Is this war just?

Q: Is there such a thing as a 'just war'? In his Nobel speech, was President Obama right to speak in these theological terms about war? He also stated that 'no holy war can ever be a just war.' Do you agree or disagree?

No nation goes to war believing its cause unjust. Since nations fight one another, it is impossible that all are correct. It is tempting, therefore, to simply assume all must be wrong.

Human beings are so skilled at self-deception that to admit the possibility of just wars gives immediate reinforcement to everyone who fights. My war, each will argue, surely is just. Anyone with a conscience must be uneasy at the very phrase "just war."

But equally, anyone with a conscience must be uneasy at the idea of pacifism. To be a pacifist is to acquiesce always in the sufferings of others. They must endure it, because violence is worse. Moreover, it is to endorse a theory of human nature that is impossible to believe: faced with goodness, evil will always learn, always yield. Such a belief makes astrologers and crop circle devotees look like hardened skeptics. Who can really subscribe to the belief that the Panzer divisions would have stopped had only the Jews the good sense to put flowers in their guns? Human beings are the creatures who sometimes learn. They can also be the kind of intractable, ineducable evildoers that baffle all hope of redemption.

Of course there are just wars. Theorists have spent enormous amounts of time trying to establish the requisite rules: wars fought against an implacable and cruel enemy, when all other means have been exhausted, using appropriate but not gratuitous force, etc. The question is not whether there are just wars, or even what standards might apply; the question is always - is this war just? There are easy cases - the civil war, World War II. But Iraq? Afghanistan? The First World War? In each case the assertion alone is not enough; it has to be backed by considerable argument and still, we are left wondering.

Fundamentalist violence is a desperately serious enemy. But wars are fought on many fronts: persuasion, economic pressure, intelligence measures as well as force. Are the means used appropriate to the challenge? Does bombing Taliban enclaves in the mountains of Afghanistan offer comforting clarity of Normandy? Of course not. So the question is not - is there a just war? There have been and, alas, there will be again. The question must be - is this war just?

By David Wolpe | December 21, 2009; 5:12 PM ET Save & Share:
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There's a kind of righteousness implicit in this Christian notion of "just war," problematic.

There may be justifiable wars, wars of defense.
That is about it.

Posted by: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | December 28, 2009 9:38 PM
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We've been sold on the notion of "just war" so often that just asking the question here seems a bit crazy...like asking a binge drinking alcoholic if the the next drink might yet be justified.

It's NOT TRUE that the security of the United States was threatened by Iraq. It wasn't threatened when we went to war with Iraq the FIRST TIME and it became even more clear that it wasn't threatened when we went to war the SECOND TIME.

Both of those times, OIL stood at the forefront of "the reasons" we threw ourselves into conflict. We were lied to again and again about this---by our own government, by the media.

Here we go again in the escalation of the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan and wherever else. This is not about the security of the people of this country.

Posted by: terrybakee1 | December 23, 2009 7:48 PM
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Justification is in the eyes of history. If, in some dark morbid future where Nazism has become the ruling tenant, then perhaps the actions of the Allied Nation's will be deemed "unjust" in a rewritten history book. We in post war America during the fifties and sixties could not imagine such a position, just as we could not have imagined then what the discussion would be today surrounding our response to terrorism.

Is this war just? Yes. The crisis we face is that the terrorists don't seem to have the need to debate such an elementary issue. The Iraq invasion? Justifiable to some, but ill timed and distracting to the focus which was needed. Hunt down and bring to justice the planners of any and all attacks against innocent American citizens.

Alas, all the debate in the world will not change the fact that Islam, in the end, has no intention of sharing a world with us infidels. Not on any level, at any Mosque, in any nation. Because Islam is not the majority religion in a country which can invade and overthrow western nations as the Nazi's attempted, they resort to the sleezy, cowardly methods of killing innocents.

The leaders of these movements in all likelihood, are only after power for themselves. So they will continue to brainwash the youthful minds of this generation, and send them to their own damnation.

Posted by: hogs12 | December 15, 2009 3:37 PM
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Which war is it you think is "totally" just?
The civil war we have unleashed?
The war the Taliban(Pathans) wage against the "central gov't"(Tajiks)?
The war we wage against Afghanistan to create a permanent presence that will let us build the oil pipeline that was Shrub's dream and the reason for the we blew up the Twin Towers to start the war?

David Wolpe

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Is this war just?

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