Yuri Ishikawa
Mr. Pangier/ Mr. Shaffer
European Literature/ European History
30 March 2016
Just War Theory
Can War Be Justified? War is moral when fought for peace and by just rules to curtail the oppressors. Now what is moral? what is peace? what is justified? There is no ethical justification to promiscuously destroy what we have a tendency to never produced and can't create. There is, however, one exceptional case that presumably justifies destruction of life, destruction of your people or their way of life.
The Vietnam War is an example of unjustifiable war. It wasn't justifiable because the main reason for the war was to help prevent the spread of communism, the US was not in any direct or indirect threat of Vietnam or its communism. I think that we do not have the right to invade other countries purely on the basis of enforcing democracy. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were dropped in the entire Second World War. This war waste 58,000 American lives who has future, but countless innocent Vietnamese civilians and millions of Vietnamese soldiers. The 72 million liters of chemical defoliants used by the Americans still lead to higher rates of cancer and other skin complaints in modern Vietnam and Americans just because US had this belief that democracy is the only way to do government. In Vietnam the dioxide remains in the soil and is now damaging the health of the grandchildren of the war's victims. A report published in 2003 claimed that 650,000 people in Vietnam, most of the children were still suffering from chronic conditions as a result of the chemicals dropped on the country during the war. Also American president didn’t told to American soldier that chemical defoliants would effects their bodies. As this circumstance, young people who volunteered for the war didn’t know much of information about war. From the book, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, we could see that how the youth are forced to fight and how they don’t know what their fighting for. “ ”Then what exactly is the war for?"asks Tjaden. Kat shrugs his shoulders. "There must be some people to whom the war is useful." "Well, I'm not one of them," grins Tjaden. "Not you, nor anybody else here.”” (Remarque 205).
A war is justifiable, when its means are. Satyagraha is one of justifiable wars. A satyagraha movement is a non-violence movement started by Mahatma Gandhi to send the British back to their country and leaving India Free. Satyagraha also helped shape Nelson Mandela 's struggle in South Africa under apartheid , Martin Luther King, Jr. 's campaigns during the civil rights movement in the United States , and many other similar movements. Satyagraha, this translates roughly as "Truth-force." Every time, when somebody talks about resistance, everybody thinks in terms of weapons and war and fighting.
But we can resist with the state so powerful with no weapon. Nonviolence is something very powerful, and the power behind it is not weapons, but the support of the people. (will elaborate)
“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind”(John F. Kennedy) The War always make a lot of sacrifice. The War killed many innocent people and nature. But it is not killed the only people who were involved the war. Once war happened, after over the war still it left a scar. Most of the time, the war happened for peace, but it has resulted in many disputes and destruction.