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Entry: Just War, Jeremiah, and Jeremiah Weed Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/just_war_jeremiah_and_jeremiah_weed#895 Post contents: Of course this excerpt makes sense, especially as analogy to the current Neocon created mess in Iraq. My greatest interest is in the list that justifies war: • In a good cause, i.e., to repel aggression or protect the innocent. (No, “revenge,” “a presidential sex scandal” or “an upcoming election” don’t count.) • Waged by legitimate authorities. • Reasonably likely to succeed. • Unlikely, proportionately, to cause more harm than good. • The last resort after attempted negotiations. • Waged with the minimum force necessary, making every attempt to protect civilians. It is a Yank thing to violate Christian Just War. Consider Honest Abe's war. The seceding states were not attacking the non-seceding states or their capital. Nor can the Unionists claim to have been protecting the innocent, for the Confederates were not rounding up and imprisoning those who had been against secession. Later, Unionists would claim that slavery justified the war, but that was, as even Liberal historian Peter Kolchin admits, not part of the original Linclon war reasoning. In addition, if the Unionists war were to end the evil of slavery, then the Union would have had to invade and destroy non-seceding states. In fact, in 1861, as Leon Litwack notes in North of Slavery, there were slaves legally owned in the states of New York and New Jersey. Lincoln was legimate, but he had no power to wage war as he did, and his usurpations set the precedent for all the Presidential horrors we have seen since. The Unionist war was reasonably likely to succeed, but not without massive loss of life, which means that it was certain to cause at least as much harm as it could possibly facilitate good. Lincoln refused to negotiate, so that one is an obvious failure to meet the criteria. Lincoln's war was NOT waged with the minimal force or with any desire to minimize casualities, even among Unionist soldiers. In fact, it was waged, certainly its final 3 years, with a concerted effort to harm Confederate states civilians and their ability to live. If the most sacred war in (Yankee) American mythology so obviously violated Christian Just War, and it did, then how can we expect any better when Uncle Sam sends the soldiers of his Sacred Union to slaugher desert dwellers on the other side of the globe? Sent at: 2008 08 21