Christian Just War v Jihad

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    Christian Just War V. Islamic JihadWEDNESDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2012 07:00 COL. TOM SNODGRASS (RET.)

    By Col. Tom Snodgrass (Ret.), Right Side News

    In the World War II Pacific Theater, our Japanese enemys disregard for any human or Judeo-Christian

    standard of morality made the application of normally acceptablejus in bellocriteria absolutely impossible

    and therefore inapplicable. Are we in a similar situation fighting against Islamic jihad?

    If you like this article, pleasedonate to Right Side News Daily

    Opposing morality codes

    The jus ad bellum [Latin for "right to wage war"] criteria are (1)justcausein terms of self-defense and

    protection of innocents; (2)rightintentionto bring justice and peace; (3)properauthorityandpublic

    declarationmeaning that the declaration of war is executed only by heads of state within a legal framework;

    (4)lastresortafter other options have been seriously considered, although not necessarily tried; (5)

    probabilityofsuccessto block violence which is going to be futile; and (6)macro proportionalitywhich

    weighs expected universal good to accrue from its prosecuting the war against the expected universal evils

    that will result.

    The jus in bello [acceptable justifications to use various methods of warfare] criteria are (1)micro

    proportionalitythat weighs the use of a particular weapon or tactic to determine that it is proportional to thethreat; and (2)discriminationbetween combatants and non-combatants. Christian Just War:jus ad

    bellum and jus in bello criteria

    The way of the warrior is resolute acceptance ofdeath. Bushido:Japanese (Tokugawa) Way of theWarriors

    Do not live in shame as a prisoner. Die, and leave no ignominious crime behindyou. The Japanese

    Military Field Service Code issued byGeneral Tojoin 1941

    War in human history

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    The world civilization historians Will and Ariel Durant in their 1968 book,The Lessons of History, wrote: In

    the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war. Looking at the 44 years since 1968, it is

    safe to say that the 268 number still stands. Since only about eight percent of recorded human history has

    been war-free by the Durant count, it is not surprising that mankind has attempted, with very limited success,

    to regulate the frequency of war and its conduct. What is surprising however are the huge numbers of peoplein Western Civilization who continually attempt to deny the reality of war.

    Whether or not war is an integral component to human existence, wars frequency attests to its

    unavoidability in human history when politico-religious entities reach irreconcilable impasse. The reality of

    war in human history is well characterized by a quote attributed toLeon Trotsky: You may not be interested

    in war, but war is interested in you.

    Since war is an undeniable reality in human life, and war in the guise of Islamicjihad[according to

    IslamicSharialaw, jihadmeans to war against non-Muslims] is currently erupting in every corner of the

    globe, this essay will analyze whether a viable moral approach to the war against Islamicjihadexists from a

    military mans point ofview.

    In order to do so, the morality of war-making in historical context will be examined, and then that historical

    framework will be used to examine the conflict between the U.S. and the those who carry out jihadtoinstall Sharia in Dar al-Harb[the Land of War or the territory where the IslamicSharia is not the dominant

    politico-legal systemor put simply, the West].

    The three dominant positions concerning morality in warfare

    One of mankinds first recorded discussions concerning morality in warfare is found inThucydides passage

    in his master work, the Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 B.C.), wherein Athenian commanders, who possessed

    overwhelming force, approached their adversary before commencing the battle with a surrender ultimatum

    stating that they would hear no protestations about justice, rather the weaker adversary must consider the

    incontestable facts of the situation and surrender. In other words, the strong do as they will, and the weak

    do as they must.

    Obviously these ancients dismissed the concept of restraint in war as irrelevant. To their way of thinking,after the war has been won, humans can then return to a moral political order that is structured on restraint

    and civility in daily affairs. In other words, these men understood intuitively that war against ones enemy

    required a different code of conduct than was applicable within a political order made up of ones fellow

    citizens. Within this context, war simply cannot fit into a moral framework of restraint. Such thinking might

    be termed the Reality School.

    Directly opposed to the Reality School is what we might designate the Pacifism School. The thinking in

    this school declares the taking of human life to be wrong under any circumstances. Pacifisms codification

    goes back to the same general time in human history during which the Greeks were developing the Reality

    School, but it occurred in a different part of the ancient world.

    By about 500 B.C., the philosophy ofJainismhad taken root in India espousing the doctrine that all killing of

    life, human and nonhuman, was simply unacceptable. Obviously pacifism never acquired a dominant stature,even in India, for the reasons one might suppose about its practicability in a primitive, winnertake-all

    environment.

