When is a war a JUST war?

That would be an impossibility! You have to weigh up the cost of not going to war and see which would result in greater suffering. For example there was no war over Rwanda and look what happened one million people were massacred! There was no war in 1937 when Japan ravaged the city of Nanking and 200,000 innocent civilians were butchered to death. No war when Turkey attacked Arminia which resulted in 200,000 Armenian deaths. There would have been similar massacres had we not acted to stop Milosevic in Kosovo in 1999.

A good example of a current case for a just war would be the liberation of Zimbabwe from the murderous regime of Robert Mugabe. For example in Zimbabwe today more than half the population are starving! There is state hijcking of food aid. State prevention of food production. Unemployment of over 70 per cent. Inflation out of control - 200% and rising! Stae approved murder and torture. The press has been muzzled and the judiciary subverted with some judges jailed.

At independence Zimbabwe was heralded as the bread basket of Africa. Since Mugabe's land reform began in 2000 the harvest of maize the staple grain has fallen by more than 70 per cent. leaving nearly 7 million people on the brink of starvation. The distribution of international food aid is highly politicised and anyone suspected of supporting the opposition is left hungry. Most Zimbabweans agree that land reform is essential but not like this!

 

On the question of the morality of killing people, would it not be your moral duty to kill someone such as Hitler given the chance?[/QUOTE]
And when did I imply that? Am I in the military? Am I an assassin?

 

I never said war wasnt a necessity..i just said its not just when an innocent persond dies.

 

But that would make war under any circumstances unjust as every war results in some innocent deaths. It would be impossible to ensure the absolute safetly of all civilians during a war, as war by its very nature is difficult to control. For example you could not ensure that every bomb and every bullet hits its' target or that every instance of combat does not result in friendly fire deaths of fellow troops or civilians accidently mistaken for the enemy. All you can do is try to minimise those things as much as possible by careful planning and co-ordination between different battalions and allies involved in the battlezone.

 

Got it in one.

 

So you would have allowed an evil dictator like Milosevic to ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of people from Kosovo and Bosnia? You would have allowed Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to stay in Afghanistan and continue to plot more terrorist outrages against the west? You would have allowed Saddam Hussein to keep Kuwait and terrorise, loot and murder throughout that country? You would have allowed Hitler to keep Poland, France, Czecheslovakia and Austria?

 

I think murderers should be arrested, tried and if found guilty punished for there crimes.

The people of there country should not be made to suffer even more than they already have done by having to face a war.

 

sorry for the long delay.

Yes, that would mean every war would be unjust. And yes, all you can do is try to minimize the casualties. But i dont see how a war where an innocent person dies can be 'just.' You cant put a price on human life.

Now dont get me wrong. Many wars were absolutely necessary.

 

Hmm, try again ... like many people on this thread have said, war can sometimes be the least bad option, sometimes a necessary and unavoidable evil. That does not make it "just" (morally righteous). People like you seem to celebrate the killing of others if their ideology does not match yours. Like Tony Blair, George Bush or Saddam Hussein, people like you see war as an acceptable option, a political tool, rather than as a last resort, a scourge, an evil to be undertaken with a heavy heart only where there is absolutely no peaceful alternative. This makes you a warmonger.