Laurie Calhoun - War and Delusion - A Critical Examination-Palgrave Macmillan US (2013)

War and Delusion
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PERSPECTIVES ON WAR ,

PEACE, AND HUMAN CONFLICT
Series Editor: Charles P. Webel
Terror, Terrorism, and the Human Condition

By Charles P. Webel
The Ethics and Efficacy of the Global War on Terrorism:
Fighting Terror with Terror
Edited by Charles P. Webel and John A. Arnaldi
War and Delusion: A Critical Examination
By Laurie Calhoun
W a r a n d D e lusion
A Critical Examination
L aur ie Cal houn

WAR AND DELUSION
Copyright © Laurie Calhoun, 2013.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-29462-3
All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
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this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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ISBN 978-1-349-45154-8 ISBN 978-1-137-29463-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137294630
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Calhoun, Laurie.
War and delusion : a critical examination / by Laurie Calhoun.
p. cm.—(Twenty-first century perspectives on war, peace, and
human conflict)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. War (Philosophy) 2. Just war doctrine. I. Title.

B105.W3C35 2013
172⬘.42—dc23 2012029471
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: February 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Mary Margaret Brock Calhoun-Howe and
Charles Alexander Calhoun
C on t e n ts
Introduction 1
1 Self-Defense and War 7
2 The Triumph of Just War Rhetoric 25
3 Truth and Consequences 47
4 Bombs and Charity 67
5 The Other Side of the Story (Neglected Perspectives) 87
6 Real Leaders 109
7 Real Soldiers 127
8 The Moral Fog of War 147
9 Democracy, Human Rights, and War 167
10 Why We (Continue to) Fight 187
Notes 203
Glossary 221
Bibliography 233
Films Cited 245
Index 249
I n t roduc t ion
T hroughout human history, groups of people have committed mass

slaughter at the behest of their leaders and in the name of justice,
morality, and peace, invariably insisting that they must stop “The
Evil Enemy.” Paradoxically, the two sides to every deadly conflict are
united in their beliefs that (1) they are right; (2) their adversaries are
wrong; and (3) their own cause will prevail, provided that they take up
arms and fight. The wrongful practices of another regime, committed
at an earlier time, are nearly always cited by leaders as the proximate
cause of the conflicts in which they decide to deploy military force.
For the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq to have been just, the invasion
of Kuwait by Iraq had to have been unjust. Saddam Hussein claimed
that Iraq’s territory had been unjustly appropriated by the Kuwaitis
through their siphoning off of oil (Duncan 2003).
Some version of “just war theory,” a framework crafted in ancient
and medieval times, continues to be waved in the twenty-first century
as a banner by war makers and carried into battle by their soldiers.
The leaders of formal military institutions and terrorist factions alike
maintain that justice is on their side. Through making this claim,
they persuade their troops to kill people about whom they know
nothing beyond what they have been told by the very leaders who
have ordered them to kill.
The longevity of the just war paradigm is in some ways remark-
able, invoked as it continues to be centuries after the Protestant
Reformation, which rejected the picture of political leaders as possess-
ing privileged access to the will of God. In spite of the ascendancy in
the modern world of human rights and democracy, including widely
affirmed principles of due process and transparency, the idea that war
is often an appropriate solution to intergroup conflict continues to be
accepted by the political leaders and the populace of nearly all modern
nations, in addition to being defended by intellectuals.
Many military advocates throughout history have been Christians.
The just war paradigm resolves through reinterpretation the apparent
conflict between the teachings of Jesus Christ and the recourse to
deadly force. “Thou shalt not kill” is understood to mean “Thou shalt
2 Wa r a n d D e l u s ion
not murder,” and just warriors are said to fight with “right intention”
(rather than turning the other cheek). According to this view, the acts
of killing committed by just warriors—whether intentional or not—
are not acts of murder.
The purpose of just war theory is often said by its advocates to be
to diminish the frequency and barbarity of war. But history suggests
that, far from limiting warfare, the just war paradigm facilitates it.
This is because people mistake the moral rhetoric used to rationalize
war for moral justification. While waving the “just war” banner, lead-
ers and soldiers dismiss as morally innocuous the killing of inno-
cent people—labeled “collateral damage”—by invoking the curious
notion (rejected within civil society) that killers are responsible only
for the deaths which they directly intend.
Each pro-military group insists that “the bad guys” are found
on the other side, but a particular group’s basis for distinguishing
itself from “the enemy” is often no more and no less than that they
live where they happen to live. One’s spatiotemporal proximity to a
given leader would seem to provide no rational grounds whatsoever
for believing his stories. Yet most people appear to believe that they
should support whatever has been labeled “defense” by their own
leaders. The populace, under the sway of mythically charged just war
rhetoric, often falls prey to a slippery-slope mode of reasoning accord-
ing to which even atrociously destructive and barbaric acts can be
viewed as permissible in what is said to be defense.
Once upon a time, wars were fought on horseback at remote sites
by leaders flanked by their troops, using spears, bows, arrows, and
knives. The invention of the rifle in the late fifteenth century irrevo-
cably transformed the nature of weapons and warfare (Colson 2002,
Boot 2006). Little more than a century ago, in 1902, the Wright
brothers took their very first flight. That remarkable technological
leap forward transformed many aspects of the world, but perhaps
most dramatic of all, and certainly what has had the most tangible
and devastating consequences for human beings, was the radical
reformulation of the concept of “defense.” No longer was territorial
defense strictly a matter of protecting perimeters, for with the advent
of aerial means of transport, lands became accessible and thus vulner-
able from the sky. In the ensuing years, the development of imple-
ments of destruction to be deployed from above, delivered by aircraft,
far exceeded what any ancient warrior might ever have imagined even
in his dreams—or worst nightmares.
The number and lethality of weapons in existence increased continu-
ously over the course of the past century, as the arms industry became
I n t r oduc t ion 3
a lucrative part of the world economic system buoyed from both sides
by the standoff between ideological capitalists and their archenemies,
the communists. With the invention of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) and the subsequent build up of these arms during the Cold
War, along came MAD, “mutually assured destruction,” a dangerous
policy of deterrence devised by US and Soviet strategists. In this way,
the idea of “total warfare,” of which the nineteenth-century Prussian
Carl von Clausewitz wrote so romantically, became a real possibility
(Howard 1983, von Clausewitz 1976).
The just war paradigm continues to be defended by contemporary
writers in the Western world, but a variety of disparate political and
economic factors conspire to shape foreign policy and inspire leaders’
declarations of war. Leaders are influenced by many different parties,
all of whom have their own interests at stake; to suppose that all of
these parties are morally motivated would be a naïve mistake (Feinstein
2011). In spite of the enormously powerful economic forces in play in
the capitalized weapons industry, which is parasitic upon the modern
military institutions erected by states, those who continue to defend
just war theory tend to argue to this day as though the question
of war had only to do with morality and justice, and the economics
involved, far from being decisive, were somehow irrelevant.
In the contemporary world, the political leaders who opt for the
use of deadly force and the pundits who promote it in the mainstream
media are never those who wield it, and they do not risk their own
lives through sending troops to fight or by supporting decisions to do
so. The political leaders who make recourse to military force, having
ominously announced that “all options are on the table,” are pro-
tected physically, through their geographic distance from the place
where they send soldiers to fight, and psychologically, through their
ability retrospectively to insist that they themselves never personally
killed anyone. The ability to absolve one’s self from moral complic-
ity in the commission of what retrospectively become regarded as
misguided military campaigns—a particularly glaring example being
Vietnam—should not be underestimated. What, in truth, do political
leaders have to lose in advocating the use of deadly force against the
people of other lands?
Politically speaking, leaders often have much to gain through
waging war. Once a military campaign is already underway, the
populace tends to line up in support of the commander in chief,
persuaded to believe that his cause must have been just, given the
lives lost and the exorbitant cost of high-tech war. But after the fact,
in cases such as Vietnam, the policymakers themselves have generally
refused to shoulder any responsibility for their part in the slaughter.

The immunity of political leaders is not, however, merely psychologi-
cal and legal. If calls to war such as that of US president George W.
Bush against Iraq in 2003 actually increase anti-American sentiment
around the globe and, correlatively, the risk of retaliatory actions
against the people of the offending nation, war architects themselves
remain the least likely to suffer from reprisals, protected as they are
by an impenetrable security apparatus not enjoyed by the populace
more generally.
Calling a war “just” or “holy” does not make it so, but people
throughout history have simply assumed that it does, gullibly heed-
ing the orders of their leaders even to commit what later become
reinterpreted as abominable crimes or egregious mistakes. No peo-
ple will rally behind a leader who asks them to murder the inhabit-
ants of another (or their own) land. Yet the fact that they have been
offered a just war interpretation of whatever it is that their leaders
wish to accomplish suffices for the majority of the populace to sup-
port “the cause.” The Third Reich provides graphic and instructive
examples of nationalism and military zeal gone awry. Nazi Germany
also underscores the important distinction between a just interpreta-
tion or story (which is false though appealing) and a just war. Adolf
Hitler achieved a following through persuading the German people
to believe that his was a just cause. Hitler effected the murder of mil-
lions of innocent people by stigmatizing them as “The Evil Enemy”
and insisting that justice and morality mandated their deaths.
No one has ever devised a means by which to distinguish benevo-
lent men of moral concern from duplicitous monsters, at least not until
it is too late to do anything about the death and destruction already
wrought by belligerent leaders, all of whom mouth moral rhetoric
in support of their homicidal campaigns. It takes a broader perspec-
tive, either temporally or geographically, to be able to recognize the
important distinction between the law (either domestic or interna-
tional) at a particular moment in history, or the orders pronounced
by political leaders, and the requirements of morality. While we may
later revise our understanding of what transpired during a military
conflict, it seems quite difficult for most people to question—and
even more difficult to reject—the accounts offered contemporane-
ously by their own leaders.
The prevailing pro-military stance embodies a set of substantive
assumptions that rarely surface to the level of public debate during
times of conflict. In this book, I present a wide-ranging critique of
the idea that the use of military force against the people of other lands
I n t r oduc t ion 5
is often permissible and sometimes obligatory. According to a fairly

standard and widely affirmed view regarding warfare:
The permissibility of self-defense implies the permissibility of war. Just

as persons may defend themselves from violent attack, so, too, may
groups engage in war when threatened with harm. Just wars satisfy
the requirements of the just war tradition, and political leaders are the
legitimate authority with regard to when and where war may be waged
on behalf of their comrades. Although war is not, in and of itself, good,
it is sometimes the lesser of two evils—the only way to prevent even
more people from being unjustly killed. Collateral damage is an unfor-
tunate consequence of modern war, but we must take up arms when
we or our allies are imperiled. As paradoxical as it may seem, under
certain circumstances the only way to bring about peace is through
war. Because of the ongoing possibility of outside threats, we must
maintain a standing army and a formidable stockpile of weapons ready
to deploy. When a nation is led by a criminal regime, its population
should be rescued by the international community through military
missions of humanitarian intervention; to refuse to take up arms to
save other people’s lives is wrong. Soldiers form part of a long-standing
tradition of noble and courageous people who have fought and died
for humanity and our values. Terrorism is morally distinct from mili-
tary action, and political terrorists are the worst enemies of humanity,
against which any and every means may and should be used.
I assume that many readers will agree with most, if not all, of the
above statements. In what follows, I call into question each and every
one of them.
1
S e l f - De f e nse a n d Wa r
I can’t really blame these people for not wanting us to be here . . .

