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Thursday, September 10, 2009
It's just war
If a nation that was manifestly more righteous than ours wished to execute God's wrath and take over our nation by force, how would you feel about that? NSW seems to have quite a corruption problem at the moment, would it be ok for Queensland to use force to bring justice here? Given our recent discussions, what if a nation came to the aid (a couple of hundred years late) of the indigenous population of Australia and executed justice on us? Sure, there would be some casualties, as there are in any war, but would the war be kosher, because it aimed at justice? What would you say to your christian brothers and sisters in the invading force? Bravo? And if you saw the invasion as unjust, or even, partially unjust, what would you do? Would you pick up arms and fight back? At what point would you stop recognising one authority as that 'ordered by God' and recognise the new one as 'ordered by God'?
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3 comments:
What is justice anyway? Is the 'evil' of the war against us really any better than what we have done?
But to answer the question, I think in theory I would not fight back, but I can't be so confident in reality that I would not try to defend myself - there seems to be an instinct there to defend yourself and avoid pain/death, it is one of the things that makes Jesus going to the cross even more amazing for me.
Of course, if the new authority is one 'ordered by God', does it really make any difference to the outcome whether I fight back....
And if the old authority is 'ordered by God' does it really need me to pick up a weapon to defend it....
Justice is righting a wrong, but done not in vengeance, but impartiality.
This is why just war theory is so important.
It must right the wrong (and not revenge/self-interest).
It must do it in a way where the punishment is proportionate to the wrong done.
It must be done within the global security system (i.e. with the blessing of the United Nations).
It must be done as a last resort when all other non-force measures have been tried and have failed...
And so on...
Secondly, would I fight back? Well, if the war was just, then it would be against an unjust government. Hence I would be fighting with the invader against my government. Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun describe it as "The Responsibility to Protect". Jesus called it loving your neighbour...
I think there are situations that call for international intervention. Let's begin with Rwanda as one which *should* have been done, and also point to Kosovo, and to East Timor and Solomon Islands closer to home. These are all clearer examples of a responsibility to protect, and a little easier to talk about in the "abstract"...
Steve- How do we quantify the wrong?
Has there been a war that avoided self interest? How does a government sell it to their people? How on earth do you work out proportionality? How do you ensure it, war is a chaotic thing? Was every war unjust before the existence of the UN? How many non force options are there, and what constitutes failure, given that force often fails to achieve it's goals miserably?
A further question is,- is resorting to force taking 'responsibility' way, way too late. If we let people languish in poverty, manipulate their economies for our benefit, and then claim 'responsibility' to protect when violence happens, aren't we a little more than hypocritical?
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