The Difference between Just and Unjust Wars

In the debate which continues to be waged over whether the US should invade Iraq, there
appears to the almost a complete lack of knowledge, regard or interest in the concept of just
and unjust wars as applied by US policy makers with a few notable exceptions such as
conservative leaders like House Majority Leader, Dick Armey (R-TX) and Senator Pat
Roberts (R-KS). An unprovoked invasion of Iraq when combined with the new Bush
Doctrine of pre-emptive attacks represents a complete reversal from 225 years of proud
American adherence to the List war tradition by past US presidents. Pre—emptive and
unprovoked attacks are presumptively illegal under international law and with very few
exceptions cannot be justified.

There are, in fact, only a few rationales for fighting just wars. St. Thomas Acquinas, a famed
Catholic philosopher, is one of the best articulators of just war theory. He listed three
principal rationale, which would suffice to make a war just. The first possible rationale is
self-defense. One example of self-defense would be when the US initiate its war on terrorism
in direct response to a terrorist attack which resulted in the deaths of US citizens directly
supported by the targeted countries as in the case of Afghanistan and Iran. The second is
defense of another as when the US came to Kuwait’s aid in response to Iraqi aggression in
1990. The third is extreme necessity’ where there is an imminent threat of nuclear attack or in
response to a clear and present danger of such attack. Examples Of extreme necessity might
include North Korea, which has threatened to turn the US into “a sea of tire” and the People’s
Republic of China, which has threatened to annihilate Los Angeles if we help defend Taiwan
from ChiCom aggression.

Other potentially justifiable rationales for military inclusion might include combating a
continuing threat G Communist aggression such as by invading Cuba which continues to arm
and directly support terrorists and Communist guerillas and subversives throughout the
Western Hemisphere or to recapture lost territory which properly belongs to a country by
treaty or otherwise as might be the case were the US to re-occupy the Panama Canal. A final
justifiable initiation of military action might include a pre-emptive strike m pre-emptively
and surgically destroy an enemy nation’s nuclear weapons production capability with
minimum loss of civilian lives as the Israelis did when they destroyed the Iraqi Osirik nuclear
reactor in 1981. Examples of just wars in US history are World War Two, Korea, Vietnam,
Desert Storm. Examples of unjust wars and invasions are Somalia, 1-laiti. Bosnia. Kosovo
and potentially a new unprovoked US invasion of Iraq. If any war does not properly fall
under one of these categories or if the war is waged without provocation as an act of
aggression against a country which has not violated any international borders, then that war
may be deemed unjust’.

Wars, regardless of whether they are waged for a just or unjust cause, may also be justly or
unjustly fought. A war is justly fought by a given country, inasmuch as that country’s
leadership seeks to use all reasonable means at their disposal to avoid the infliction of civilian
casualties. The deliberate targeting of civilians using conventional or unconventional
weapons by definition makes a war unjustly fought by the side seeking the mass killing of
innocent civilians in the opposing country. Operation Desert Storm is a recent example of a
US war that was both waged for a just cause and justly fought. An example of a just war
unjustly fought to a significant degree is World War Two when the US deliberately targeted
and killed over a million innocent Japanese non combatants by terror bombings using both
conventional and unconventional (atomic) means. In almost all other respects, that war was
justly fought by the US. Vietnam might he another example of a just war, which was at least
in part, unjustly fought.

Kosovo was one of the best modern examples in American history of an unjust war unjustly
fought inasmuch as the US intervened in a civil war being waged between the Marxist
government and the Islamicist terrorist separatist. fighting to establish a ‘Greater Albania’ on
the side of the terrorists. The Clinton Administration bombed a lot civilian targets in Belgrade
in an attempt to terrorize the Yugoslav people into overthrowing their government or getting
President Milosevich to submit to NATO aggression. The war in Kosovo was unjustly fought
by the US and NATO because they targeted enemy non-combatants by conducting terror
bombing raids against Belgrade and committing gross negligence in attacking Kosovar
civilian and truck convoys and buses. In all, NATO bombers killed nearly a thousand
innocent Serb and Kosovar Albanian civilians some by mistake, but many if not most were
killed by deliberate action.

The US-UK bombing of Iraq from 1998 to the present was unjust inasmuch as it was not
initiated in response to any Iraqi aggression, but merely in an attempt by President Clinton to
wag the dog and disrupt and delay the I-louse vote which impeached him. It has been
continued on a weekly basis through the present day to punish Saddam for filling to bow to
the will of the United Nations and allow UN weapons inspectors to re-enter the country.
Although Saddam has agreed to the reintroduction of inspectors into Iraq, the bombings
continue and the President has signaled his intention to proceed with plans for a US invasion.
The enforcement of UN-mandated anti-sovereignty no-tly zones by US planes resulting in the
deaths of sixteen American soldiers from friendly fire in 1994 has also served as an
insufficient pretext for the continued US bombings, let alone a full-scale US invasion.

