Tag: civilians

9/11 and just war

Posted on by kathiemm
9-11 We Remember
U.S. Marines in Iraq remember 9/11. Image in public domain.

For most Americans, the words “September 11” continue to evoke fear, anger, distrust, and a desire to return to the way things used to be before we were attacked on our own soil.

September 11, 2011, we learned, to our horror, that we too, the golden people on the hill, are vulnerable.

In this blog, we have devoted several posts to just war principles.

Based on just war principles, can the attackers argue that the 9/11 assault on largely civilian sites in the US was justified?

We can say No in regard to many of those principles:

  • The attack was not undertaken as a last resort.
  • The attack was not committed by a legitimate authority.
  • The attack was committed in pursuit of a hopeless cause, which is considered not morally justifiable by just war principles. (Attacking the U.S. could be seen as a hopeless cause.)
  • Establishing peace was not the goal of the attack (as stated by Bin Laden himself).
  • The attackers did not discriminate between combatants and civilians; worse, they deliberately targeted civilians.

Whether the attack violated two other just war principles is a matter of debate. Specifically, for a war to be just:

  • It must have a just cause. Although some people around the world would argue that there was some truth to Bin Laden’s diatribe concerning American aggression against Muslims in the Middle East, the attacks were not undertaken to prevent or stop a genocide.
  • The violence inflicted must be proportional to the injury suffered. The death, pain, and destruction created by the attacks was tremendous. Was it disproportionately high in relation to any violence the U.S. might have been responsible for prior to the 9/11 attacks?

Finally, many proponents of just war principles in the U.S. (including President Jimmy Carter) have argued that the post 9/11 attack on Iraq by the U.S. was also not a just war.

As you consider the just war principles stated above, what do you think about this issue?  Was the US invasion of Iraq justified? How about the invasion of Afghanistan? How about US violence elsewhere in the Middle East since 9/11? Have these been just wars? If not, why is the US still killing people there?  And what are you going to do to stop it?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Shattering my world (Liberate THIS, Part 3)

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note by Kathie Malley-Morrison:  Today we are pleased to publish the third in our ongoing series from Dr. Dahlia Wasfi‘s book, Liberate THIS.]

The missiles that trailed across the Arabian night sky that January of 1991 fractured the calm over Iraq, like the war itself shattered my world and my memories to pieces.

Marine fighter planes during Iraq war
Marine fighter planes during Iraq war (Image in public domain)

There was no question that the regime of Saddam Hussein was politically repressive. But now, Iraqis suffered under brutality from within and aerial bombardment from without.

Iraqi families were under attack.  My fellow students were celebrating.

Yet, even though I had insight that no one else could have, I said and did nothing for our victims.  At the time, assimilation was a higher priority for me than speaking the truth.  I reeked of selling out.

More than 100,000 Iraqis perished during the 42 days of Gulf War I, but I was lucky.  My blood relatives survived. The worst was yet to come, however, because our aerial assaults had purposely targeted Iraq’s electricity plants, telecommunication centers, and water treatment facilities.  These attacks were in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilians in war[1].

In a matter of days, life became desperate. There was no potable water, no electricity, and with economic sanctions in place, there soon would be no means of rebuilding.

Severe economic sanctions had been imposed on Iraq four days after Iraqi troops entered Kuwait, on August 6, 1990.  (In sad irony, that date was the forty-five year anniversary of another Western targeting of a civilian population, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.)  All of Iraq’s exports and imports were banned in order to induce Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.[2]

Though withdrawal was completed by the end of the 1991 Gulf War in April, those brutal sanctions remained in place for years.  Once stored resources were depleted, Iraqis began to starve.  It was a stringent medical, cultural, intellectual, and nutritional embargo that victimized the already-suffering Iraqi people.

I knew the direct correlation between my government’s actions and human suffering.  I did nothing.

Dahlia Wasfi

[1] http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO/380  Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

[2] Herring, Eric.  “Between Iraq and a Hard Place:  A Critique of the Case for UN Economic Sanctions” in Falk, Richard, Irene Gendzier, and Robert Jay Lifton, eds.  Crimes of War:  Iraq. Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.  New York, NY.  2006. p .223.

 

9/11 and “just war”

Posted on by kathiemm

As the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. approaches, we suggest that you review the principles of just war described here by Dr. Michael Corgan. Then consider:

Aftermath of 9/11 attacks: View of World Trade Center ruins
Image in public domain

  • Can the extremists who made the attacks in 2001 justify them based on just war principles?
  • Was the U.S. response to those attacks consistent with just war principles?

First, it is clear that the 9/11  attacks violated most–but perhaps not all–of the generally accepted principles of a “just war.”  Specifically:

  • It was not undertaken as a last resort.
  • It was not committed by a legitimate authority.
  • It was committed in pursuit of a hopeless cause, which is not morally justifiable according to just war principles.
  • Establishing peace was not the goal of the attack (as stated by Bin Laden himself).
  • The attackers did not discriminate between combatants and civilians; worse, they deliberately targeted civilians.

Whether the attack violated two other just war principles is a matter of debate. Specifically, for a war to be just:

  • It must have a just cause. Although some people around the world would argue that there was some truth to Bin Laden’s diatribe concerning American aggression against Muslims in the Middle East, the attacks were not undertaken to prevent or stop a genocide.
  • The violence inflicted must be proportional to the injury suffered. The death, pain, and destruction created by the attacks was tremendous. Was it disproportionately high in relation to any violence the U.S. might have been responsible for prior to the 9/11 attacks?

Finally, many proponents of just war theory in the U.S. (including President Jimmy Carter) have argued that the post 9/11 attack on Iraq by the U.S. was also not a just war. As you consider the just war principles stated above, what do you think of this question?

Listen to what this Iraq war veteran says:

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Bombing civilians

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome guest author Tom Greening, a humanistic psychologist, member of the American Psychological Association division on peace psychology, and a poet.]

Bombing Civilians

U.S. military plane releasing cluster bombs
U.S.A.F. plane releasing cluster munitions (Image in public domain)

There was a time, before Guernica,
when it was considered barbaric
to bomb civilians.
Then came Coventry, London, Hamburg, Dresden,
Hiroshima and the rest.
We’ve outgrown our squeamishness and,
as one door gunner put it,
“There was a My Lai every day.”
Thus do we evolve,
and out there in the universe
there are lots of targets
we can go gunning for.
If they are inhabited
by strange or familiar creatures
they’d better start preparing.

Tom Greening