Just War Theory and Christianity

[Josh]

This quote by Gandalf sums up why I think we must always see war as a muddy, clouded, gray affair:


Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise can not see all ends.

[robin]

Are you saying that we can't judge an action as immoral unless we're in the "shoes" of the person committing it? I find that idea problematic at the least. Then how could we condemn the actions of the Holocaust?

Not exactly. You see I can say without a doubt, that the actions of the Holocaust were evil. Hitler and the Nazis were compelled to kill Jews by their hate, and sick ideology. This is altogether different that putting men in a battle situation where their actions will have a great impact on the live of their fellow soldiers, their loved ones at home, and their own. I can in no way imagine killing a particular ethnic group because I believed them to be genetically inferior. Therefore I can make a clear moral judgment as to the ethecisy and morality of those acts. I see a great difference between what the Nazis did to the Jews, and what our soldiers did in the heat of the battle, or even further what our military commanders did in order to bring finality to the war that had cost the live of so many on both sides.

It's the wiggle room that turns a just cause into an unjust war often times.

I know good and God fearing men fought in WWII and other wars, yet they will probably admit that sometimes the had to make choices, that thankfully you and I never have, and God willing, never will.

Perhaps one could make an argument along these lines in general terms, but two factors temper this idea:

1) people who resisted the Nazis and Japanese governments died in these bombings

2) just because someone is guilty and maybe even deserving of death, doesn't mean that someone is justified in killing them. German "national guilt" doesn't equal a license to kill indiscriminately.

Then put the blame where it belongs. On the Nazis. Had there not been a invasion of Pollen, Russia, France and others, and had there not been a Holocaust there never would have been these bombings.

But, of course we are talking about children! And the elderly and the infirm, the resisters as well as the accomplices and every shade in between.

Old and infirm does not mean innocent. See my prior comments. The blood of these people is on the hands of the original aggressors.

Deliberate civillian bombing was just a wrong choice point blank. The US stayed out of it for quite a while until the final stages of the war. They should have refused to the end.

To what end? A prolonged gorilla war? Had that of been the case who knows where the bloodshed would have ceased. I am certain and good and moral men weighed out the options, and had to make a difficult decision.

Please excuse grammer and spelling, I need to leave.

Robin

[moritz]

Robin, just a couple of thoughts you might want to consider:

Jan 6, 2009 10:16:41 GMT -8 robin said:

Who am I to judge the the individual actions and tactics employed by our soldiers. In order to do that I would have to assume that if I were in their shoes I would have made a morally superior decision. I have no confidence that I would have.

I find this statement problematic. Just because you can't tell whether you would rape a woman in the heat of war or shoot a defenseless warprisoner or civilian, those actions don't cease to be evil. (kudos to your honesty here though)

Jan 6, 2009 10:16:41 GMT -8 robin said:

Also in response to what Mo Wrote, in regards to the Dresden and Hamburg bombings. Perhaps the bombings were taken a too far, but I'm not sure if we can say that all civilians were innocent.

Many thoughts here.

1. I didn't say all civilians were innocent.
2. Who is innocent anyway? If I remember the Christian teachings correctly we are all sinners fallen from innocence.
3. The question "Where were these same innocent Germans when the Nazis were killing Jews in concentration cams, in invading their neighbors?" contains different aspects that would require a separate thread. a) what did the population know about the concentration camps? b) what was the prospect of standing up against the regime? c) you said you wouldn't dare to judge the individual actions of the soldier, how come you dare to judge the individual actions of the Germans? That is to say, all sociological studies I know of that touch the issue of civil courage show that there is a considerable lack of it anywhere you look. Why didn't Afghans rise against the Taliban, why didn't Iraqis rise against Saddam, why do the people of LA or New York City just walk on when somebody is crying for help? It's not as easy as you might imagine. Fear is powerful.
4. All of this doesn't matter. One has to differentiate between a soldier killing another soldier and a soldier killing an unarmed civilian. The mere fact that this civilian might have held a worldview we both disagree with doesn't give anyone the right to kill this person. And I know you know that. Or do you think I have the right to kill you just because I find your religion immoral big time?

Jan 6, 2009 10:16:41 GMT -8 robin said:

Yes there were some Germans who did not support the Nazis, but lets face it. Without the popular support of the public, Hitler could not have achieved what he had.

I'm not denying this. Still this is no justification to murder them. The bombs of Dresden and Hamburg were deliberately directed at defenseless civilians. That is warcrime. There's no getting around that.

Jan 6, 2009 10:16:41 GMT -8 robin said:

Lets keep in mind this was the War the Germen's chose, not America.

This has nothing to do with the matter. The Germans are responsible for this war. They were the aggressors and the USA did the right thing in my opinion. So you don't have to justify your countrymen. My point is that although the motive was right, the American souldiers couldn't help crossing the lines of evil too (even if they didn't do it to the same extent as the Germans). This is not an American flaw, it's a human flaw. War generates evil, always. No matter how just the cause is. The extreme psychological strain enables extreme actions. Who could deny this?

