The Overton Salon

By Austin

Yesterday I began this series of reflections by laying out the ways Christians talk about war. Today I want to look at the first criteria for the most common position, just war: the intention must be good.

This criteria of intention basically means that if you fight, it must be a) defensive; b) not for mere selfish gain or hatred; and c) have peace as the long range goal.

I should mention at this point that it’s almost impossible to think about this criteria in terms of the so-called “war on Terror.” What is the war on terror? As Bush said in his Sept 20th 2001 speech, this is different from every other war. Indeed. The enemy is not a state, and it’s motives are not fully clear (it’s targets aren’t either – their targerts are Muslims, not Americans). Is this really a war? In terms of Just War theory or international law, it is not. Typically a war is between state actors, or at least actors with some legitimate authority. Terrorists are not state actors, and the closest comparison (even according to Bush in this very speech) is the Mafia.

So I will limit my questions to Afghanistan and Iraq since they are clearly “wars” (even though even they were not ”declared”). So how does that fit in with the three criteria above?

First, Bush basically said in that Sept 20th speech that self-defense included offensives against states that did not actually attack us: “From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded as a hostile regime.” This really streches the notion of self-defense, and a Just War perspective, almost to the breaking point. This would basically be saying that ‘any friend of my enemy is an enemy in the full sense – I am justified in harming them just as serverly.’ But self-defense is by definition very limited. It is protective, not proactive. If Bush actually went through with this logic, he would have attacked numerous countries, which obviously he didn’t.

This is not to say some Just War thinkers might not agree. Perhaps self-defense should be extended that far in today’s world. I think the self-defense notion must be more robust, and because Bush did not follow through on his logic it appears it was merely rhetoric – not really a good indicator that even he took the self-defense argument too seriously. 

What was not ambiguous was Iraq. This was not even close to being a self-defense war, even if they had WMD. They didn’t harbor terrorists, even if there was evidence they talked to them. Instead, Iraq was justified under the third criteria – making the world “safe.” Bush reasoned that democracy is safer than dictatorships, and ultimately, this would lead to a safer world. This does show that the ultimate intention is in line with criteria (c), even if not with criteria (a).

Finally, what about the second? This is pretty hard to guage, and except for crazies like John Hagee, no one would say they would fight out of hatred. If we were giving the U.S. the benefit of the doubt, we would say that we did not attack either for selfish reason (although plenty would debate Iraq – especially over the issue of oil). In general, our government justified the wars in terms of the peace and security, not full on self-interest.

In sum: neither Iraq nor Afghanistan (but more so the latter) fit the bill fully for this first criteria. They come close in some ways, more so Afghanistan. Tomorrow we’ll look at the second criteria – just authority.