I wouldn’t want some other country to come in and just take over
our country and drive through our streets. And I got to admit, we’re
pretty intimidating when we roll in, you know, we got fuckin’ weapons
pointed every which way . . . Yeah, I’m sure it scares the shit out of these
people, and I guess they figure they have to fight back.
—US private first class Thomas Turner1
T he recourse to military force violates the proscription within civil

society against the killing of human beings, which is why every deci-
sion to wage war must be defended. The rationalizations offered by
political leaders are nearly always assumed uncritically by the bulk
of the populace to be sound. Numerous propagandistic uses of just
war rhetoric have been retrospectively analyzed by historians, but the
people of most nations persist in their generous financial support of
the armed forces under the assumption that their activities are forms
of legitimate self-defense.
The sometimes vituperative critique by military supporters of those
who express doubts and misgivings about the wars waged by their lead-
ers appears to derive in large part from their belief in the self-evident
truth that any reasonable person should care about self-defense.
Military theorists have often commenced from the assumption that
war is a form of community self-defense, but this assumption needs
to be subjected to scrutiny, not simply accepted as true by defini-
tion. How, for example, does one get from the moral permissibility of
self-defense to the obliteration of a water treatment facility located in
another part of the world? To answer the question whether war is a
form of self-defense, we must first understand what self-defense is and
under what circumstances we deem it to be legitimate.
To intentionally and physically destroy another human being in
civil society is to commit a capital crime. Nonetheless, self-defense,
the use of force to protect oneself from an aggressor, is considered
an acceptable justification for injuring and sometimes even killing

another person, provided that doing so is the only way to prevent
equally serious harm to one’s self. There are violent people, who can-
not control their own behavior or derive pleasure from inflicting
harm. Others are willing to kill to obtain the objects of their desire.
The practice of literal self-defense seems relatively uncontroversial and
intuitively sound: an innocent person directly threatened with harm
may defend him- or herself against such unjust attack.
The paradigmatic case of self-defense involves an agent who per-
ceives himself to be in peril and adopts violent means in order to pro-
tect himself. A convenience store employee confronted by an armed
robber may swiftly surrender the contents of the cash register under
the assumption that the criminal is threatening the use of deadly
force with one aim in mind, to obtain money. By not attempting to
frustrate the robber’s plan, the cashier may well save his own life. But
a mercenarily motivated criminal may also decide to kill the witness
to his crime, and if that person recognizes that his only chance to sur-
vive will to be to neutralize the threat at hand, then the use of force
in self-defense seems obviously justified. If the robber were somehow
to indicate that he intended to liquidate the clerk, then certainly the
clerk would have good reason to attempt, even through the use of
violent means, to protect himself, in legitimate self-defense.
What if a cashier were to shoot a customer who seemed suspi-
cious but posed no direct physical threat? The laws of civil society
do not permit the use of force against persons who might possibly be
dangerous, but only those who directly threaten real physical harm.
Appearance and reality sometimes tragically collide, as in the case of
Amadou Diallo, a black immigrant from Guinea who was shot by four
New York City policemen a total of forty-one times, under the errone-
ous belief that when the man reached for his wallet, he was reaching
for a gun (Rushdie 2000).2 The policemen implicated in the Diallo
case were acquitted of homicide because they were able to explain to
the jury how the perceived threat generated their response. Policemen
are often in the situation of protecting themselves from dangerous
criminals, and the jury was able to sympathize with the defendants,
though they may have overreacted in the heat of the moment.
In stark contrast, a person who feared that his neighbor was dan-
gerous and therefore trespassed into his home to kill him would be
charged with murder. People are legally permitted to defend them-
selves from threatened acts of aggression, but not to summarily exe-
cute suspects who seem to pose a potential menace. Still, even justified
self-defense has limits, admitting only such action as is necessary to
Se l f -D e f e nse a n d Wa r 9
protect oneself from harm, which often does not require killing any-
one. Criminal law proscribes the wanton slaughter of people under
the pretense of self-defense. Had the men who killed Amadou Diallo
shot him forty-one times over the course of an hour (rather than only
a few seconds), they might well have been convicted of murder.
Once a danger has been defused—which happens the moment a
person is injured so as to prevent his deployment of a weapon—the
aim of self-defense has been achieved.3 This is why in cases where the
force wielded allegedly in self-defense would have been sufficient to
kill the aggressor multiple times, the killer is typically charged with
criminal homicide. The solicitor for Tony Martin, a Norfolk, UK,
farmer convicted of homicide for killing a teenage burglar in Martin’s
home, posed the following question: “Bearing in mind you can only
use enough force to defeat the threat, do you look at it in objec-
tive terms or in the eyes of the person under threat?” (Morris 2001).
The Martin case sparked a grassroots movement in Britain dedicated
to promoting the rights of homeowners to defend themselves from
harm. However, an equally vehement group insisted that the killing
was not an act of self-defense, for Martin shot at the burglars as they
attempted to flee the house through a window.
Such scenarios raise an interesting question relating to the felony
murder rule, according to which any death that occurs during the
commission of a crime is entirely the criminal’s responsibility. An
agent threatened by attack may of course overreact, wielding excessive
force in self-defense because his powers of judgment have been tem-
porarily impaired by his emotional response of fear to the dangerous
situation in which he has found himself. But such cases are distinct
from those in which the fact that a person has trespassed is taken as an
“opportunity” to commit homicide. Obviously, juries must carefully
assess the details of what transpired in such cases in order to arrive at
appropriate conclusions regarding culpability.
Martin was initially convicted of murder, but his sentence was later
commuted to manslaughter, and he was released after having served
only three years in prison, a much lighter sentence than that usually
imposed upon capital criminals. While people continue to disagree
about whether Martin’s use of force was excessive, all parties to the
dispute seem to concur that what distinguishes self-defense mor-
ally from murder is its complete lack of premeditation. The intention
underlying a calculated, planned attempt to kill another human being
is regarded as morally significant and marks the distinction between
first-degree murder and other grades of homicide, including invol-
untary manslaughter. The physical consequence for the victim may
be the same, but the killer’s intention determines the morality of his
action, according to the laws of civil society.
Legitimate instances of self-defense involve an agent protecting
himself from the menace posed by an aggressor who is armed and
dangerous and clearly intends to harm the person who wields force
to deter the threat. The person is surprised by the perilous situation
in which he has found himself and decides in the moment, as a direct
result of his own perceptions, to take action against the aggressor
so as to neutralize the threat with which he has been confronted
through no fault of his own. Cases of legitimate self-defense high-
light the intuitive concepts of proportionality and last resort, for while
people are justified in defending themselves from attack, they may
wield only so much force as is necessary to thwart a clear and present
deadly threat. Premeditated killings are not acts of self-defense, for
when there is time to formulate a plot, there is also time to take cover
or leave (Calhoun 2004d).
* * *
Stripped down to its most basic elements, setting to one side the proce-
dural differences which have evolved over millennia, war is essentially
the intentional use of homicidal force by groups against other groups.
This definition covers the entire panoply of deadly group conflicts
throughout the history of human society, whatever the implements
of death may be: spears, arrows, knives, bayonets, machetes, machine
guns, landmines, missiles, or bombs of one or another kind. During
wartime, individual soldiers working in tandem attempt to destroy
through the use of weaponry designed expressly for this purpose
adversarial soldiers who are also working in tandem. The ultimate goal
of each side is to defeat—to neutralize—the enemy. The groups for
which soldiers fight may constitute either nations or factions, internal
fractions whose members dispute the status quo distribution of power.
But the social hierarchy governing the conduct of war is the same on
both sides: a commander orders his troops to kill other troops who are
following the orders of the enemy commander to do the same.
One immediate problem with the assimilation of war with
self-defense is that, in the latter case, it is considered impermissible
to kill an aggressor when a lesser form of violence would achieve the
same aim of defusing the danger at hand. Moreover, it is not thought
to be permissible within civil society to kill other, nonthreatening
people in deflecting a threat to oneself. Military supporters may
respond that, during wartime, to leave an enemy soldier intact is to
fail to protect one’s self and one’s comrades. Accordingly, the inten-
tion of soldiers who are deliberately attempting to kill their adversar-
ies can be construed as self-defensive, under the assumption that only
the complete destruction of an active combatant will achieve the aim
of self-defense. In this view, that innocent people may be destroyed
during attempts by soldiers to neutralize enemy combatants is an
unfortunate but unavoidable tangential effect.
The superficial plausibility of the “war as self-defense” picture not-
withstanding, what an individual soldier does during wartime cannot
be an instance of literal self-defense, in the strictest sense of the term,
for he could save his own life simply by surrendering or, even more
assuredly, by refusing altogether to go to the battlefield to fight.4
Lt. General Hal Moore has observed that “American soldiers don’t
fight for what some president says on T.V., they don’t fight for mom,
apple pie, the American flag . . . They fight for one another.”5 Is a sol-
dier defending his comrades? No, Elaine Scarry explains, for “if it
were this, he would have led those comrades to another geography”
(Scarry 1985, 3). A further problem is that the “self-defense” char-
acterization can apply only to one side of any military conflict at a
time, though both describe their own acts of homicide in essentially
indistinguishable terms (Lackey 2004).
Military supporters will retort that this simply shows that one side
is wrong. The “just warriors” are fighting in self-defense against the
aggressors, who are not doing the same, regardless of what their com-
manders may claim. Nonetheless, many war supporters have advocated
“taking the battle to the enemy,” sending soldiers to far away places
to address threats before they reach the homeland. Since none of the
wars fought by the United States over the course of the past century
involved directly protecting territory invaded by outsiders, supporters
of those interventions have implicitly rejected the literal self-defense
constraint according to which one may not trespass other people’s prop-
erty in order to neutralize a potential future threat. In other words,
they support the activity of war in spite of the fact that the analogous
“self-defense” scenario—involving an individual who travels to a locale
away from his home to kill a person perceived as dangerous—seems on
its face preposterous. Many regard the US response to the December 7,
1941, attack on Pearl Harbor as obviously justified, but that response,
too, transcended the purely self-defensive action of fortifying US bor-
ders and installations against further attack.
The self-defensive “battle” against the perpetrators of the attacks of
September 11, 2001, was in this sense lost, for the invaders achieved
their aim of destroying Americans on US territory even, remarkably,
within a wing of the Pentagon itself. The perpetrators also succeeded

