Jimmy Carter: Iraq war Does Not Meet Just War Criteria

What the hell is "TLANTA" anyway?

Your sources lose all credibility, glynch, when they just make up words. You must have cut and pasted this from http://www.glynchworld.com.

 

j/k, right? I just can't tell anymore.

 

Carter would only overtake countries that had peanut farms

 

Just War (according to Catholic Catechism):

"The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the 'JUST WAR' doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."

1) Damage... Does anyone have any doubts about whether or not an aggressive Saddam with WMD could produce "lasting, grave, and certain" effects upon his neighbors or us? If you don't like the preemptive nature of that one, how about the damage he has inflicted upon his own people? It has certainly been "lasting" (going on 3 decades), "grave" (destroyed country, caused untold hundreds of thousands of deaths), and certain "nothing more certain than mass murder).

2) All other means... Let's see, sanctions don't work. Assasinations/coups have all failed. Inspections are a farce. No one is able to produce any other alternative that is aggreeable to Saddam... Yep, all other measures have been exhausted.

3) Serious prospects of success... Yep. Easiest criteria to meet, no explanation needed.

4) Less evil than before... Only someone who has no knowledge of US military procedures, and has a severe bias against the US military could possibly believe that we are going to "cause more evil" than Saddam Hussein has.

I understand that the Pope and Jimmy Carter don't see it this way (surprise surprise, 2 principled pacifists), but it is pretty damn clear to me. The logic of it ain't that difficult to grasp.

 

Justice as Warfare
By Nick Schulz

The deaths this year of the philosophers John Rawls and Robert Nozick closed one of the more significant chapters in the history of American political philosophy. Imagining American philosophy and political theory today without Rawls and Nozick is like imagining the modern NBA without Bird and Magic.

While obituary tributes appeared on the pages of most major newspapers and magazines, both men failed to receive the thorough attention their extensive influence deserved. That's not altogether surprising. For most people, perhaps the only things less exciting than political philosophers are deceased political philosophers. Besides, America is engaged in a large, if at times uncertain, military and philosophical struggle. As such, our attention is not as focused on the issues over which Rawls' and Nozick's ideas seemed so relevant, namely, political economy and the size and scope of the welfare state.

That's too bad, because their deaths - particularly that of Rawls - afford us the chance to think anew not just about economics, but also about war and foreign policy. In particular, we have a chance to focus on the role that morality - and Rawlsian notions of justice and fairness - should play in foreign policy.

Just Wars and Fair Fights

John Rawls spent most of his career seeking to better understand the foundations of the modern political state and the obligations of citizens to one another. He developed a few critical intellectual concepts, or "technologies," as the scholar Richard Epstein called them in his incomparable tribute to Rawls. These intellectual technologies empowered Rawls and his acolytes think in a fresh way about our civic obligations.

One of those technologies was the now famous "veil of ignorance" behind which any person must situate himself in order to determine the proper responsibilities of citizens and the state. Behind a veil of ignorance, a person is stripped of the particulars of time, place, social status, inherited wealth, happenstance of birth - things that are, as Rawls so powerfully put it, "arbitrary from the moral point of view" or what one philosopher called "the lotteries of natural and social fortune." Only behind the veil of ignorance will any man be able to assess what he owes the body politic, and what he is owed in return.

Another technology Rawls developed is the difference principle. This principle holds that any inequalities in society are only justified when they result in gains for the least well-off members of society. Rawls' concern for the least well-off was the hallmark of both his deep personal humanity and his scholarship.

In domestic politics, a generation of modern liberals invoked Rawls to argue for an expansive and redistributive welfare state. Some libertarians and conservatives countered that Rawls' arguments could actually be used to advocate limited government and economic policies that favor growth and dynamism, thus benefiting, however indirectly, the least well-off members of society. This debate animated American politics for three decades.

The debate over Rawls' ideas rarely spilled over into the realm of foreign policy. And whether Rawls had strong feelings about, say, the war on terror or toppling Saddam Hussein, I do not know. But Rawls' concern for the least well-off can - indeed, it should - extend far beyond domestic political economy to the realm of foreign policy. After all, he was positing universal principles, principles in many ways useful and suitable for an examination of foreign policy.

Left in Doubt

An interesting irony today is that when it comes to foreign policy, the political left - with whom Rawls was associated for his entire philosophical career - seems to have ignored or forgotten Rawls' invocation to help the least well-off.

