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Application of Just War Theory to the Current Situation
Harry
Murray
Professor of Sociology, Nazareth College
7/30/02
Much
has happened since the US Bishops issued their Pastoral Message “Living with
Faith and Hope After September 11” on November 14, 2001.
In light of these developments, it seems essential that the Church
continually apply the Just War teaching that the Bishops have embraced to the
conduct and expansion of the War on Terrorism.
The Just War tradition makes two sorts of judgments about a specific war:
(1) Jus Ad Bellum – whether the decision to go to war is
justified, and (2) Jus in Bello – whether specific strategies
and tactics used in conducting the war are justified.
Each of these judgments are to be made on the basis of several specific
criteria, as will be addressed below. Further,
as detailed in the 1983 Pastoral Letter, The Challenge of Peace,
there is a presumption in favor of peace (section 83) – the burden of proof is
on the government to demonstrate that war is preferable to peace.
In “Living with Faith,” the US bishops essentially made a Jus Ad
Bellum judgment about the War on Terrorism.
In light of current, events, it seems that two further judgments are
called for: (I) a Jus Ad Bellum
judgment on the proposed invasion of Iraq – is this war justified, and (II)
Jus In Bello judgments on the conduct of the War on Terrorism since the Pastoral
was issued.
I.
The Proposed Invasion of Iraq – Since the invasion of Iraq has not yet been
mounted, the questions at this point primarily concern Jus Ad Bellum – whether
attacking Iraq is morally justified. Questions
need to be raised on almost all of the criteria set forth.
Quotations defining the criteria are from The Challenge of Peace
unless otherwise noted:
A.
Just
Cause – “War is permissible only to confront ‘a real and
certain danger,’ i.e., to protect innocent life, to preserve conditions
necessary for decent human existence, and to secure basic human rights.
As both Pope Pius XII and Pope John XXIII made clear, if war of
retribution was ever justifiable, the risks of modern war negate such a claim
today.” (86) Do any of the reasons for invading Iraq put forward by the
Bush administration constitute a just cause, either singly or together?
1.
The Bush
administration has repeatedly declared that “regime change” is their goal in
Iraq. Is the desire of one country
to change the “regime” of another a just cause?
2.
The
Hussein regime used chemical weapons on its Kurdish population in the 1980s.
This seems to be the only concrete evidence of Iraq’s possession of
weapons of mass destruction. Is it
a just cause to invade another country because it is suspected of possessing
weapons of mass destruction? If so,
would another country be justified in invading the US?
3.
The Bush
administration charges that Iraq supports terrorism, but again there is little
in the way of concrete proof other than Hussein’s sending of money to families
of suicide bombers. Is it a just
cause to invade another country because it is suspected of aiding terrorism?
If so, could the US be invaded for its continued operation of the School
of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation?
B.
Right Intention – “Right intention is related to just cause – war can be
legitimately intended only for the reasons set forth above as a just cause.”
(95) Given the fact that it was the
current President’s father who launched the first war on Iraq, with
considerable personal invective aimed at Saddam Hussein, a credible explanation
of the current Bush’s obsession with Iraq could well be finishing his
father’s unfinished business. Even
if the concerns listed in #1 constitute a just cause, does George W. Bush have
“right intention”?
C.
Last Resort – “For resort to war to be justified, all peaceful alternatives
must have been exhausted.” (96) Would
a preemptive war against Iraq violate the principle of using war only as a last
resort? As Michael O’Hanlon and
Philip Gordon state in the New York Times “The track record suggests that the
United States could continue to contain Saddam Hussein without war, just as we
deterred the Soviets during the Cold War and just as we have contained North
Korea for half a century.” (July 25, 2002)
D.
Proportionality – “In terms of the jus ad bellum criteria, proportionality means
that the damage to be inflicted and the costs incurred by war must be
proportionate to the good expected by taking up arms.” (99)
Is the destruction of human life that would be inevitable with a ground
invasion of Iraq proportional to the good that could be accomplished with such
an invasion? As noted in the New
York Times, if the Iraqi forces fight from the cities instead of in the desert,
the likelihood of huge numbers of civilian casualties is increased.
E.
Probability of Success – “This is a difficult criterion to apply, but
its purpose is to prevent irrational resort to force or hopeless resistance when
the outcome of either will clearly be disproportionate or futile.” (98)
Since there is no successor in sight for Saddam Hussein and since one of
the reasons given for the original President Bush not overthrowing Hussein in
the Gulf War was that he provided a stability that kept both the Kurds and the
Shiites in Iraq in check (thus preventing escalation on either the Turkish or
Iranian fronts), is there any probability of success for a “regime change”?
