Libya, Obama, and the Just War Theory

So if the war fulfills all of the conditions stated in Dr. C's piece, but a bare majority of The People disagree because they incorrectly judge it otherwise, then it's not just? 

It seems that what you're really saying is that the would then be just, but to you illegitimate anyway, because in your view, you then you need both the institutions of representative democracy to think so, and then also public opinion polls (this last one I just couldn't disagree with more, constitutionalism is representative and not direct democracy, why bother venerating the separation of powers if you're going to invest the power to make foreign policy in another place where it doesn't reside -- a guy answering Rasmussen push poll calls.)

I'd rather have a just illegitimate war here than an unjust legitimized war, with an AUMF and a plurality of popular support -- Iraq.  If leaders get the just war right, legitimation is a secondary problem.

All important political considerations in a democracy, destor, but nothing to do with whether a war is just or not. And since an absolute monarchy is a dictatorship, you're saying the UAE, Qatar, saudi Arabia can't ever take part. The theory of just war was developed when there were nothing but absolute monarchies around, so your conditions couldn't have applied; no just wars were possible. You make a good argument for not supporting the intervention, but not against its justice.

I disagree public consensus impacts the nature of the "Just War" framework. It is a formula based on morality balance, outcomes and reasonable expectations not public opinion. In fact, it seems impossible for a decision subject to the whim of public emotion and media manipulation to have been based on a true weighting of the moral imperatives DC lays out.

You aren't really talking about "Just War." You are talking about the participation of America in specific international military intervention in Libya and how you feel about the political process in the context of being an American citizen. This isn't an American war. This is an international war. The "Just War" analysis would be no different with the participation of America than it would be if the other nations proceeding without our support (obvious impact on "likelihood of success" notwithstanding). Your personal approval or rejection doesn't really change the immutable facts surrounding the decision.

We have international obligations under the UN charter. The UN is the forum in which the ethical and other issues were decided by the representatives of all people. In this  forum the representative of the American public actually is Obama - not our legislature. So in that regard, you really did get to pick who would be doing this for us when you voted in 2008. So did I. That's not where Obama screwed up.

He screwed up at home. I agree the American decision making was entirely too internally unilateral for me to support as well. I see this as crucially important in terms of American governance. That's why I continue to assert that I hope Obama gets slapped down for it (although I am also skeptical this will happen). That is a matter of internal politics and expectations based on our own policies. My complaint isn't with a moral deficiency in the decision to intervene, my complaint is with the PROCESS by which our contribution to the decision was finalized.

I don't find any moral inconsistency wanting to fix the problems in our own political system revealed in the process of our approach to meeting international obligations while totally supporting the underlying reasons and final decision adopted by the international community of which we are a part.

I think there is a difference between just wars and politically legitimate wars. Both questions are important, but they are also separate.

Some versions of the just war theory add a condition about "legitimate authority of the war-maker" but I reject that as not growing from the basic necessary-evil premise. Furthermore, I think insurgent groups can and even sometimes have waged just wars.

I'm not going to Godwin out this thread, so let me say that if, hypothetically, Mobutu Sese Seko had unilaterally intervened to stop the Rwandan genocide, that would have been just. Mobuto would still have been tyrannical and illegitimate, but the moral foundation for military action would have been sound.

On the other hand, many wildly unjust wars have been deeply popular. World War I (which, face it, couldn't have been a just war on both sides) was feverishly popular among European voters until, well, it started. But they were all for it. They demanded it.

I agree that our wars should be democratically legitimate as well as just. But those are two goals, not one.

I don't think "Just War" is the only kind of war can be justified as moral. It doesn't seem possible (or perhaps even desirable) to create a unified theory.

Neither Iraq or Afghanistan appear to qualify under the "Just War" paradigm as I'm interpreting it. With Iraq being an unjustifiable/immoral war in my opinion.

I think self-defense, and retaliatory self-defense (to make future attacks less likely) are generally covered by just war theory, which always permits self-defense. (You don't have to let an invader kill ten thousand of your people because repelling him would kill fifty thousand. You don't have to accept terms pressed upon your nation by force, or allow other people to kill your citizens.)

But, as kgb says, just war theory does not cover all situations. It doesn't easily describe revolutions or wars of independence, for example. (Not surprising, considering that this framework was developed in a deeply imperial culture.)