    Interestingly there seems to have been no philosophical concept of pacifism in Ancient Greece, except as

    limiting violence between individual, fellow citizens. But pacifism took off in the Mediterranean world with the

    advent of Christianity in the first century A.D. The pre-Constantine Church quite literally practiced Christs

    admonitions to love your enemies and to turn the other cheek. The church fathers, Augustine of Hippo

    (354-430 A.D.) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.), wrote in opposition to such unqualified pacifism,

    attempting to develop Christian interpretations which would condone violence to counter injustice in

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Lessons-History-Will-Durant/dp/1567310249http://www.amazon.com/The-Lessons-History-Will-Durant/dp/1567310249http://www.amazon.com/The-Lessons-History-Will-Durant/dp/1567310249http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/152853-you-may-not-be-interested-in-war-but-war-ishttp://www.goodreads.com/quotes/152853-you-may-not-be-interested-in-war-but-war-ishttp://www.goodreads.com/quotes/152853-you-may-not-be-interested-in-war-but-war-ishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydideshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydideshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydideshttp://en.ekopedia.org/Pacifismhttp://en.ekopedia.org/Pacifismhttp://en.ekopedia.org/Pacifismhttp://en.ekopedia.org/Pacifismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydideshttp://www.goodreads.com/quotes/152853-you-may-not-be-interested-in-war-but-war-ishttp://www.amazon.com/The-Lessons-History-Will-Durant/dp/1567310249
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    specified circumstances. Nevertheless, pacifism continued to flourish in Christian sects like the Quakers,

    Mennonites, and Amish.

    While the doctrine of a specific pacifist group may vary according to its leadership and accepted group

    dogma, almost all varieties of pacifism are founded on the idea that war and violence are unjustifiable and

    that all international disputes should be settled by peaceful means.

    After the carnage of World War I, pacifism gained many adherents during the 1930s as the clouds of war

    gathered again over Europe, but the horror of Hitlers Nazism appeared to fully discredit pacifism as a

    rational policy and way of life, at least in the minds of most reasonable people. While pacifism maintained

    some insignificant political influence following World War II, the unpopularity of the Vietnam War

    reinvigorated the ideology of the Pacificism School to such a degree that it remains a significant meme in

    American politics today. American pacifism is carried forward by the anti-war movements extant and quite

    influential in the left wing of Democrat Party and to a lesser extent in the libertarian right wing of the

    Republican Party.

    Since the adherents of the Pacifism School have only a tenuous relationship with reality, pacifism, as

    governing dogma, remains an anathema to the majority of rational Americans. In todays world, the pacifists

    are so obsessed with a fanatical, irrational, and perverse righteousness, they fail to grasp that pacifism

    survives only when the pacifist lives in a nation that is peculiarly not pacifist and is, therefore, prepared to

    use the violence of war to fend off the nations (and the pacifists) enemies.

    The third position regarding the morality of war is labeled the Just War School, which stands in opposition

    to both the Reality School and the Pacifism School because it recognizes the necessity of protecting the

    pacifists from the realists. Just War as an organized body of thought predated the Christian era when the

    Roman statesmanCicero(106-43 B.C) first formulated a just war theory, but it was far less sophisticated than

    later Christian doctrine. Cicero identified two bases for a justified war: (1) Defend yourself or your

    community from danger, and (2) Defend/avenge yours or your communitys honor.

    Obviously, Ciceros two premises were inadequate from a Christian standpoint, so in the post-Constantine

    Roman Empire, as Christians began to occupy responsible authority positions in the Roman government, St.

    Augustine set about to construct a Christian Just War theory from the proposition that nowhere in the

    gospels did Christ forbid his followers from defending ones loved ones from life threatening attack.

    St. Augustines work was later expanded by the Catholic Church theologian Thomas Aquinas, the Protestantjurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645 A.D.), and two Catholic jurists, Franciscus de Victoria (1480-1546 A.D.) and

    Francisco Suarez (1548-1617 A.D.), to name just some of the more notable. These men were the ground-

    breaking pioneers who contributed the main corpus of Western thought on Just War. Just War doctrine

    has been hotly debated since it was first introduced for the same reasons it is under intense debate today

    is it adequate and/or applicable in war circumstances?

    Christian Just War defined

    The generally accepted factors used to judge whether or not war is justifiable in the Christian tradition are

    divided into criteria for justified war (jus ad bellum) and criteria for determining whether the war is fought

    justly (jus in bello).

