Is war ever justifiable and if so under what circumstances?

Question

I mean to say should we fight to protect what belongs to us and if we can't do we deserve to lose it? I wonder if we ( the world) didn't fight to protect the right of all human beings what would humanity be like? Would it cease to exist as we know it? What if evil were to reign supreme? Do you think its our duty to protect the innocent and the good from such evil? I fully believe that it is so. Diplomacy is a nice idea but it doesn't always work. We don't live in a Utopian society.

Answer 1

I have 20 years of reserve time and 7 years of active duty time with the military before my retirement.

The only war I served in was Dessert Storm having been involved with it from Septemeber 27, 1990 to June 4, 1991.

I did not serve in this war as my injuries from the 1st one finally caught up with me and I could do no more. If I hadn't been injured I would have gone with no problems.

It is a duty and a right and it is all boiled up into one. I get so tired of people in the SUV's declaring they only want peace and we only make war for the oil.

I use to work for a company called Halluburton in Oxnard, California. I can't even begin to tell you all the times that we capped a well to make the gas prices go up for Texaco or Srandard Oil or for 76.

If we were doing it in the hills of Ventura, California what are the chances of it being done throughout the United States?

We don't need more oil from outside sources we need to control our consumption for it. I don't think an owner of a SUV has any right of statment about oil or the consumption of it.

When I was in Dessert Storm, it wasn't about oil to me. It was about the children and liberating a country from a brutal man, whose only thought was for his creature comfort and no more.
Saddam was not a good man. He killed every one who got in his way or disagreed with him. We should have finished him off in Dessert Storm and at least now he has been done away with and can never hurt anyone ever again.

After 9/11 you would think that the country would relaize that it could happen here and the terriosits are not comming over here for oil!

I predict that if American's don't get their act together and start working, planning and fighting together to keep those people out of our country - 9/11 is going to look like a cake walk!

Answer 2

I don't think war is ever justifiable. How can you justify murder in any form? War is murder. And much unlike criminal executions, the opposing soldier's 'crime' is patriotism, service and duty to his homeland. Always remember the soldiers fight the wars, but the leaders cause them. War should always be a last resort when all other options have failed and should be purely defensive.

However, the problem is defining what a defensive war really is. You make a good point to say 'should we fight to protect what belongs to us?'. The problem is, we think that wars are fought where one side is the aggressor and the other side is the defender. In reality, both sides are equally aggressors and defenders. In a world, where there are limited resources, two nations can be fighting for the same resource. And it is possible to say that both nations are fighting a defensive war because they are defending the exact same resources. In this case, who is the aggressor/villain? Then it becomes a matter of perspective.

I think very rarely do we fight a war genuinely for human rights. And it's impossible to protect the rights of all human beings, because protecting the rights of some people will inevitably cause you to trample over the rights of other people. We often include the 'human rights' aspect as a mask to make our war look legitimate and feel politically correct.
- Civil War, we didn't give a rats *** about liberating slaves. The Federal government was struggling for survival against the Confederate states. If the Confeds win, states would have more ruling power and the Federal government would just be a powerless dependent puppet if it was even allowed to exist.
- We didn't enter WW to stop the German's unethical use of chemical and bio weapons or their invasion of neighboring countries, they sunk too many of our merchant ships.
- We didn't enter WWII to stop the genocide of Jews, we were attacked by Japan first.
- Vietnam war, we wanted to contain spread of Communism
- Korean war, it didn't matter that North invaded South first, we were afraid all of Korea would be over-ran by Communism.
- Iraq war, we've known for decades about Saddam Hussein, what he did to the Kurds and other brutalities. We did nothing. Leading up to the war and his execution, we dug up all our dirt from the closet. If freedom from a dictator and democracy in Iraq was what we really cared about, why did we wait decades to finally do it?

Finally, it is not our duty to 'protect the innocent and the good from such evil'. As good and evil is very subjective. In fact, it is because of this thinking that many countries see America as evil imperialist government (currently especially in Latin America where people have demonstrated against Bush's tour). Think Star Wars, Darth Vader and the Imperial Troops. Can you think of a war where we, the United States of America, have fought in not because of any personal gain or as retaliation to an pre-emptive strike, where the genuine interest is to uphold human rights, protect the innocent and the good?

