Just War Theory Revisited
Army captain and Iraq War veteran Robert P. McGovern’s new book All American: Why I Believe in Football, God, and the War in Iraq makes the case that
“as a lawyer, a soldier, and a graduate of four Catholic schools, I believe that nations are legally and morally obliged to prevent injustices like genocide, military aggression and threats to civilians.”
In other words, he believes that the Church’s Just War Theory fits the Iraq situation and provides adequate justification for the war.
I gasped when I saw this. First of all, Captain McGovern’s contention that the Just War Theory justifies this war in Iraq is such revisionist hooey. The fact is that before the war ensued, Pope John Paul II pleaded with Bush NOT to go into Iraq-and to get out-several times. ALL of the U.S. mainline churches openly opposed the prospect of war. Moreover, onlookers claim that Bush never consulted a minister, including one from his own Methodist faith about his decision to invade Iraq.
Secondly, four and a half years of war have gotten us over 3,700 dead Americans and between 70,182 and 655,000 dead Iraqis; mass migration (both in-country and out-of-country) of nearly five million Iraqis, unrest in the region; $454.1 billion of taxpayers’ money; torture against our enemies; domestic spying; soldiers doing three, four, five tours in Iraq; and the cultivation of more terrorism because of our occupation. Things are so bad that 70 percent of the American people are against this war, almost a complete reversal of support from when we started it. Perhaps a look at Just War Theory with the assistance of Professor Rudi Siebert, religion and society scholar at Western Michigan University, can help us see through this fog of war that seems to be getting thicker and thicker.
In 387 A.D. Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. The Christians, who had been enemies of Rome, suddenly became allies of the state. Although they no longer had to dodge being eaten by lions, they had a new problem: how to deal with questions of war like: “When is it permissible to wage war” (jus in bello) and “What are the limitations in the ways we wage war?” (jus ad bellum). St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.) tackled this problem by formulating his famous “Just War Theory” which claimed that leaders could commit their people to war provided it were morally justifiable under three conditions. First, the nation must have legitimate authority to declare war. Secondly, it must take care not to hurt non-combatants or civilians. Third, the nation must consider a proportional means to achieve its goal.
Even though these rules of war had been laid out, Christians have not shown much restraint in waging war through the centuries and making as many excuses for war as there have been wars. In truth, Augustine’s Just War Theory runs counter to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), which is core to Christian belief and preaches that we love our enemies and take care of the poor.
Another unintended consequence of St. Augustine’s Just War Theory is the alliance between church and state, which has resulted in the Church’s “horrible history of war that we try to forget by re-interpreting the text,” says Professor Siebert. Hitler, for example, reinterpreted the text with the 1933 Concordat, a treaty he made with the Vatican which guaranteed the Church’s right to regulate its own affairs in Germany while the dictator proclaimed that Christianity was “the basis of our collective morals,” the family, and “the kernel of our people.”
Applying Just War principles to the twentieth century has become “very murky” says Professor Siebert because today’s wars may involve weapons of mass destruction and they often include genocidal violence against civilians. For example, during World
War I, 10 percent of those killed were civilians. In World War II the number rose to 40 percent. Today, estimates are at 90 percent.
It distresses Professor Siebert that religion has been the source of so much violence and war. However, he is concerned that “when religion fails, what does that leave us?” Law and secular morality can avert war through the state as well as through international controls like the Geneva Convention, the United Nations, and NATO. However, these institutions are losing their effectiveness, which became evident when President Bush blew them off in his urgency to get the war in Iraq started.
For all Professor Siebert’s study and experience of war (he was a teenage fighter pilot in the German air force, an infantryman and a POW during World War II), he admits that the ultimate paradox about war is that “All wars are bad even if sometimes some wars may be necessary.” So, why have we had so many wars? Economically, we fight over scarce resources. Culturally, we have movies and other media that glorify war and killing. Psychologically, we have a death instinct “as if there were something biologically wrong with us.”
“Even wolves have an instinct to stop fighting when it is clear that one wolf is vulnerable and defeated,” says Professor Siebert. “He opens his neck to the other wolf and the aggressor doesn’t bite. We human beings don’t have a mechanism within us to be against war-except the Sermon on the Mount.” Unfortunately, some Christians will quote Matthew 10:34 to justify war: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Finding our way to peace is looking more and more difficult and yet, as Gandhi said to the British: eventually you will all leave; you will just walk out. And walk out they did-ever so graciously and India gained its independence from Britain in 1947.
