On Selective Pacifism & other Oddities

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Thu Nov 29 09:54:10 PST 2001



>
>it's also the case that just war theory has been advanced as a set of rules
>for engaging in warfare between symmetrical opponents. it hasn't been
>proposed for assymetrical warfare.

Sure it has. See, e.g., Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, the classical modern text of just war theory, and not bad, long as he's off the subject of Israel. (It's W's view that any war the Israeli govt conducts is per se just.) I don't see whty the general rules proposed by Aquinas and others--just end, just means, proportionality, last resort, etc.--should not apply to wars between the strong and the weak.


>
>the problem with the innocents argument is that it ignores that the US was
>attacked and nearly 5000 people died--non combatants. to turn around and
>argue that our attack on afghanistan is wrong b/c we are killing
>noncombatants is where the problem lies.

So, the point needs to be fleshed out a bit. You have to say, most simply, two wrongs don't makea right. Obviously 9/11 was an awful crime and evil act. But a war in which innocents civilians will inevitably be killed is only justified if it is likely to prevent such things, taht there was no way to prevent them without war, etc.


>
>i think one can do this, but one absolutely has to do it by not dismissing
>the US deaths--or aquiring a case of selective amnesia, as MP did.

Sure.


>
>when i talk to my mother, for instance, i say, "but mom, we have to be
>better than them. we have certain ideals that we say we should live up to.
>we expect others to. it's our job to live up to them first and as best we
>can. retaliating by killing _their_ civilians makes us just as uncivilized
>as you think they are, mom."

Sounds like the right line to me.


>
>but, you see, this is something that seems to be anathema to the hate
>america first left because i have to say something good about american
>ideals (even if i go on and on with my mother [and plenty of others] about
>what shits we are most of the time). and, i implicitly draw on an 'us' vs.
>'them' discourse. well, i'm afraid that, in this case, i will do so.

I have no shame about doing that sort of thing. I am a graet fan of American ideals. I think that the Declaration of Indeoendence and the Bill of Rights and the Reconstruction Amendments (13th-15th) are high points in human history. Course you and I, but not necessarily our mothers, agree about the other stuff too.

jks

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