in terrorizing the rest of the inhabitants of the nation for months to
come, and their actions were characterized by US political and mili-
tary leaders as a declaration of war. The 2001 war on Afghanistan and
the 2003 invasion of Iraq were supported by many Americans on the
grounds that the defense of the US homeland required, again, “taking
the battle to the enemy.”6 While some who praised the 2001 invasion
of Afghanistan did not extend their support to the war against Iraq
in 2003, the former alone suffices to show that the widely affirmed
self-defense constraints within domestic contexts are not regarded as
prohibitive by those who condone war abroad.
There can be little doubt that soldiers fighting a ground war on
their own territory view themselves as engaged in literal self-defense
when directly faced with physical threats, but combat soldiers fight-
ing abroad do not simply find themselves on the battlefield. They have
been sent there by the commander in chief to meet the enemy soldiers
whom they fight. Comparing the bare structure of war to that of legit-
imate self-defense, then, the most immediate difference between the
two is that the reason for which soldiers fight does not emerge from
their own interpretation of the alleged danger, but derives instead
from the version of the story relayed to them by their commanders.
Rather than perceiving a danger and thwarting it, the soldiers are told
that the danger exists and that they must neutralize it through kill-
ing enemy soldiers and eliminating their caches of weapons, wherever
they may be said to hide.
Wars fought abroad involve an intention on the part of the com-
mander in chief to engage his troops in battle, while self-defense
involves a person who finds himself in a dangerous situation by chance
and, in desperation, defends himself from harm. When a country has
been invaded by enemy soldiers, then the people of the invaded land
do find themselves in that situation by chance, and so their use of force
to repel acts of aggression by the invaders is much easier to construe
in terms of self-defense, for they may quite reasonably regard them-
selves along the lines of an abruptly awakened person who reaches for
his gun to protect himself from a trespasser.
* * *
There is evidently a difference between an individual defending his

physical person and the military personnel of a nation defending
other people. Still, some war supporters appear to think of the mili-
tary as analogous to the head of a household or a parent-protector
figure, who would naturally defend his children from attack in the
very manner in which he would defend himself. Children are inca-
pable of defending themselves from aggressors, and it is commonly
thought to be the duty of parents to care for and protect their own
progeny. The parents in such cases act on behalf of their children, and
the war analogy is supposed to be that, just as helpless children have
the right to be defended by their parents (assuming that duties imply
correlative rights), so, too, do civilians have the right to be defended
by the military, which has been charged with this responsibility and
armed for this purpose.
Rhetorical allusions to self-defense have proven to be highly effec-
tive throughout history in rallying the populace and troops to sup-
port leaders’ military campaigns. However, the analogy between war
and self-defense is extremely weak, even when the former is com-
pared to the defense of a family by a parent-protector figure. No
father would bomb the school in which his children were attend-
ing class as a means of “protecting” them from an aggressor on the
premises. Yet modern war results in the deaths of people who pose
no danger to others, people who happen by chance to be located in
the vicinity of a perceived threat. The most glaring problem with
equating war and self-defense, then, would seem to be that the for-
mer involves an excessive use of force. The extraordinarily destructive
weapons of modern war invariably kill innocent people who threaten
no harm to anyone.
In fact, beyond the threat of death itself, none of the features of
legitimate self-defense is present in wars fought by soldiers abroad.
First, while legitimate self-defense culminates only sometimes in death,
war always does. In addition, the military bears no resemblance to the
heads of households who protect their children, for military person-
nel generally fill their roles as a matter of profession: either they are
paid to wield deadly weapons, or else they are conscripted by law. In
either case, military officers and soldiers are not defending people out
of concern and love for individuals, as typically occurs within a family.
The obligation of a father to protect his children is grounded in the
responsibilities incurred through opting for parenthood. In contrast,
the obligation of military personnel to fight for their nation is either
a vocational obligation, arising through a contractual relationship to
an employer, or a state-imposed duty incurred by virtue of one’s place
of birth. In countries with voluntary armies, these distinctions are
blurred by military marketers, who offer potential enlistees enticing
contracts while at the same time persuading them to believe that they
will be fulfilling a noble and honorable role.
In modern warfare, the commander in chief does not typically

participate in the wars of his own waging, so he is not related to the
populace being defended as is the father to the children whom he
protects in his own home. But the comparison between the head of
the household and the soldiers who do the actual fighting is faulty
as well, for soldiers act under orders handed down by their superior
officers and the commander in chief, who provide their own inter-
pretations of the danger against which soldiers have been ordered
to fight. Wars are initiated by political leaders who marshal troops
for what the leaders claim to be a just cause, nearly always making
reference to some version of community self-defense. Still, one may
protest, why should that matter? Should not a soldier be able to trust
his commander in chief and other superior officers when they indicate
that the time to fight has arrived? Such a response fails to appreciate
that if any wars have been just, then at least half of the command-
ers throughout history have wrongly ordered their troops to kill,
because the justice of one side is parasitic on the injustice of the other.
(It is possible for both sides to be killing wrongfully.) Soldiers no
doubt prefer to believe that they are fighting on the side of justice,
but their own commander’s authority is a reflection of his power, not
the truth of his claims.
Soldiers, whether allied or enemy, do not, as does a person acting
in literal self-defense, base their actions upon their own perceptions
of the situation, except in the most local of contexts as they fight indi-
vidually to preserve their own lives, having already agreed to present
themselves at the battlefield on the basis of a story provided to them
by their commanders. In fact, because professional soldiers accept
orders to kill in exchange for financial remuneration, their actions,
when conducted abroad, would seem to be far more similar to those
of paid assassins or hit men than to those of individuals who kill in
literal self-defense. For obvious reasons, this is not a similarity likely
to be recognized, much less welcomed, by those who support the
activities of the modern military. Nonetheless, when queried, many
soldiers will frankly aver that their primary motivation for having
enlisted was their desire for a good-paying job with benefits.7
Ground warfare bears a degree of similarity to self-defense in those
cases where people fight literally to protect themselves and their own
property against invaders. However, modern aerial combat is action
at a vast distance, far away from what has been identified by military
planners as a threat. The soldiers deployed in bombing campaigns
cannot be said to be fighting in literal self-defense, for their actions
are offensive, not defensive. Such soldiers travel to another part of
the world to neutralize a perceived danger in an action similar to

that of an individual who trespasses into the home of his suspicious
neighbor in order to “defend” himself against what he perceives to be
a potential threat. However, the disconnect between the killer’s own
assessment of the situation and the actions he carries out under order
makes the use of deadly force by bomber pilots far more problematic,
morally speaking, than even that of the person who invades his neigh-
bor’s place of residence with the intention of protecting himself. For
bombers have only one reason for believing that the targets of their
attack are threatening: they have been told this by their superior offi-
cers, who have been told this in turn by the political leaders of their
government or group.
* * *
The assumption that war is a form of self-defense leads directly to

the erroneous identification of the nation as a subject along the lines
of a person with a right to defend himself, a mistake often made by
political theorists treating the issue of group conflict. Hugo Grotius,
a seventeenth-century thinker regarded by scholars as the “father” of
international law for his contributions to what have become widely
accepted legal principles, conceived of international law on analogy
to the moral relationships obtaining between persons (Grotius 1962).
Wars of self-defense are said by Grotius (and others) to be justified
on grounds analogous to individual acts of self-defense. However,
according to modern philosophical conceptions of moral person-
hood, individual human beings are subjects of moral consideration
because they are rational, free, self-governing, or sentient centers of
consciousness (Calhoun 2011b). None of these properties is shared by
nations. In treating nations as persons, Grotius and others commit the
fallacy of false analogy.8
To apply moral language to nations, as though they had rights to
life (or existence), also exemplifies the fallacy of composition, which
is illustrated by Michael Walzer’s explanation of how the “rights of
nations” derive from the rights of the individuals who make them up:
Aggression is a singular and undifferentiated crime because, in all its