    Thejus ad bellumcriteria are(1) just cause in terms of self-defense and protection of innocents;

    (2) right intention to bring justice and peace;

    (3) proper authority and public declaration meaning that the declaration of war is executed only by heads of

    state within a legal framework;

    (4) last resort after other options have been seriously considered, although not necessarily tried;

    (5) probability of success to block violence which is going to be futile; and

    (6) macro proportionality that weighs expected universal good to accrue from prosecuting the war against

    the expected universal evils that will result.

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    Thejus in bellocriteria are (1) micro proportionality that weighs the use of a particular weapon or tactic to

    determine that it is proportional to the threat; and (2) discrimination between combatants and non-

    combatants.

    According to Christian Just War theory, failure to meet the standard in any of the individualjus ad

    bellumcriteria means the entirejus ad bellumjustification is invalid. However, a second stipulation is thatjus

    ad bellumandjus in belloare separate and distinct sets of criteria. Consequently, failure to meet the

    standard in either of thejus in bellocriteria (i.e., how the war is fought) does not nullify thejus ad

    bellumjustification for the war itself.

    Is Christian Just War adequate and/or applicable?

    Looking at the historical long view, Just War has often provided a set of mutually agreed upon rules of

    combat, generally between similar enemies acting within a Judeo-Christian tradition and with a European

    heritage. It has been argued by war theorists of the largely utopian persuasion that Just War theory should

    be universal in application, but the utter impracticality of imposing artificial moral standards in a kill or be

    killed scenario became strikingly evident in the Pacific Theater during World War II, where the Japanese

    refused to be bound by international protocols because their battlefield behavior was dictated by the

    Japanese Shinto religion and its Bushido warrior code.

    Such Just War considerations as right intention, last resort, probability of success, macro proportionality,

    micro proportionality, and discrimination were totally irrelevant to the Japanese in their conduct of the war.For example, the probability of success criteria was in direct conflict with the suicide instructions in the

    Bushido code The way of the warrior is acceptance of deathand with General Tojos instructions to

    die rather than surrenderDo not live in shame as a prisoner. Die, and leave no ignominious crime behind

    you.

    Similarly, the Just War criteria, which demands discrimination between combatants and non-combatants,

    was absent as a matter of fact and dogma in the rape of Nanking, when Japanese troops were encouraged

    by their officers to invent new and hideous ways to slaughter Chinese civilians and prisoners of war.

    Ironically, the utter disregard for even basic humanity in the conduct of war by the strategically inferior

    Japanese caused the strategically superior US military to do as they must and adopt a take no prisoners

    mentality.

    In other words, when our superior military forces confronted inferior and overwhelmed Japanese forces, wecould not war as we might against another Christian nation and take prisoners alive as is common for the

    stronger force that has overpowered a weaker enemy. The Japanese quite effectively precluded suchjus in

    bellowar tactics by employing suicide grenade attacks and hidden pistol deceptions while surrendering. As

    a consequence, American forces had no choice but to do as they must and burn out Japanese with

    flamethrowers, or to destroy them with satchel charges in their caves and bunkers, thus not affording them

    the opportunity to engage in surrender-suicide attacks.

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    On a larger institutional scale, Japanese Bushidoism left the US Army Air Forces with no option but the utter

    destruction of theJapanese suicide resistancecapability by firebomb and nuclear attacks, consequently

    killing hundreds of thousands who would not have had to die except for the fact that the Bushido believers

    simply approached war in a very anti-Just War way. While the U.S. Government made no formal

    announcement abrogating Just War tactics, there is no doubt that jus in bellowas abandoned in our war

    against the Japanese because it was absolutely necessary, given the enemys insistence on dying by suicide

    attack rather than surrendering. The American people and Western Civilization in general quietly accepted

    the reality of the take no prisoners situation with no protest. One qualifying historical note is necessary

    here Japanese prisoners were taken as a general rule when their surrender did not put American lives at

    risk of surrender-suicide attack.

    Does this mean that our war against the Bushido Japanese was not just? Hardly. For the US to have adopted

    any other measures would have prolonged the war and increased the American death toll quite unjustly,

    since it was the Japanese who created the circumstances necessitating the suspension of observingjus in

    bellocriteria. But even the strictest pacifists who refuse to accept this irrefutable logic must nonetheless

    admit that Americas tactics suspending our strict adherence to thejus in bellocriteria does not affect

    whatsoever the justness of the war in the first instance, since, as noted above,jus ad bellumandjus in

    belloare separateand distinct sets of criteria.

    So what is our alternative today?