Applying the principles of America’s just war tradition to the planned unprovoked war
against Iraq then, it is clear that a new US invasion of Iraq would not meet any of the
requirements for being a just war. An invasion of Iraq would not be in our national self-
defense, as Iraq has never attacked our country. It would not be waged in defense of another,
as was Operation Desert Storm, as Iraq has not invaded any of its neighbors since 1990. It
would not Ix conducted in response to any extreme necessity or danger to the US, let alone
any necessity since Iraq lacks either or both the will and the capability to attack US territory
and kill US civilians by any means. Iraq possesses neither nuclear weapons nor the long-
range missiles needed to deliver them against the US. It has possessed Chemical Biological
Radiological (CI3R) weapons for two decades, but has never even threatened to use them
against the US. In addition, President Bush has all but admitted that Iraq has not sponsored
any terrorist attacks against the US by failing to cite any in his speech to the UN so a US
invasion would not be in response to any Iraqi terrorist attack.

A US invasion of Iraq would not be just and might be unjustly fought if the US were to use
nuclear weapons against Baghdad in response to Iraqi CBR attacks against US troops. Given
these facts, it is time for the Bush Administration to heed the wise counsel of the many retired
generals, former Bush Sr. Gulf War Cabinet official and conservative Republican leaders
who have voiced their opposition to bogging down US forces in an invasion of Iraq that
would serve as an unnecessary and potentially dangerous diversion from the war on terror by
abandoning its plans to invade Iraq. Hopefully, Congress will heed their advice as well and
defeat the resolution authorizing the President to use military force against Iraq.

Vietnam War Just or Unjust

Some ask the question, was the Vietnam War just? Some may say yes it was just, and others
say that it is unjust. However, certain people view justice as slippery concept. There are
always ways to get around justice, and that is why people believe that justice is a slippery
concept. Even Plato one of the brightest of his time could not figure out whether war was just
or unjust. A Certain individual, by the name of Aquinas, also attempted to elaborate his vie
on the war through the document Summa Theological. His reasons consisted of, First, the
authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged (Article 1). The second
reason being, a just cause is

The first reason being, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be
waged (Article 1). It is important to note that the sovereign is the leader or overseer of a
certain project. Aquinas believes that the people themselves cannot wage a private war on a
country, but if the sovereign say it’s okay, then they are allowed to wage a war. The second
reason that Aquinas gave is that, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked,
should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault (Article 1). Here,
Aquinas attempts to explain that war is just as long as you have a cause to attack someone,
and that they did something wrong to you or others around you. It’s the famous line “and eye
for an eye.” An example of this reason would be, if someone were to get hit, it would be okay
for them to go back and hit the person back. Although this may be bad like in school
according to Aquinas it is completely legal to attack someone if they attacked you. The third
reason he gives is that, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so
that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil (Article 1). Intending to
demonstrate that it is okay to wage war, Aquinas says that it is always okay to wage war as
long as the person you have rightful intentions. Later in the document of Summa Theological,
Aquinas goes over whether it is lawful to lay ambush on

Liberal States and Just Wars: Athens

The argument that there are just wars often rests on the social system of the nation engaging
in war. It is-supposed that if a “liberal” state is at war with a ‘totalitarian” state, then the war
is justified. The beneficent nature of government is assumed to give rightness to the wars it
wages.
Ancient Athens has been one of the most admired of all societies, praised for its democratic
institutions and its magnificent cultural achievements. It had enlightened statesmen (Solon
and Pericles), pioneer historians (Herodotus and Thucydides), great philosophers (Plato and
Aristotle), and an extraordinary quartet of playwrights (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristphanes). When it went to war in 431 BC against its rival, power, the city-state of Sparta,
the war seemed to be between a democratic society and a military dictatorship.
The great qualities of Athens were described early in that war by the Athenian leader Pericles
at a public celebration for the warriors, dead or alive. The bones of the dead were placed in
chests; there was an empty litter for the missing. There was a procession, a burial, and then
Pericles spoke. Thucydides recorded Pericles’ speech in his History of the Peloponnesian
War:

Before I praise the dead, I should like to point out by what principles of action we rose to
power, and under’ hat institutions and through what manner of life our empire became great.
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others.... It is true
that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands ot the many and not of
the few The law secures equal justice to all alike.... Neither is poverty a bar…. There is no
exclusiveness in our public life.... At home the style of our life is refined.... Because of the
greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us.... And although our
opponents are fighting for their homes and we on foreign soil, we seldom have any difficulty
in overcoming them I have dwelt upon the greatness of Athens because I want to show you
that we are contending for a higher prize than those who enjoy none of these privileges.
Similarly, American presidents in time of war have pointed to the qualities of the American
system as evidence for the justness of the cause. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt
were liberals, which gave credence to their words exalting the two world wars, just as the
liberalism of Truman made going into Korea more acceptable and the idealism of Kennedy’s
New Frontier and Johnson’s Great Society gave an early glow of righteousness to the war in
Vietnam.

But we should take a closer look at the claim that liberalism at home carries over into military
actions abroad.

The tendency, especially in time of war, is to exaggerate the difference between oneself and
the opponent, to assume the conflict is between total good and total evil. It was true that
Athens had certain features of political democracy. Each often tribes selected 50
representatives, by lot, to make a governing council of 500. Trial juries were large, from 100
to 1,000 people, with no judge and no professional lawyers; the cases were handled by the
people involved.
Yet, these democratic institutions only applied to a minority of the population. A majority of
the people-I 25,000 out of 225,000-were slaves. Even among the free people, only males
were considered citizens with the right to participate in the political process.

Of the slaves, 50,000 worked in industry (this is as if, in the United States in 1990, 50 million
people worked in industry as slaves) and 10.000 worked in the mines. H.D. Kitto, a leading
scholar on Greek civilization and a great admirer of Athens, wrote: The treatment of the
miners was callous in the extreme, the only serious blot on the general humanity of the
Athenians.. Slaves were often worked until they died.” (To Kitto and others, slavery was only
a “blot” on an otherwise wonderful society).

The jury system in Athens was certainly preferable to summary executions by tyrants.
Nevertheless, it put Socrates to death for speaking his mind to young people.
Athens was more democratic than Sparta, but this did not affect its addiction to warfare, to
expansion into other territories, to the ruthless conduct of war against helpless peoples. In
modern times we have seen the ease with which parliamentary democracies and
constitutional republics have been among the most ferocious of imperialists. We recall the
British and French empires of the nineteenth century and tile United States as a world
imperial power in this century.

Throughout the long war with Sparta, Athens democratic institutions and artistic
achievements continued. But the death toll was enormous. Pericles, on the eve of war, refused
to make concessions that might have prevented it. in tile second year of war, with tile
casualties mounting quickly, Pericles urged his fellow citizens not to weaken: You have a
great polis, and a great reputation; you must be worthy of them. Half the world is yours-the
sea. For you the alternative to empire is slavery.”

Pericles kind of argument (“Ours is a great nation. It is worth dying for”). Has persisted and
been admired down to the present. Kitto, commenting on that speech by Pericles, again
overcome by admiration, wrote,

When we reflect that this plague was as awful as the Plague of London, and that the
Athenians had the additional horror of being cooped up inside their fortifications by the
enemy without, we must admire the greatness of the man who could talk to his fellow citizens
like this, and the greatness of the people who could not only listen to such a speech at such a
time but actually be substantially persuaded by it.

They were enough persuaded by it so that tile war with Sparta lasted twenty-seven years.
Athens lost through plague and war (according to Kitto’s own estimate) perhaps one-fourth
of its population.

However liberal it was for its free male citizens at home, Athens became more and more
cruel to its victims ill war, not just to its enemy Sparta, but to everyone caught in the crossfire
of the two antagonists. As the war went on, Kitto himself says. “a certain irresponsibility
grew.”

Could the treatment of tile inhabitants of the island of Melos be best described as “a certain
irresponsibility’? Athens demanded that the Melians submit to its rule. The Melians,
however, argued (as reported by Thucydides). It ma’ be to your interest to be our masters, but
how can it be ours to be your slaves?” The Melians would not submit. They fought and were
defeated. Thucydides wrote. “The Athenians thereupon put to death all who were of military
age, and made slaves of the women and children.” (it was shortly after this event that
Euripides wrote his great antiwar play, The Trojan Women).

What the experience of Athens suggests is that a nation may be relatively liberal at home and
yet totally ruthless abroad. Indeed, it may more easily enlist its population in cruelty to others
by pointing to the advantages at home. An entire nation is made into mercenaries, being paid
with a bit of democracy at home for participating in the destruction of life abroad.

