Can a war be just?

Résumé du document

What is a just war?
By definition, a war is “using an arming force to resolve a situation of conflict between two or more organized communities: clans, factions, states. It is, for each of the opponents to force the other(s) to submit to his will “(Little Larousse's definition). Thus, one of the characteristic of the war is using an armed force, and so the violence. And when the force is used, there are inevitably collateral victims, either from the army or the civil population.

The main question is so to know in which cases the reason of the war can legitimate the death of the hurt of persons. If the war is engaged to end another conflict making more victims, it is easy to make a mathematic, utilitarian calculate to show that the war was a better answer that not doing anything. But when the reason of the war is an ideal (bring democracy, liberty…), the answer is more subjective: in which case an ideal can overpass human lives? The answer to these questions will of course depend on the definition we give of a “just” war.

Extraits

[...] It is said in this condition that the peace agreement needs to be fair and equitable for both of the parts in war. The synthesis of these conditions is that a war ought to be considered as a final solutions, when all the others pacific solutions have been envisaged but are not applicable. Moreover, the probability of success has to be bigger than the damages following the action. This part is the most difficult part to evaluate and can lead to debates because this is using the probabilities, which are not an exact science. [...]

[...] A war can be a war legitimate by the society, through its political representatives. Currently in the world, this concept of justice is used when a war is engaged by an official and recognized state: a proposition is submitted to the United Nations Organization, to legitimate the war but also to have a military support to achieve it. But this submission only have a symbolic impact, on the sense in which if the war is engaged despite the refusal of the organization, no “punishment” or penalty are engaged against it. [...]

[...] The use of the force is not the same in the two parties involved. The main violence action by the Palestinians is the rockets attacks against Israeli colonies. In another side, Israel uses many kinds of violence (because it is more able, technically, to). These attacks are touching only the civil Israeli population and, more than hurting physically the populations, is maintaining a terror climate in the areas close to the Palestinian frontiers. Firstly, Israel controls all the entrances and the outputs into Palestine, “controlling” meaning “limiting”. [...]

[...] That is what we can call the legitimate defense: answering to an attack by an equivalent one to not be hurt. The last century's history, with the Second World War, showed us that the American's military involvement in France was the only way to stop the expansion of the Germanic Reich. The question is not to know if we could live in a pacifically world, but to determinate the moment in which a war has to be engaged. The just war theory The just war theory is a doctrine holding that a war always ought to follow political, religious or philosophical issues so that it can be accepted on a moral point of view. [...]

[...] One of the answers can, perhaps, be the use of the force Bibliography wikipedia. (n.d.). just war theory. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory wikipedia. (n.d.). guerre en irak. Retrieved from - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerre_d'Irak - le monde (n.d.). sondage intervention en libye. Retrieved from http://www.lemonde.fr/libye/article/2011/07/01/une-courte-majorite-de-francaisdesapprouvent-l-intervention-en-libye_1543277_1496980.html - wikipedia. [...]