What's the criteria for a just war??

What do you consider the criteria for a just war. Every war that we have fought in our history has had its share of critics. Even the revolutionary war had a number of people who were either against the patriots or apathetic about the cause. A critical examination of WWII, removing the holocaust, has found some who were critical of the reasoning behind the war. What is a cause worth fighting for?

why remove the holocaust from WW 2? tens of millions of people whole heartedly supported it.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

the holocaust frankly was a 20/20 afterthought...

That would do it for me in most cases. Of course, if my own country had turned into an evil totalitarian state, I would be terribly conflicted, would probably just keep a low profile until somebody won, and if it happened to be the evil totalitarians, I'd hope they'd learned enough of a lesson to moderate their position. If not, passive aggression would take over, and I'm very good at it.

I find people who try to remove the Holocaust when considering the rationale of WWII to be on a par with people who say Repuglicans would easily win every race in this country if only Democrats would stop voting, or that there is no inflation if you stop counting food, shelter, fuel, and medical care.

Again...our rationale for going to war had nothing to do with the holocaust. In fact there is research to suggest that the U.S. could have done a lot more to help the victims of the holocaust than they did during the war. If Germany declared war on us, we would never have had a reason to go to war with them. So again I ask, with only considering present knowledge and not hindsight, what is a just war?

information comes out. When the Nixon tapes were finally made fully public, we who were trying to get the man out of office were completely vindicated. Every rotten thing we said about him turned out to be true--and more.

That's the way WWII was. Yes, there was controversy over whether or not this country should join much of the rest of the world. The decision was made for us after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we declared war on Japan, and Germany then declared war on the US, which is exactly how it happened. All controversy evaporated at the end of that war as the enormity of Hitler's evil was exposed in the camps throughout eastern Europe. No, we didn't know he was running an industry devoted to killing, not really. We suspected, but we didn't actually know. People who suspected and had pushed for earlier US involvement were vindicated at the end of the war. But no, it wasn't the central reason for fighting the Germans. They declared war on us. That's the reason we fought them. The Holocauset merely vindicated that war at the end.

That's why it's impossible to separate the Holocaust from that war.

Vindication for the horror that is Iraq is unlikely to appear. The same is true of Vietnam and most of the other military adventures this country has been involved in over the past 150 years or so.

We desperately need to redefine the mission of our military and to put the Pentagon on a strict diet. We simply can't go on trying to starve the people to afford wars of corporate convenience. When a real war comes along, we will be tapped out. We already lack the domestic industry to support one if trade routes break down.

take what is rightfully yours. By rightfully yours I mean that the people have lived there for hundreds of years. I believe that our war with Japan was a just war. It all depends on whose side you are on.

1. A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.

2. A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.

3. A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.

4. A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.

5. The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.

6. The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.

7. The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

WWII was not a just war, per 6,7. I doubt the saturation bombing of Dresden and the fire bombing of Tokyo discriminated between combatants and non-combatants.

that if Japan had won the war he would have been tried as a war criminal. (He was the one who conducted the incendiary bombings of Japan.)

nt

There was no imminent death in the Revolutionary War, not enough necessary to fight it at least.

It is a self-preservation kinda thing. Justified to keep the species alive against someone who wants them dead.

Oldest story since man invented war.

There were plenty of unwilling participants and/or people who lost property and lives because they didn't agree with the patriots.

I'm in no position to say they are wrong. What is just about taking the lives of innocents violently, regardless of the end result?

Is that clear enough? Where is the justice in the murder of innocents? Now, was WWII necessary? Certainly that argument can be made. Were we right for fighting in it? Most certainly. But that has nothing to do with being just. Look up the word, I'm right.

by working in a weapons factory? They bear no responsibility for the actions? WWII involved the mobilization of entire societies, who for the most part actively supported their governments and the war. How do you wage war against such a society without targeting civilians.

The majority of Germans were dirt poor and desperate to make things better for themselves and their families. Most of them weren't working in weapons factories, if they were working at all. None of them wanted a war in their back yard any more than you or I do. If they supported the nazi government, it was because they had no choice.

The way to wage war without targeting civilians is the same as it's always been - send the warriors to a battlefield, don't make a battlefield out of civilization. As no one is willing to fight honorably in this manner any longer, there is no just war. I'm still confused why you don't understand this.

