Center for Nonviolent Solutions

23 hours ago

This is St. Augustine’s Feast Day, a good time to consider what’s wrong with the idea of a “just war.” Augustine, born in the year 354, tried to merge a religion opposed to killing and violence with organized mass-murder and extreme violence, thus launching the just-war field of sophistry, which is still selling books today. A just war is supposed to be defensive or philanthropic or at least retributive, and the suffering supposedly being halted or avenged is supposed to be much greater than the suffering that will be inflicted by the war. In reality, war inflicts more suffering than anything else. A just war is supposed to be predictable and to have a high probability of success. In reality, the only thing easy to predict is failure. It is supposed to be a last resort after all peaceful alternatives have failed. In reality there are always peaceful alternatives to attacking foreign nations, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and so on. During a so-called just war, only fighters are supposed to be targeted. In reality, most victims in wars since World War II have been civilians. Killing of civilians is supposed to be “proportionate” to the military value of an attack, but that’s not an empirical standard anyone can be held to. In 2014, a Pax Christi group stated: “CRUSADES, INQUISITION, SLAVERY, TORTURE, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, WAR: Over many centuries, Church leaders and theologians justified each of these evils as consistent with the will of God. Only one of them retains that position in official Church teaching today.” ... See MoreSee Less