    In the terms of reference Ive framed for this essay, there is no doubt that the Japanese adhered de rigueur to

    the Reality School of warfare. While it is manifestly the case that our war against the Japanese was just in

    the Christian context of adhering to thejus ad bellumcriteria, I have demonstrated that even our no

    prisoners and fire/nuclear bombing tactics (jus in bello) were quite justified in the face of an enemy who

    accepted no limits on his destructive power, even in cases of quite obvious defeat and surrender.

    With this background, we turn to the war against the West being waged by Islam, or their term, jihad. Clearly,

    an intellectually honest reading of these Quranic suras

    8:12: When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast

    terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of

    them.

    9:5: So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and takethem captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up

    prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

    9:29: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His

    Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until

    they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

    9:111: Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have

    the garden; they fight in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain; a promise which is binding on Him in

    the Taurat[Arabic word for the Torah] and the Injeel[Arabic name for what Muslims believe to be the original

    Gospel of Jesus] and the Quran; and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Rejoice therefore in

    the pledge which you have made; and that is the mighty achievement.

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    - leaves no doubt we are once again in a worldwide war with an enemy of the Reality School; that is, an

    enemy without a Western concept of humanity in warfare or observance of Judeo-Christian morality. This

    sobering reality of cold-blooded murder masquerading as warfare is especially true as understood in the

    context of the legal interpretations of these sura mandates by all of the historical, traditional, and

    authoritative legal schools [fiqih] of Islam, together with the actual conduct of the Muslim world, both its

    violence in the name of Allah and its masses which remain overwhelmingly indifferent to this violence.

    The callous savagery and indifference of the Islamic world are matters of a media-documented record;

    consequently, any talk of slavishly satisfying every Christian Just War criteria is worse than irrelevant when

    defending ourselves against this jihadist enemy; it is morally reprehensible. As was the case with the

    Japanese Bushido enemy, only the suicidal or the moronic would advocate strictly adhering tojus in

    bellocriteria, or employing the methods of the Pacifism School in response tojihad.

    So today we find ourselves facing an Islamic initiated war of such violence that it appears to make thebloodcurdling savagery of the Japanese Bushido believers appear almost tame. Only those blinded by the

    most dangerous ideologies (both on the anti-war left and libertarian right) would argue that the war against

    Islam does not meet thejus ad bellumcriteria used to prosecute our war against the Japanese from 1941

    through 1945.

    But the Pacifists among us who might concede that we have just cause to go to war against the Taliban and

    al Qaeda, insist we apply thejus in bellocriteria of micro proportionality that weighs the use of a particular

    weapon or tactic to determine that its proportionality to the threat, and discrimination between combatants

    and non-combatants.

    Thus, the howls of risible protest by the anti-war crowd from both ends of the political spectrum against the

    rendition programs and enhanced interrogation methods designed to extract valuable lifesaving information

    through physical deprivation, water-boarding, the threat of physical force, GITMO imprisonment, and the rest

    of the long list of war crimes we are alleged to have committed. For instance, if we had followed the

    strictjus in belloproportionality demands of the left and libertarian right, Osama bin Laden would still be

    alive and planning jihadist terror attacks against us.

    Obviously the suicidal nature of Islamic jihadists poses many of the same problems of micro proportionality

    for the American military that we confronted in World War II. Similarly, no nonsense rules of engagement

    (ROEs) on the battlefield to protect the lives of our American soldiers when subduing jihadists should be the

    same as those used on Iwo Jima by the U.S. Marines. Of a Japanese Iwo Jima army garrison of 22,000, only

    212 survived the battle as prisoners-of-war. There are no practical differences between the suicidal

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    commitments of the Japanese Bushido believers and the Islamic jihadists, so the Christian Just War

    question of micro proportionality must be applied only after due priority is given to safeguarding the lives of

    American service personnel. Recall that just as Japanese Bushido believers believed dying for the emperor

    was their highest Shinto honor, Muslims likewise believe suicidal dedication to Allah is their greatest Islamic

    calling as is illustrated in Sura 9:111: Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their

    property for this, that they shall have the garden [Islamic Paradise]; they fight in Allah's way, so they slay

    and are slain; a promise which is binding on Him [Allah].

    Discrimination between combatants and non-combatants in the war against Islam and its jihadists requires

    the same kind of common sense analysis about the appropriateness of applying thejus in bellocriteria of

    micro proportionality. In other words, Just War doctrine cannot be applied in some sort of Judeo-Christian

    Just War vacuum, thus unnecessarily endangering the lives of U.S. military personnel, when we confront an

    enemy operating completely outside of any restraint in their religious war context.