What about the risks of stirring up wider Arab or Muslim involvement in
the war? What about increased
terrorism in result to what most of the world sees as an unjustified invasion of
Iraq?
F.
Competent Authority – “war must be declared by
those with responsibility for public order, not by private groups or
individuals.” (87) In the United
States, the Constitution delegates the power to declare war to Congress.
Does the Congressional declaration supporting the war on terrorism
authorize an invasion of Iraq or would a separate declaration of war be
necessary?
II.
The War on Terrorism
– Although the US Bishops have essentially declared the War on Terrorism to be
a Just War, questions of Jus in Bello – Just Conduct of the War
remain, particularly in light of policies and actions since the bishops’
statement was issued. The
Bishops state that “no end can justify means evil in themselves, such as the
executing of hostages or the targeting of non-combatants.” (105)
“We do not
perceive any situation in which the deliberate initiation of nuclear warfare, on
however restricted a scale, can be morally justified.
Non-nuclear attacks by another state must be resisted by other than
nuclear means.” (150)
“We
express repeatedly in this letter our extreme skepticism about the prospects for
controlling a nuclear exchange, however limited the first use might be.
Precisely because of this skepticism, we judge resort to nuclear weapons
to counter a conventional attack to be morally unjustifiable.”
(153)
The Bush administration and the Pentagon have indicated that they
consider it legitimate to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear threat.
Given the US Bishops’ specific condemnation of first strike, can this
policy be considered just?
B. Preemptive
Strikes – The Bush administration has affirmed that it
will use preemptive
strikes (nuclear or non-nuclear). Is
the preemptive strike a just tactic?
C.
Noncombatant Immunity (formerly Discrimination) –
“The principle prohibits directly intended attacks on non-combatants
and non-military targets. It raises a series of questions about the term
‘intentional,’ the category of ‘non-combatant,’ and the meaning of
‘military.’” (107) Hundreds,
if not thousands, of Afghan civilians have been killed by US air strikes.
The Bush administration claims that these strikes do not violate the
principle of Discrimination because the civilians were not targeted as civilians
but were either killed because bombs went awry or because of errors in
intelligence information. It
appears that much more thought must be given to the nature of intention in this
principle. In an era of weapons of
mass destruction, what does it mean to “target” civilians? If there are large numbers of civilian casualties which
result from faulty intelligence, and this faulty intelligence is a result of
policy decisions not to send US forces in on the ground to confirm targets, does
this not constitute a policy judgment that accepts civilian deaths as a price of
minimizing US military deaths. Does
not this policy, which values US military lives over innocent civilian lives,
violate the principle of noncombatant immunity?
D.
Proportionality – “When confronting choices among specific military options, the
question asked by proportionality is: once
we take into account not only the military advantages that will be achieved by
using this means but also all the harms reasonably expected to follow from using
it, can its use still be justified?” (105) In the wake of the War on
Terrorism, there has been an intensification of the conflicts between Israel and
the Palestinians and between India and Pakistan.
In both cases, states involved invoked the US rhetoric of the “war on
terrorism” to justify their own actions.
Does the likelihood of increasing warfare on many fronts, possibly
leading to global conflagration violate the principle of proportionality?
Similar questions must be raised about the increased US support for, and
collaboration with militaries like those of Indonesia and Colombia, which have
repeatedly committed atrocities against civilians over the past several decades.
Questions of proportionality must also be raised about the restrictions
on basic freedoms in the name of homeland security.
III. A
Further Jus Ad Bellum Question–
Although the Bishops have declared the War on Terrorism just, at least one of
the principles enunciated in The Challenge of Peace remains to be addressed – comparative
justice. The
Challenge of Peace states:
“[C]omparative justice stresses that no
state should act on the basis that it has ‘absolute justice’ on its side.
Every party to a conflict should acknowledge the limits of its ‘just
cause’ and the consequent requirement to use only limited means in pursuit of
its objectives. Far from
legitimizing a crusade mentality, comparative justice is designed to relativize
absolute claims and to restrain the use of force even in a ‘justified’
conflict.” (93)
George W. Bush has consistently used rhetoric
claiming that this is a war of good vs. evil and invoking the image of a
crusade. The original name given by
the Pentagon to the war against the Taliban – “Operation Infinite Justice”
reveals a moral absolutism that utterly violates both the letter and the spirit
of Comparative Justice.
IV.
Conclusion