forms, it challenges rights that are worth dying for. The rights in ques-
tion are summed up in the lawbooks as territorial integrity and politi-
cal sovereignty. The two belong to states, but they derive ultimately
from the rights of individuals, and from them they take their force.
“The duties and rights of states are nothing more than the duties and
rights of the men who compose them.” That is the view of a conven-
tional British lawyer, for whom states are neither organic wholes nor
mystical unions. And it is the correct view (Walzer 1977, 53).
The right of nations to exist does not follow from the rights to life
of their constituents any more than it follows from “all members of
the assembly are male” that “the assembly is male.” Assemblies are
not capable of being gendered, and nations are not the sorts of enti-
ties capable of having rights. Nations possess none of the properties
in virtue of which human beings may be said to be moral persons.
The argument from the natural rights of persons to the rights of a
nation is unsound, and a fallacious appeal to authority (in this case,
British Law) is no antidote to the fallacy of composition. Perhaps
references to established legal practices and texts should be construed
as an appeal to tradition or to the masses, but those would be no less
fallacious. Many traditions have been abandoned, and the majority
opinion has often been wrong, as it was in Nazi Germany.
States are artifacts created by human beings. Therefore, the
“necessities” and “rights” of states cannot logically supersede the
natural rights of human beings to exist. Even if one were to attempt
to interpret more charitably the alleged derivation of the rights of
nations from those of their inhabitants, arguing, for example, that
these rights derive from the appointment by the people of the state as
their protector, serious logical quandaries arise. By such reasoning, it
would appear to follow that the conglomerations of people known as
“nations” have no more and no less moral value than do the smaller
conglomerations of people who make up dissenting factions. Indeed,
given that the individual members of a faction have withdrawn their
support from the nation or society from which they dissent, it cannot
be their own status as moral agents that confers upon the larger group
(of which the faction is a refractory subset) its alleged right to kill in
“self-defense.”
The analogy between persons and nations and the concomitant
extension to the latter of a right to self-defense is further impugned
by the fact that, unlike human beings, nearly all modern nations came
to exist through arguably criminal actions, specifically, the plunder-
ing of indigenous peoples (Zinn 2003). While human beings are
born innocent, nations probably never are, and their success would
seem to be dependent upon the prudent use and development of the
booty of their piracies of the past. Through appealing to national
“self-defense” as a justification for mass slaughter, political leaders
presume not only that history is quite limited in extent, but also that
unjustly acquired property belongs to the families (descendants) of

the criminals who stole it.
National “prudence” and morality are conflated during war-
time, when the self-interest of a nation masquerades as a moral cause
weighty enough to justify the annihilation of innocent people inevita-
ble in modern military conflicts. The right to self-defense of a nation
is claimed by military supporters to arise from the rights of individu-
als to defend their person and being, despite the fact that those very
individuals may be—indeed, some of them will be—annihilated in
the process of defending the nation. Even in battles fought abroad
(sparing the civilians back home), the soldiers sacrificed through war
were formerly a part of the community allegedly being defended.
The leaders who wage such wars conduct themselves as though their
current territories were eternally existent entities whose rights may
supersede those of the moral persons they comprise. But, to reiterate,
countries are artifacts. To offer but one among countless examples,
modern-day Iraq was not discovered but created, pieced together by
British colonizers in the early twentieth century.
* * *
War is often said to be waged in the name of humanity, but the fact that
most war casualties since World War II have been civilians belies such
claims (Hartigan 1982, Roberts 2010). The technologically sophisti-
cated weapons of modern war have rendered the recourse by nations
to the use of military force more and more dangerous to noncomba-
tant, nonthreatening human beings. Consider, for example, the num-
ber of people exposed to depleted uranium in Kosovo and Iraq, and
the vast tracts of land rendered uninhabitable by landmines and other
unexploded ordnance in countries such as Cambodia, Mozambique,
and Afghanistan. Not only are most of the people killed in modern
wars civilians, but they continue to be killed by weapons waste long
after the troops have retreated.9
Furthermore, the weapons developed by modern military institu-
tions supposedly for the purpose of protecting people differ signifi-
cantly from those used in defending one’s self and family from harm.
While guns have dual usage for either offensive or defensive action,
bombs are always and only used through transporting them to other
parts of the world and dropping them upon other people’s property.
How can weapons such as cluster bombs, landmines, napalm, and
depleted uranium missiles be considered implements of legitimate
self-defense, when the latter does not admit of wanton destruction,
least of all that of innocent bystanders? Guns may be produced for

a legitimate purpose—to arm law enforcement agents within civil
society—but bombs have no purpose independent from that of war,
for which they have been expressly developed and premeditatedly pro-
duced. The legally acquired gun wielded by a person suddenly con-
fronted by a danger in his home existed antecedently for the purpose
of self-defense. The premeditated development of massively destruc-
tive weapons designed for deployment only away from the homeland
further impugns the alleged analogy between war and self-defense.
War supporters will retort that the aggressor against which the
military defends the populace is an army far more dangerous than any
individual person, and this is why formidable weapons are needed to
protect the nation, weapons which can in fact destroy large numbers
of people in a small period of time. But bombs and other weapons of
mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear warheads and chemical
and biological weapons of insidious infiltration, devastate entire pop-
ulations and the environments in which they and their descendants
might live, without regard to the victims’ roles in society. The use or
the threat of the use of such weapons—and the very fact that they
have been and continue to be produced for the arsenals of military
institutions—does not fit into the picture according to which war is a
form of self-defense. Noncombatant civilians do not pose a clear and
present threat to anyone, and legitimate cases of self-defense harm
only violent aggressors.
These stark differences notwithstanding, during the Cold War,
the strategy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) was developed
by military strategists in the United States and in the Soviet Union
under the assumption that possessing weapons sufficient to destroy
the entire population of the enemy nation would prevent war from
being waged. In the view of those who advocate nuclear deterrence,
historical explanations of the development of such weapons are pos-
sible even within the framework according to which war is supposed
to be a form of collective self-defense. The premise underlying MAD
was that the enemy comprised a group of rational agents who would
act so as to ensure their own survival, even while vehemently dis-
agreeing about values and ideology.
Two films produced in 1964, Fail-Safe (directed by Sidney Lumet)
and Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb (directed by Stanley Kubrick), examine the problem of human fal-
libility in the light of the nuclear capability now shared by a number of
nations and sought by others.10 Some critics have dismissed these films
as alarmist, suggesting as they do that a single unbalanced individual
or a simple mistake could effect the end of human civilization. In fact,

these works are based upon a set of fairly uncontroversial premises.
First, some human beings are unbalanced. Second, military personnel
are trained to carry out missions when told to do so by their superior
officers, a chain of command culminating with the group’s leaders.
Third, some people involved in the military may well believe that they
and their fellow citizens would be “better dead than red [or X].” And,
finally, all human beings are fallible. It is entirely conceivable that an
unbalanced person might one day become the commander in chief of a
nation with a well-stocked nuclear arsenal, and such a person may very
well order soldiers who have been trained to comply unconditionally
and without hesitation to carry out unthinkable missions.
Such a scenario is not really so far-fetched, as is evidenced by the
fact that suicide bombers have taken action against their avowed ene-
mies all over the planet, and their numbers appear to be on the rise.
The hijackers of September 11, 2001, demonstrated to particularly
dramatic effect that some people are ready and willing to kill them-
selves along with many others in the name of their cause. Suicidal
bombers, who appear to conceive of themselves as just warriors and
martyrs, represent a particularly vivid illustration of the distinction
between literal self-defense and the practice of war. Furthermore,
even “orthodox” soldiers, who attempt to win war without having to
die, are often nonetheless willing to sacrifice their lives, should what
they take to be the need arise.
The slogan “better dead than red” does appear to have been
embraced by some high-level strategists during the Cold War. Still,
whether or not Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove constitute persuasive
critiques of nuclear deterrence, these films underscore the fact that
modern war differs significantly from legitimate self-defense in that
it involves several levels of participation and involvement—chains of
command—not reflected in the typical self-defense scenario of an
individual defending him- or herself from harm. Nor, to reiterate, can
WMD be accommodated within the schema of legitimate self-defense,
which explicitly prohibits the intentional and wanton slaughter of
human beings. What justifies self-defense is the wrongness of harming
(and a fortiori destroying) innocent people, who must therefore have
the right to defend themselves from their own annihilation, if there
are any rights at all. If war is supposed to be a form of self-defense,
then how can resisting violent aggression involve the very same act
of aggression against other innocent people? If it is wrong to destroy
innocent people, how, then, can it be right to destroy innocent people
in the process of protecting innocent people?11
Virtually the only “cold” areas of the world during the Cold War
were, ironically, the United States and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile,
many proxy wars were fought in other parts of the world, to the det-
riment of the inhabitants of those smaller and weaker nations. It is
often lamented that in Vietnam 58,000 US soldiers died, but millions
of Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians were killed as a direct result
of the US embroilment in and escalation of the conflict. In the after-
math of the 1991 Gulf War, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians
(among them many children) died as a direct result of the oblitera-
tion by the US military of Iraq’s water treatment facilities and the
subsequent imposition of economic sanctions restricting the people’s
access to desperately needed medication (Simmons 1996, Shah 2003,
O’Huallachain and Sharpe 2005). More civilians were killed during
the US bombing and occupation of Afghanistan than were killed by
the terrorist attacks serving as the pretext for that war, and many
times the number of civilians killed on September 11, 2001, were
killed by the US military in Iraq. In the light of these facts, the notion
of civilian “noncombatant immunity” to which military spokesmen
so often refer strikes one as little more than a rhetorical trope indi-
cating that, when they are killed, civilians will be dubbed collateral
damage. But there is no place for collateral damage in the schema of
legitimate self-defense, for defending one’s self from harm does not
magically render the slaughter of innocent bystanders permissible. In
stark contrast, the killing of civilians in modern war is no longer the
exception; it has become the rule.
The nature of modern weapons, the practice of war, and its conse-
quences for innocent people all tell against the self-defense analogy.
The exportation of weapons raises equally if not more serious prob-
lems for those who rationalize the activities of military institutions in
terms of self-defense. The sincerity (or coherence) of those political
leaders who claim that the military kills in self-defense of a nation can
be gauged in part by their policies regarding weapons exports and the
military empowerment of leaders and groups beyond their own bor-
ders. The United States leads the world in weapons exports (account-
ing for more than 50%), but many other modern democratic nations
are also involved in this lucrative form of deadly trade (Feinstein 2011,
Fogarty 2000). Those who claim that war is a form of self-defense and
the military its executor must explain how arms provided to outsiders
can be a means of protecting the citizens of the exporting nation, when
it is obvious that over time political alliances wax and wane. The cases
of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are now notorious, but the
United States has certainly not been alone in this mistake. The British
trained Idi Amin to kill when he was a part of the British army. He
later went on to become the brutal dictator of Uganda who destroyed
300,000 people during his presidency from 1971 to 1978.12
* * *
The military is an institution ostensibly appointed to defend the

