Country Of Iraq In War example essay topic

Just cause is the first of the many criteria in the Just War Theories. (Walzer, p. 45) It may also be the most important of all the criteria. Most theorists hold that initiating acts of aggression is unjust and gives a group a just cause to defend itself. (Walzer, p. 60) This can be as simple as an insult from one country to another or as complicated as a trade embargo on one country from another. Although the previous examples are referred to as acts of aggression, it has been commonly held that aggressive war is only permissible if its purpose is to retaliate against a wrong already committed. (Walzer, p. 63) The idea behind just cause is that a country or a people have the right to defend itself against an aggressor if it has been subject to physical aggression.

In the case of the conflict with Iraq, the country has not been physically aggressive toward America. It has been established then that the first and most important part of the Just War theory has not been fulfilled when deciding whether it was just or not just to take action. The criteria dealing with the aspect of going to war as a Last Resort is basically what it is called, a last resort. If the United States had exhausted all of its energy on non-violent options and an agreement had not been reached, only then was it justifiable that our country be able to use force against Iraq. Although Saddam Hussein did not want American inspectors in his country searching for the weapons of mass destruction, he did let UN inspectors to verify that Iraq did not have any, which was a huge compromise. And indeed, the inspection did not discover any weapons of mass destruction or any facilities that could have been possibly used to create those weapons.

America went to war with Iraq because it doubted that Hussein did not have those weapons of mass destruction. However, this is definitely not a last resort kind of situation. First of all, US are a member of UN; therefore, the results of the inspection conducted by UN should have been accepted by the US without any hesitation. Why any doubts emerged in the first place? The inspectors sent by UN were qualified enough in what they did, and their decision after the inspection should have become the final decision, and the US had no right to doubt it. A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success.

Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable. (Ramsey, p. 246) A war with Iraq could only be justified if we went into it knowing that we had a strong possibility of winning. It should be understood that it would not be acceptable for the United States to send troops into the country of Iraq if it knew that large percentages of casualties would be had. The main idea of this particular criterion is that we would not be sending our men in to just simply die but that we would actually prevail over the enemy that we are up against.

In the past we have prevailed against the country of Iraq in war and it was conceivable that the same would happen if we were to use force against them again. However, also the war was won, there still were casualties both among military personnel and civilians, such as journalists, therefore it is rather hard to determine whether this criterion was met or not. The criteria of proportionality are that the desired end should be proportional to the means used. This means that if the war in question will do more harm than good then it should not be entered into. In the case of going to war with Iraq, a few good arguments about this area can be made. One is that sending troops to Iraq meant having high number of casualties as compared to the number of casualties that we would not have.

This is also inversely related to the amount of casualties that our enemy will have. If they were to lose half of all of their men then it would also not be just.