I think there are certainly situations where both sides believe themselves to be just, woith varying degrees of realism. Many aggressors talk themselves into believing they're in the right, and really do convince themselves. And some groups have a plausible but partisan case that simply looks weaker if you're from another group.

But I think the cases where both sides have legitimate grievances are long-standing conflicts where the "proportionate and discriminate" rule got thrown overboard a long time ago, leading to a cycle of escalating retaliation. Which largely flunks the just war test.

Again, it all comes back to Lois Lane.

I agree that judging the imminence of a threat is a sticky problem. But judging proportional response and chances of success are both also very tricky.

The framework sounds clean, but it gets messy very, very fast. One reason to have the framework is to build a clear overall structure for sorting out the messy details. But those details still have to be sifted on their own, and it is nothing like easy.

Yes, that's a good point. I should not have defined those aspects away.

But I also wanted to suggest other potential problems ... that the intervention would not, itself, suffice to create stability or forestall violence in a post-Qaddafi Libya, for example. Military power is our only tool in this situation (considering how fast events are moving), but that doesn't mean it's a sufficient tool.

Actually, I don't think that it's a good idea if it's a just war. I think meeting the just war qualifications is a minimum requirement, not an all-sufficient pass.

And while I agree that there's no clear endgame, I also think that calls the justice of the war into doubt. Feasibility is one of the necessary conditions, and that includes a plan for success. The Underpants Gnomes can't wage a just war.

Where Obama falls away from the just-war paradigm most is in feasibility and the need for reasonable hope of success. (See: continuing in Afghanistan in order to achieve ...?)

kgb had been upset that at FDL (dunno, really), that anti-war commenters were upset that we don’t know who ‘the rebels’ are; maybe they are thugs, tribal thugs, and former Gadaffi military thugs we are helping.

Actually that was never one of my criticisms of FDL. My criticism was that up until the second we started intervention FDL was cheering on the rebels as freedom fighters (just as they continue to do with Yemen and others). The makeup of the rebel force didn't change when we started intervention. The fair-weather support did.

Re Bahrain: What specific intervention would you like to see? How would it be carried out and what would the objective be?

It's not an either/or situation. Present a plausible way military intervention could help in Bahrain and I'll back you up on it if you feel strongly we should be intervening there.

This sort of thing does little to increase anyone's confidence that this will be another Just War. 

http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/nov05election/2011/03/21/Afgh...

I am back to comment on my own comment because I just love to get hits no matter where they come from.
 I read the root blog and every comment it evoked and I did so with interest. If I offended anyone by calling the discussion a circle jerk I can only offer the explanation that I was completely sober last night and that tends to affect my thinking as well as make me a little cranky. And I am often a jerk. I would be a bit more diplomatic if I really thought anyone really gave a big rat's ass.
 After my comment I turned off my computer and found my copy of "Just and Unjust Wars, A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations" by Michael Walzer. He has a chapter on humanitarian intervention which I read before jumping around and sampling some other parts. Like this conversation, I found it interesting and valuable in many ways. I would argue that any examination of the ideas and morals and [usually] crass political motives that surround and affect decisions to kill are worth having.
  What I did not find in either place is how compliance with "Just War Theory" is ever applied in a constructive way by  any leaders or by the populations they lead. I do not see any example of a war in my lifetime that met, by my evaluation, the criteria of being "just" according to the theory. I don't expect that I ever will. And I would ask, "So what?" And I might answer that I suppose that, to ineffectual and hopefully unaffected bystanders, an unexamined war is just no fun having.

Who [that matters] gives a big rat's ass whether any war ever fought meets the qualifications of being a "just war"?

At the risk of being cynical, I think the question that most modern quasi-democratic leaders are really asking themselves isn't whether it's a "just war", but rather whether they can convince their constituents that it's a "just war". So, yeah, although the reality of whether it's just might not matter to them, the perception of whether it's just often does. As such, that doesn't render the question irrelevant, but it might color how one answers the question.

And I thought you weren't feeling very meta…

Regardless, you made some excellent points there. I think one reason for the thread differing from the post was that there really wasn't much to object to in Dr C's post, and if we can't argue with each other, then what fun is it?