nation and to protect the interests of the people, which is why war
supporters sometimes compare it to the domestic police force within
civil society and object that an opposition to military institutions
would logically entail the abolition of police forces as well, leading
ultimately to total anarchy within civil society. In fact, the analogy
upon which the argument is based does not withstand scrutiny.
First, the recourse to military force is claimed to be permitted as
a last resort, when negotiations have reached an impasse. In stark
contrast, the domestic police corps has nothing whatsoever to do
with the actual process of conflict resolution. The proper role of
the police is to make possible the judgment of a suspected criminal
by a jury of his peers. Police forces are not granted the legal right
to summarily slaughter suspects, and they do not, as a matter of
policy, descend upon and kill en masse all inhabitants of a building
in which a single criminal hides. Such scenarios have on occasion
been known to transpire—for example, in Waco, Texas, on April 19,
1993—but when a Justice Department conducts itself in such a man-
ner, it is emulating the military, under the assumption that the facts
have already been ascertained and that it possesses the prerogative to
impose death sentences upon the suspects in question.13
In fact, police forces and military corps have entirely different func-
tions. Within civil society, a conflict with a suspected criminal is not
resolved until he has been fairly tried and convicted or acquitted of a
crime, which directly implies that it is precisely not the function of the
police to kill people, since that would make it impossible for suspects
to stand trial. Until a criminal suspect has been tried, he remains a
suspect, innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In
contrast, military campaigns presume the guilt of enemy leaders and,
in response, intentionally kill people living under their rule. A mili-
tary victory does not mean that the truth has been ascertained, but
only that the victors were stronger than the defeated. The culmina-
tion of a war is nothing like the culmination of a trial, unless “might
makes right,” in other words, moral relativism is true.14
The support of war as a means of bringing criminal leaders to jus-
tice rests upon a set of mutually untenable assumptions, chief among
them that war serves, in effect, as a surrogate court. According to

Paul Christopher:
A public declaration of war conveys to the population of the offend-

ing nation a unity of purpose in the population of the declaring
nation. It announces to their counterparts that “an injustice has
been committed and we are prepared to resort to arms to correct it.”
This must certainly provide a great incentive to “settle out of court”
(Christopher 1999, 90).
Christopher’s use of the court metaphor overlooks the radical distinc-

tion between the judicial system within civil society and the military
fighting internationally. If war were analogous to a court, then the
aim of the outcome of a military conflict would be the same as that of
a trial, that is, appropriate consequences in accordance with what has
been ascertained to be the truth. The winners of a war are evidently
the more militarily powerful, but this implies nothing about the jus-
tice of their cause, or the truth of their claims, as becomes apparent
through considering the reality of undetected individual killers and
their victims.
Murderers do sometimes succeed in executing their victims without
ever being detected, much less caught and convicted. In the United
States, about one in three murders is never solved. But the killers’
success in such cases surely does not imply that they had the right to
do what they did. Similarly, whether or not an army wins a battle is
a function not of its righteousness, but of its military strength. The
leaders of militarily powerful nations doubtless would like to believe
that their nation’s strength is a reflection of its justice, but this would
seem to be no more than wishful thinking. Granted, wars arise out
of conflicts between nations or groups, so there is one sense in which
a war is analogous to a court of law: were there no conflicts between
people, there would be neither trials nor wars. Battling factions or
nations are in conflict just as are the plaintiff and the defendant in
a criminal or civil trial, with each side upholding its own version of
what has transpired. But if the waging of war is to be likened to a
court of law, it can only be a despotic and arbitrary one, which denies
the defendant the right to speak and punishes innocent people instead
of the criminals being “tried.”15
* * *
The rights to life of individual people do not imply analogous rights

on the part of the groups of people comprising nations. The word
defense appears in the expressions national defense and self-defense,

which explains why they are so easily conflated, but it becomes clear
upon examination that wars fought abroad bear no resemblance to
acts of legitimate self-defense. Indeed, this radical dissimilarity may
itself constitute the best explanation for the failure of so many US
military incursions, in which the inhabitants of the invaded land—
Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere—so assiduously
resisted precisely because they viewed themselves as fighting in legiti-
mate self-defense against US aggressors.
Wars resulting in the deaths of noncombatants cannot be accom-
modated by the self-defense schema, for the infliction of harm upon
other people in self-defense is permissible only when they themselves
pose a clear and present threat. Modern war involves precisely the use
of excessive force excluded by the framework of legitimate self-defense.
The weapons deployed are offensive and massively destructive in
nature, leading primarily to the annihilation of innocent people and
soldiers not responsible for the actions of their leaders. Soldiers are
obliged to fight at the behest of commanders who provide their own
interpretations of the nature of the conflict. Soldiers have incurred
their duty through their professional role, most often either by having
enlisted as a means of employment or by state-imposed conscription.
In wars conducted abroad, soldiers do not find themselves in danger-
ous situations by chance. Rather, they are purposely placed in harm’s
way by their commander in chief. Instead of acting on the basis of
their own assessment of the situation, as happens in cases of legiti-
mate self-defense, bomber pilots accept on faith the stories offered by
their leaders, even while knowing on some level that enemy leaders
tell equally persuasive stories to their troops. Finally, unlike legitimate
self-defense, war is always premeditated, from the conceptualization
and production of brutally destructive weapons to the high-level cabi-
net deliberations culminating in a declaration of war.
In view of these gross structural differences between self-defense
and war, an independent justification must be provided for the latter.
War is not automatically permissible as an instance of legitimate self-
defense, for the two practices have nearly nothing in common.
2
T h e Tr i u m ph of Just
Wa r R h e t or ic
The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified

only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or
in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever pos-
sible, civilians are spared from violence. Of course, we know that for
most of history, this concept of “just war” was rarely observed.
—Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech1
T he notion that war, the intentional use of homicidal force by

groups against other groups, is sometimes permissible and even
obligatory has proven to be extraordinarily resilient, extending from
the ancient Babylonians, Chinese, Romans, and Greeks to the pres-
ent day, even as the chasm spanning literal acts of self-defense and
modern military practices has grown ever more vast. Because war
is a long-standing phenomenon of human societies, many people
accept without questioning the legitimacy of the military and the
necessity of the nation’s use of deadly force. But if war is not literally
a form of self-defense, then why should it be that groups of people
may intentionally slaughter other groups of people, when individu-
als may not?
The highly influential paradigm of just war theory was developed
and articulated over the course of several centuries, with Catholic
theologians as the primary authors of a schema defended still by writers
today, albeit in a less overtly religious form. The “laws of war” delin-
eated in modern military protocol were first systematically expressed
by medieval and Renaissance thinkers, including Augustine (AD
354–430), Aquinas (AD 1225–1274), Suárez (AD 1548–1617), and
Grotius (AD 1583–1645), who insisted that war would be justified,
and killing in war permissible, only if certain conditions were met.
There have been disagreements over details, but according to most

advocates of this paradigm, in going to war ( jus ad bellum), a just war
must
● be publicly declared,
● have a reasonable prospect for success,
● be waged only as a last resort,
● be waged by a legitimate authority with right intention, and
● have a cause both just and proportional (sufficiently grave to warrant
the extreme measure of war).
Since the seventeenth century, theorists have generally agreed that in

a war justly fought ( jus in bello)
● only proportional means to sound military objectives may be deployed,

● noncombatants are immune from attack,
● enemy soldiers must be respected as human beings, and
● prisoners of war are to be treated as noncombatants.
As would be expected of a paradigm whose primary features have sur-

vived periods as diverse as the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and the
industrial and technological revolutions, the tenets of just war theory
are, on their face, quite plausible. How might a just war be waged in
the service of an unjust cause or wreak massive damage in response to
a minor affront? How might those who wage a just war fail to warn
the enemy and provide them with the chance to avoid through com-
promise or capitulation the calamitous consequences of war? How
might a just war have as its only possible victory a pyrrhic one? Could
a war be just if nonbelligerent means of conflict resolution were avail-
able, means that might circumvent the inevitable loss of human life in
which war results? Finally, how could a just war include as one of its
means the intentional slaughter of noncombatant, innocent human
beings?
Despite the near self-evidence of the answers to these questions,
theorists’ agreement about the abstract concepts and terms of the just
war paradigm have not translated into correlative agreements in prais-
ing or condemning real wars as just or unjust. Profound interpretive
disagreements arise in applying the requirements of jus ad bellum and
jus in bello to concrete cases, which reflects that the reality of war is
far more complex than the neat categories of theorists would seem to
suggest. Wars are eventually given names for historical record-keeping
purposes, but they all begin as humanly created events comprising
Th e Tr i u m p h of Jus t Wa r R h e t or ic 27
individual acts of killing only some of which are instances of literal

self-defense. A war is the creation of two parties: the allies and their
adversaries, and while each side comprises smaller subgroups (at the
limit, individual soldiers), they are united in their opposition to the
enemy, whoever they may be said by their own commanders to be.
Wrongful acts of killing are a part of the very concept of just war,
since without them there could be no just killing in response. Both
sides regard their own and their allies’ acts of killing as permitted and
those of their adversaries as proscribed, but all leaders use the rheto-
ric of justice to garner support for their military enterprises—often
in complete sincerity. The problem is that some, indeed, at least half
of those leaders are wrong. To claim that a war is just is to claim that
one’s own side is right, but this is always true from the perspective
of those who orchestrate the mission: if they were not convinced, on
some level, of their righteousness, then they would desist.
If morality is absolute, then at least half of all rationales for what
has been labeled a just war are specious rationalizations for unjust
recourse to homicide. Both sides cannot be objectively right, assum-
ing the law of noncontradiction, ~(p & ~p), for opposition leaders
make mutually incompatible claims. Yet, whatever their own idio-
syncratic reasons for embroiling their groups in war may be, lead-
ers garner support for their military campaigns by appealing to the
alleged requirements of morality and insisting that justice is on their
side. So, for example, Saddam Hussein rationalized his 1990 invasion
of Kuwait, the government of which he claimed was siphoning off oil
from Iraq, in these terms:
I say to you clearly that Iraq’s rights . . . we will take one by one. That
might not happen now or after a month or after one year, but we will
take it all. We are not the kind of people who will relinquish their
rights. There is no historic right, or legitimacy, or need, for the U.A.E.
and Kuwait to deprive us of our rights. If they are needy, we too are
needy (Sifray and Cerf 1991, 125).
That both sides to every conflict offer “just war” characterizations of

