What is your "just war theory"?

[bluestateguy]

Mine is that war should almost always be for self-defense, to repel an attack.

Preemptive war is only justifiable to me if the threat is overwhelming and imminent. No ambiguity about it. Hence, if Mexico is massing troops on the US border and intelligence clearly indicates an imminent attack, I would support a preemptive attack.

Other cases? I would say that a war conducted for reasons of humanitarian rescue (i.e. stopping genocide) should be approached with caution. Such missions can often turn into mystifying exercises in nation building, or neoconservative laboratory experiments. If such missions have international approval (though it need not be unanimous), public support at home and the mission is restricted to solving the immediate problem at hand than I can give my support to that. However, solving the root problems of poverty, economic turmoil or religious fundamentalism are not issues for a foreign military to resolve. In fact, the military is not trained to solve these problems at all. Nor can we be the policeman of the world and stop all outrages on the planet. We should say "We care", and offer whatever humanitarian assistance that we can, as well as assistance to refugees and offer to broker a peace between all parties by working as an international arbitrator.

I was not a big fan of the Kosovo war, but I nominally supported it because the war had international approval and cooperation, and there was no loss of American life. But in the future I would counsel against similar types of actions.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Mine's much the same as Gandhi's.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Gandhi

Note: I don't consider humanitarian interventions such as Kosovo, The Congo, or what should have happened in Rwanda, "war".

[DaveJ]

2. To obtain freedom...

The U.S. and other nations fought for freedom from England, but now the U.S. has picked sides with England again. Not to defend any murderers or other bad guys, but I'm sure some of the insurgents feel they are fighting for independence from England/U.S. the same way the U.S. fought for freedom from England. Now instead of Kings and Queens we have corporate leaders, but the idea is the same. I'm trying to do my best to stay out of trouble with my wording here, but if corporate leadership got out of hand I would be willing to fight for freedom as well.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

3. Ahhhhhhh, come on, it's just war.

:mad: :sarcasm:

[DaveJ]

4. It's not war, really

Do you call a man sqashing an ant to be a war? Nobody could ever take a real stand against our corporate leaders in the modern world becaue they would be squashed like insects before they'd even have a chance to start.

[Walt Starr]

5. Truthfully, there is no such thing

Reacting in defense is a defendable position, but in all cases, the occurrence of war indicates a failure on the part of national leaders of both sides.

[Deja Q]

6. If the concensus is that it's real and not fabricated, I am for it.

Iraq was based on untruths; it was proven.

N Korea is a different story.

Iran may or may not be.

China will be.

[Javaman]

7. There are no "just" wars, just death and misery.

[Kraklen]

8. Oh, if you're country is attacked by foreign invaders...

who steal your natural resources and rape and murder your people...

[Bouncy Ball]

9. Here's a little irony for everyone to chew on:

According to the tenets of "just war," when we had all of our guns and weapons aimed at Iraq, when we were doing all that saber-rattling, and making proclamations of war in Iraq, THAT is when IRAQ would have been fully justified in carrying out PRE-EMPTIVE action on US.

Ironic, isn't it?

Because in order for pre-emptive war to be justified, another state has to actually have your country in their sights (literally), they need to have declared their intent to make war on you, and they have to have the means and resources, without a doubt, to carry out on that threat.

If all those conditions are fulfilled and ONLY when all those conditions are fulfilled a nation is justified in taking pre-emptive action against another nation.

So our unjustified, illegal, immoral pre-emptive action on Iraq would have JUSTIFIED a pre-emptive action from THEM. So funny you could cry.

Only they didn't have a fraction of our military power, so they didn't do it.

This little factoid, more than anything, demostrates who was right and who was wrong in the US war on Iraq. We were and are wrong.