Hate to disagree again, but I will.  The additional question was, IMO, more along the lines of "many of us wish the Libyans could gain some protection, but should WE protect them with a no-fly zone that has a much wider "any means necessary" expanded mandate.  And Doc's contention was that Obama met every criteria of his speech in Cairo (I disagree) for a 'just war', which term was also debated.

And further, that the 'minima' you set as a standard is more fully examined by, as Q says, the requirement to look in our national mirror and history of other military ventures in order to surmise how any 'Just War' might turn out, and whether or not this really even qualifies strictly as a humanitarian mission.  IMO, of course.

No one here ever answered my question of why WE felt compelled to do other than abstain on 1973 and let the other parties take care of this business they were so eager to undertake.

Tricksy Hobbit!

An explicitly moral post about "Just War" is relabelled as primarily being about... pragmatics. (Nice footwork!)

And while the bad commenters babble on about virtue and hypocrisy, and look back at mistakes and supposed inconsistencies... everyone can see practical, decisive Smeagol being... practical, decisive. 

So, it's somehow practical to look at the past behaviour and present intentions of people like Gaddafi, while our own behaviour and intentions become past "mistakes" and "supposed inconsistencies."

Similarly, while it's important to look at what the people of Libya want (high ideals like democracy), we needn't focus on trinkets such as whether our own citizen representatives (in a representative democracy) get to stretch their lungs.

I do like the footwork though, the way the critics are now positioned as wanting to "explore" questions of "virtue" - while the tough-minded ones recognize that sometimes life puts us in a room and demands "decisions."

Ok, I agree. So let's be practical. Businesslike, even.

For starters, I don't want people making war-related decisions who have a record, not just in the past, but ongoing, of falling for asinine con jobs and making horrific decisions. So that rules out Gates, HRC, and a lot of others. (Unless we're running a too-big-to-fail bank here, there have to be consequences for actions. Right?) Because Iraq wasn't a "mistake," wasn't small, and wasn't all that difficult to see coming. So. If a politician was too caught up in their own fancies about having to be tough, if they were that mentally weak or emotionally twisted up, then I don't want them in the room making THIS decision.

In fact, who got it right when it came to Iraq? Why dear dear me, it was... the anti-war crowd. Imagine, that they could have saved us hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of human lives, and all that foreign policy prestige. Ew. What bad luck. Reality, coming to the rescue of such a "virtuous" lot.

And worse. This means that when I want the practical people in the room, ones with a record of making the right decisions when it comes to life and death, ones who don't let self-interest blind a clear-eyed look at things, I'm better off with those able to pronounce "virtue."

Imagine that.

I might have used the word 'academic' if I said 'pragmatic'.

As far as this goes, it echoes Flavius's argument: "1. If your moral position leads to lots more people being killed, you need to rethink it."

Short term, you and he undoubtedly are correct that lives will be saved; that's wonderful.  It's the longterm about which we don't know, as so often foreign intervention brings civil war, which ususally brings more deaths.  We know this because of Iraq and other places. 

I will also ask again why the US couldn't have abstained on 1973 and allowed the other nations in whose interests it was to help the rebel forces, or who stood to benefit from the same, to help them.

America’s and Europe’s tactical actions using military and economic tools during their long hegemony in the region have played a big part in creating the situation as it now stands. Are any of the weapons Khadaffi’s army use made in Libya? It is right and good that we try to prevent slaughter in Libya and if looked at only from that perspective anyone should support it. Judged only from that perspective, bombing Libya’s army could be considered just. If the bombing is done as a tactical action in support of a larger strategy of maintaining the hegemony which we need to continue our current way of being rich and powerful enough to stay rich and powerful, then the actions are not morally pragmatic, IMO, but cynically pragmatic. If that is the case, then our leaders assertion that the bombing is for a “just” purpose and done out of the good in our hearts is oraly pragmatic as long as their bullshit is believed.

Doc. 

1. Pleased that your global focus just happens to have landed, oh... precisely where the cameras happened to show up! Zooming in on the civilians cowering before the madman Gaddafi. That's awesome, the way high moral principle just happened to show up.... there. Surely, you and Articleman and others watching on American TV and seeing this massacre about to happen must be on the moral high ground here. Especially when you can wrap it up in terms like "Just War."

