« Al-Jazeera and Saddam | Main | Vindication? »

February 1, 2005

Just War Theory - Other Commentary

Marvin has taken note of my series on Just War Theory, and has provided several very useful links to other folks who have discussed the topic also. I encourage readers to visit his post and explore the links he has provided.

Meanwhile, the excellent writers over at Mirror of Justice are also blogging on how Just War Theory applies to the War in Iraq. Joe Carter (The Evangelical Outpost blog) would like to know what I have to say about their work. No problem, I'd be happy to oblige. Joe himself says that he is going to be providing commentary on the matter, so be sure and check his site regularly.

You can find links to my series on Just War here. I'm a little less than halfway through.

Little Red Blog

Marvin links to several excellent discussions of Just War Theory.

In a post on his blog Pseudo-Polymath, author Mark says that

As to arguments that in light of what we learned after the invasion about WMD, et al, are arguments invalidating the Justification for going to war, this is specious. One cannot be held accountable with regards to Justification for actions in light of knowledge gained after the fact. If one believes that intentional deception was used to frame the cause for War, then that contention should be backed up with fact.
Amen.

Of course, that there is not one scintilla of evidence that anyone in the Bush Administration or intelligence community lied seems to bother the left-wing not at all.

Mark's other posts on the subject can be found here:

Read them all.

Mark does not follow the traditional outline for Just War Theory, but that's ok because he raises a number of interesting issues that I had not considered.

Mirror of Justice blog

Next up we'll turn to the post that Joe recommended on the Mirror of Justice blog. Writer Rob Visher has written a series of posts on Just War Theory that can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I'm not going to attempt a full answer here to all of the issues he raises, because that is the point of my own series on the topic.

Rob asks several questions with regard to Just War Theory and the war in Iraq:

Can the conflict in Iraq be justified under just war principles without rendering those principles largely useless in terms of their future capacity to establish boundaries on human conflict?"
An excellent question, for it is all too easy to rationalize the justification this war in ways that could lead to a lessening of requirements to the point where Just War Theory is a joke. For example, suppose all requirements of jus ad bellum are met except Competent Authority, because the Congress will vote to authorize the war. We cannot then backtrack and say "oh well, if the president wants to do it then that's good enough, for we have all these other justifications." As I've made clear, I believe that for anything other than some short-term uses of military force, congressional authorization is required.
Can we all agree that, if the intelligence accurately revealed (what turned out to be) the absence of WMD, then the just war requirements would not have been satisfied? In other words, without a good-faith belief that WMD were present, the invasion of Iraq was immoral, right?
 Well now, when Mirror of Justice bills itself as "A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory" they aren't kidding around, are they? These questions don't allow for any wiggle room. From my review of the matter so far, I'll answer that yes, without WMD the war would not have been just. Everything I know tells me that the Bush Administration did believe in good faith that WMD were present.
On what other basis could the conflict in Iraq possibly be considered a just war?
A few that come to mind are links to terrorism, and the constant threat that he would invade his neighbors (the idea that Iraq was contained in a "status quo" environment is laughable, the sanctions were falling apart). However, although Saddam was definitely in the terrorism business it was not a major threat to us, and alone would not have justified war. Possible invasion of his neighbors is another matter. He'd started two wars already (Iran and Kuwait), and would likely do so again. One may argue that it would be better to preempt this with an invasion, but this is certainly open to debate.

Another Link

Leo, writing for the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, has a very informative post on how Just War Theory applies to the invasion of Iraq. Check it out and see whether he thinks the war is justified.

Update

Marc responds to my series. He makes some great points about revolutions and Competent Authority which I'll have to consider.


Posted by Tom at February 1, 2005 1:44 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/refer.cgi/299

Comments

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)