Jan 6, 2009 10:16:41 GMT -8 robin said:

I also can't agree that war is evil, unless we are to say that it is a necessary evil*. Blanket statements like "War is evil" will put Christians in a difficult defensive position. God ordained war in order to judge nations and to correct wrongs, and I'm not ready to call Him evil. (see Matthew 24 & book of Revelation)

I understand what you mean. But the Bible or religious sentiments are not the measure by which I estimate the morality of war. I don't want to say that war itself is immoral. I don't hold that position. But war fosters evil like the summer fosters the spread of mosquitos. I think that's one of the main points in the article Marcus provided. We know that when we engage in war, evil things will happen. So we have to decide whether this evil is worth it or not. In the case of Hitler I, like you, say yes. But that doesn't mean that evil ceases to be evil just because the ends were just.

[moritz]

Jan 6, 2009 13:16:01 GMT -8 robin said:

Then put the blame where it belongs. On the Nazis. Had there not been a invasion of Pollen, Russia, France and others, and had there not been a Holocaust there never would have been these bombings.

There's a huge fallacy in this line of thinking. Of course, the causality you pointed out is correct: had there been no Hitler, there would have been no bombing of Dresden. The problem here is twofold:

1. If you follow the chain of causality back to the beginning, God is the one to blame. Had there been no Adam, there would have been no Hitler. No, that's not how it works.
2. The fact that the Nazis were causal for the war doesn't free any person involved in this war of his decisions. Or to say it differently: the fact that the greatest evil was committed by the Germans doesn't give anybody else a point blank for committing evil as well. The errors of the others are the excuses of the fools. The only right question here is: were the bombings of Dresden a conditio sine qua non for the success of the allies? And the answer is a clear no. Germany wouldn't have resisted a single day longer even if the Airforces of the USA and Britain had spared the lifes of those civilians. Keep in mind that almost everyone who could carry a gun was at the front line by that time. The majority of those civilians were women, children and old people, many of them fugitives escaping from the red army. Whether they had blood on their hands or not is nothing you know or could possibly estimate. And as I pointed out in a previous post it doesn't even matter, for nobody had the right to murder them anyway. If they were guilty, it would have been up to a court to determine this. The truth is, the airforces didn't care at all whether the civilians were innocent or guilty. That wasn't the question of that operation.

[Josh]

I agree with you, Mo. The evil actions of others don't force, authorize, or excuse us to be evil. Had the US and the UK decided not to bomb civillians, there would not have been any bombings.

As to the question of whether the bombing of cities like Dresden in the end saved lives by ending the war sooner, I'd have to concur with Moritz that the purposeful Allied bombing of civillians in Germany didn't hasten the war's end. In fact, it could more easily be argued that it prolonged the war.

It's not so simple, however, with the question of the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or incendiaries against Tokyo). Those events, at least the use of the atomic bombs, did hasten the war to it's end. However, that still doesn't justify their use, which is problematic on other grounds.

[moritz]

[Josh]

What's this song called?

[moritz]

Feb 12, 2009 20:48:11 GMT -8 Josh said:

What's this song called?

The General, by Dispatch. Do you like it?

[krhagan19]

A just war is one where to History of it is written largely by the victorious side.

[Josh]

Hmmmm, what about the "just war" of the Babylonian destruction of the Temple recorded by the Jewish prophets?

[krhagan19]

Well it is not always the case, but in general it is. The American Revolution was justified. We won, and we became the superpower. The Southern Insurrection was NOT JUSTIFIED, the south Lost, we freed slaves, and remained the super power.

[Josh]

But there's a difference between "might makes right" and "justified" by some objective criterion.

[krhagan19]

Tell that to the good people of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, largely civilian centers, not targeted for that purpose, vaporised entirely killing hundreds of thousands of people, many many women and children. One thing I find interesting in the whole "nuclear non proliferation issue" is that for 90 percent of the countries in the world. The mere possession of the bomb is considered a most serious violation of international law. A peaceful underground test of a weapon, which the US did hundreds of in the fifties and sixties, caused total international outcry against north Korea. YET, America, can actually USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and not against so weapons silo, not against a submarine base or military bunker. But against cities that are well known to be entirely civilian population centers, and it is only a "major policy decision." How arrogant and hypocritical the rest of the world must find US lectures of the evils of nuclear weapons and the use of WMD's in General.

[Josh]

Josh wrote:

there's a difference between "might makes right" and "justified" by some objective criterion.

Krhagan19 wrote:

Tell that to the good people of Hiroshima or Nagasaki

They would be the first to agree with me!

[krhagan19]

I think instead of worrying about whether war can be theoretically justified we should instead anchor our hearts on the goal of preventing it. As the great Statesmans articulate wife Barbara Bush once said "war is not nice."
Furthermore, to quote a Pastor and former US President (I know he is not your favorite but give the man a break he works for habitat for humanity)! Jimmy Carter once said " War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil and never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each others children."

[Josh]

US President (I know he is not your favorite but give the man a break he works for habitat for humanity)! Jimmy Carter

O contraire, I actually have a LOT of respect for Jimmy.

[krhagan19]

Josh, but what do you think of Jimmy's quote??? That war is ALWAYS and EVIL even with NEEDED...?