Just War

[gipper]

As American leaders (most of whom are liars, frauds, and criminals) contemplate war in multiple locations around the world (Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, etc), it is wise to read the words of a wise man.

The one an only Murray N. Rothbard.

My own view of war can be put simply: a just war exists when a people tries to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination. A war is unjust, on the other hand, when a people try to impose domination on another people, or try to retain an already existing coercive rule over them.

During my lifetime, my ideological and political activism has focused on opposition to America's wars, first because I have believed our waging them to be unjust, and, second, because war, in the penetrating phrase of the libertarian Randolph Bourne in World War I, has always been “the health of the State,” an instrument for the aggrandizement of State power over the health, the lives, and the prosperity, of their subject citizens and social institutions. Even a just war cannot be entered into lightly; an unjust one must therefore be anathema.

There have been only two wars in American history that were, in my view, assuredly and unquestionably proper and just; not only that, the opposing side waged a war that was clearly and notably unjust. Why? Because we did not have to question whether a threat against our liberty and property was clear or present; in both of these wars, Americans were trying to rid themselves of an unwanted domination by another people. And in both cases, the other side ferociously tried to maintain their coercive rule over Americans. In each case, one side — “our side” if you will — was notably just, the other side — “their side” — unjust.

To be specific, the two just wars in American history were the American Revolution, and the War for Southern Independence.

Specifically, the classical international lawyers developed two ideas, which they were broadly successful in getting nations to adopt: (1) above all, don't target civilians. If you must fight, let the rulers and their loyal or hired retainers slug it out, but keep civilians on both sides out of it, as much as possible. The growth of democracy, the identification of citizens with the State, conscription, and the idea of a “nation in arms,” all whittled away this excellent tenet of international law.

(2) Preserve the rights of neutral states and nations.
In modern international law, where “bad-guy” nations must be identified quickly and then fought by all, there are two rationales for such world-wide action, both developed by Woodrow Wilson, whose foreign policy and vision of international affairs has been adopted by every President since.

The second Wilsonian excuse for perpetual war, particularly relevant to the “Civil War,” is even more Utopian: the idea that it is the moral obligation of America and of all other nations to impose “democracy” and “human rights” throughout the globe. In short, in a world where “democracy” is generally meaningless, and “human rights” of any genuine sort virtually non-existent, that we are obligated to take up the sword and wage a perpetual war to force Utopia on the entire world by guns, tanks, and bombs.

The Somalian intervention was a perfect case study in the workings of this Wilsonian dream. We began the intervention by extolling a “new kind of army” (a new model army if you will) engaged in a new kind of high moral intervention: the U.S. soldier with a CARE package in one hand, and a gun in the other. The new “humanitarian” army, bringing food, peace, democracy, and human rights to the benighted peoples of Somalia, and doing it all the more nobly and altruistically because there was not a scrap of national interest in it for Americans.

What?s a Just War? ? LewRockwell.com

He goes on to prove conclusively how unjust Dishonest Abe was in prosecuting the War of Northern Aggression and the many murderous and deceitful motives driving the North's thirst for blood. No doubt the Lincoln cultists will fail to comprehend.