Terrorism According To Aquinas's Just War Theory

October 7, 2001, the United States and British militaries began to attack Afghanistan. The attacks were in response to the Taliban’s refusal in Afghanistan to hand over the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks in the United States (Witte). These military actions were conducted by a legitimate government, were for the sake of avenging their citizens, and was to destroy the terrorist group that was spreading terror which makes this justifiable under the “just war theory.” According to Aquinas, there are specific circumstances in which war is deemed necessary. For war to be necessary, Aquinas says, war must be waged by the central authority of a nation, there must be a just cause for the war, and the nation waging war must have the intent …show more content…
This means, the nation waging the war must have the intent to either spread peace or to stop violence (Aquinas 485). Some may argue that one cannot fight violence with violence or that the United States were only spreading hate by attacking Afghanistan, but this is not true. The United States waged this war to stop the terrorists that murdered so many innocent people. This shows that this war was to spread peacefulness and to prevent anymore of the violence that the terrorists were causing. This was not about the United States gaining profits or land or power, it was only to stop the terrorists from hurting more and more people. Although some still may argue about the Afghanistan War and if it was necessary or not, according to Aquinas’s “just war theory,” the United States’s actions were justifiable. The only gain the United States could get from waging this war was closure that the terrorists that killed so many of their people may be brought to justice. Even Mo Tzu’s arguments against war were exclusively against offensive war, meaning war in defense of attacks from another nation is justifiable and