Just War

[Jim]

Haven't seen much from DFA lately so here's some items for discussion. There was an interesting editorial by Jimmy Carter in the NYT on Sunday, reprinted in one of the Seattle Papers today. It laid out what he considered criteria for a "just war". Here's the criteria:

 

The war can be waged only as a last resort, with all non-violent options exhausted.

 

The war's weapons must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants (sic) (narrative explains more about use of weapons)

 

Its violence must be proportional to the injury we have suffered.

 

The attackers mus have legitimate authority sanctioned by the society they profess to represent.

 

The peace it establishes must be a clear improvement over what exists.

 

In another column by Thomas Friedman he concludes that a war on Iraq is not a necessary war, but that we should do it anyway, for the list of reasons we've heard from the administration.