Answer 3

Of course war is an "evil", but there ARE times when the ONLY choice is to decide between the lesser of two evils.
It is an unfortunate quirk of human nature that far too many of us cannot just "live and let live" - and far, FAR, too many such people manage to work their way into positions of power.
When this happens, they invariably use the power of their positions to try to enforce their own beliefs and lifestyles onto others. Those others resent this and fight back to defend their own ideologies and chosen ways of life.
(After all, if it weren't for WWII, we might all be "Heiling" Hitler's successors and exterminating our non-Aryan citizens in death camps.)
THAT was the traditional face of war and, awful as it is, the defender was usually justified in resisting this kind of forced cultural encroachment.
Although it has always been true to SOME extent that wars are fought between governments, not between peoples, BOTH sides of THAT particular aspect of warfare have grown grotesquely out of control in recent times. Now, we have wars of ideology that are SO virulent and hate-driven that their participants have gone completely kill-crazy - to the extent that they will kill themselves and/or their own children just to take someone from the other side of the conflict out with them!
When I was an adolescent, I saw a news picture of an American soldier shooting a Korean War prisoner. It bothered me for days, because I thought THAT was why we were fighting THEM - because THEY did things like that!
I felt somewhat the same way when, as a young adult, I heard about the notorious massacre at Mi Lai (probably not spelled correctly) in Viet Nam. And, again, as a middle-ager, I was sickened for the same reasons by the goings-on at Abu Gharib, the gothic horror stories coming out of Guantanamo and the very idea that our OWN president could argue for the right to TORTURE people - no matter WHO those people were!
Now the motivations have changed from human values to economic and political ones, as well as sadistic, homicidal insanity. Conflicts are driven by greed for wealth and power and/or psychotic hatreds rather than the justifiable defense of one's ideals.
Under THESE circumstances, war is NOT justifiable, but - as long as these negative values prevail - it is STILL unfortunaltely unavoidable!

And yet, when I see the images of bombed-out buildings and useless piles of rubble where there were once thriving cities, I cannot help but see how these warring cultures are defeating their own purposes. They fight and hate because they are mal-content. They are mal-content because their everyday lifestyles are so totally awful. Yet, if they put the same amount of effort and other resources into building and maintaining a positive lifestyle, that they put into their conflicts, then they would eradicate their mal-content and they would HAVE everything they are now fighting and hating over the lack of.
But I think I have strayed off the original subject a bit - war is justifiable when it is the lesser of two evils, but not when it is the GREATER or the ONLY evil.

Answer 4

No one can reasonably argue that war is not justified when it is fought for self-preservation.

The war of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany was essential for their survival, for example.

The war of the USA against the Taliban in Afghanistan was universally seen as justified after 9/11, even though it's gone rather poorly in recent years.

In my personal opinion, war is horrible but since it is an inevitable consequence of the selfishness of any group, all groups must prepare themselves for it.

It's a tragically self-reinforcing cycle.

EDIT: MLK and Gandhi were lucky to be opposing powers that believed in moral conduct. Both the USA and Great Britain were free countries where the population eventually rejected the measures required to oppress the rights of blacks and Indians.

Do you think non-aggression would have worked for the Soviets against the Nazis? Hardly. Hitler would have laughed as he exterminated 100 million non-resisting Slavics.

Non-violence only works against some opponents. Other opponents will just kill you and that's the end of it.

Answer 5

War is justifiable when we are attacked. US troops in Afghanistan are justifiable because of 9-11. The US participation in WWII was justifiable because of Pearl Harbor.

Answer 6

War is justifiable when sanity fails... Most wars are a show of power and bullying of weaker powers.
It can never be justified. It's an excuse to kill each other. Mankind will be destroyed soon by war..

Answer 7

war is justifiable if it puts an immediate risk on the populus's safety.

Answer 8

I personally don't think so...look at MLK Jr. and Ghandi.