OMNI JUST-WAR NEWSLETTER #1, October 15,
2013. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and
Justice.
Newsletters
Index:
See Area Bombing, Civilians/Noncombatants, National/International Days, Nuclear War ,
Pacifism , Preemtive War, Torture,
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Contents #1
Mac Bica, A Partial Defense of Drones
Just War Theory
Leroy Walters, Five Classic Just-War Theories
Four Books of Christian Critiques of Just
War Theory
McSorley, New Testament Basis of Peacemaking
Wells, The
War Myth
Trzyna, Blessed Are the Pacifists
Dick, Just Cause and Just Means , Iraq
No Just US Wars?
Grayling vs. WWII Area Bombing
Camillo Mac Bica, “Refocusing
Anti-Drone Activism.”
Predator
aerial vehicles at General Atomics, a defense contractor, in
I am
idealist enough to admire pacifism. But I'm enough of a realist to believe that
if and when the criteria of Just War Theory (JWT) are satisfied and International Law adhered to, war may be necessary,
unavoidable, just and moral. I recognize as well, and regret, the brutality
that war entails, but I begrudgingly accept that in a just and moral war (one
in which JWT's jus ad bellum criteria have been satisfied and international
law adhered to), the use of weaponry to destroy property and to kill and injure
human beings can be just and moral as well (again if and only if the JWT's jus in bello criteria are
satisfied and international law adhered to). In this article, I will consider
whether one particular weapons system, unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, can satisfy
these necessary criteria.
Dick:
This article is well-worth reading as it sharpens our understanding of
drones, but its opening paragraph is misleading in regard to Just-War Theory. The author does not discuss this theory, but
only a fragment of it--the question of drone accuracy and ability to avoid
killing noncombatants--though the final paragraph is more inclusive. For
example, Trzyna below examines eight principles of Just-War: 1) last resort, 2) just cause, 3) just ends,
4) limited objectives, 5) just means, 6) limited means, 7) noncombatant
immunity, 8) reasonable chance of success.
JUST-WAR THEORY
Leroy Walters. Five
Classic Just-War Theories: A Study in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Vitoria
The diversity of theory
this title suggests by the present day has become a consensus of six to eight
principles, as the following books reveal.
Their authors make a case for
pacifism partly by the absence of any war in which just-war criteria are
satisfied, since both sides always claim their side is just according to one or
several criteria. That is, combatant
nations always regret the brutality, etc., select the j-w principles which
support their side, and add whatever definitional emendations are necessary,
each believes, for self-exculpation. The name for this mental and political
process is called cant. For the theory to validly apply, all just-war
principles must be included.
Richard McSorley, New Testament Basis of Peacemaking
In Chapter 5, “The Just-Unjust War Theory,” McSorley examines five fourth-century basic criteria of the theory: 1) Declaration of war by the king, 2) Last resort, 3) good intention, just cause 4) protection of innocent, 5) proportion of good over evil. He finds fourteen weaknesses in these criteria, particularly if nuclear weapons are involved. He concludes that the JWT “does more harm than good. It is used as a front for accepting war.” (p. 94).
In Chapter 5, “The Just-Unjust War Theory,” McSorley examines five fourth-century basic criteria of the theory: 1) Declaration of war by the king, 2) Last resort, 3) good intention, just cause 4) protection of innocent, 5) proportion of good over evil. He finds fourteen weaknesses in these criteria, particularly if nuclear weapons are involved. He concludes that the JWT “does more harm than good. It is used as a front for accepting war.” (p. 94).
Instead of Just-War Theory,
Pope John XXIII presented his encyclical Peace
on Earth, and his Council, Vatican II, the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. To Pope John, reliance on armed force was
a failure of faith. Instead, with
humankind threatened by an array of catastrophic weapons, our aim must be the
human family and the community of nations.
Chapter 6 presents sixteen
Answers to Objections to Pacifism.
Chapter 7 recounts US Bishops’ opposition to nuclear weapons. --Dick
CRITIQUE OF JUST WAR
Donald Wells, The War Myth (1967), Chapter II
The doctrine of Just War has many advantages.
It enables people to think comprehensively
about the morality of war. In the version presented by the 1983 U. S.
drastically limit the number of wars.. The
notion is therefore no empty cliche.
Reflection on the just means and ends of wars
is a part of the hoped-for evolution
toward a peaceful world..
The
problem is that up to now all nations--or nation's leaders--have believed
themselves to be or claimed to be in the
position of defender when they go to
war. And although Catholics are forbidden to
participate in unjust wars (and
Catholics are the oldest and greatest
advocates of just and unjust war principles),
the Catholic leadership within nations have
seldom declared the wars of their
nation to be unjust. In the U. S. perhaps only once--during the Vietnam
The same reluctance to oppose its nation's
wars is true of Protestant churches.
