What circumstances legitimize a just war in
the cause and conduct? The principles in
making conditions for a war to be just are closely connected to the question: why
and how are wars fought? In light of just war tradition (Jus ad bellum), the
question of why wars are fought is about the question of what conditions meet
the criteria in order for a sovereign nation to engage a war against another
nation. This argument, to be sure, is open to broad interpretations. Thrasymachus,
the Greek philosopher, argued that what is just or right is the interest of the
stronger party so that the weaker should subject to the stronger.[i] After
September 11 attacks, the President Bush asserted the right of the United
States to act militarily whenever and wherever necessary to prevent future
violent attacks upon the United States and its citizens.[ii] In
this view, morality has no place in wars or politics because a nation that has
justifiable reasoning can be whenever and wherever engaging in war if necessary
conditions arise. Is this framework still useful for the contemporary war on
terror and the war in Iraq? I argue that
the conditions made by the Bush administration for war against Iraq hardly meet
the criteria necessary for fighting in just war tradition (just ad bellum).
The purpose of this paper is to discuss
the United States' decision to go to war on Iraq in the context of traditional
just war theory (just ad bellum): necessary conditions that arise in order for
a state to go to the war. The principle
six criteria for just war are commonly held to be: just cause (self-defense and
preemptive strike); explained by proper authority; possessing right intention; a
reasonable possibility for military success; the ends being proportional to the
means used; and a last resort.[iii] This is, obviously, a prewar condition for
just war. Once a war is considered justified, its conduct must be judged
according to jus in bello criteria: proportionality and discrimination.
Just
cause: self-defense and preemptive strikes (so called Bush doctrine)
Possessing just cause is the first and
arguably the most important condition of jus ad bellum. One aspect of just
cause is self-defense. Self-defense has to be clear ground and demonstration
that the aggressor made a preemptive physical attack against us. Therefore, the
physical response under self-defense is held for just cause, and its purpose is
not to retaliate against crimes wrong doers already committed. Some conditions
are likely to meet this criteria, for example, if a war is to pursue and punish
an aggressor, or to pre-empt an anticipated attack, or be a response to a
violation of territory, or an insult (an aggression against national honor), or
a trade embargo (an aggression against economic activity), or even to a neighbor’s
prosperity (a violation of social justice).[iv]
With respect to self-defense perspective,
the September 11 attacks were obviously understood and framed in self-defense
because the attacks were a violation of territory and an aggression against
national honor killing thousands of innocent civilians. The issues, however, is
that there was scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and
even less to the September 11 attacks. Although the Bush administration claimed
that Iraq was aggressive and harboring terrorists in its nation, indeed
Saddam's goals had little in common with the terrorists who threaten American
people, and there was little incentive for him to make common cause with them.[v]
Another aspect of just cause is preemptive
strikes (so called Bush doctrine). In a nut shell, the concept of preemptive
strikes is attacks by one state on the other state, recognizing necessary
conditions of imminent threats, to prevent the other state from using weapons
of mass destruction. How much evidence is necessary to justify preemption? The
President Bush asserted in his speech outlining how Iraqi threat is urgent to
America and world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the danger was
already significant, and it would only grow worse with time.[vi] Vice
President Dick Cheney made also such an argument that deliverable weapons of
mass destruction in the hands of a murderous dictator [Saddam Hussein]
constitutes as grave a threat as can be imagined.[vii] Furthermore,
in article 51 of the United Nations charter, preemption is recognized as the
right of any nation to defend itself, including the right in some circumstances
to take preemptive actions in order to deal with imminent threats.[viii] Arguably,
in light of this view, the preemption strategy is accessible to the United
States.
However, the problem with preemption is
that it is not needed in order to give the United States the means to act in
its own defense against terrorism in general or Iraq in particular. There are
also plenty of potential imitators: South/North Korea; India/Pakistan; China/Taiwan;
Israel/Iran; and others.[ix] Therefore,
the line between preemption and self-defense becomes blurred to the point where
the threats (which may not risk the territorial integrity or political
independence of a state) and uncertainty are used to justify preemptive
attacks.