I just think it is incredibly naive to think that civilians who actively support a war and are willingly engaged in the manufacture of war materials are some how immune from the consequences of their actions.

This is especially true when they are supporting a unjust war of aggression - if we had followed your advice, the war against Japan would have taken longer and there would have been more American deaths. Considering that 99 percent of the 12 million americans who took up arms in WWII were peaceful civilians at the time of Pearl Harbor, why is moral to say to them as they were drafted: "more of you must die to insure that no Japanese civilians are killed"? We were attacked - I think the government had a moral obligation to minimize the number of American deaths.

You seem to want to draw a bright, shining line to separate soldiers from civilians - I don't think that is possible in a total war where entire societies are mobilized.

Perhaps there is no just war anymore - but then I doubt there ever was. Sometimes all you can say, as in WWII, was that it was a necessary war and leave it at that.

(note that modern 'just war' theory traces most of its origins to Catholic thought, particularly Augustine and Thomas Aquinas)

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

There must be serious prospects of success;

The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the 'just war' doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

1. The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
Iraq didn't attack us at all.

2. All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
We rushed to war to avoid people having enough time to think about what we were doing

3. There must be serious prospects of success;
We almost missed on that one... we decisively won the military action of March-April '03. Fortunately we have Rummy and Cheney in charge of the war and managed to turn an outright victory into a festering slow defeat.

4. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
Ugh, don't get me started.

Just war theory tackles the question as to under what circumstances it is legitimate to go to war. Though there are earlier references of the ethics of warfare, Thomas Aquinas’s account in his Summa Theologica provided the basis on which just war theory is based. The theory developed by Thomas and his followers identifies various specific conditions that must be met if a war is justly to be waged.


Just Cause

The first condition that must be satisfied before war can legitimately be declared is that there must be just cause for the war. It is wrong to wage war without sufficient reason.

Proper Authority

The second condition is that war must be declared by a proper authority, a representative of a nation. Neither you nor I can declare war; that is a matter for governments. There are, however, circumstances where it is unclear whether a government represents its people. A dictator King, who rules by fear, or a democratically elected government acting against the wishes of the electorate, arguable do not represent those whom they govern. Whether they can justly declare war is therefore questionable.

Right Intention

If a war is to be just then the third condition that must be satisfied is that it must be waged with the right intentions. If a nation has just cause to declare a war, but its real reason for doing so is simply to further its own interests or to inflict suffering upon a hated enemy, then the war is not just. Traditionally, it has been held that the right intention must be a desire for peace.

Probability of Success


A fourth condition for a just war is that there must be some likelihood of success. There is no justice, it is held, in a government resisting a superior power only for its people to be utterly crushed. For a war to be just, the chances of it achieving its aims must be significant.

Proportionality

The last of the conditions of traditional just war theory is proportionality. This condition is violated if the bad effects of waging a war are likely to outweigh the good that it achieves.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/justwar.html

(1) To defend your own state against invasion, or to assist a second country invaded by a third country, provided the intent is to safeguard the victim's integrity.

(2) To compel another country to stop acts of genocide against its population if it is either performing or condoning them.

The first of those is the only acceptable use of unilateral force in international law (though it's not that unilateral if you've been invaded); the second's bouncing around as a foreign policy idea as a result of some Canadian foreign policy proposals in the mid to late 1990s. (Cast your Google nets in search of the term "responsibility to protect.")


Idly, watch your oversimplifications about the Revolutionary War. There were patriots on both sides.

There were those on the loyalist side who felt that they were the true patriots of the situation. My point is that according to the criteria set worth there is reason to argue that the Revolutionary War was not a just war.

The reason I raised that one is that there's a monument to the patriots of the imperial Loyalists on the waterfront in my hometown, and it's a perspective that's often taken for granted.

"Just war" is obviously a subjective thing unless you stick strictly to international law (in which case my first definition there, and whatever the UN explicitly authorizes in other situations, are the only ones). When you get past the legalistic aspect, some of them could probably be seen as such in hindsight. I'm sure most - most - Americans would consider the Revolution a just war; many would consider WWII the same, and I'd consider Canadian involvement in it to be so if just for the initial reasons we got in.

I'm also wondering whether revolutions and international wars ought to be judged by the same criteria. The mechanics behind casus belli break down in the case of the former.