Is the War in Iraq Justified?

[Nirvana-Eld]

Wasn't it evil when GW Bush declared war on and killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi's for no provable reason? But isn't he a good Christian that follows the Bible's teachings?

Please tell me that you cringe at the sight of this terrible mis-understanding.

This was brought up in a thread concerning the nature of evil and it lead me to wonder about different opinions. And to link this to religion, im going to provide St. Thomas Aquainas' theory on just war. Three things are needed to make a war just.

1) a just cause

2) a just(legitimate) authority

3) a just intent

Personally i think the current war passes this test, but it is up to you. I would like to see facts, statistics, and logic, not the biased opinionated lie seen above.

[bernee51]

Wasn't it evil when GW Bush declared war on and killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi's for no provable reason? But isn't he a good Christian that follows the Bible's teachings?

Please tell me that you cringe at the sight of this terrible mis-understanding.

I'm not cringing. One man's interpretation is another's misunderstanding. So what if an entire population was repressed . It is only one of quite a few and none of the US's business. Genocide has happened in recent times and the US has stood back and watched - why was this one (if it was occuring) so different? Defying UN sanctions? So what? Add them to the list of sanctions that are being defied by others. Nothing is been done about those.

By your logic, the US should declare war on Israel.

1) a just cause

the oppression of an entire population, the suspected and probable possession of WMD's, genocide (how mant Palestinians killed or dispossed of their land), and defying U.N. sanctions for decades.

2) a just(legitimate) authority

The US has the biggest stick.

3) a just intent

an end to WMD development programs, protection of a region, liberation of a people, end to tyranny, to name but a few.

[McCulloch]

This was brought up in a thread concerning the nature of evil and it lead me to wonder about different opinions. And to link this to religion, im going to provide St. Thomas Aquainas' theory on just war. Three things are needed to make a war just.

1) a just cause

2) a just(legitimate) authority

3) a just intent

Personally i think the current war passes this test, but it is up to you. I would like to see facts, statistics, and logic, not the biased opinionated lie seen above.

But first please show that the concept of a just war is an authentic Christian teaching Christian Violence.
According to Saints Ambrose and Augustine and later refined by Thomas Aquinas and others The seven basic principles of Christian just war doctrine are:

1. Jus ad bellum ("justice on the way to war")
   1. Legitimate Authority: Requiring that only legitimate officials may decide to resort to force is one way to protect against arbitrariness.
   2. Just Cause: The three standard acceptable causes are self-defense, recovery of stolen assets, and punishment for wrongdoing.
   3. Peaceful Intention: The intention is to use force to achieve peace, using force to restrain and minimize force.
   4. Last Resort: Before turning to war, all reasonable approaches to a peaceful resolution need to be employed.
   5. Reasonable Hope of Success: In going to war, there must exist the reasonable expectation of successfully obtaining peace and reconciliation between the warring parties.
2. Jus in bello ("justice in the midst of war")
   1. Proportionality: The suffering and devastation of war must not outweigh whatever benefits may result from war.
   2. Discrimination or Noncombatant Immunity: The means of warfare must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants.

To review these seven principals wrt the Iraq war:

• Legitimate Authority: Why did the USA decide to unilaterally go to war with Iraq? Could we not decide that the UN is the legitimate authority on these matters?
• Just Cause:
  • self-defense - Is there anyone who still believes that Iraq posed a real danger to USA?
  • recovery of stolen assets - more likely to secure access to oil assets
  • punishment for wrongdoing - after US agencies encouraged those wrongdoings
• Peaceful Intention
• Last Resort Why the US was in such a hurry to go to war before the UN weapons inspectors could complete their task? What other avenues were explored?
• Reasonable Hope of Success this one is a no brainer. Anyone with reasonable knowledge of the social, economic and political situation would have known that there really was no reasonable hope of success.
• Proportionality What benefits resulted from this war?
• Discrimination or Noncombatant Immunity modern warfare has made this principal obsolete, hasn't it.