Proper
authority
Congress has the power to raise armies to
provide for the military and to declare war, according to the U.S.
Constitution. The President Bush demanded that Congress speedily affirm that he
has the necessary authority to proceed immediately against Iraq.[x] Although
debates in Congress were disputed, Congress gave authorization for use of
military force against Iraq.[xi]
However, such processes between the Bush
executive and the legislative raised fundamental issues of the ethical
leadership for using military forces. Although the Congress ultimately decides a
war-related question, the American people should decide whether or not to
accept the statesmen's judgments.[xii] Furthermore,
the Bush administration made less effort to dispel concerns about the months
and years after a regime change.[xiii]
Right
Intention
Right intention is the most problematic criteria
because of its nature that something existed in my mind that I can't disclose:
how do you demonstrate intent? Acting with proper intent requires us to think
about what is proper, and it is not certain that whether he or she is acting in
self-interest or not. President Bush introduced his concept of an axis of evil,
during his State of the Union address, "Our cause is just, and it
continues... Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to
support terror...States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis
of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”[xiv] He
also defined the world in either/or terms: you are either with us or with the
terrorists.[xv]
The President Bush expressed his ethical concerns through his rhetoric.[xvi]
However, the issue in this view was on his
purposeful intention in the politics. The President George Bush pushed for a
vote in the Congress immediately before the election. His political strategy
clearly described in a White House aide's misplaced computer disk, which
advised Republican operatives that their principal game plan for success in the
election was to focus on the war. [xvii]
Reasonable
possibility for military success
The United States has learned lessons in
the context of military success, especially in Vietnam War. As the United
States made under estimation on Vietnam that consequently the war led to blood
war, the President Bush made the same mistakes in Iraq. About six years later
after his announcement of victory over Iraq, ironically, the President Bush
admitted, just before his departure of the White House, that the decision to go
to war against Saddam Hussein on the basis of flawed intelligence was the
biggest regret of his presidency.[xviii]
The Machivavelli expressed in the “Prince”
that the prince ought to read history and study the actions of eminent men to
imitate the causes of the great victory and to avoid the defeat. He also
articulated, “[a] prince must guard against as a rock of danger, and so
contrive that his actions show grandeur, spirit, gravity, and fortitude.”[xix] I
do not argue that the President of the United States should think and act like
a king in democratic society, but the principles presumably will remain the same.
The President Bush seemed more concerned with not being despised or hated by the
American people and the world, than avoiding the defeat.
Proportionality
This criterion of proportionality is whether
to practice unjust uses of force to meet the just ends of war. In other words, if
the ends are to make a better world and the means call for killing all the people
in an enemy territory, the means are justifiable? In light of the
proportionality, the concept of proportionality in jus ad bellum is
distinguished from the proportionality in jus in bella. Means, such as weapons
or violence, in jus in bella must be used in proportion of perceived threat,
and moral and legal obligations must abide by what proclaimed prior to war.[xx]
In this view, although the President Bush
announced publicly the goal of Iraq war was to prevent the terrorists and
regimes who seek weapons of mass destruction from threatening the United States
and the world, the issues, in terms of means, is whether the death of soldiers
and marines is just or not. [xxi] According
to Michael Walzer, just war requires morally pressing to win, and a soldier who
dies in just war does not die in vain.[xxii] Pew Research Center released
its survey result, “Thirty-three percent of the post-9/11
veterans who took part in the poll said neither of those two wars was
worthwhile considering the costs versus the benefits to the United States.”[xxiii] In
response to the nature of September 11 attacks, the United States had initially
responded with a mix of law enforcement, intelligence gathering, financial
asset tracking, and asset seizure. In light of the concept of limited wars and
unlimited wars in means and ends relations, the Bush policy on terror could
have been the limited ways of war with a mix of civilian-military resources to
achieve the just ends.