    The standards regarding who is and who is not a combatantthe criteria of Christian Just War doctrine

    later embodied in theGeneva Convention Laws of War is unfortunately most practicably appropriate for a

    Napoleonic-era rural battlefield where orderly lines of soldiers in brightly colored uniforms marched toward

    each other with single-shot muskets, and civilians were nowhere near the battlefield. In fact, distinctive

    uniforms were the result of international agreement in the Christian world in order to distinguish combatants

    from noncombatants in the 17th

    century.

    Certainly a battle of uniformed combatants is the preferred scenario for sparing civilians in warfare; however,

    these conditions no longer obtain in the world of 21st centuryjihadwhere any Muslim faithful toSharia is a

    potential suicide-homicide bomber, regardless of age or gender. So as Sura9:111makes clear, any man,

    woman, or child Islamic believer takes on the mantel of combatant by virtue of his or her Muslim faith and

    commitment to die in the cause of Allah.

    Also, Islamic jihadists shun uniforms to disguise themselves as civilians in order to launch ambushes and

    then to retreat back into the civilian milieu in an effort to hide and discourage return fire from the ambushed

    force. The U.S. ROEs in Iraq, and even more so in Afghanistan, have unnecessarily resulted in American

    military personnel killed because they have been, and still are, prohibiting Americans from firing

    preemptively and/or in self-defense if Muslim civilian collateral casualties are possible.

    One way for the layman to understand this entire analysis would be simply to ask the following, what would

    happen if some space alien force, that recognized no laws of war, no humane behavior, and no just war

    tactics, attacked and slaughtered mankind mercilessly in an effort to conquer the planet for its natural

    http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.icrc.org%2Feng%2Fassets%2Ffiles%2Fother%2Firrc_853_pfanner.pdf&ei=0qCFUND2O6SU2QWH04CQ&usg=AFQjCNHrFTc5ptWRaGShijGCsiYjEUoCvg&sig2=v-DtrqUtKzq11YQ_Ok11bQhttp://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.icrc.org%2Feng%2Fassets%2Ffiles%2Fother%2Firrc_853_pfanner.pdf&ei=0qCFUND2O6SU2QWH04CQ&usg=AFQjCNHrFTc5ptWRaGShijGCsiYjEUoCvg&sig2=v-DtrqUtKzq11YQ_Ok11bQhttp://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.icrc.org%2Feng%2Fassets%2Ffiles%2Fother%2Firrc_853_pfanner.pdf&ei=0qCFUND2O6SU2QWH04CQ&usg=AFQjCNHrFTc5ptWRaGShijGCsiYjEUoCvg&sig2=v-DtrqUtKzq11YQ_Ok11bQhttp://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HolKora.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1
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    resources? Could a rational or moral man or woman countenance the pleas of the Pacifists oranti-war

    zealots to refrain from unjust war tactics? But today we do not face some imaginary space alien force,

    instead we face a very real jihadist force that recognizes no laws of war, no humane behavior, and no just

    war tactics. Common sense dictates that we act accordingly to protect our society.

    Conclusion

    My analysis of the factors bearing on the adequacy and applicability of Christian Just War to the present

    conflict presented in this essay leads me to conclude that there is no question thatjus ad bellumcriteria are

    fully satisfied from any reasonable standpoint. And just as was the case in the World War II Pacific Theater,

    the Islamic enemys disregard for any human or Judeo-Christian standard of morality makes the application

    of historically acceptedjus in bellocriteria practically impossible for our soldiers on the battlefield to

    undeviatingly adhere to without unnecessarily putting their lives at risk.

    Therefore, our warriors should never be asked to attempt to implementjus in bellorestrictive criteria in

    combat when taking prisoners. Furthermore, just as World War II-era Americans accepted this reality and

    went on with the war approving whatever was necessary because no prisoners and fire/nuclear bombing

    were essential to expeditiously end an unjust, Japanese-initiated war; so too Americans and especially our

    government must now realize that U.S. war fighters face almost the same set of gruesome circumstances in

    this existential, Islamicjihad-initiated war.

    In todays conflict, the stakes are as high, or even higher than they were in 1941 because the theocratic-

    politico-military doctrine of Islamic Sharia is every bit as oppressive and vicious as the Axis fascism we

    fought in World War II.

    Col. Thomas Snodgrass, USAF (retired), was an Intelligence Officer and an International Politico-Military

    Affairs Officer serving in seven foreign countries during a thirty-year military career.

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