their own acts of military destruction illustrates not the soundness of
just war theory, but how simple it is to devise an interpretation satisfy-
ing its requirements—in appearance.
* * *
Once waged, a war follows a trajectory all its own, as psychological and
sociological factors lead the populace and their political representatives
to support a mission already underway, whatever the reasons initially

proffered by the leaders who set the military machine in motion may
have been. In a surprising passage, just war theorist Michael Walzer
asserts that, although the actual motives for going to war may be dubi-
ous, that fact does not bear on the question of justice:
It was a common criticism of the [1991 Gulf] war that the United
States had “imperialist” motives: world order masked a desire for
influence and power in the Gulf, for a strategic presence and control
over the flow of oil. I assume that motives of this sort played an impor-
tant part in American decision-making: even just wars have political as
well as moral reasons—and will have, I expect, until the messianic age
when justice will be done for its own sake (Walzer 1991, 11).
Pace Walzer, the question of relevance is not whether all parties have
right intention in supporting war—the CEOs of companies in the
military supply industry may well not—but whether the legitimate
authority responsible for having initiated the war was motivated by
considerations of justice. To his credit, Walzer does appreciate that
all texts are infinitely interpretable: “Like characters in a novel, con-
cepts in a theory shape the narrative or the argument in which they
figure” (Walzer 2004, 8). But according to Walzer’s own permissive
reading, just war theory would appear to sanction virtually any cause,
provided only that it be regarded from a sufficiently charitable vista.
Robert Tucker observes:
Modern just war doctrines share the fate of their predecessors in

becoming scarcely distinguishable from mere ideologies the purpose
of which is to provide a spurious justification for almost any use of
force (Tucker 1960, 43).
If, in contrast to the permissive readings of just war theorists, no

cause warrants the slaughter of innocent people, then modern war is
never just, no matter the circumstances.
The widespread assumption that wars may be justly waged in
response to the crimes of another regime or group accounts for an
error of reasoning frequently made by military supporters. In sup-
posing that the justice of a cause implies the justice of a war, many
war advocates conflate the following two conditional statements and
thereby commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent:
(T) If the war is just, then the cause is just.

(F) If the cause is just, then the war is just.
Just war theory specifies a set of ostensibly distinct requirements for

the just recourse to war, but the requirement of just cause is often
regarded as a sufficient, rather than a necessary condition. To reason
that, because the cause is just, the war must be as well, is to ignore
the other requirements of just war theory, for example, last resort
and proportionality. If causes are ever just, as anyone who believes in
absolute morality will aver, then some wars have been declared for just
causes. However, according to just war theory itself, the justice of war
does not follow from the justice of a cause, even if killing is in certain
circumstances permissible—as in cases of literal self-defense, where all
escape routes have been blocked.
Those promoting war typically suppose that the choices are either
war or complacent acceptance of the actions (unjust practices) claimed
to justify recourse to deadly force. Political leaders often appeal to the
necessity of a military response, while basing this claim solely on the
justice of the cause, thereby committing the fallacy of false dichot-
omy. The alternatives are never restricted to two: kill or do nothing.
The cases of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., among
many others, illustrate that nonviolence need not be passive, and non-
homicidal action can succeed as a means of conflict resolution, even
among groups with apparently irreconcilable views (Ackerman and
Duvall 2000).
Just war theorists appear to believe that the requirements specified
by jus ad bellum and jus in bello limit the commission and magnitude
of the damage wreaked through war. A look at history suggests oth-
erwise. At the outset, by mobilizing support for the use of military
force, a public declaration may well increase the likelihood of war,
as the populace and media alike become caught up in the rhetoric
of good versus evil, and leaders come to believe that they must act
upon their threats in order to protect and defend their own and the
nation’s credibility. In addition, the reasonable chance for success and
proportionality requirements are vacuously fulfilled according to the
legitimate authority in every war waged. Assessments regarding what
would constitute “success” and which price may be reasonably paid
(using as currency other people’s lives) are the prerogatives of political
leaders alone to make. If they care more about the inhabitants of their
own nation than about human beings in general, then they may well
believe that the deaths of thousands or even millions of nonnational
civilians is an acceptable toll. As a conflict unfolds, the casualty list
may or may not bear any resemblance to the projected estimates ini-
tially offered by military spokesmen and national security advisers in
galvanizing the populace to support a war effort.
Far from posing real constraints, the requirements of reasonable

chance for success and proportionality instead impel leaders to embed
foreboding predictions about the doom to ensue (should the nation
“fail” to take up arms) in their public addresses aimed at persuad-
ing the populace to support and the troops to fight a war. These
principles of jus ad bellum do not deter anyone from waging war, but
instead lead directly to the use of inflammatory rhetoric and the exag-
geration of threats in efforts to secure support for a war. Once waged,
the war may be condoned even by some of its initial detractors, those
who decide to stand in solidarity with their comrades.
As with reasonable chance for success and proportionality, the per-
spective of the legitimate authority regarding just cause reigns, for the
skeletal—indeed, near tautological—just war schema itself provides
no resources whatsoever for answering this question: What is a just
cause? Rather, the answer is left to the discretion of the very leaders
calling for war. History demonstrates that groups of people engage
in wars whenever they are told that justice is at stake, and nothing
written subsequently by intellectuals can reverse the damage done
by leaders vested with the power and authority to wreak havoc in
the name of what they themselves, merely human beings, claim to
be justice. Even when the WMD pretext for the 2003 invasion of
Iraq evaporated, this did not lead the Bush administration to pull out
troops. The war had already been waged, under the guise of just war,
so the just cause rhetoric was shifted to other pretexts, including the
alleged need to democratize Iraq.
* * *
None of the individual requirements of jus ad bellum proves upon

analysis to pose any effective deterrent to leaders considering recourse
to military force, but the malleability of just war theory is most dra-
matically illustrated through a closer look at last resort.2 The last
resort requirement upon legitimate self-defense is about as uncon-
troversial as a constraint can be. Whether the requirement is ever
fulfilled before one group takes up arms against another is a matter
over which just war theorists and war opponents vehemently disagree.
Some critics have reasoned that, if it is true that a just war may be
waged only as a last resort, then this implies that all modern wars are
unjust, since there are always further nonbelligerent moves to make in
the international realm of politics, and all the more in the twenty-first
century, given the sophisticated means of communication available to
modern diplomats. Last resort would seem to be especially difficult to
satisfy in the case of a superpower nation such as the United States,
the economic policies of which can with only minor modifications

spell disaster for an offending regime.
Contemporary advocates of just war theory do not, however,
believe (as do pacifists) that all modern wars waged by stable nations
are precluded by their failure to satisfy the last resort condition. On
the contrary, while they often disagree about how to understand just
cause, proportionality, and reasonable chance for success, their open-
ended and nonrestrictive interpretation of last resort is one of the
strongest points of agreement among just war theorists. According to
Robert Phillips:
It is a mistake to suppose that “last” necessarily designates the final

move in a chronological series of actions. We have to understand that
there is a suppressed hypothetical in this restraint, namely, if time and
other relevant conditions permit, other means short of force might
be tried, but we are not to be locked into a series of steps beginning
with the most pacific means and gradually escalating in the direction
of force. If we could ideally arrange matters of fact, that would be
the scenario, but failing that, sometimes force will be our first step
(Phillips 1984, 14–15).
In Phillips’s view, we are to know that we have reached war as a last

resort because it seems clear that nothing else will work. But surely a
simple lack of strategic imagination might lead one to opt prematurely
for war, at the tragic cost of human lives. To conclude that, because
the only solution to a conflict that one can think of is bombing,
therefore, bombing is the only possible solution, is to commit the fal-
lacy of argument from ignorance.
A common inference among “just war” advocates appears to be
that any interpretation of last resort precluding the very possibility
of a just war is unacceptable. In his analysis of the 1991 Gulf War,
Walzer observes:
Taken literally, which is exactly the way many people took it during
the months of the blockade, “last resort” would make war morally
impossible. For we can never reach lastness, or we can never know
that we have reached it. There is always something else to do: another
diplomatic note, another United Nations resolution, another meeting
(Walzer 1991, 5).
George Weigel concurs:
In the just war tradition, “last resort” is not an arithmetic concept.