Seems to me that we have a solution for ending the war in Iraq: we simply walk out of there. Better that it happen sooner than later!
Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the War in Iraq. She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of social justice and religion. Her website is www.OlgaBonfiglio.com. Contact her at olgabonfiglio@yahoo.com.
The philosophy of the way to fight terrorism or to halt rogue states from possessing the atomic bomb rests squarely on the four Myths of World War II,” Wood writes, sure to raise the hackles of those who consider the prevailing mythology as sacred.
Wood’s four myths: 1) The Good War. 2) The Greatest Generation. 3) We Won World War II Largely on Our Own. And 4), When Evil Lies in Others, War Is the Means to Justice.
”Published on Monday, August 13, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
The Myths of World War II
by Sean Gonsalves
yes…simply walk away.
The Christian Just War Theory is a sham…has been for over 1700 years…used primarily to ‘justify’ wars it has no basis in the Gospels and the clear nonviolent teachings and life of Jesus. Therefore it is not ‘Dogma’ only ‘theory’ and does not need to be believed/followed/advocated for a Christian to continue to be in full communion with his/her church whether it be Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, etc. The best source I know of on this is longtime educator Emmanuel Charles McCarthy at www.centerforchristiannonviolence.org where his book (and many other resources) are free downloads…check it out! Also, listen to Fr McCarthy’s excellent audio conference talk on “Just War Theories/Just Revolution Theory - go to the website click on “Resources” and scroll down to “Questions and Answers on Gospel Nonviolence”, and listen (free) to title #3.
[Tim in Cleveland]
Christian Just War Theory: The Logic of Deceit
Revised 2003
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
Just War Theories have been around for about 2000 years. However, they did not infect Christianity until three hundred years after Jesus’ Resurrection. St. Ambrose and St. Augustine were their original carriers into the Church. However, in fairness it must be acknowledged that by the time these two politically powerful bishops released the perpetually mutating moral virus of CJWT into the Christian community, the Church by its choices in favor of acquiring wealth and political power had lost just about all of the spiritual immune system that protected it from the moral pathogen of righteous homicidal violence.
The hope then of this little book is that it can serve as a partial but effective antidote for the catastrophic spiritual malaise of divinely supported homicidal violence that has metastasized throughout the entire catholic Church. The only complete cure, of course, is for the Church to unreservedly embrace the truth of the Message of the Nonviolent Jesus Christ. Hopefully this book, by exposing the intellectual and moral vacuousness of CJWT, will bring the hour of that embrace closer. -> Download
An interesting discussion. But check out an interesting aside by checking McGovern’s book at Amazon, and read the reviews, especially the reader ones. Out of those, 8 scored the book the maximum (5), 2 an above average 4, and 1 the minimum (1). I understand the ratio; while I do occasionally read a book whose main thesis I am certain is totally BS in order to gain some understanding as to how & why these people came to think as they do, I hardly make a habit of it.
However, only 1 reviewer claimed a military background. (He was an Army Captain that served in Iraq, & probably was actually out there some of the time, unlike McGovern who probably never left the Green Zone or other bases except to travel from 1 to another). Guess what he rated the book?
If you are upset about this, just wait until the U.S. nukes Iran to prevent nuclear war.
So we are legally and morally obliged to prevent injustices such as military aggression and threats to civilians. Isn’t that exactly what is being perpetrated by the US in Iraq right now. Well we had better get busy, hadn’t we?
Bus thinks he follows the JUST WAR theory
Just War, and Nothing Else
“hey, it’s just War…”
Nothing stimulates his alchohol and drug damaged frat boy ceteral cortex like the thrill of war, so long as some other fool fights it for him.
We may not walk out of Iraq because the oligarch war profiteering lenders will stop lending and foreclose on our loans sooner rather than later. The only way they see to forestall this is to broaden their trumped up wars by attacking other countries like Iran.
The oligarchy would again like to thank the Reagan/Bush conservatives for their windfall profits. Soon they will own the entire world and we will all be their slaves.
Secular morals are more moral than religious morals in America today.
Their are no just wars. Period.
Perhaps I didn’t phrase that clear enough.
There are no just wars, because no reason you can come up with makes it just and morally good to kill people.
Granted, there can be situations where one has to fight — but that doesn’t make it right.
