How often does Veteran’s day fall on 11/11/11? As America winds down its involvement in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s helpful to remember, not only our veterans, but their attitude toward war. Most of them hate it. Most want war only after all other options have been exhausted, which is the first principle of a “Just War.”

  Many people, including many veterans,* do not believe these two wars are “Just Wars.” They have cost over a trillion dollars and may be the reason our economy is in a nosedive.

   So what is a “Just War”? And what is it good for (to echo an old song)?

   First Augustine, then Aquinas, arguably two of the top theologians in the Christian church’s 2000 year history, came up with the principles of Just War, based on the Bible.

  Romans 13 and I Peter 2 make the case that God has ordained the State (governments and their leaders) to enforce the moral laws of God found in the Bible. The church is to teach those laws. Society only benefits when each does its part: “…observe the Lord’s commands…for your own good…For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands…then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess”  (Deuteronomy 10:13; 30:16).

  Some of the main points to Just War are:

1. Proper authority. The leader Augustine had in mind was one whom God had entrusted with the responsibility of governing. First it was kings. Today, it’s our elected leaders. These people answer first to God.

2. Proper cause. The reasons for which we go to war are as important as who authorized the action. Augustine specifically ruled out these reasons: "[t]he desire for harming…revenge…the savageness of revolting, [and] the lust for dominating." Augustine, like many veterans, saw war as a tragic necessity.

3. Reasonable chance of success. Even with good reasons, you cannot simply send young men and women out to die. Human life is too sacred to waste.

4. Proportionality. Governing leaders must make sure that the harm caused by their action doesn’t exceed the harm caused by the enemy’s aggression. There must be limited, measureable objectives (Annihilating an enemy in response to one attack on one city would be an example of disproportion.)

  Proportionality also means non-combatants must be shielded from harm. Collateral damage is acceptable only if extreme measures have been taken to avoid it and in proportionally small amounts. This is obviously highly subjective and the hardest one to accomplish.

  No one who has witnessed war, like our veterans, would flippantly say: “Oh, it’s just war.” What these heroes herald is: “We must elect governing and church leaders who know and practice the principles of Just War.

 

*Charles Colson, a Marine combat officer in Vietnam, and special assistant to President Nixon, along with many others, has argued many times on his Breakpoint radio program Iraq and Afghanistan do not fit Just War criteria.