For example, there is deep resistance on the part of political liberals to an American-backed effort to remove the regime of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, as if it were somehow definitional that such a move by the United States is illiberal. This is part of a larger belief by those on the political left that a strong United States is a threat to peace. There are some exceptions to this, of course, such as Peter Beinart, the editor of The New Republic magazine. But in general the political left in America is almost reflexively opposed to the use of military force, even if it is designed to advance moral concerns.

This is an odd development. After all, hawkish liberals can rightly turn to Rawls - who argued that "each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others" - in justifying a foreign policy that extends basic freedom wherever possible around the globe. Such a foreign policy might - indeed, probably should - reasonably call for the removal of the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein on purely moral grounds (the recent British dossier on Iraqi rights abuses is helpful for fleshing out this argument). But most liberals do not support such a move.

Some commentators have suggested that the current liberal hostility to an aggressive American foreign policy is born out of a broader anti-Americanism. But many on the political left, such as The Nation's Eric Alterman and Katha Pollitt, resent this charge and say it's a red herring. That's fine, so far as it goes. But to the extent that members of a "patriotic left," as Alterman put it, have crafted a convincing rejoinder to the call to liberate people from one of the most horrid regimes now in existence, it has yet to be articulated. After all, when some on the left see fit to make light of Saddam's torturous regime, as Slate's Tim Noah did this week, one wonders where the left's moral seriousness is today.

Liberals and Democrats in the tradition of Harry Truman and Scoop Jackson have in the past embraced a vigorous American foreign policy, one fortified by ideas grounded in morality - a kind of Rawlsian morality. How it is that thoughtful American liberals can so quickly dismiss calls to help liberate oppressed Iraqis and others in the Middle East remains a puzzle. Whether - and how - the Democratic Party comes to comfortable terms with morality in foreign policy will define the American political landscape in 2004 and beyond. Rawls' ideas and influence have never been so important as they are today.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-120602A

 

Somebody explain to me why Jimmy Carter's opinion on this is so much more valuable than anybody else's. Is it because he was a mediocre President and a good negotiator later in life? As I recall he wasn't exactly stellar in dealing with the Middle East in the 1970s. I think there was some hub-bub about his policies causing Iran to take hostages that would not be released until Carter was out of office.

Next thread: What does (insert your next door neighbor here) think of the war in Iraq.

 

Is it because he was a mediocre President and a good negotiator later in life? As I recall he wasn't exactly stellar in dealing with the Middle East in the 1970s.

Except for that minor little detail of the Camp David Accords and creating lasting peace between Israel and Egypt, right? It's only arguably the most significant achievement in Middle East peace since the creation of Israel. No biggie though, I guess.

Next thread: What does (insert your next door neighbor here) think of the war in Iraq.

Do you really think the thoughts of an ex-President whose had more experience in that region of the world than maybe any other President we've had (certainly more than our current administration) has no value?

Whose words then, in your mind, would have any value?

 

Major:

You're not forgetting that little thing called the Iran Hostage Crisis, are you? Desert One, maybe? The worst US disaster in all of its history in the Middle East?

What about the Jordan-Israel accords? Does it matter more what Carter thinks than it does Clinton? Clinton did, after all, oversee the entire course of the "peace process", has dealt with Iraq before, and generally spent far more time than Carter engaged in Middle Eastern affairs.

Carter is an avowed pacifist, anyway. Do you really expect an unbiased and analytical assessment of the situation by someone who is predisposed towards avoiding conflict at all costs?

I for one couldn't care less what Carter thinks, especially about his assessment of whether or not this is a just war. To him, there is apparently no such thing, even though this one apparently meets the criteria.

 

True...but he screwed up several other things. As I said, he has proven to be a good negotiator in his life...but that's about it.

Sure his thoughts have value...but not enough to post on a BBS claiming to be dispositive on whether we should forcibly disarm Iraq.

 

What about the Jordan-Israel accords? Does it matter more what Carter thinks than it does Clinton? Clinton did, after all, oversee the entire course of the "peace process", has dealt with Iraq before, and generally spent far more time than Carter engaged in Middle Eastern affairs.


Clinton's thoughts matter too. All of our ex-Presidents do - they all that worked with that region. As do American diplomats, security policy advisors, etc. I find it odd that anyone would say <I>"Somebody explain to me why Jimmy Carter's opinion on this is so much more valuable than anybody else's"</I> or <I>Next thread: What does (insert your next door neighbor here) think of the war in Iraq.</I>.

I could understand if we were talking about Sean Penn's views, but saying a freaking ex-President's views on the subject are irrelevent is ridiculous.