An Osage priest told that, when they returned from the War Path, his people painted their faces black, for they knew they had done wrong and wanted to hide from the Great Spirit.
Fr. Charles McCarthy has it right. To read/hear him is to get the core of the Nazarene’s message. Salaam.
Just war is … just war.
Somebody really wrote a book subtitled “Why I Believe in Football, God, and the War in Iraq”? Good Lord, doesn’t that say it all? I’m torn between laughing to scorn and just plain throwing up. Muscular catholicism at its best! The 1950s leadership of Notre Dame and Georgetown must be proud. Let’s go kill some heathens for the Gipper!
Because this war was started under false and deceitful practices it is flawed at its very root. It cannot be redeemed. No matter what “good” may come of it the grief and distruction that has been wrought is beyond redemption. Any god who would accept and support war under these circumstances is a bigger travesty than any man has ever been.
It seems that the right-wing fundmentalist Christians have forgotten they are supposed to be following the teachings of their Jesus, who preached peace and understanding. Instead, they have done what the Muslims are doing by going back to the God of the Old Testament, who was not against war and retribution. Even then, they apparently overlook the commandment “Thou shalt not kill (or murder), that they want displayed on every wall available. Maybe they had better read the Sermon on the Mount, containing the Beatitudes, and see how well warmongers come out in that great passage.
A Catholic priest and a nun have each told me that St. Augustine’s Just War Theory was aimed not at facilitating war but at making it unjustifiable.
If I’ve understood what those Roman Catholic religious leaders have taught me, during the first couple of centuries A.D. (or C.E.), Christians generally adhered to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (teachings by word and by deed), but by the time of Constantine, many who were nominally Christian had drifted from faith to “reason” and had become like children who, instead of faithfully obeying their parents, tried to turn their parents’ admonitions into rules with which they could grapple, perhaps to justify disobedience under certain circumstances–as in, “but, but, you said…”. (Parents: you know what I’m talking about.) Augustine understood this, and rather than insist on a return to faith and obedience to the Prince of Peace and Lord of Love, he instead set about to meet these wayward children in the faith on their own terms. That was a big mistake! (Parents: you know what I’m talking about.)
Be that as it may, I’ve had a lifelong-Catholic friend respond to my assertion that war can never be justified by asking, “So you think that you are wiser than the ancient fathers of the Church, like Saint Augustine?”. I don’t claim to be wiser, but I insist that all of us today are better informed. In the days of Augustine of Hippo there was no chance that one day’s fighting could destroy an entire nation, let alone the world. Today the entire planet Earth could be destroyed in a couple of hours. “War” (4th C.) isn’t “war” (20th C.), any more than “firearms” (1788) are “firearms” (2007).
With the passage of time, words themselves have become liars.
There are some 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world today…enough to kill every child, woman, and man some 32 times over. Two nations between them, the U.S.A. and Russia, have some 97% of these, and have the capability to hit any target on the planet with these weapons. Either country could destroy the planet many times over. In addition, some nuclear weapons exist in the UK, France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan (and possibly a couple of other countries).
The USA has been taken over by a group of self-described “neoconservatives”, who assert that the USA should impose and maintain a global Pax American by extreme military force, including nuclear and other weapons in orbit. If anyone doubt this, let her or him visit the neocons’ website at: www.newamericancentury.org
Please pay special attention to what you’ll find by searching on “Pax Americana” and “Pearl Harbor”.
Olga Bonfiglio wrote: “Applying Just War principles to the twentieth century has become “very murky” says Professor Siebert because today’s wars may involve weapons of mass destruction and they often include genocidal violence against civilians. For example, during World War I, 10 percent of those killed were civilians. In World War II the number rose to 40 percent. Today, estimates are at 90 percent.
I don’t see how it can be less than 100%.
Bill Ferretti
Castro Valley, CA
Just war=responding to someone who attacked you first. By that standard most of our wars have been unjust.
Until the US populace gets the courage to take to the streets and follow the example of Gandhi’s non-violent marches and demonstrations nothing will change. The people have got to WANT the Constitution restored enough to ACT accordingly. If there is no such desire, there will will be no more US Constitution (except in name only).
Things will change only when the populace is alienated and hopeless.
Then they may :
STAND UP - for what they beleive to be right.
SIT DOWN - in the nearest street to bring transportaion, retail, everything to a standstill.