Coupla nagging questions though. Starting with the fact that your cameras aren't in a dozen other nations where - right now - even more civilians huddle and crazed militaries await. Maybe those nations lack the requisite madman leader who starred in made-for-tv movies back in the 80's, and ummmm, oil. Because it's not as though Gaddafi is gonna take over the Middle East, with his 6 million citizens stuck in North Africa, and we just made business and political deals with him to get rid of any nasty big-time weapons. Nope, it's basically "civilians at risk" facing Famous Madman (with oil.) That's the equation. And if you don't have those things, you're really just... Africa, aren't you?

Odd as well, that camera-placement thing. There seem to be almost none left in places like... Iraq, and Afghanistan. Where the daily death toll from the destruction just keeps on coming. And on a web-site populated by people whose party and President is right now engaged in ongoing war, deals with warlords and torturers, and run on a daily basis by the worst thieving corporations the world has to offer - all of it led in Cabinet by the worst of Reagan's old thugs (Gates) - well, you know it struck me that maybe that might enter into a Just War discussion. Seeing as how they're ongoing wars.

Present tense.

But you know what? People keep referring to them... in the past tense. As "history." So what am I to do, when Gaddafi's history (and present-day actions in his war) counts, but... ours doesn't? Shorter: If the US media, political and military leadership, democratic decision-making, courts and justice processes cannot right the ship on the wars already launched and continuing today, then how can people possibly feel it will decide rightly on this new one, and they won't be misled? How can anyone have faith that the war will be properly prosecuted? Not driven by financial considerations and poll-seeking? How can we know it will be exited sensibly?

And - the point of all this - what gives us confidence that this does not bring down more death on the Libyan people than the deaths it sought to avoid in the first place, as it has so recently done in other nations, leaving them with even greater death and misery?

It seems to me Doc, that it is your side which is operating without real-world ground beneath your feet, in this game of pragmatics. Seemingly everyone on this site, on every day, will tell me quite seriously that their national media, political decision-making and corporate structure is broken, not just in terms of its war-launching/fighting/ending capacity, but on every. single. other. issue. 

So to not see even this risk - of ongoing death and suffering beyond the lives saved it this moment - to not weigh that in, is to be unpragmatic, unrealistic.

In sum - and to toss your bomblet phrase back in your own lap - high principles, political parties and Presidential leaders who permit the continued operation of massive ongoing wars do not impress me either, Doc. "If your moral position protects those who killed lots of people, and sustains their ongoing suffering, you need to rethink it."

2. Here, you have the right point - but the wrong people. It was your friend Articleman who set up the morality vs. pragmatics opposition, in his own inimitable style. (Scroll up and see his entry of the 24th at 1:49 pm.) It was he who opposed "the practical question" and the "pragmatic" against a thread that "turns into an exploration of the moral virtue or not of actors or speakers"; and again, the "practical question about intervention" as opposed to a thread "about virtue and hypocrisy, and looking back at mistakes and supposed inconsistencies."

For myself, I was arguing that Articleman doesn't know pragmatics from a hole in the snow, since he seemed happy to exile questions not only about one of the actor's intentions, but more importantly, any evidence from wars they had recently fought and even were fighting today.

You and he believe yourselves to be wrapped in pragmatics, your boots firm on the high ground of Just War, and yet are unwilling to consider any possible implications of the present-day wars being fought by your very country. This strikes me as remarkable. As though the American political equation has just put out its other (Democratic) eye.

Pragmatics requires a clear sense of what one's own country is doing - that's relevant, not high moral talk. It also requires looking at one's own leaders. Seriously, we're at this same site that I've had to fight through fierce defences of Obama for putting Gates in charge (when I predicted - based on his decades of work - he would, come rain or shine, manage to preside over the continuance of war-making.) Same with McChrystal, who was elbow deep in torture when he was hired, but then people are shocked that somehow we're not only in the murk in Afghanistan, but also... that he was psycho. But somehow, the fact that I would look at our people, our leaders, their character and the actions which flow from it, is irrelevant... but we are to fear and tremble at the name Muammar? 

I have no problem at all with being pragmatic. I just believe you and Articleman and some others have no idea what "pragmatic" includes. 