Last
resort
No matter what under circumstances, the
use of military forces must be the last resort. In every war, we must ask if
all other methods to resolve conflict were tried and failed. The Bush administration
demanded that Iraqi regime turn over Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders
who plotted September 11 attacks, and gave them a second chance a few days
after the bombing in Afghanistan began.[xxiv]
However, the issues are, in light of the
criteria, on the US official policy in that it has long been not to make
concessions to, or negotiate with, terrorists and those who harbored them. The
President Bush defined clearly the world in either/or terms: you are either
with us or with the terrorists-last resort is truncated.[xxv] I believe that we should be pacifist, and acknowledge
that most leaders would not use diplomacy because it is not easy to use and it
is difficult to understand different culture, and mostly hard to be humble
oneself to prevent conflicts.
Evaluating
just war theory (jus ad bellum) in Iraqi war
Recall that this paper argued that the
conditions for war against Iraq do not meet the criteria in a given nature of
just war tradition (just ad bellum). It is arguable that morality has no place
in wars or politics, yet to be sure, the argument is open to broad
interpretations. Just war theory traditions are not checklist or tools for
evaluating options and assessing for going into the war, rather it is an art of
ethical leadership on using military forces for just ends.
[i] Willian Ebenstein and Alan
Ebenstein, Great Political Thinkers:
Plato to the Present, 6th edition, (Wadsworth Cengage Learning), 31~33.
[ii] Craig L. Carr and David
Kinsella, “Preemption, Prevention, And Jus Ad Bellum (2006), (International
Studies Association), 1. http://web.pdx.edu/~kinsella/papers.html.
[iii] Alexander Moseley, “Just War
Theory,” (Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, 16 October), http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwar/#H2.
[iv] Alexander Moseley, “Just War
Theory,” (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
16 October), http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwar/#H2.
[v] John Ehrenberg, J. Patrice
McSherry, Jose Ramon Sanchez, and Caroleen Marji Sayej, Ed. The Iraq Papers, (Oxford University
Press, 2010), 70.
[vi] John Ehrenberg, J. Patrice
McSherry, Jose Ramon Sanchez, and Caroleen Marji Sayej, Ed. The Iraq Papers, (Oxford University
Press, 2010), 86.
[vii] Neta C. Crawford, "Just War
Theory and the U.S. Counterterror War," Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 1,
No. 1, (JSTOR, March, 2003), 15.
[viii] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 330.
[ix] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 331.
[x] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 326.
[xi] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 378.
[xii] Richard J. Regan, Just War: principles and cases, (The
Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 23.
[xiii] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 327.
[xiv] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 251.
[xvi] Neta C. Crawford, "Just War
Theory and the U.S. Counterterror War," Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 1,
No. 1, (JSTOR, March, 2003), 15.
[xvii] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 327.
[xviii] "Bush expresses doubts
about rationale for Iraq war," http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/02/george-bush-iraq-war-regrets?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487.
[xix] Willian Ebenstein and Alan
Ebenstein, Great Political Thinkers:
Plato to the Present, 6th edition, (Wadsworth Cengage Learning), 292.
[xx] Jason Campbell, “What is just
war theory?,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaSKe52Hmdg&feature=share.
[xxi] Micah L. Sifry and Christopher
Cerf, Ed. The Iraq War Reader: History,
Documents, Opinions, (Touchstone Rockefeller Center, 2003), 251.
[xxii] Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with
Historical Illustrations, 4th Ed. xv.
[xxiii] Will Dunham, “Many U.S. veterans say Iraq, Afghan wars not worth
it,” http://news.yahoo.com/many-u-veterans-iraq-afghan-wars-not-worth-074724753.html.
[xxiv] Neta C. Crawford, "Just War
Theory and the U.S. Counterterror War," Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 1,
No. 1, (JSTOR, March, 2003), 12.
[xxv] “Text of the President's speech,”
http://yc2.net/speech.htm.
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