Essay on "Just War"

Essay 4 pages (1260 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Just War

War has always been a controversial issue, with times gone by having been witnesses to numerous wars, which have been performed for both justifiable and unjustifiable reasons. The U.S. is known as having gotten involved in various wars, both for motives that seemed to be logical and for motives that have not. Society has reached a phase where nations are attempting to conduct war in order to preserve peace. Throughout history, a series of philosophers have studied the issue of Just War, most of them coming to the conclusion that there are a great number of conditions that have to be met in order for someone to engage in war.

Philip Wogaman's book, Christian ethics: a historical introduction, relates to the topic of Just War, and, to how various philosophers have discussed on the circumstances that could influence people in supporting war. One of antiquity's greatest thinkers, Augustine of Hippo, has been among the first to consider war as a concept and the distress that it produced in most occasions. At the time of Augustine, it rarely happened that a certain nation would go to war for matters other than to rob territory or riches from other nations. Thus, the philosopher condemned war when it had been uncalled-for, as it produced great suffering for nothing. In addition, Augustine claimed that war would need to be fought by bodies that had the proper authority to do so. In the eyes of the philosopher, war should never occur if it is conducted for reasons other than preserving peace.

Punishments are generally considered to be necessary, and, furthermore, it is believed that criminals are actually encouraged to perform good consequent to being disciplined. Augustine motivated that one should not hesitate from punishing another one, when the latter had performed evil. Moreover, it is because of love for one-another that the one in charge with the punishment acts accordingly. An interesting concept supported by Augustine is that one should not kill another in order to avoid being killed himself, as the only reason strong enough to support performing murder would be for one to act for the safety of others.

When considering the U.S.'s involvement in the war in Iraq, most people would agree that the act was unnecessary, because of the fact that the Americans did not present any feasible arguments to support their actions. It is divisive whether or not their performance had been justified, but, it is difficult to contradict with a world superpower's decision to wage war, since it is considered that its military expertise is more than enough to prove that its judgments cannot possibly be wrong.

For Augustine de Hippo, war was something that one should consider the last of his options, consequent to carefully analyzing the situation and attempting to come up with a less severe solution. The Berber philosopher's war concepts related to the fact that one would have to engage in warfare with the purpose of preventing aggression, and, furthermore, that that respective authority would have to be stimulated by love and behave mercifully towards the offenders, regardless of their crimes.

The actions performed by the American authorities in the year 2002 paved the road for what was to come. The public realized that the Bush doctrine had been underway when they learnt that "on September 17, 2002, the Bush administration had issued The National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) a document that announced substantive shifts in American policy." (Himes 2004) Matters became clearer on December 11, when the government issued a strategy of fighting the production of weapons of mass destruction.

The rumors that Iraq had been conducting nuclear weapon programs appeared to provide the U.S. with solid reasons for the commencing of an invasion. Catholic logics encouraged such an… READ MORE

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