Eduardo Carvalho Zanello
Writ 102 Sec 004
Instructor John Herold
Just War Final Draft
21 October 2015
An Analysis of Modern Wars and the Just War Concept
The concept of just war in Western Cultures goes back to thinkers like Thomas, Cicero, and Augustine. The main goal of the principles embraced in this theory was to provide fair causes to go to war and its prosecution, and not to let people be fooled by false ideals of glory. Some concepts like “proportionality”, “just cause”, and “weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants” have been ignored in recent wars. The bombing of Dresden in World War II killed a large number of civilians in an area that was not a strategic military target –it didn’t have a major …show more content…
Some of the main reasons for Iraq’s invasion, like the uncovering Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction were never proven; caused the death of many civilians and soldiers, and still left Iraq in a chaotic situation after the war. More than ever, with the power of destruction of today’s technology, we need moral justification for military action and the war conduction and its reasons must be justifiable.
Cicero was one of the first thinkers to share his thoughts about just war. He was concerned about the main reason of going to war that should be living in peace afterwards. The first individual to offer a proper theory about justice and war was Saint Augustine. He used the bible as guide to offer an …show more content…
When they invaded that country without any authorization from the UN or any other international organization, the US and its British allies eventually place themselves outside the international legality, breaking with the principles of the Charter to which they agreed to cooperate, behaving clearly as aggressors. Breaking with the principles that guarantee the legitimacy of the use of force in the international system, the US began , even if unintentionally, a move towards the questioning about the set of rules now taken place.In her analysis about the reasons of going to war in Iraq, Esther Pan lists the following reasons: Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD); the threat Saddam posed to the Middle East; Iraq's links to al Qaeda; Saddam's harsh treatment of the Iraqi people; Iraq's lack of democracy; and the example a free and democratic Iraq would set for authoritarian regimes in the region. Well, no active weapons of mass destruction was found in Iraq (Drum); so Iraq was not attacking the US and also didn’t have firepower to present a future treat for the US which invalidates some of the previous reason to invade Iraq. Accordingly to Fareed Zakaria “more than 8,000 Iraqis were killed in violent attacks in 2013. That makes it the second most violent country in the world, after its neighbor Syria.” This fact shows that, even without Saddam Hussain, a lot of Iraqis are still dying because
Writ 102 Sec 004
Instructor John Herold
Just War Final Draft
21 October 2015
An Analysis of Modern Wars and the Just War Concept
The concept of just war in Western Cultures goes back to thinkers like Thomas, Cicero, and Augustine. The main goal of the principles embraced in this theory was to provide fair causes to go to war and its prosecution, and not to let people be fooled by false ideals of glory. Some concepts like “proportionality”, “just cause”, and “weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants” have been ignored in recent wars. The bombing of Dresden in World War II killed a large number of civilians in an area that was not a strategic military target –it didn’t have a major …show more content…
Some of the main reasons for Iraq’s invasion, like the uncovering Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction were never proven; caused the death of many civilians and soldiers, and still left Iraq in a chaotic situation after the war. More than ever, with the power of destruction of today’s technology, we need moral justification for military action and the war conduction and its reasons must be justifiable.
Cicero was one of the first thinkers to share his thoughts about just war. He was concerned about the main reason of going to war that should be living in peace afterwards. The first individual to offer a proper theory about justice and war was Saint Augustine. He used the bible as guide to offer an …show more content…
When they invaded that country without any authorization from the UN or any other international organization, the US and its British allies eventually place themselves outside the international legality, breaking with the principles of the Charter to which they agreed to cooperate, behaving clearly as aggressors. Breaking with the principles that guarantee the legitimacy of the use of force in the international system, the US began , even if unintentionally, a move towards the questioning about the set of rules now taken place.In her analysis about the reasons of going to war in Iraq, Esther Pan lists the following reasons: Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD); the threat Saddam posed to the Middle East; Iraq's links to al Qaeda; Saddam's harsh treatment of the Iraqi people; Iraq's lack of democracy; and the example a free and democratic Iraq would set for authoritarian regimes in the region. Well, no active weapons of mass destruction was found in Iraq (Drum); so Iraq was not attacking the US and also didn’t have firepower to present a future treat for the US which invalidates some of the previous reason to invade Iraq. Accordingly to Fareed Zakaria “more than 8,000 Iraqis were killed in violent attacks in 2013. That makes it the second most violent country in the world, after its neighbor Syria.” This fact shows that, even without Saddam Hussain, a lot of Iraqis are still dying because