In the U.S.
the war in December, 1966, but described the U.S.
in Feb.,1966, the World Council of Churches
had emphatically condemned the U.S.
and supported the cease-fire, negotiations,
and general positions of U Thant
and the Geneva Accords, but the U.S. National
Council did not follow that protest.)
Underlying the failure of religions to apply
Just War principles to their own
countries is the presumption that the wars of
one's own nation are always just,
unless proved otherwise. This means that
unless the citizen has overwhelming
evidence that a war is unjust, he must obey
the state. Of course, even in democratic
societies, the secrecy of governments when
planning and engaging in wars, their
control over the media, and the power of
government patriotic propaganda during
wars, nullify the the ability of citizens to
acquire evidence and upon it to
assess the justice of its government's wars.
Mel Gibson's and Randall Wallace's reply
to the question, “Do you worry
about your boys having to fight?” [in a war]
typifies the cant created
by Just War ideas. (Gibson plays a hero in
the pro-war film, We Were Soldiers;
Wallace is the Director.). Wallace: “Absolutely.
I do not want my sons
to ever have to be soldiers. But I do want
them, and I want myself, to live
for more than just the indulgence of our own
comfort. Killing some two
to three million Vietnamese and some 60,000 U.S.
out the inherent nobility of a soldier; such
things as
duty, honor and country.” Gibson: I would hate to send my children
to war. I would hate it. If it's for a just
reason, so be it. I would still
hate it, but it would be really awful if it
wasn't a just cause. Only a madman
would say otherwise .“ (USA
Weekend, March 1-3, 2002, p. 12). The
film and Gibson's preceding statements on
honor and courage suggest that, if
he thought the Vietnam War just, he would
find a “just cause” in whatever
war his government initiated. Better to
assume wars are unjust until proven
just!
Another powerful reason why Just War
doctrine has become questionable is the
destructiveness of modern weapons. Not only
nuclear weapons, but chemical and
biological, and the many enormous “conventional”
weapons in use make
the old Just War distinction between
combatants and non-combatants otiose. The
rise of air war during WWII and area bombing
of cities and the punishment of
almost cosmic quantity treated civilians as
combatants and denied any possibility
of a just war. This is why Franziskus
Strattman, director of the Catholic Peace
be forbidden. Also, the old rationalization
for war--the guilt of the enemy--becomes
preposterous given the mass deaths of people
who had nothing to do with starting
the war or committing the crimes of their
leaders. In modern war's total-obliteration,
saturation-bombing tactics (Hamburg ,
Dresden , Tokyo , Hiroshima and Nagasaki
it is absurd to claim that national guilt can
justify the slaughter. Consequently,
Pope Pius XII took the position that wars of
aggression, just or unjust, were
morally banned as legitimate instruments of
national policy. If wars are like
lynching or concentration camps, destroying
the innocent with the guilty, then
we err fundamentally in looking for just and
unjust ways to use them. Wells'
conclusion at end of Chapter II:
Early attempts to delineate just from
unjust wars assumed that war was
a moral means to certain ends. The aim was to
determine who had the right to
declare war, and answers to this question
generally conceded that the duly authorized
political leaders had this moral right. Since
political leaders of two opposing
states may both declare the war, it followed
that such a war would be just for
both sides. As long as the political chief
declared the war, it was assumed
that any war was just until proved otherwise.
In determining which of the properly
declared wars were morally just, the criteria
ranged from war against barbarians,
for property, glory, empire, vengeance,
rescue of victims of oppression, to
the repulsion of invaders. Generally, the
concern, up to the eighteenth century,
was with the moral defense of war. Since then thinkers like Charles Montesquieu,
Adam Smith, or J.G. Fichte were more
concerned with the legal bases of war.
If the earlier strictures on the just war
were intended for Princes so that
they would not declare war for flippant
reaons, the later pronouncements on
just war were probably intended for the
citizens of the nation, or for the neutral
nations, so that the wars of any given nation
might appear lawful or legal.
The
crassness of the amenability of Western religion to Western wars stems
doubtlessly from the naive acceptance of
Western culture, or of [U.S.
better than religious saints when to take the
first offensive step. Perhaps
the whole effort to moralize war and then to
legalize it rests upon a mistake.
This would appear particularly so in the fact
of the almost complete absence
of any religious identified unjust war, and
the almost universal presence of
the claim to legality by every nation in any
war. (p. 48).
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