And if I may be irritable for one moment (ha!), when you do step in to sum up, please try to at least get the sides right in the argument. My argument was that the very questions Articleman was opposing to pragmatics (and thus marginalizing), these questions of so-called "moral virtue" and "historic accident" --- are actually central to pragmatic, war-making, decision-making. But if you're seeking the man who opposed those two sets of questions, search the Dag masthead. Ta.

3. "Who am I?" is absolutely a question when lives are at stake. But I'm quite astonished that you stepped explicitly into the example of Stalin's liberation of Eastern Europe. [And BTW, yes, I'm glad they liberated Auschwitz, and fought the Nazis. Really.] But the evidence is also extremely clear that he and his troops and local allies hauled away not just a few hundred or a few thousand people to camps and eventual death, but... millions. And it was exactly this which made the people at risk maneuver so frantically to be in the right place for liberation, to support some troop movement and not others. Who... matters.

The root difficulty between us strikes me as being that you and some others have zoomed in so tightly on the citizens facing Gaddafi that the larger or longer picture is seen as being (quite harshly) both "not moral" as well as "not practical." Seriously, read these concluding sentences from your last comment: 

- High principles that allow bloody massacres do not impress me.

- I don't view other questions of purely abstract morality as moral at all.

- But symbolism is a luxury. Keeping civilians from being killed is an imperative.

That's fairly harsh stuff, when what is being requested is their inclusion within the bounds of what is felt to be "pragmatic." 

So, how about we bring it down a notch and look briefly at an example, of how what you and Articleman have labelled as symbolism, abstract morality and high principle come into practical play?

--- Zoom in. You guys want to talk about avoiding a massacre. Great. But. Something - some thing - will happen after they've been saved. So, let's imagine it triggers an extended civil war. By preserving the rebels, but without being willing to put boots on the ground, this is not just possible, but a real probability. And see, the no boots on the ground thing? Putting that into the equation requires knowing one's own nation, how far it is overextended, what public opinion will support. i.e. It's not about Gaddafi, it's about us, and what we're willing to do.

Am I moving too fast? 

If so, do let me know, because we have to act, fast, and if we act so as to balance the two sides and thus create an extended civil war, we could easily be in the realm of not just thousands dead, but tens of thousands. More.

So if this happens, should I pose these deaths back to you and Articleman? 

What's that? Another example? Ok, how about the Italians?

So, is Italy's history, position and leadership merely just irrelevant symbolism? Ummm, #1, they used to be the colonial occupier, #2, they are just miles away across the water, #3, Gaddafi is a man with a record of bringing the terror/war home to his enemies' shores, and #4, Italy's leader is a fascist with a huge media network, presently facing jailtime.

Not much that could go wrong there, pragmatically, now is there? And note, again this is all about these irrelevant factors - about Italy's history, make-up, location and leadership.

Roll the film. What happens if Gaddafi tries to save himself by turning this into a larger conflagration, by, for instance, sending teams across the water into any of 1001 Italian ports and blowing the shit out of them. After al, damned hard to stop those little light boats across the water, eh? 

Oh my, and there's France - so close-by as well!

And bang boom, we're into a whole new level of the War on Terror, with a whole new wave of Axes of Evil, and places we need to be concerned about and fight in, and then, oh yeah... oil price hikes big enough to drive the price of food through the roof globally, and knock us all deeper into recession, and that means people starve and riot and governments worldwide fall and generate 101 other pressures to respond to.

THESE are precisely the real-world concerns that politicians and military planners have to deal with. And they stem from having some sense of who Italy is, how they have acted, who is in charge, how they would react. The same way as a Libyan Civil War becomes a different game if we can't/won't put boots on the ground again - a factor relating to us, and who and where we are, and what our population will take.

Thus, if I may reply in kind to your comment on how unimpressed you were, let me just say that a "Just War" discussion which exiles considerations of intention, character, history, experience and even present-day war-fighting is not in danger of soaking my boots with its depth... especially when followed in the comments by the sort of tarted up tough-talking nonsense we've all come to know and love from liberal intellectual circles, but which works especially well when it's led by CNN zooming in on our brave/pragmatic/moral (and just) pilots as they save the women and children of Benghazi. 

Hint: Remember Tony Blair? He talked the same. sort. of. shit.