Just Wars
This is a debate I love to have and to listen to. What is the difference between a just war and an unjust war? Liberals think that all war is evil and therefore unjust, while conservatives believe that there are just reasons for war although they acknowledge that some wars are unjust and immoral. Any war requires the enemy to be dehumanized, but
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Not that this is a direct answer to the question, but I have met some people who are on the liberal side and defended the US going into Somalia and Kosovo... just because of the fact that those actions were undertaken when Clinton was President. They couldn't give any real reasons why, other than it was under Clinton. Of course to them the War on Terror was bad, and they could cite all sorts of reasons for that ("we need to understand them and why they did this to us", "we're going to kill civilians").
I guess to them war under a Democrat = good, war under a Republican = bad. It annoyed me how they didn't get into specifics on the Democrat side.
But to start in answering your question, for me a just war is one in which we were attacked - or our interests were attacked - and we are required to defend ourselves and our way of life. IMHO, if we don't fight back, we show the enemy that we're weak and they can keep on
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Just or unjust war is not about making statements about our strength or about our way of life.
Let's say Canada attacks Alaska.
A just war must be fought carefully, where we target only combatants who've entered into Alaska and are currently causing deaths of Alaskans. If they's moved into Alaska but have not killed anyone yet, then we form a front of some type to stop that advance. We don't just annihilate the Canadian troops. And if they have killed people, we don't just bomb that area if it meant that more innocents would be killed than is necessary.
As little damage as necessary.
And then after we move them back or defeat their advance, appropriate sanctions are taken against the Canadians, war crimes prosecuted, etc.
That seems to be a start to looking at a just war of some sort...
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If people from India decided to immigrate due to overpopulation and lack of opportunities - and especially if their desire to better their lives forced them to displace smaller and weaker peoples, resulting in a war - would you consider this war just or unjust?
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Everyone thinks their own cause is a just cause.
How are we going to determine whether any particular claim is indeed a just claim to start a war or to wage a war in offense or defense? We need some way to determine the moral validity and necessity of WAR as opposed to some other means of addressing the supposed dispute.
We also have to consider what the intentions of the war-starters are. One could fight for the just cause of preventing oppression, as you said, but if they want that oppression taken away so that they themselves can then choose to be oppressive, it becomes clear that a just cause alone is not enough. It must be done fairly, for reasons that would be right.
Ideas?
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I noticed a couple people here defend the possibility of a just war if it meant fighting to continue "a way of life."
What does this mean? That would seem to mean that anyone could fight a war to continue their status quo or their "way of life", and they could call it a just war under this premise.
Maybe I am misunderstandind. And since this thread has slowed down, maybe someone can explain this way of life argument a little.
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