[Cathar1950]

I think I have been influenced by those Mennonites and Quakers.
I seems senseless. How many have been killed? Give or take at least 30,000. Would an Invasion of Iraq Be a "Just War"?
I will have to read the rest of the article. I was reading that we spend in the world about 30 billion on aid and about 900 billion on military. I have a problem with the way we spend our money. I also don't think we have been responsible or even cognisant of our part we have played in the restlessness in the mideast.


War what is it good for?

[juliod]

think the current war passes this test

No.

1) a just cause

The justice of a cause must be based on facts on the ground, not the claims to the aggressor. Every nation that ever waged a war of aggression did so under the assumed banner of "self-defense". The justifications for this war, that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, that Iraq possessed WMDs, and that Iraq presented a major threat to the US, were all known at the time to be completely bogus.

) a just(legitimate) authority

Yes, the US is a legitimate authority for waging war. But there is A Problem. This requirement is intended to exclude robber barons, bandits, and mercenaries. In the current war, however, we are employing tens of thousands of "security contractors". Yes, mercenaries. Those people you only occasionally see or hear about, non-uniformed, not representing the lawful bearers of arms of a national army; they are the "illegal combatants" we hear about.

We should not be employing these contractors. They make our war illegitimate.

3) a just intent

The intent of this war, as laid out by policy documents prior to the Dubya administraton, was carpe petroleum, "Seize the Oil". This is all published and in the public domain, these plans produced by think tanks employing people with names like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, yet you never ever hear about them in the media that is owned by the same people who own the oil companies that benefit from this policy.

As for the wisdom of this war, it was summed up by Martin van Creveld, heavyweight military historian:

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

http://www.forward.com/articles/6936

See also these by the same author:

http://www.d-n-i.net/creveld/into_the_abyss.htm

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/crevald1.html

van Creveld is a serious high-end historian. He is not a radical, liberal or pacifist. His opinion counts.

DanZ

[Nirvana-Eld]

I will give a response to your respective replies as time permits, i have some time tonight but im in over my head with finals. I'll see what i can do tonight.

[Cephus]

By your logic, the US should declare war on Israel.

1) a just cause

the oppression of an entire population, the suspected and probable possession of WMD's, genocide (how mant Palestinians killed or dispossed of their land), and defying U.N. sanctions for decades.

2) a just(legitimate) authority

The US has the biggest stick.

3) a just intent

an end to WMD development programs, protection of a region, liberation of a people, end to tyranny, to name but a few.

Works for me, let's do it. Taking out Israel makes at least as much sense as invading Iraq.

[Nirvana-Eld]

Ok bernee first

You said

So what if an entire population was repressed . It is only one of quite a few and none of the US's business. Genocide has happened in recent times and the US has stood back and watched - why was this one (if it was occuring) so different? Defying UN sanctions? So what? Add them to the list of sanctions that are being defied by others. Nothing is been done about those.

One thing to say to the fact that the U.S. "stood back and watched." We live in a constantly changing democracy. The last few presidents, with the exception of G.B. senior, did nothing in the face of Saddam's crimes, and all the U.N. did was writing angry letters.

Here's one CNN article that includes a good history of Saddam's rise to power and his regime.[/url]http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/12/ ... le.ap/[url]
BBC on the charges he now faces in legitimate court, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3320293.stm

We cannot invade every country with problems simply because the United States does not have the provisions to invade every country with issues and Iraq is by far the one with the worst unless you can prove me wrong.

By your logic, the US should declare war on Israel.

I partially agree that Israel is not nearly as blame free as some would make it out to be. In the area, an overwhelming 83% are Palestinian and Arab and a mere 17% are Jewish. Now that's what i call a minority tyranny (from the world fact book) If anyone is to blame for the problems in the middle east today, it would be the victors after the world wars namely France, Britain, and yes, in part, the United States. But to go as far as to say that their circumstances qualifies for a just war, is slightly far fetched. Yet i would like to see a source that they defyed U.N. sanctions, for decades. Also, have they ever used any chemical/biological/nuclear weapons on anyone (much less their own people)? [edit!] After looking at your post again I saw genocide mentioned. To my knowledge,most of Israel's attacks as a nation were in retaliation to Arab/Palestinian attacks and aggressions. Although it is the West's fault in the first place for creating Israel.[/edit]

You have a decent arugument for the Israeli war (that sounds wierd huh?) but i believe it is a little streched. [edit] If anyone is accountable it us we who set up the Israeli state but no changing the past right? I now think that this Israel agurement is more a work of real fiction than a viable hypothetical situation or whatever you want to call it. [/edit] The simple fact is that everyone is wondering why the United States didn't bring down any other tyrant. The question should be, why hasn't the U.N. or any of its members being the highest political authority on earth do anything until now? And now that the United States IS doing something, everyone is crying out injustice. I don't see much consistency here.

