Something missing in 'just war' doctrines... Even well-meaning wars can be wrong and immoral

[bigtree]

The most significant points at which I challenge our nation's dual 'wars' and our military activity against the occupied populations are their efficacy, effect, and consequence - to all parties involved. I think we should take preemptive responsibility for the lives of the civilians in the way of our military forces' advance in these occupations because they are suffering our presence and activity without choice or recourse.

These occupations have been reckless in their regard for that lack of free will of those who've found themselves in the way of our territorial grabs to make way for the dubious elections and politics we've been told we're defending with our forces' military aggression. In those dubious pursuits of ephemeral political goals, our forces' activity has been counterproductive and antithetical to the very goals of defending our 'national security' and 'defeating' al-Qaeda. They are 'dumb wars'.

No matter how the ramped-up occupation in Afghanistan is portrayed as 'necessary', it has, at its heart, the very same dubious political goals that have amounted to nothing in Iraq more concrete than the ratcheting down of our own destabilizing, counterproductive military activity. The politics are still murky and autocratic In Iraq, and will be that way after we leave. In Afghanistan, the politics are corrupted from the very start of this president's escalation of force and escalation of assaults on the resisting population.

The ramped-up occupation of Afghanistan is a wrong-headed, collaterally-devastating war with its main justification the dubious defense of a corrupted regime to effect a dubious defense against some fugitive criminals next-door in Pakistan. The destructive, collateral effects and the counterproductive consequences make the effort a 'dumb' one - thus, a wrong and immoral war; not a just one.

Where are the edicts against 'dumb wars' in the Obama Doctrine?

[BunkerHill24]

1. Absolutely well stated, bigtree

K&R

[quaker bill]

2. I think the political goals became toast

with the failure of the last fradulent election. I am pretty sure Obama gets it too. I think you are incorrect, there are no dubious political goals, not because there are solid political goals, but because political goals truly no longer exist.

I think we want to put a torch to as much of the AQ financial infrastructure as we can, nail as much AQ senior management as we can find, and construct an Afghan army sufficient to cover our backsides on the way out. These are the goals and the generals have been given 18 months and 30 billion in troops and supplies to do it.

There is a reason we suddenly gave 7.5 billion in foriegn aid in late October to Pakistan as the extent of election fraud became clear. We want temporary access to finish the mess GWB left behind at Tora Bora. The gloves are coming off.

Read the news and listen to the speech again, it is all in there, just put in quite diplomatic terms.

[bigtree]

3. toast or not

If you listen to the entirety of the president's justifications for his Afghanistan adventure, from his first speech to the Nobel acceptance address, he's put that defense against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan at the front of his rationale. He's stated that there is a limit to what the military can do and he is certainly looking to hand our grudge match against the resisting Taliban (and whoever we call al-Qaeda) over to the Afghan army and Pakistan's.

But, we are no longer just fighting the original 'al-Qaeda' terror suspects and their accomplices as outlined in the original resolution to use military force. We're now fighting the resistance to our military advance and assaults across sovereign territory and deeming all who stand in the way as akin to our 'enemy' al-Qaeda. The consequence of the military mission has been a deepening of the resistance, an increase in violence and killings, and an escalation of the very animosity which has fostered and fueled the insurgency. It's a wrong-headed military mission, no matter how many #2's (and even the #1) we manage to kill or capture, because our influence is corrupted by our activity and goal of propping up a corrupt regime as a buffer against a band of fugitive terrorists.

We don't use our military like this everywhere there's some nebulous 'threat' to our national security.

[quaker bill]

7. I don't care to justify it.

I am religiously opposed to war under any pretext. I am just calling it as I see it. On the notion that "we don't use our military" you might be semi correct, we generally use proxy armies, "freedom fighters", "death squads", anc CIA operatives to handle nebulous threats, like how we used the Contras in Nicaragua. But then there was Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, and the missle strikes on Libya, and previous incursions from the "halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli". I am really unclear what data you are using to back such a conclusion. I am also not clear what "threat" any of these situations actually ever posed.

Regardless of the soundness of the strategy, I think the definition of "victory" is becoming clear and quite limited. This is generally a good thing, because the end comes into view. No President would leave this theater with OBL alive and free. To do so would be to place the political future of his movement in the hands of OBL.

We are there to toast AQ and the drug cartel they have formed for support. Once that is done, we are coming home. Speeches in this case are little more than the velvet glove for the iron fist. I am not saying that I like it, just saying I have seen this movie before.

[truedelphi]

10. The experts have told us that there are only 700 Al Queda

in Afghanistan.

