ThirstyFish

The Just War Theory, proposed mainly by Christian and other philosophers of religion, attempted to frame the morality of going to war. On one hand, there was the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", and on the other, real life situations where the commandment didn't make sense. The Just War Theory established a number of principles that defined a just war as a last resort, waged by a legitimate authority in self-defense; Wars could only be fought if their primary objective was to re-establish peace.

Here's the problem. Those calling for war, almost without exception, have justified it as a "just war" with the goal of "reestablishing peace". Before the First Iraq War, President George H. W. Bush stated, paraphrasing: "The last best chance for peace was to declare war". His son, George W. Bush laid it out as "America is a Nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman" and then started the Second Iraq War on "false pretenses". President Barack Obama justified the "intervention" in Libya as necessary for "global peace and security". Other examples are plenty.

Did it work? Was "peace re-established"? If you've been following the news, the whole region is now destabilized beyond any recovery. Millions - mostly civilians - have died. There is no peace in sight and now we are told to expect a "perpetual war" in the foreseeable future. Perpetual war to re-establish peace - what a great idea!

Since its founding in 1776, The United States has been at war almost continually. In the past 236 years, the U.S. has been fighting some type of conflict for 214 years or about 90% of the time. Since World War II, there have been 20 to 30 million foreign casualties all over the world due to U.S. wars and interventions. A good percentage of them were civilians.