FIGHT - I hope like Gandhi’s Pathan friend Badshar Khan(Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) (check him out)a Pashtun nonviolent Muslim
FIGHT - Even if it means sacrifice to themselves to totally repudiate the oligarchy
FIGHT - As if their lives depend on active resistance - which they do
When people realize that they cannot ignore the actions of the government and relaize they themselves are the governmet, only then is change possible.
What a shame to let cowardice bring down such a noble experiment of human governance!!
Here are some comments by a man who stood by Gandhi - Badshah Khan, who led a 100,000 person army of non-violent Pashtuns from the Khyber pass region. He was a Pashtun (Afghan) political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule during the final years of the Empire on the Indian sub-continent. He was a lifelong pacifist and a devout Muslim. He was known as Badshah Khan (sometimes written as Bacha Khan), the `King of Chiefs’, and `Frontier Gandhi’.
“To me nonviolence has come to represent a panacea for all the evils that surround my people. Therefore I am devoting all my energies toward the establishment of a society that would be based on its principles of truth and peace.” –
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
“Today’s world is traveling in some strange direction. You see that the world is going toward destruction and violence. And the specialty of violence is to create hatred among people and to create fear. I am a believer in nonviolence and I say that no peace or tranquility will descend upon the people of the world until nonviolence is practiced, because nonviolence is love and it stirs courage in people.” – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan to an interviewer in 1985
His story is contained in ‘Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man To Match His Mountains’, by Eknath Easwaran (Published by Nilgiri Press).
Also see NPR highlights:
http://www.npr.org/programs/musings/2003/jan/khan.html?sc=emaf
“A Catholic priest and a nun have each told me that St. Augustine’s Just War Theory was aimed not at facilitating war but at making it unjustifiable.”
There’s never been a war that the majority of the faithful refused to engage in. And though there is a “Just War Theory”, there is no similar theory approved by the hierarchy of “Just Abortion” or “Just Contraception” theory; the acceptance of the Just War theory — which IS endorsed even in the latest official catechism — once again proves the double standard of the Church, which asserts that no exception can be made for grave sins, but goes happily along in the vast majority of wars. Even in Iraq, neither John Paul nor Benedict went beyond personal urging or public condemnation of the war, because the American right wing is the primary support, politically if not economically, of the Church. If bishops were instructed tha they had to promote peace programs as vigorously as the support anti-abortion programs, the converts would stay in their Bible churches and the reactionaries would very quickly leave the pews, as a great many left when John XXIII and Paul VI turned against the great anti-communist crusade, but returned when John Paul restored it (albeit in sublter form).
However, the popes since Benedict XV have worked, however timidly, to steer the Church back to commitment to practicing peace rather than winking at war; John Paul truly hated war & while the far right looked to him for teaching in sexual mores, he always infuriated them in his clear repudiation of weapons, especially nuclear arms. If the Church hierarchy can repudiate the death penalty, they can likewise repudiate the just war theory — but they’ll do it in a way that classifies the exercise of reproductive freedom with causing death in war.
That is, the pursuit of peace in the name of Christ has never been anything but the insistence on submission to rulers; the Just War theory was the natural extension of this principle of submission once the rulers were themselves confessing Christ.
Last resort is part of Just War theory. On that condition, Iraq fails.
The logic of attack was the claim that the lack of discovery of WMD by inspectors was proof that Saddam was playing games and hiding his program.
Totally absurd. I might say to Cheney, “The SWAT team entered your home and turned it upside down expecting to find narcotics because the lack of discovery of drugs to date proves you’ve been hiding them.”
It is now a fact that Iraq was not an imminent threat to us. So, that makes the war unjust in retrospect.
As to genocide, that argument is ahistorical. The course of action if we were concerned about Saddam’s genocide would have been to stop it in the 1980s when it was at its terrible peak. Also, we might have stopped providing him the weapons he was using to do the job.
There is no way to cram the War in Iraq into the Just War theory. All attempts to do so at least show that some of these Catholics that supported the war at least have a conscience still functioning and have a need to assuage their guilt.
Anyway, the US is not committed to Just War Theory, but we did establish some rather stringent and straightforward rules about when war is just and when it is not.
At Nuremberg, we agreed that any war of aggression is always wrong. In fact, it is the ultimate crime because it carries all the resulting war crimes with it once the operation starts up.
By the rules which we helped create at Nuremburg, the US should now be considered a rogue state operating outside of civilization.