At ConsortiumNews.com, Daniel McGuire, Professor of Moral Theological Ethics at Marquette University, critiques Obama's Nobel Prize speech for its his references to "just war theory" to defend his decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. I should rather say, the professor rips the speech apart for the invocation of the "just war theory".
I'm not sure that I agree with McGuire that Obama could have made "a classic speech on the politics of peace-making, a speech that in the glare of Nobel could have attained instant biblical standing," but he could have left out references to "just war theory", because sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in no way fits into the theory.
Considering all of Obama's actions with respect to the wars he inherited, the Nobel Peace Prize is more of an embarrassment than anything else. Perhaps he was given the prize in the hope that he would not start any new wars or perhaps for not being Bush.
Read at the site how Obama's speech fails all the tests for making his case for escalation on the "just war theory".
A just cause
Declaration by competent authority
Right intention
The principle of discrimination, or non-combatant immunity
Last resort
The principle of proportionality
McGuire says:
It is “a pity beyond all telling” that the “just war theory” he invoked condemns the warring policies he anomalously defended as he accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Indeed.
Thanks to Ann for the link.
As I have understood it, only Defence may (if be) be "Just" War.
ReplyDeleteNow Afghanistan is Obama's war.
ReplyDeleteActually there is no war fought in the 20th century that meets all the conditions for a 'just war'. As a pacifist I can respect the principles of the just war tradition, but the problem is that no one practices it any more. We should be honest. The debate in Christian circles is not between the pacifist tradition and the just war tradition. The debate is between the pacifist tradition and theologically rationalised savagery.
ReplyDeleteTim, I'd like to say that I am a pacifist, but I'd allow that perhaps WWII was justified. However, some of our actions during the war, such as the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were not.
ReplyDeleteIf you saw an adult doing grave harm to a child, would you move to stop the action, even if it resulted in grave harm or even death to the person harming the child?
Then, too, saying you're a pacifist, at least to me, involves activism, such as demonstrations at Fort Benning and nuclear weapons sites. I realize that not everyone may agree with my definition of pacificism.
Mimi, I think there's a difference between a war that's 'justified' and a war that meets the criteria you set out for being a 'just war' according to that theological tradition. It's an open question whether a Christian would agree that WW2 was 'justified', but it surely did not meet the criteria for being a 'just war'. When Bishop George Bell stood up in the House of Lords and criticised the carpet bombing of Germany for being contrary to the just war criteria, he stood alone, and Winston Churchill never forgave him.
ReplyDeleteThe 'what would you do?' question is very complicated, as John Howard Yoder points out in his book 'What Would you Do?' Critics of pacifism tend to imply that there are two possibilities: (a) let the attacker harm the child, or (b) kill the attacker. but in fact there are many other possibilities in between these two.
Tim, I agree with what you say about the difference between the launch of the war, which may have been justified under the JWT and the operations of the war, in which the allies did not follow the "just war" rules.
ReplyDeleteI used the extreme in the example that I gave about intervention to protect an innocent, because once you become involved in a violent situation, you may not have time to pause and think about your actions. It seems to me that you would have to plan ahead for the worst case scenario, even though you would use every means possible to stop the violence without killing the attacker.