When is a war a JUST war?

Or is it ever?

Hippy Land has always been an anti-war site... but can there be a justification for war sometimes? I'm not talking about the Iraq war specifically, more thinking of the first world war etc.

Treehouse made this comment:

Would you fight to defend your rights within your country?

Love Clairexxx

 

Most wars have been a result of the "ruling classes" wanting to push forward their profiteering, political or religious agenda by using the "lower classes" to do their fighting.

I'm thinking more and more that the only way that the rulers will give up this power of exploitation is if it's taken from them by force ... but the whole thing about violence isn't in my nature, sure I get angry and occasionally want to lash out but my instincts are always defensive rather than offensive.

So I really don't know what peaceful alternatives there are that would have the same impact.

 

When is a war a JUST war?

when the winners re-write history

 

This is true. The most often quoted example of a just war is the war against Hitler's Nazism, 1939-45. But much of this is hindsight; we were not fighting against Hitler's ideology, to save the Jews from oppression or because of the Holocaust - the scale of which did not become widely known until after the war. At the time it was just the same old political chessboard with one powerful ruler seeking to expand his reach, and other powerful elites protecting their land and nationhood. The only reason Britain entered the war at all when Hitler invaded Poland was because of a treaty we had with Poland. So we are kidding ourselves if we really think that war was fought with high ideals in mind. It was a political and territorial war between powerful elites; the moral justification for defeating Nazism is at best tacked on afterwards.

Nations fighting nations is something I could never support. It is never just. But pragmatically speaking, and though it shames me to say it, we can't do without armies for self-defence and protection of the vulnerable. After WWII the UN Charter was written with the express purpose of banning war. The tragedy is that the UN fails to actually work properly and efficiently as it was intended; it fails to uphold its commitment to unite the civilised people of the world and only to use force multilaterally when there is no other option. Instead it is subject to the whim of the five permanent members of the Security Council. And because America is the most powerful nation, it has free rein to do whatever it likes in its own interests - see Iraq. Were the UN to genuinely reflect the wording of the UN Charter, and act as a multilateral, global police force, representing no national self-interests, and upholding the highest standards of accountability for the use of military force, that's a model for military action which I would find acceptable. The only conceivably just use of force is that which is absolutely unavoidable and undertaken with the purpose of stopping war.

 

I used to be a pacifist but I changed as I feel some wars are necessary....World war 2 being a good example..Whatever the reasons Hitler needed to be stopped and people freed from a fascist regime...It had to be done (ok a lot of the things that happened on the allied side were wong..i.e Dresden etc) but the world had to take a stand.

Then there are many many many many wrong wars....You all know them so I won't go in to it...Unfortunatly sometimes it does have to resort to violence...

 

It's war when you're literally protecting your own soil without more devious reasons.
It's called breeding an empire when done anywhere else and for any other reason.

 

Partly true but not the whole picture. Hitler had been appeased for years and he gambled that after a peace deal signed by him and Nevil Chamberlin that Britain wouldn't have the stomach for war if he invaded Poland. Hitlers' ruthlessness therefore had been fostered by the policy of appeasement by western rulers. If they had put their foot down when in 1934 Hilter first broke the treaty of Versaies by remilitarising the Rhineland there would never have been a World War II.

So the crucial question should be why did western powers appease Hitler in the first place. It was probably because they saw Hitlers' fascism as a bulwark against Soviet bolshivism which had nearly caused a revolution in Germany in the early 1920s. It wasn't also just the invasion of Poland that sparked the war, but fact that Britains' trade with the rest of Europe was also under threat due to Germanys' continued expansion in Europe.

It was a just war whatever the motives, but many needless atrocities marred it such as the carpet bombing of German cities and fire bombing and atomic bombing of Japanese cities by America.

 

I'm not so sure that there are just wars. I think that sometimes war can be the least bad option, but does that make it just? Does it excuse all of the moral implications of the war itself, the massacres, the civillian casualties, the 'enthusiastic' soldiers, simply by terming it just?

