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levite · 06-04-2008, 02:28 PM

I would tend to agree that there is such a thing as a just war-- although I might not necessarily define it or limit it in quite the ways St. Augustine does. I tend to think just wars are fairly few and far between, although a number of wars that ended up being just weren't entered into for just reasons.

But even in a just war, there can be murder. World War II, in my opinion, was a just war, and yet there were murders and even atrocities committed by Allied troops as well as Axis troops. The big difference between these war crimes and crimes committed by soldiers of the Western Powers in later wars is that the ones in WWII were most often prosecuted when discovered. To some degree, these kinds of war crimes are inevitable. Wars can be just, in the sense that a nation may have no other choice but to fight, or else be destroyed, or be party by silent acquiescence to the destruction of other innocents, and yet, for all the necessity of such a war, wars are simply never a good thing.

I have known and respected a number of men who have served their country in armed combat, and whether they felt the wars they fought in were just or not, none of them thought that war was a good thing, or anything but a last resort, that-- if effective-- was nonetheless detrimental to all who fought in it.

What I would say is that, since we know that war inevitably breeds excessive violence and inhumanity-- even within the parameters of its own context-- it falls to the responsible nations to:

1. Enter into wars as infrequently as possible, being certain to exhaust all other options before resorting to all-out armed conflict.

2. Prepare for responsible combat: do everything possible to avoid the killing or injuring of civilians. This includes formulating strategies and developing technologies designed to win with minimum civilian casualties, even at the cost of prolonging the conflict.

3. Arrange intensive oversight: military police should be given wide latitude to investigate complex or suspicious incidents, such as those involving civilian deaths or injuries, death or injuries of captured enemy soldiers, or of imprisoned non-military combatants. Military authorities should be constantly vigilant to discourage unethical unit behavior or command patterns.

4. Soldiers should be frequently given psychological evaluations and support, in order to help them deal with what they experience, and to ensure that soldiers who are overly traumatized, inclining to random rageful behavior, or prone to cruelty, are rotated out of front-line service or duties placing them in proximity to enemy civilians.

Those are only a few key points, of course. And in the end, we can strive to take the murder out of war, but we can never entirely succeed. The only thing we can do is, at the same time we are researching better battle technology to minimize unintended casualties, and implementing strategies to ameliorate the destructive impact of war on the lives both of civilians and soldier, we must devote equal energy and resources to trying to eliminate war altogether from practice on earth.

06-04-2008, 02:28 PM	#15 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	I would tend to agree that there is such a thing as a just war-- although I might not necessarily define it or limit it in quite the ways St. Augustine does. I tend to think just wars are fairly few and far between, although a number of wars that ended up being just weren't entered into for just reasons. But even in a just war, there can be murder. World War II, in my opinion, was a just war, and yet there were murders and even atrocities committed by Allied troops as well as Axis troops. The big difference between these war crimes and crimes committed by soldiers of the Western Powers in later wars is that the ones in WWII were most often prosecuted when discovered. To some degree, these kinds of war crimes are inevitable. Wars can be just, in the sense that a nation may have no other choice but to fight, or else be destroyed, or be party by silent acquiescence to the destruction of other innocents, and yet, for all the necessity of such a war, wars are simply never a good thing. I have known and respected a number of men who have served their country in armed combat, and whether they felt the wars they fought in were just or not, none of them thought that war was a good thing, or anything but a last resort, that-- if effective-- was nonetheless detrimental to all who fought in it. What I would say is that, since we know that war inevitably breeds excessive violence and inhumanity-- even within the parameters of its own context-- it falls to the responsible nations to: 1. Enter into wars as infrequently as possible, being certain to exhaust all other options before resorting to all-out armed conflict. 2. Prepare for responsible combat: do everything possible to avoid the killing or injuring of civilians. This includes formulating strategies and developing technologies designed to win with minimum civilian casualties, even at the cost of prolonging the conflict. 3. Arrange intensive oversight: military police should be given wide latitude to investigate complex or suspicious incidents, such as those involving civilian deaths or injuries, death or injuries of captured enemy soldiers, or of imprisoned non-military combatants. Military authorities should be constantly vigilant to discourage unethical unit behavior or command patterns. 4. Soldiers should be frequently given psychological evaluations and support, in order to help them deal with what they experience, and to ensure that soldiers who are overly traumatized, inclining to random rageful behavior, or prone to cruelty, are rotated out of front-line service or duties placing them in proximity to enemy civilians. Those are only a few key points, of course. And in the end, we can strive to take the murder out of war, but we can never entirely succeed. The only thing we can do is, at the same time we are researching better battle technology to minimize unintended casualties, and implementing strategies to ameliorate the destructive impact of war on the lives both of civilians and soldier, we must devote equal energy and resources to trying to eliminate war altogether from practice on earth. __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)