the 20th century 49.
0 Just and Unjust Wars, Authors critical on Iraq. National Public Radio.
1 Louis Fisher. Deciding on war against Iraq: Institutional failures. Vol. 118, No. 3 [online], University of Illinois Press Joins Current Scholarship Program, The academy of political science (2003) .P. 389