So we are to have all this war in Afghanistan over 700 people?

It is said that a total of 68 American civilians lose their lives to terrorists each year.

However, annually forty four thousand of us lose our lives to the broken Health System.

I would much rather that we solve the real problems affecting us. It might mean we lose some of "our edge" as an imperial power, but without spending the money and blood that power requires, we might regain a better standard of living for all of us here.

[bigtree]

12. I heard there were only one hundred

. . . but who's counting?

[Mithreal]

22. True, it hardly matters anymore. 100 isn't even a "real" number.

Beware of fudged numbers. Doesn't matter when making arguments for war though. The only numbers that count begin with $ and represent profits.

[quaker bill]

15. Don't get me wrong

I am not justifying it, only calling it as I see it. BTW, we are quite wealthy enough to do both, we just need to collect the revenue.

Personnally, I would love the wars to end and then see the defense budget cut in half, with the money spent to fix healthcare and improve the schools. I have spent the last 30 years advocating for just this sort of change.

What we are doing is prosecuting the campaign against AQ to the fullest extent. The notion that there are Neo Con political goals or notions of Empire behind this were supported by the facts two years ago, but aren't any longer. You are arguing yesterday's perfectly valid argument against today's facts where the premise of this argument no longer pertains.

Here is a simpler concept to grasp. If we bring the troops home and Osama walks free, the next attack, regardless of how small it seems to you or I, will bring an end to progressive politics (in power anywhere in this country) for the next 30 years. Why would we want to place the political future of this country in the hands of a few hundred Afghan rebels? The President is not about to do this. I might choose differently from my armchair, but then I do not have the responsibility. If I had the responsibility, the data, and the authority, I might choose to do the same.

[bigtree]

16. osama is 'free'

. . . in Pakistan or in the afterlife. His only real power has been our flailing, destabilizing, counterproductive response to the 9-11 plane crashes. His goal was to get American troops to come and kill Muslims so that he could get folks in the Middle East to engage in his own contrived grudge against us. Our troops serve as targets, fulfilling his primary goal in orchestrating the plane crashes. We've never come to grips with that. It's the reason we're 'losing' there. No amount of force against the Afghanistan Taliban is going to cure the animosity our occupation has generated among the country folk there who have identified their resistance against our military advance on their homeland with bin-Laden's grudge match and provocations. At this point, it won't make any significant difference if he's killed or captured because the resistance has eclipsed whatever proponents believe we're fighting for there. It won't matter for Afghanistan any more than the capture and killing of Saddam and sons meant for the self-perpetuated conflict in Iraq.Our presence and activity is the most aggravating and destabilizing factor in Afghanistan. So much so, that Pakistan is still openly worrying about the blowback from our stepped-up assaults on the Afghan Taliban. This is a self-perpetuating folly, to the extreme.

[truedelphi]

17. Osama Bin Laden is dead and has been for a while.

Almost everyone in the Far East knows this to be true. Certainly everyone with a valid intel clearance does.

And even if he were alive, I would venture to guess that the fact remains - he was treated in a Dubai, American run hospital in summer 2001. One of our own CIA liasson officers visited him.

And then he supposedly was allowed to flee in our early fall 2002 camapign against Afghanistan.

He is simply a boogie man trotted out whenever convenient to scare the lamer part of the American populace.

I don't care about what the "Afghani War Mission" is or who is running this war. This stance comes from experience. I have seen how we conduct our wars, and IN THEORY they are all about saving the world and the children, and about "Smart bombs" that only kill the bad guys. We went into Vietnam to help out the South Vietnamese -- it was a humanitarian response to the Buddhist priests who were immolating themselves in protest of the North Vietnames.

But in the end, Vietnam, and of course Iraq also, became nations that we destroyed in order to save. The death toll in Vietnam goes on, as our Agent Orange has entered the genetic code of the Vietnamessse. And our death toll in Serbia, and Iraq will go on due to the nature of Depleted Uranium.

But hey, no one has to agree with me.

In fact I could be wrong about Afghanistan being destroyed by us. It could be that Afghanistan will destroy us, just as it tripped up the British and the Russians before us.

[Gregorian]

4. Responsibility for the lives of the civilians. This is stunningly brilliant.

As someone who has no military experience I can only imagine that the students who study war are informed of such things. But in practice we hear from the field surgeons who report that more and more civilians are involved in the trauma of war. The extent of this distressing situation is much greater than most people realize. And it involves a large number of children.

