http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/04winter/wester.htm
The war in Iraq is so bad that even the Army is allowing debate on whether the war was justified or not. Franklin Eric Wester, an Army colonel and chaplin, has written an article for the Army War College's journal examining the war from the basis of the Christian Just War Theory and concluding that it doesn't meet the test.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch quotes Wester as saying that his fellow officers have not changed the way they've treated him since the article was published. This is anecdotal, but this suggests that Wester's article may reflect a lot of people's private doubts about the justification of the war.
While I cannot agree with everything in the article, I feel it is significant that even the Army brass is starting to question the war's justification. The Army is all about moving in lockstep with the President and the Armed Forces are normally among Bush's biggest supporters.
Here is how Wester evaluates the war in the light of the Just War Theory:
Legitimate Authority: Wester says this criteria is not justified because the US barely had an ad hoc "coalition of the willing." He writes that Bush's use of the phrase is vague. The fact is, every country except for Britian contributed only a tolken force. And even Britian has withdrawn most of their troops from Iraq.
Public Declaration: Wester says this criteria was met by the President's ultimatum right before the war started. However, I disagree with this. The Constitution only gives Congress the right to declare war against another country. The Iraq War Resolution did not a declaration of war; it only authorized the President to use force as a last resort. Bush broke that part of the deal and therefore, he has become widely mistrusted both here and around the world.
Just Intent: Wester makes one of his best points when he quotes a Catholic theologian. He writes:
To Paul J. Griffiths, Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Illinois, the definition of imminent has not changed: "It means the gun is at your head." And in the case of Iraq, "We just don't have that." He states that redefining imminent offers "well-intentioned support for US foreign policy, but it's not defensible in terms of traditional Just War theory."
The UN Inspectors, led by Hans Blix, had repeatedly said that there was no evidence that Iraq had any WMD's, let alone pointing them at our country. The only minor violation that the UN found was that the range of some of Iraq's missles were 103 miles, just a few miles over the limits.
Another part of the Just Intent is the massive human rights abuses that Iraq committed. Wester writes that these abuses were never used as a justification until after the fact. However, there were many people outside the administration using human rights abuses as a justification. But the problem with using human rights abuses as a justification for war is that the same logic can be used to go to war with China or Sudan or Rwanda. We are not God that we can go everywhere. Even Superman couldn't solve the nuclear weapons crisis and even the strongest military of the world can't solve everybody's human rights problems. The native peoples of every country have to solve their own problems if we are to advance the cause of human rights.
Proportionality: This is one of Wester's main points. He feels that regime change was excessive and that disarming him was sufficent. I would go farther. I feel that the amount of force that has been used by the US is way out of proportion to the threat that Saddam posed to the US. The US has killed over 100,000 innocent civilians during the conflict according to Lancet and has engaged in the systematic torture and rape of Iraqi prisoners.
Last resort: Wester defends the administration on this point, arguing that decisions to go to war are based on "prudential political and diplomatic perceptions of restraint" rather than a theoretical last resort. The problem with this line of thinking is that the administration interrupted the UN inspections in order to go to war. The UN had not finished its job of inspecting the Iraqi facilities, the longest-range missiles they had found were 103 miles; therefore, there was no reason to rush to war.
Reasonable chance for success: In this paragraph, Wester raises more questions than answers. However, this is one of my strongest arguments against the war. The Revolutionary War and the Vietnam War show that an occupying power, even the strongest nation in the world, has little chance of success against a populace who will not accept their rule. Based on the fact that the first Gulf War killed thousands of Iraqi civilians, the Iraqi uprising right after the war was brutally suppressed by Saddam's forces after the US had urged them to revolt, and thousands more were starved to death by the sanctions, the Bush administration should have realized that an attempt to occupy Iraq would be met with massive resistance.
Wester criticizes the administration on some criteria and defends them on others, but ultimately concludes that the war does not meet the Just War Theory. So when your right-wing friends try to repeat the Republican spin about what a horrible man Saddam was and how many WMD's he had, you can tell them that the justification for war is so weak, even the Army is questioning the justification for the war.