One can always imagine “one more” nonmilitary tactic that could be
tried, one more negotiating effort that could be launched, one more
conference that could be called—in a sequence that is, by definition,
infinite in duration. No, what the tradition means by “last resort”
is that reasonable people can reasonably conclude that all reasonable
efforts at a nonmilitary solution have been tried, have failed, and in all
probability will continue to fail (Weigel 1991, 24).
The last resort condition has been interpreted in terms of necessity

in international law. Article 42 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the
United Nations (1945) states that the Security Council “may take
such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain
or restore international peace and security.” According to Richard
Regan:
Contrary to the view of some opponents of the Gulf War, Article

42 does not require the council to conduct a full-scale study of the
likely effects of current or possible nonmilitary measures before it may
undertake military action; the council need only conclude that such
nonmilitary measures are unlikely to maintain or restore international
peace and security (Regan 1996, 25; italics added).
It seems reasonable to suppose that an attempt at negotiation is mor-

ally incumbent upon leaders preparing to embroil their nations in
war, yet even the possibility of negotiation has been dismissed out of
hand by some leaders. Consider, for example, President George H. W.
Bush’s stance in his January 9, 1991, letter to Saddam Hussein: “Nor
will there be any negotiation. Principle cannot be compromised”
(Sifray and Cerf 1991, 178). Similar statements were echoed in the
aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by President
George W. Bush and his administration in decrying the Taliban in
Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
War opponents wholeheartedly concur with Walzer (and others)
that so-called last resorts are never really last. Indeed, the failure to
satisfy the last resort requirement is one of the reasons most frequently
adduced by critics of particular wars. But just war theorists in effect
argue that, although the last resort condition can never be literally
met, one may interpret the tenet so as to sanction as just precisely those
wars which one already supports. Ultimately, the last resort “require-
ment” boils down to leaders’ personal temperaments—whether they
are more or less impatient and amenable to dialogue or not.
Those who advocate recourse to war often cite the irrationality of
the enemy, their inability to be reasoned with, as a primary justifica-
tion for the use of military force. But successful leaders have achieved
their positions of power in virtue of their practical rationality, so it

seems doubtful that they might be somehow altogether beyond the
reach of reason. In fact, leaders who indulge in the use of inflamma-
tory Manichean rhetoric arguably exhibit their own strategic folly, by
further provoking the very leaders being denounced as dangerous,
irrational, and evil.
* * *
The frank admission by contemporary defenders of just war theory

that the requirement of last resort cannot be interpreted literally
might seem to constitute a capitulation to either realism or pacifism,
both of which deny that the notion of just or moral war is anything
more than a self-delusive interpretation of group-inflicted violence.
At issue are two rival hypotheses:
H1: If no war meets all jus ad bellum criteria, then no war is just.
H2: If no war meets all jus ad bellum criteria, then just war theory is
flawed and should be revised or rejected.
The complex hermeneutics of just war theorists in interpreting last

resort strongly suggest that their theory is used not in deciding
whether to go to and how to fight war, but in the blanket rationaliza-
tion of group violence. Just war theory is not defended but reasserted
and reinterpreted by its advocates, who devise their own casuistic epi-
cycles and addenda to the theory, most recently, “jus post bellum”
conditions (May 2008). The primary focus among scholars has been
upon the principles of jus in bello (the just conduct of a war), under
the assumption that some wars obviously satisfy jus ad bellum, that
they have been justly waged.
Just war theorists may object here that the radical indeterminacy
and quasi-infinite malleability of their theory show no more than
that just war theory does not provide a simple and neat algorithm
for calculating which wars are just and which are unjust. Yet the fun-
damental conundrum remains: how is the antecedently impermissible
killing of innocent people supposed to be rendered permissible through
the practice of war? Just war theorists have accepted without argu-
ment the permissibility of so-called collateral damage, but what is
missing is an explanation of how an action proscribed in the case of
an individual miraculously becomes permissible when committed by
the same agent acting in the name of a group. Fallacious appeals to
tradition (that war is a long-standing phenomenon), the masses (that
most people believe in just war), and authority (that thinkers such
as Augustine and Aquinas believed in just war) do not provide the
needed justification for the claim that some wars are just.
The vagueness and virtual vacuity of just war theory is not merely
an academic problem, however, for this idiom is parroted by bel-
ligerent leaders who wage wars with devastating effects for the real
people who become victims of irreparable crimes. Despite the long
list of misguided military adventures marketed over the centuries as
just wars, benevolent interventions, and missions civilisatrices [civi-
lizing missions], the benefit of the doubt continues to be accorded
to leaders who rationalize their recourse to deadly force by appeal
to this idiom. Walzer hails what he terms the “triumph of just war
theory”:
The triumph of just war theory is clear enough; it is amazing how

readily military spokesmen during the Kosovo and Afghanistan wars
used its categories, telling a causal story that justified the war and
providing accounts of the battles that emphasized the restraint with
which they were fought (Walzer 2004, 11).
What is missing from Walzer’s discussion is an argument—or any rea-

son whatsoever—for accepting the naïve as opposed to the skeptical
interpretation of the triumph of just war rhetoric.
The rhetorical use to which the idiom of just war theory has been
put by US leaders was graphically illustrated by the divergent behaviors
of the two Bush administrations. In drumming up support for his
1991 Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush made reference to the
concepts of just war theory in nearly every speech, even going so far
as to invoke Augustine as an ally (Lackey 1991, Sifray and Cerf 1991).
In stark contrast, in its propaganda campaign preceding the 2003
invasion of Iraq, the George W. Bush administration made virtually
no reference to the requirements of just war theory, in all likelihood
because the 2003 war was not a last resort under any reasonable read-
ing of those words.
The fact that just war theory is trotted out when it can be used to
support a military campaign, but not when it cannot, suggests that
political leaders and the spokesmen for military institutions have no
real commitment to the spirit of the just war tradition, which claims
to offer guidelines for distinguishing just from unjust wars and for
limiting the occurrence of and the damage caused by war. Several key
players, including Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, were a part of
both the 1991 and the 2003 U.S. administration. In 2003, war was
clearly chosen among a variety of pacific alternatives favored by most

of the international community.
Once the war was underway, even the manifest implausibility of
last resort did not prevent US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld
from concluding a press conference on March 20, 2003, by proclaim-
ing that the invasion of Iraq had in fact satisfied the requirement:
Let me close by saying that war is the last choice; let there be no doubt.
The American people can take comfort in knowing that their coun-
try has done everything humanly possible to avoid war and to secure
Iraq’s peaceful disarmament (Rubenstein 2010, 140).
Perhaps it should be obvious why leaders reach naturally for the con-
structs of just war theory in defending their actions whenever pos-
sible, even in cases as preposterous as Rumsfeld’s characterization of
the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a last resort. What is more surprising
is that intellectuals have taken great pains to aid and abet them—
whether wittingly or not. As outrageous as Rumsfeld’s invocation
of the notion of last resort may have seemed to war opponents, it
emerges through an examination of the words of just theorists such
as Phillips, Weigel, Regan, and Walzer, cited above, that the secretary
of defense was simply following their lead.
The ultimate problem with the metaphor of last resort is that lead-
ers who wish to wage war perfunctorily dismiss as “impossible” what-
ever measures they might have taken to avert war. The leaders who
order their troops to fight and kill have as their allies those wonks,
pundits, and academics willing to provide supportive interpretations
of the war in question. For virtually any war, some set of “experts”
will step forward to offer interpretations according to which the
war is just. As a result, belligerent leaders who wish to wage war can
self-confidently claim to be supported by the long-standing just war
tradition. Even in a case as extreme as Hitler’s, many ostensibly ratio-
nal people were willing at the time to defend his invasions as part of a
just war, which is precisely why his campaign succeeded to the terrible
extent to which it did.
Just war theorists have often dismissed this concern out of hand, as
does Phillips: “It does seem to me, however, to be no very severe criti-
cism of a moral position that it can be misused” (Phillips 1984, 4).
Walzer expresses a similar idea: “The bad guys use the same theoreti-
cal language as the good guys. That’s an argument for critical use,
not for no use” (Walzer 2001, 86). Just war theorists have also often
ridiculed those who avail themselves of the tenets of just war theory
to criticize wars, while claiming at the metalevel that the theory is

nugatory. But what Walzer, Phillips, and others consistently fail to
appreciate is that their theory causes far more harm than it prevents,
for the jus ad bellum requirements of just war theory are purely nomi-
nal constraints, presumed to be automatically fulfilled by all leaders
opting for war, and used by them as rhetorical tools.
Walzer celebrates the fact that many generals and political leaders
now speak the language of just war theory, as eager as high school
debaters to invoke the concepts of jus ad bellum and jus in bello in
their discussions of war. This tendency toward charitable interpreta-
tion of one’s own leaders is generally shared by the populace: most
people accept at face value whatever their own leaders say when it
comes to military matters, in apparent oblivion (or simple ignorance)
of the long list of leaders whose wars were recognized as abomina-
tions only after the fact. Given history, nothing could be more naïve
than to suppose that because a leader describes his acts of killing as
dictates of justice, this suffices to show that they are. After all, mili-
tary spokesmen also speak of “collateral damage” and “engaging the
enemy,” rather than their considerably more graphic and less genteel
vernacular translations. The use of euphemistic language in describ-
ing the horrors of war is the requisite modus operandi of anyone in the
military deemed suitable to be put on public display. But the reason
for using coded language and euphemism to speak of corpses and
slaughter would seem to be precisely why many generals are fluent in
the idiom of just war theory today.
Once appointed by the people whom they govern, political leaders
are vested with the authority to wield the mighty weapons of war.
But it is obvious that a man does not become good or moral because
he has been elected to a political office.3 Indeed, this may consti-
tute evidence for the opposite conclusion. In comparing the invasions
ordered by Adolf Hitler and George W. Bush, one author laments:
“In both cases, the war that most of the world desperately opposed
broke out” (Parker 2005, 429). In reality, wars do not “break out”:
they are waged. Group conflicts evolve over time in unpredictable
ways, but they are always initiated by leaders, whose calls to arms
result in mass and indiscriminate killing, whatever the leaders’ origi-
nal intentions may have been.
All war makers mouth just war–speak in motivating their troops
to kill and their people to support mass slaughter. Was the invasion
of Kuwait just? According to Saddam Hussein, yes. Was the bombing
of water treatment facilities in Iraq just? According to George H. W.
Bush, yes. Was the invasion of a sovereign nation during peacetime
just? According to George W. Bush, yes. Was the slaughter of the Jews
by the Nazis just? According to Adolf Hitler, yes. Belligerent leaders
have always appealed to the rhetoric of justice, vehemently asserting
their own prerogative to kill and persuading the populace to pay for
the slaughter of other human beings, often located far away.
* * *
According to just war theory, only a legitimate authority may wage

