ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS
The first people to speak of just war were the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The Greeks would sign the peace treaty before the war started, stating the limits which the victorious would have and the duties of the defeated. The Romans, however were the first to have a formalized system of rules as to what makes a war just called the Ciceronic Code (after Cicero). The Ciceronic Code established the need for:
- A legitimate cause. -- A legitimate cause is either self defense or the fulfillment of a commitment with an ally.
- The observation of the legal requisites to the declaration of war.--The Cicero said "no war can be considered just if it has not been formally declared, and if reparations have not been demanded previously." To make sure this was obeyed, a group of priests were formed with the purpose of determining if the course of action is just, or at least correct.
- A behavior during the conflict in accordance to the established code of warlike conduct.--The sense of honor was vital for the romans, and so fair play in war increased glory in victory. Cicero said that "peace would be incomplete, if the conduct of the victorious were not accompanied, in some degree, by moderation and benevolence towards the defeated".
SAINT AMBROSIUS, SAINT AUGUSTINE AND SAINT TOMAS
These are the three scholars in the founding days of the church who spoke of just wars, these serve as a precedent to father Francisco de Vitoria, called the father of international law.
St. Ambrosius was the first recorded Christian scholar to turn his attention to the subject of just war. His main addition to Rome's rules of just war is that of Europe's medieval chivalry: "there are two ways of sinning against justice, one, to commit an unjust act, the other, to not defend a victim against his unjust aggressor.
St. Augustine's arguments mainly speak to defensive wars, but with the subtlety of saying that a war to punish a city or state which hasn't "reprimanded an offense committed by one of its subjects or has refused to return something unjustly taken". So a war of punishment, according to St. Augustine can be put in the same category as defensive wars.
St. Tomas adduced three requisites to just wars:
- Legitimate Authority
- Just Cause
- Purity of Intention
Father Vitoria took the three requisites St. Thomas listed, explained them, and added another three: The principle of proportionality, the last resort, and the possibility of victory.
Legitimate authority- War can only be declared by the legitimate authority. War is not between people, but between states. For an authority to be legitimate it must have legitimacy of origin, meaning it must have been chosen in comformity to the existing laws, and it must have legitimacy of exercise, meaning it must use its power correctly and looking for the common good of the governed. The second of the two requisites for legitimate authority is the most important, and so a government legitimate in its origin can loose its legitimacy through bad practice.
Just Cause- A just cause is one which comes from "received offense". According to Father Vitoria, here we must add his three subordinate conditions:
- The Principle of Proportionality--There must be a just proportion between the ill suffered with the injustice and the ill that will be caused by the war. No war can be just if it produces more bad than good.
- The Last Resort--Before going to war, a country must use all means necessary to resolve its differences.
- Possibility of victory-- A just war is that in which there is a reasonable posibility of winning, to the contrary nothing is obtained by forcing the evils of war upon another country. One must keep in mind that, due to the innumerable unpredictable elements in war, it is not necessary that the possibilities for victory to equal the moral certainty.
Father Vitoria is the father of international law, he had proposed an international governing body to try to avoid wars, and in the case of war to determine whether such a war is or is not just and intervene. He wrote in the sixteenth century and was a very polemic author as he stated that if a person sees a war as evidently unjust, he can decide not to participate in it even if the King orders him to go. This is because, as a theologian, Father Vitoria considers that as participating in an unjust war is a sin, and the only person responsible unto God for his sins is he who commits them, then there is no telling God "the King made me do it".
IS IRAQ A JUST WAR?
The war in Iraq, even supposing there were weapons of mass destruction and there wasn't a massive deception of the public, not only in the US but also in Great Britain, Spain and most other countries in the world, even those who did not participate in the war, is not a just war.
First let us review it with the Roman requisites (if you don't remember them now, the marvelous thing about the Internet is that you now have the option of scrolling back and refreshing your memory):
Legitimate Cause: The war in Iraq was not a defensive war, it was said to be a preventive war, a "preemptive strike". Anyone who lived in the US during the time before the war heard the president ask whether those who opposed the war were waiting for a "smoking gun". Well, that smoking gun would be, according to the Romans, the legitimate cause, and not the fact that the others have a possibility of doing so. The fact that someone CAN do something is not as strong an argument as the fact that someone DID.
Legal Requisites: The war in Iraq does fit this rule in as far as the formal declaration goes. Congress declared war and everything was done quite legally. However the second part does not fit as the "reparation" that the US asked for (Iraq to let in UN inspectors etc.) was given to them and Hans Blitz did go into Iraq and was given all the aid he needed to carry out his inspections. This was just a pretext though, since as soon as Hans Blitz said that he was reasonably sure there were no weapons of mass destruction he was taken out of the country and ignored.
Behavior during the war: We need only remember the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or other such situations to see that this was not accomplished either. Although this is something isolated (or at least we hope it is something isolated) and I have no way of saying up to which point the behavior is or is not honorable.
Now, for the Christian tradition's requisites, we will only use the most important and most influential one: Father Vitoria's rules on just wars:
Legitimate authority: We have finally found one aspect in which the Iraqi war is not unjust. The war was declared by the democratically elected government of the United States (legitimacy of origin) which adduced reasons of public safety (legitimacy of exercise).
Just Cause: The Iraq war goes against Father Vitoria's rule of "received insult" in the same way as it did the Roman's legitimate war. Now Vitoria's subordinate conditions:
- Principle of Proportionality-There is no sense of proportion between suffered ill and imposed ill because there was no suffered ill. 9/11 is the suffered ill for the war in Afghanistan, which does fit the requisites for a just war (excepting the Roman behavior rule), but Iraq was a preemptive war and as such is intrinsically unjust.
- Last Resort-Iraq was not the last resort, the UN weapons inspectors were on the road to resolving the doubts as to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that was denied, therefore this is not fulfilled either.
- Possibility of victory- Once again we find something in which the war is just. The US is the world military superpower and so there were overwhelming possibilities of victory. The problem is that the war is being carried out so sloppily and the insurgency and guerrilla warfare is difficult to deal with. In theory however this requisite is fulfilled.
CONCLUSION
We see then that the present war in Iraq did not fit in the category of a just war, even if we took for granted that the three governments that went there (US, England and Spain) weren't lying. One might argue that the rules that were used to compare are old and no longer apply. However a great part of Roman law is still active in most of the western world, and father Vitoria's work is the foundation of the International law we have today. There are no better sources to compare with, and much less if we make up a new list of requisites for the purpose of having the present war fit in, that is to say, to justify it, and not to examine it.
Following Father Vitoria´s logic, it is perfectly legitimate for a soldier to refuse to fight in this war. In fact, (and to go into a religious note which only applies to 20% of the American population, so I hope the rest of you forgive me for it) those soldiers who are catholic technically have the moral obligation not to serve. This war is unjust and was declared such by H.H. Pope John Paul II before his death, so they must remember that they cannot later say "the general made me do it".
Really now the only thing to do is leave. I know that leaving will cause a vacuum of power and have devastating effects in Iraq, but staying there will have similar effects for different reasons. There is no choice but to leave, but each time a politician says that the troops must stay to "finish the job" all I hear is that they have to give Iraq the "coup de grâce".
(Most of this blog is based on information from Gino Bianchetti's Validez de la Guerra Justa en la Actualidad" some parts in fact, I can't claim as my own in any way as they are practically a translation of the original text)