As I read you post I thought of the EPA. We pay a dear price for pouring a quart of oil down a storm drain. Juxtaposed against the flagrant violations against people and environment in our targets around the planet, is just doesn't make any sense at all. Who are we, really? What do we stand for? Or is it all just a latticework of lies?

We either care about life, or we don't. Which is it?

I agree that we must begin enforcing a new standard. One that makes war prohibitively expensive.

Again, bigtree, you inspire.

[leftstreet]

5. What an excellent point

As I read you post I thought of the EPA. We pay a dear price for pouring a quart of oil down a storm drain. Juxtaposed against the flagrant violations against people and environment in our targets around the planet, is just doesn't make any sense at all. Who are we, really? What do we stand for? Or is it all just a latticework of lies?

:thumbsup:

[leftstreet]

6. K&R

[anonymous171]

8. IT was not fought in self-defense or to restore peace (the goal is stability.)

Of course it's an unjust war.

[Mithreal]

9. Where's the repudiation of the Bush Doctrine?

You can't have well-meaning wars. Everything about war is harmful. There is no "I bombed you but I meant well." "I shot you but I meant well." "Oops I did it again." Thank you, may I have another. You killed my child, father, mother, brother, sister, friend, but it's all right, I know you meant well.

I can see offensive wars or defending against an invader, that's it. You can't sugarcoat war and any President who tries to tell me, yes we can, is suspect.

What do you call Dems who embrace the Bush Doctrine?

[truedelphi]

18. The poster thinks that they have repudiated the Bush Doctrine.

I do not see how that is so.

Obama allows us to have a more personable, less harsh "Big Daddy" with a "kinder and gentler" message leading us into a blood bath.

Part of the way that he is doing this is to tell us that he will only have us be there for 18 months.

But if you watched the Generals talking to the Senate the other night (Recorded by C Span) you can tell we will be there a lot longer than 18 months. I imagine in a month or two, if you read the business pages, you will see that Raytheon, Honeywell and the other big boy suppliers have some major multi-year DOD contracts related to the expected "eighteen months" activity.

And it really is all about Pakistan any way. And they have nukes.

[bigtree]

25. It's not an established doctrine, but it's definitely a different one

His is a kind of toe in the water philosophy. But I get your point that the implementers in the Pentagon are still operating under the Bush doctrine: put everything they can get in and hold ground for as long as politically possible.

[Mithreal]

26. bigtree, Bush Doctrine is still in effect and is much more than what you just described

Later it came to include additional elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a potential or perceived threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate; a policy of spreading democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating terrorism; and a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests in a unilateral way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine

That's some scary shit, bigtree, and the Obama Team is not backing away from it.

What do you call Dems who continue supporting the Bush Doctrine?

[unhappycamper]

11. And don't forget the fact that we're gonna be spending $100 billion a year just

let me repeat that just to put 100K boots on the ground.

It does not include one penny for $400 per gallon of gas for all those airplanes, nor on penny to fuel each of the 11 daily flights to Afghanistan, nor one penny for all the ammo these folks are going to use, nor one penny for all the stuff we're wearing out.

[Gregorian]

13. Rules of Engagement do not apply to private contractors.

It's sad that we are posting about this since it is supposed to be in effect. I don't know how to say it. A default baseline below which our wars won't go. Geneva Convention rules.


How can we make war prohibitively expensive? As if it isn't already. For them. But for us it's "profitable". It's not profitable for more than a few evil brutes who run munition factories.

[kenny blankenship]

14. No No No. Intent is EVERYTHING! As long as we cover ourselves in good intentions

everything is permitted.

[gratuitous]

19. Some humorous words from Wendell Berry

These were printed in our church bulletin today. Tidings of comfort and joy to y'all:

The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependent upon what is wrong. But that is the addict’s excuse, and we know that it will not do.

I've heard that the first step is admitting you have the addiction in the first place.

[bigtree]

20. the administration is in denial

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Variations of "With God On Our Side" are invoked by all sides in wars.

"Gott mit uns" was emblazoned on the belt buckles of the Wehrmacht when they slaughtered millions. al-Queda is fighting a "Holy War". The Crusaders shouted "Deus Vult". Both sides in our civil war were fighting a "just" war.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Gandhi

[Unvanguard]

23. For what it's worth, classic just war theory prohibits "dumb wars."

The violence used must actually be reasonably likely to succeed.

[bigtree]

24. oh yeah

. . . in that Geneva thingy


Chapter IV: Precautionary Measures
Article 57: Precautions in Attack

2. an attack shall be canceled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-proto.htm


What about war to achieve political objectives? Is that defended in just war theory?