As for the just-war thing,

<B>If you don't like the preemptive nature of that one, how about the damage he has inflicted upon his own people?</B>

The problem with using this argument is that the Just War doctrine you posted says:

<I>the damage inflicted by the aggressor <B>on the nation or community of nations</B> must be lasting, grave, and certain</I>

This would justify the Iraqi people attacking their government, but that's about it. I'm not going to get into a debate about Just War, because I don't agree with the doctrine itself -- I don't think you can box a Just War into 3 bullet points. However, that doesn't make Carter's opinions on the issue irrelevent.

 

Sure his thoughts have value...but not enough to post on a BBS claiming to be dispositive on whether we should forcibly disarm Iraq.

There was no commentary attached to glynch's post. I don't see how this is any different than the post that Clinton supports action in Iraq or Scowcroft being opposed to it (a while back). Anytime someone with that much knowledge, background, and experience in the field makes an argument for/against a war, I think its worth reading.

 

How do you figure that? It does not say anything about who attacks whom, only that the bad guy attacks "the nation or community of nations".

This is the Catholic Church's breakdown, Major. As it is a Catholic invention...

True. I would say that what makes Carter's opinions irrelevant would be his predisposition to avoid conflict at any cost; his is not an unbiased opinion. I would say that his opinion is about as valuable as say, mine or glynch's.

 

How do you figure that? It does not say anything about who attacks whom, only that the bad guy attacks "the nation or community of nations".


I assume the reference to "nation" or "community of nations" is a reference to the the side claiming self-defense. In other words, if we are justifying a war here as pre-emptive defense, this:

the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

Would be translated to:

The damage inflicted by Iraq on the US or World Community must be lasting, grave, and certain [in order to justify a war against Iraq].

If you then argue the damage to his own people is lasting etc, that doesn't fit. It would only justify his own people then attacking him in self-defense.

I'm going to get out of the Just War argument, though, because I may be misinterpreting the doctrine, and I don't agree with it anyway.

This is the Catholic Church's breakdown, Major. As it is a Catholic invention...

Yes, but I simply disagree with it. I just meant to say that I don't want to get into an argument whether the war can be justified under that doctrine, because I disagree with the doctrine itself (although I then proceeded to get into a Just War argument. ).

True. I would say that what makes Carter's opinions irrelevant would be his predisposition to avoid conflict at any cost; his is not an unbiased opinion.

Out of curiousity (I honestly don't know), does anyone know his opinions on Gulf War I and the Al-Queda situation?

 

Just War Theory:

I. Just Cause Principle
1. Self-Defense
A. Pre-emptive self-defense
B. Delayed self-defense
2. Humanitarian Intervention
3. Defense of Others
A. Delayed defense of others

II. Right Intentions
1. A nation's pre-dominant reason for going to war must be ethical, however un-ehtical reasons can be also accepted as supplementary reasons for going to war.

III. Legitimate Authority
1. As a sovereign nation, the United States has the right to go to war. The UN has not proved to be a successful singular authority for waging just war.

IV. Likelihood of Success
1. There can be no doubt as to the likelihood of success from the United States' point of view.

To me at least, this would be a Just War in the starting of the war. I cannot profess to speak about Jus In Bellum principles such as proportionality and discrimination, which President Carter refers to as if he has prescient abilities.


"Anything can be a tool-poverity, war. War is usful because it is effective in so many areas. It stimulates the metbabolism. It enforces government. It diffuses genetic strains. It possesses a vitality such as nothing else in the universe. Only those who recognize the value of war and exercise it have any degree of self-determination.
-Bijaz"

 

Nobel Peace Price.

 

The same one Arafat has?

 

Thus explaining his anti-war bent. I am not certain that he would know a just cause for war if it landed on his nose and started to wiggle.

 

The requirements for a Just War, as defined by the Catholic Church (that is the definition commonly refered to when using the term "Just War"), have been presented here. I have yet to hear the Church's reasoning for declaring that this is not a just war, although I would suspect that it is because "all alternatives have not been exhausted". This is code for "the inspections are working, let them continue", which is of course ridiculously false.

I fail to see how this war does not meet the criteria, considering the ridiculous nature of the assumption that inspections can work?

And BTW, glynch, I never claimed to be a greater expert than Carter. I simply stated my belief that we (both you and I) are no more or less believable than he is given his inherent and odd biases. Would you deny that he is a principled pacifist? If he is, then would you admit that he is less likely to look at the situation in an unbiased and neutral way?