 

Very well said. Taking just to mean "morally righteous", there is and can be no such thing as a "just" war. Positive outcomes can come out of wars - the imprisonment of Saddam Hussein, the end of Fascism - but no war is ever morally righteous in itself. War is as termed in the UN Charter, a "scourge", which can be defined as "a source of widespread dreadful affliction and devastation". Without exception.

 

just war? A war where an innocent person doesnt die.

 

OK what if we got invaded by gun toting Nazi's tomorrow ? What would we do?

Would we let them kill us and take over our homes and land or would we fight back to protect what little democracy we have?

Would we be wrong for defending ourselves?

Just a thought

Love Clairexxx

 

Read the quote of Sal's I was agreeing with - use of force can sometimes be the least bad option and as I said before it can sometimes, shamefully, be necessary. But to claim it is "morally righteous" to kill another human being, no matter what they have done, are doing or are about to do - I have trouble with that concept.

 

Maybe I should have called it something else other than just?... I was meaning is there ever a time where it is right to go to war (or at least nessessary).... That's the point I was making.

And I did read the quote Mr Jon... I was just asking you more questions

It interests me whether as a pacifist I could find myself in a situation where I may have to kill or die in a war.... with no other feasable line of action to take

Love Clairexxx

 

In that instance I may very well pick up a gun and fight back, but I still wouldn't see war as just, nor my actions as morally right, simply the least bad thing I could do. I understand what you're saying though, sometimes war may be, unfortunately, necessary. In the Christian, theological sense, and the morally justifyable sense, however, I don't agree with the concept of a just war....

 

Self defense is at least sane.
I can't believe we ever gave total strangers the power to send our families off to die on foreign soil. When the hell did that shit happen????

 

Some foreigner already has your country. God save the Queen....

 

No I think "just" is the right word, we get what you mean anyway! There are times when force might be necessary to prevent war, but I think allowing rogue / terrorist states like the USA and Britain free rein to declare war on other nations is unequivocally and wholly bad and can never be "just", no matter what falsified moral justification they might put on their actions. They act from nothing other than self-interest. Nation declaring war upon nation is already illegal, but international law is flouted with impunity by the most powerful terrorists and war criminals like Bush and Blair. The only way of dealing with this necessary evil of using force to protect the vulnerable and to prevent war would be to do it through a reformed and genuinely accountable United Nations. We already have the robust framework required for this in the wording of the UN Charter, but terrorist states like the USA have hijacked it for their own ends.

 

you mean, do what the US has been bitching about for god knows how long...enforce your resolutions?

 

The statistical probability of anything like that happening now though is very, very slim, if at all existent, so therefore we don't need to think about how we would react to something which isn't going to happen. Besides, as has already been pointed out, there's a big difference between defending yourself against someone who is trying to kill you (as in, a guy comes at you with a gun, and you find the nearest dart or whatever you can find to stop him) and proclaiming the bombing of thousands of buildings were innocent people live as 'defence'!

A lot of folks say World war 2 was justified but you have to remember the peace/human rights safeguards which simply weren't in place at the time. Amnesty International, the UN (not as good as they could be but I had to include them), Human Rights Watchdog and just recently The International Criminal Court, not to mention many other groups which safeguard against many of the kinds of events which led to that war. I'm very adamant that had these organisations existed since the early/mid 30's, there would not have been a holocaust.

You could also point out that WW2 mainly came about as a result of WW1, and the effects of the aftermath had on nations such as Germany, and WW2 led to the cold war, Vietnam, unrest in south-east Asia, etc, etc.

Talking about the subject of fighting tyrrany with peace though, I think that really depends on how peaceful you're willing to be for the sake of the cause, if you know what I mean. If there are people willing to die for peace as a soldiers are for war, then I think that's a positive thing to have. The effectiveness of peaceful methods does heavily depend on the commitment of it's followers (sounds like I need to get my arse in gear then doesn't it?!).

 

Can I also just say I would never, ever put myself in a situation where I could be responsible for the killing of civilians or any non-violent people, whatever the situation.