Ethics of the Iraq War

Obviously, it's not the playground good and evil dualisms as viewed through the neocon, religious right, and Bushian lens, although moral simplicity always seems to have great political purchase. I, as well as many others, have been saying this since way back prior to the war - this war is not only a strategic disaster where the assessment of "disaster" is grounded in US national interests. Neither is it merely a function of jus in bello conduct of the war.

Nancy Pelosi is on the right track in the cite below, but speaks almost exclusively to national self interest to make the moral claim. This diverts attention away from a more intelligent discussion on the ethics of this war and others. Viewing the world in terms of competing units of national self-interest will always produce wars, since interests conflict.

Tristero, on the other hand (and apart from the party politics line), here remains largely within questions about jus in bello, conduct during war. This latter move evades the larger questions of the morality of the war itself, rather than simply actions taken within the sphere of war.

Certainly, torture, the radically disproportional loss of innocent lives, the justness of the cause, etc. are all violations of both jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria in Just War Theory. But, in my view, the very existence of the Iraq War entails much deeper moral damage, and should involve a much deeper rethinking of the nature of war in a globalizing world. I seldom see that discussion occurring, except in the weak platitudes that, on the large scale, "the world changed after 9-11," and on the small scale, "the enemy, as stateless, is much different than in conventional wars [implying that this war requires new techniques of war]." Some also speak of open markets as either a future substitute for or the moral equivalent of war. But many of the ongoing global conflicts (including the risk of global civil war) are generated, not dampened, by the consequences of market politics. All of these ways of approaching the question, although important elements, seem limiting to me on their own.

I'm no pacifist. I find most extant versions of pacifism to be quite feeble arguments and overly-idealistic visions of the future. But there is room here and great potential for a reformed and rearticulated argument that draws from pacifism - or something like it - to challenge the very presence and nature of wars in our current world. The Iraq War could be a catalyst for this discussion if we could imaginatively move past traditional markers for thinking about war and its conduct.

Tristero:

Pelosi on Huffington Post:

This morning, I visited our brave men and women at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. It is a place of prayers, of honor, of respect, and reflection. And I left there more committed than ever to bringing the war to an end.

I told my colleagues yesterday that the biggest ethical issue facing our country for the past three and a half years is the war in Iraq. This unnecessary pre-emptive war has come at great cost. Nearly 2,900 of our brave troops have lost their lives and more than 21,000 more have suffered lasting wounds. Since the war began, Congress has appropriated more than $350 billion, and the United States has suffered devastating damage to our reputation in the eyes of the world.

The notion that the war is an ethical issue is an important one. It ties the mindset of a party that would appoint a Mark Foley to the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children or an Eric Keroack to oversee Title X funding to the kind of mentality that would wage an immoral, insane war.

And quite rightly, Pelosi understands that the prosecution of this war, the continued American involvement in the carnage of a civil war, the utterly pointless deaths, the gut-wrenching lack of positive alternatives as long as Bush is in office, the madness of American exceptionalism and pretensions to military/economic empire, the unspeakable corruption and cronyism, and the torture ... Without a doubt, the Bush/Iraq war is the pre-eminent moral issue facing the country right now and the foreseeable future.