This is an excellent site on the ancient and modern histories of Israel
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/

[youngborean]

I fail to see a decent justification to go to war against Israel being put forward beyond rhetoric. Really, every UN resolution against Israel has and had to include a call for Palestinians to end attacks on them. Both countries have yet to comply. Arab Israelies are completely defended under the rule of law, which could hardly be said of the minority factions of Saddam's regime, who he killed himself.

[Nirvana-Eld]

First of all thank you McCulloch for your clarification. It comes appreciated.

To review these seven principals wrt the Iraq war:

Legitimate Authority: Why did the USA decide to unilaterally go to war with Iraq? Could we not decide that the UN is the legitimate authority on these matters?
Just Cause:
self-defense - Is there anyone who still believes that Iraq posed a real danger to USA?
recovery of stolen assets - more likely to secure access to oil assets
punishment for wrongdoing - after US agencies encouraged those wrongdoings
Peaceful Intention
Last Resort Why the US was in such a hurry to go to war before the UN weapons inspectors could complete their task? What other avenues were explored?
Reasonable Hope of Success this one is a no brainer. Anyone with reasonable knowledge of the social, economic and political situation would have known that there really was no reasonable hope of success.
Proportionality What benefits resulted from this war?
Discrimination or Noncombatant Immunity modern warfare has made this principal obsolete, hasn't it.

Legitimate Authority - The U.N. is and would be, yet it and its members didn't act. So are we to be the kid (U.S.) on the street (the world) watching kids(innocent Iraqis) get beat up by a big bully (Saddam)? I wouldn't want to be just a bystander that sits a shakes his head saying "pity pity". If no one else does anything then why not us to stand up in the face of injustice.

Just Cause -
- self defense - they sure did pose a threat to every nation around it, I don't believe that they had the ability to act against this tyrant.
- recovery of stolen assets - look at the statistics, of all the oil being sold from Iraq, none of the profit is being kept by the United States, In fact, we are doing this war at our own cost. To say that its for oil does not make much sense.
- punishment for wrongdoing - the U.S. agencies are held accountable by the respective administrations of the times. I also do not see how we encouraged any of the wrong doings being brought before Saddam Hussien in court now. I know that those U.S. agencies encouraged war with Iran and supplied Iraq with what they needed, but as i said before, we in the present dar are not held accountable, and if we are it is our responsibility to correct these "wrong doings" isn' it?

Last Resort - how many years did he defy sanctions/inspections? I think 14 is the right number correct me if I'm wrong. There were 17 U.N. sanctions passed in this amount of time. If the U.N. is un-willing to take any real action against tyrrany, after 14 years of attempts at diplomatic solutions, what would work?

Reasonable Hope and Success - I beleive I should let the Iraqi people speak for themselves on this one, The elections today/yesterday had a voter turnout of 70%+. In Saddam's home town of Tikrit the voter turnout was 80%. Even Suni religious leaders even urged voting. (Suni makes up most of the remaining insurgency) If Iraqis thought that there was no hope for a peaceful future or success, why would they vote? There is an obvious optimism about the future within Iraq.

Proportionality - For one an end to a tyranic dictatorship. The start of a legitimate government by the people. In the American Revolutionary War, when it comes to proportionality, no one would argue that it wasn't there. There was an injustice and with foriegn help, we succeded in gaining independence, and achieving a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" (Pres. Lincoln) Isn't that what is being accomplished through these elections?

Discrimination or Noncombatant Immunity - sadly I agree with you there.

I'm done for tonight, i will try to get around to replying to juliod's post tomorrow and you other war supporters don't be shy! This alone took me more time than i should've taken. (I should be studying!)[/list]