An Opening Case and Introduction, pp. 420-422
“Did 9/11 Make Us Morally “Better”?,” pp. 423-425
“When the Shooting Stops: Criteria for a Just Peace,” pp. 426-429
“Courageous Nonviolence,” pp. 430-432
Chapter 1:
“A Death to Celebrate? The Just-War Tradition and the Killing of Osama Bin Laden,” pp. 29-32
Unit Lesson
This last unit on war has been relevant for far too long now. For over a decade, the United States has been
involved in one or more military conflicts around the world. This is an important topic. U.S. citizens are
bleeding and dying in other parts of the world. Many of you probably have family members or friends currently
fighting the war on terror or who served in Iraq. Some of you may have served yourselves, and some of you
may currently be serving in the U.S. military. I am asking you to watch the movie, We Were Soldiers, to keep
this conversation down to earth. This film is not easy to watch. It is graphic and probably does as good a job
of bringing war to life on the big screen as any. The film is based on the true story of the first conflict between
U.S. soldiers and those of North Vietnam in November of 1965. This movie shows the horrors of war, and that
is the biggest reason I want you to watch it. There are a couple of other things that really make this movie
compelling for this course as well. First, Lt. Colonel Hal Moore is a very devout Roman Catholic and a deeply
moral man. His faith guides his life, and in this film you see how that plays itself out as he leads men into war.
Second, this movie does a very good job of humanizing the enemy. We see the Vietnamese commander
being a man like the U.S. commander, a good military strategist and a man who cares about the men under
him. We also see a Vietnamese solder’s journal and a picture of his beloved. When his life is lost, we see the
way human lives and relationships are torn apart on both sides of war. I want this film to keep us grounded as
we read and talk about war now. May the pictures from the movie haunt your mind as you delve into the rest
of this unit.
The introduction to your textbook in some ways may be the most important reading in this unit. The
introduction looks at the history of the Christian faith and its attitude toward war. The history is varied, moving
from pacifism to just war theory to being militant in the crusades. What I really want you to focus on is the just
war theory of Augustine. While these criteria were developed by a well-known Christian theologian, the seven
criteria of just war are not particularly religious or even Christian for that matter. While they are not perfect, it
seems to me they do pose worthwhile criteria to consider before engaging in warfare. I would like to make
some comments on some of the seven criteria. The first criterion is that the cause for entering the war must
be just. Well, it seems to me that the seven criteria are supposed to help us figure that out, so this is a rather
vague question, but still one that must be asked. To me, criteria three and four are rather redundant. If war is
UNIT VIII STUDY GUIDE
Issues of Life & Death: Terrorism
and War
REL 2050, Contemporary Ethical Issues
2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
the only means of securing justice, does that not imply that all other means have been tried and it is a last
resort? With criterion five, which is about the conduct of war and no wanton disregard for life, it is interesting
to note that no one in all of history has disregarded this like the U.S. with the detonation of two nuclear bombs
at the end of World War II. Never before or since has more civilian life been taken in a matter of seconds. On
the flip side, the U.S. now
probably observes that rule of war better than any nation ever has in history. We
have smart
bombs
that can go down the chimney of a building at night and wipe out the building while taking
a
minimum of human life. Finally, a comment on criterion six about reasonable hope of victory. My
question
is
this: Are some things worth fighting for even if there is no hope for victory? Christianity has a
history of
martyrdom, people giving their lives for the faith. Are there ever things worth fighting for just because they are
right even though the battle cannot be won? I just throw these out to get you really thinking about these
criteria.
I want you to take these criteria and apply them to the recent
war in Iraq and see if they lead you to believe
that war was justified or not. Before you answer that question, you may wish to do a little research about why
we went to war in Iraq. One thing I want
you to
be clear about is that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with
September 11, 2001. President Bush
himself clarified in a speech on September 17 of 2003 that Saddam
Hussein had nothing to do
with al-Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks (Fore, 2003). The reasons given for the conflict
were that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction and that Hussein was an inhuman ruler who needed to be
deposed. Be clear in answering this question that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror.
Those are two separate conflicts. Keep that in mind when applying the just war criteria to the war in Iraq.
Finally, I want to give a bit of a warning concerning the essays you are going to read. Some of you,
especially
those of you who have served or are serving in the military, may find things in these
essays very challenging.
Some things may just make you mad. I ask that you deeply consider the
thoughts anyway. Give the authors a
fair hearing. The one that may pose the greatest challenge
could
the one about the killing of Osama bin
Laden (Jung and Jung, 2013). Did the U.S. betray the very
things
the U.S. stands for and to which the U.S.
tries to hold other nations accountable? The fact is that
we killed a defenseless man, in cold blood, in front of
his wife and daughter. He could have easily
been captured and brought to trial. For those of us coming out of
the Christian faith, another
question should loom large as well. Should we ever celebrate the death of another
human being?
For this assignment, please answer the following questions in a short paper that is no less than two pages in length and is
double spaced. Please be sure that any references or citations used are in APA format.
After reading the introduction and particularly the section on just war, answer this question: According to just war theory,
was the war in Iraq justified? Apply the seven criteria to that
conflict.
