Just War????

I just posted this on my Pace e Bene Blog:

For an education hour at my church, I am going to be leading a discussion on the just war theory, faith and Iraq this upcoming Sunday. The ELCA supports the just war theory in regards to war. These are the things that constitute the “just war” theory:

o When it is in response to the perpetration of a real injury
o When it is declared by legitimate public authority
o When there are right intentions
o When the goal of waging war is to restore a situation of peace
o When it is a last resort, after exhausting other reasonable means of peaceful settlement.
o When the overall damage caused by war will not exceed the original injury suffered/proportionality of the ends
o When there is a probability of success; there is a reasonable hope that the purpose for going to war can be successfully accomplished.
o When there is a public declaration of the reasons for waging war/public declaration
o When war targets only noncombatants
o When the war only uses means proportionate to the value of the target

I find it interesting that a lot of these stipulations seem very subjective. How do we determine right intentions? How do we measure the last resort? How can we determine the probability of success???

Personally, I think that these terms can be defined in a way that would make a war sound “just” even if it is not. Because of how subjective a lot of these things are, I am not sure if the just war theory is truly a path to justice. These things can be defined in a way that support’s one’s own self interest instead of in a way that really makes people think critically about the other. Nonviolence has a lot of principles that embrace thinking about the other in a loving, respectful way. I do not think that it can be skewed the same way that the just war theory can be.