Liberalism at War

Liberalism at home, however, seems to become corrupted by war waged abroad. French
philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau noted that conquering nations “make war at least as much
on their subjects as on their enemies.’ Tom Paine, in America, saw war as tile creature of
governments, serving their own interests, not the interests of justice for their citizens. “Man is
not the enemy of man but through the medium of a false system of government.” in our time.
George Orwell has written that wars are mainly internal. . One certain effect of war is to
diminish freedom of expression. Patriotism becomes the order of tile day, and those who
question the war are seen as traitors, to be Silenced and imprisoned. Mark Twain, observing
tile United States at the turn of the century, its wars in Cuba and the Philippines, described in
The Mysterious Stranger tile process by which wars that are at first seen as unnecessary by
tile mass of the people become converted into “just” wars:

The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first
The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there
should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: ‘it is unjust and dishonorable
and there is no need for war.”

Then the few will shout even louder.... Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war
speakers will he stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of
furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it....

Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies...and each man will be glad of these lies and will
study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will bye and bye convince
himself that the war is just and he will thank God for a better sleep lie enjoys by his self-
deception.

Murk Twain died in 1910. In 1917, the United States entered the slaughterhouse of the
European war, and the process of silencing dissent and converting a butchery into a just war
took place as he had predicted. President Woodrow Wilson tried to rouse the nation, using the
language of a crusade. It was a war, lie said, “to end all wars.” but large numbers of
Americans were reluctant to join. A million men were needed, yet in the first six weeks after
the declaration of war only 73,000 volunteered. It seemed that men would have to be
compelled to fight by fear of prison, so Congress enacted a draft law.

The Socialist Party at the time was a formidable influence in the country. It had perhaps
100,000 members, and more than a thousand Socialists had been elected to office in 340
towns and cities. Probably a million Americans read Socialist newspapers. There were fifty-
five weekly Socialist newspapers in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiam, and Arkansas alone; over a
hundred Socialists were elected to office in Oklahoma. The Socialist party candidate for
president, Eugene Debs, got 900,000 votes in 1912 (Wilson won with 6 million).

A year before the United States entered the European war, Helen Keller, blind and deaf and a
committed Socialist. told an audience at Carnegie Hall:
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing
shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means
death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of
destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!

The day after Congress declared war, the Socialist party met in an emergency convention and
called the declaration “a crime against the American people.” Antiwar meetings took place all
over the country. In the local elections of 1917. Socialists made great gains. Ten Socialists
were elected to the New York State legislature. In Chicago the Socialist party had won 3.6
percent of the vote in 1915 and it got 34.7 percent in 1917. But with the advent of war.
speaking against it became a crime; Debs and hundreds of other Socialists were imprisoned.

When that war ended, 10 million men of various countries had died on the battlefields of
Europe, and millions more had been blinded, maimed, gassed, shell-shocked, and driven mad.
It was hard to find in that war any gain for the human race to justify that suffering, that death.

Indeed, when the war was studied years later, it was clear that no rational decision based on
any moral principle had led the nations into war. Rather, there were imperial rivalries, greed
for more territory, a lusting for national prestige, and the stupidity of revenge. And at the last
moment, there was a reckless plunge by governments caught up in a series of threats and
counter threats, mobilizations and counter-mobilizations, ultimatums and counter-ultimatums,
creating a momentum that mediocre leaders had neither the courage nor the will to stop. As
described by Barbara Tuchman in her book The Guns of August:

War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted
to fend it off. It was no use. Agents at frontiers were reporting every cavalry patrol as a
deployment to beat the mobilization gun. General staffs, goaded by their relentless
timetables, were pounding the table for tile signal to move lest their opponents gain an hour’s
head start. Appalled upon the brink, the chiefs of state who would be ultimately responsible
for their country’s fare attempted to back away, but the pull of military schedules dragged
them forward.

Bitterness and disillusion followed tile end of the war, and this was reflected in tile literature
of those years: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, John Dos Passo’s U.S.A., and Ford
Madox Ford’s No More Parades. In Europe. German war veteran Erich Maria Remarque
wrote the bitter antiwar novel All Quiet on the Western Front.

In 1935 French playwright Jean Giradoux wrote La guerre de Troi n’aura pas lieu (The
Trojan War Will Not Take Place; the English translation was retiled Tiger at the Gates). The
war of the Greeks against Troy, more than a thousand years before Christ, was provoked,
according to legend, by the kidnapping of the beautiful Helen by tile