war. Whether or not the requirements of just war theory beyond
legitimate authority have actually been satisfied becomes the subject
of retrospective debate among intellectuals, but contemporaneously,
in the moment of conflict, the proclamation that a war is just and nec-
essary is accepted as true by military personnel and more often than
not by most of the populace as well. The uncritical acceptance of the
necessity of a war is enhanced by not only the manifest appeal of just
war rhetoric, but also the self-congratulatory elevation of those who
vociferously oppose the enemy denigrated as evil. At the same time,
military personnel are professionally obliged to fight when called
upon to do so by their commander in chief, an idea deriving directly
from the just war tradition. Elizabeth Anscombe explains: “The right
to attack with a view to killing is something that belongs only to rul-
ers and those whom they command to do it” (Anscombe 1970, 45).
The citizens of nations tend to regard their own leaders as legiti-
mate authorities, while denying that the leaders of subnational fac-
tions and extremist groups possess the same prerogative to kill. But
wars between people of the same land have occurred much more fre-
quently throughout history than have wars between nations, and in
recent decades, the number of civil wars has greatly increased, while
international wars have become ever more rare (Pfetsch 2001, 28;
Hillman 2004). All wars, whether inter- or intranational, are carried
out by soldiers acting at the behest of the people conventionally des-
ignated their leaders. Factions within the same locale may vehemently
disagree about moral issues and policies, and such political strife has
often given rise to group-perpetrated homicide within the borders of
a single land. One such case is that of the Palestinians in Israel, some
of whom have deployed deadly force in response to the actions of
the Israeli government. This decades-long conflict has involved the
formal military institution of Israel and the Palestinian population,
a subset of which has fashioned a quasi-army to counter what they
regard as the unjust practices of the government in power. In some
cases, the rebels finally prevail, as they did in many parts of Africa,
and also in Cuba with the overthrow of the Batista regime in 1959.
Fidel Castro became the legitimate authority of Cuba through a mili-
tary coup.4
All nations began as informally assembled groups, often of people
dissatisfied with their former homeland, as were the men and women
who expatriated from Europe to start a new life in the Americas. The
nations for which soldiers kill and die during wartime are not merely
temporal but transitory, and people find themselves in nations, which
they tend to regard as stable, persistent things, though the nations
in existence today are not the same as those in existence only one
hundred years ago, much less five hundred years ago. Kosovo and
South Sudan are two recent additions to the list. The very concept of
nation-state is relatively new in human history, having emerged only
in the last few hundred years. As artifacts, nations have been erected
by people for the purpose of promoting their own interests. Once they
exist, nations tend to be exalted above the people for whom they were
ostensibly created. In addition, because nations have been granted (by
those who founded them) the monopolistic authority to wield force
from within, this authority is often mistakenly regarded by war sup-
porters to extend beyond the nation’s own borders as well.
The standard view among military supporters is that the leaders of
nations may order troops to kill on behalf of the populace. Political
leaders’ right to kill is not shared by individual citizens. However,
following this reasoning to its logical limit, if the leaders of a group
acquire the right to intentionally kill simply through being appointed
as leaders by the members of the group, then there would seem to be
no nonarbitrary way to deny the same right to the leaders of subna-
tional groups, or even transnational factions. Apparently incognizant
of this implication, nationalistic war supporters promote the acts of
killing ordered by their own leaders, while refusing to extend the
same right to kill to outsiders. In reality, nation-states are made up of
a variety of smaller parts, each of which can, in principle, be cleaved
off to form its own independent political body, just as in the cases of
Kosovo and South Sudan, along with every other new state created
by people who unshackled themselves from the chains of their former
oppressors.
The contingent nature of nations is recognized by the members of
groups such as the IR A (Irish Republican Army), the ETA (the Basque
group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army),
the Confederates of pre-Civil War America, and others who wish to
secede from the larger nation-state of which they are a part, and who
deploy deadly force in attempting to effect their aim. Extrapolating
the logic presumed by “just war” advocates, if the larger group pos-
sesses a right to intentionally kill in virtue of the very fact that it is
a group, then, at the terminus of a serial process of subdivision, one
would find an individual, a group of one, who could claim the same
right to intentionally kill in virtue of being a part of that (tiny) group.
But a person cannot both possess and not possess the right to inten-
tionally kill other persons, so there must be something wrong with
the premise that the leaders of conventionally delimited nations pos-
sess a right to kill not shared by their citizens.
Some would reject the above argument, for example, by insist-
ing that the democratic nations currently in existence have a special
status—as the culmination of a lengthy historical process of democ-
ratization. Even granting for the sake of argument such a view, what
cannot be denied is that any person could be a leader, and persons
come in all different moral types. There is no reason for believing
that, because a person is a political or military leader, he has been
endowed with sound moral judgment. The hierarchical chain of
command terminates with the political leader(s) of a land, but the
properties permitting people to acquire such power in the modern,
image-driven, mass media–dominated world have arguably nothing
to do with what it takes to be a moral sage. Even in ostensibly demo-
cratic nations, we know about leaders only that they were capable of
being elected. In the modern world, where elections are won through
media images and Hollywood actors can come to fill high offices,
many political leaders may well be primarily concerned with power
and fame. Elected officials continue nonetheless to be regarded by
most of the populace as qualified to make sound judgments in decid-
ing when and where to go to war. Because in wars waged and fought
abroad, most of the people affected lie well beyond the leaders’ proper
political domain, the question must be raised: in what sense do leaders
possess the right to endanger the lives and even annihilate nonnationals
who never appointed them?
The depth of what is essentially an instance of the fallacy of false
authority is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that, had an obedi-
ent soldier been born in another land, his leaders might well have
been “the enemy.” Good soldiers follow the orders of their leaders—
whoever they happen to be. But the assumption that the leaders of
one’s own nation or group are right, and the leaders of the enemy are
wrong has no rational basis whatsoever. In the vast majority of cases,
the only reason that a soldier has for fighting against what has been
denounced as the enemy is that he lives where he happens to live, and
he believes what his leaders have said. Yet it is patently fortuitous that
a person should have been born in the United States as opposed to

Iraq, or England as opposed to Germany, and so on.5
The civilian citizens of a nation, too, tend to accept on faith that
their leaders are right, and the leaders of the country decried as the
enemy are wrong. Had they been born in the enemy’s territory, their
loyalties would in all likelihood have been reversed. There are rare
exceptions to this general rule, but the voices of dissenters against
their own government’s policies during wartime are drowned out by
staunch supporters among the general populace and political elites,
in addition to being muted by pundits in the mainstream media who
in the build up to war deride and dismiss antiwar activists as antipa-
triotic, if not treasonous.
Especially vexing for the just war paradigm is that many criminal
leaders have been legitimate authorities in the required sense. They
acquired their position of political power through legal channels and
later went on to abuse it. Hitler himself possessed the ability to com-
mit mass murder only because, as head of state, he had a powerful
army and the resources of Germany at his disposal. But the possibil-
ity of a scenario as ghastly as the Holocaust arises out of the very
structure of the just war schema itself, which confers upon legiti-
mate authorities themselves the right to interpret the requirements
of reasonable chance for success, proportionality, just cause, and last
resort. Military supporters tend to ignore (or forget) the glaring fact
that the birthplace of criminal leaders such as Adolf Hitler, Saddam
Hussein, and Slobodan Milosevic is manifestly a matter of historical
chance. Even in cases where the authority of a leader derives from
popular support, this is no guarantee that the leader will not imple-
ment criminal policies upon ascent to power. According to some, the
case of Fidel Castro is illustrative in this regard. Pro-socialism critics
of Castro characterize him as a leader who initially fought to liber-
ate the people, but then came to wield an iron fist. It goes perhaps
without saying that the postcolonial political landscape in Africa has
been heavily peppered with leaders who claimed initially to be serv-
ing the people, but then, à la George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945),
came to exemplify and in some cases exceed the vices of their former
oppressors.
In reflecting upon the notion of legitimate authority to kill, it is
also important to bear in mind that, war may be waged by politi-
cal leaders, but specific targets for destruction are selected by the
officers charged with executing the war. Hamburger Hill (1987),
directed by John Irvin, relays the story of a unit in Vietnam ordered
to “take” a hill of limited strategic value, though it was teeming with
enemy guerilla soldiers. In the process of carrying out their orders,

the majority of the six hundred US soldiers involved were destroyed.
In fact, the same critique applies (mutatis mutandis) to all of the indi-
vidual missions together comprising the misguided Vietnam War.
The October 3, 1993, Mission Irene in Somalia is another classic case
of the sacrifice of human lives (in this case nineteen US soldiers and
more than one thousand Somalis) for what proved to be the strategic
folly of those who ordered the mission and failed to appreciate the
complex social dynamics in play during civil wars. Once war has been
waged by a legitimate authority, decisions regarding whom precisely
to kill, which chances to take, and what price is reasonable to “pay”
(in soldiers’ and civilians’ lives) become the prerogative of military
officers to make.
* * *
The notion of the jihad or holy war has been touted by many reli-
gious and political leaders, and the history of Christian warfare alone
illustrates that people who are convinced that they are in possession
of the truth about all things eschatological will fight, kill, and even
march enthusiastically to die for the ideas inculcated in them by their
leaders. According to the crusaders who killed in the name of Christ,
they were attempting to save their misguided adversaries from eternal
damnation—the killers’ intentions, therefore, were good. This argu-
ment applies, mutatis mutandis, to the wars waged by all those who
claim to be heeding the voice of God in their quest to establish His
kingdom on earth and to rid the world of infidels.
Augustine distinguished the City of Man from the City of God,
maintaining that, practically speaking, we should adhere to the con-
ventions of our societies and abide by the dictates of our leaders while
inwardly attempting to align our souls with God (Bourke 1974).
Leaders were believed by Augustine to be in some sense doing God’s
will, since everything on earth is in its place through His grace. This
picture was capitalized upon by leaders throughout the Middle Ages
and the height of the Roman Catholic Church. Just war theory has
survived in a quasi-secular form, but it was grounded in and evolved
from the metaphysical tenets of Christianity, most notably, that there
is an afterlife, that corporeal death does not mark the end of a person’s
existence. Augustine maintained that what really matters, in the grand
scheme of things, is purity of heart or conscience, which God alone is
qualified to judge. We may think that the actions of some of our fellow
human beings are evil or wrong, but we cannot know what motivated
them, or whether they had any but the best of intentions. Given his
skepticism about human moral judgment, Augustine concluded that
our best course of action would be to accept the laws of the society
in which we live, follow the orders of our leaders, and rest assured
that, ultimately, justice will be done, regardless of the injustices suf-
fered during our ephemeral time as terrestrial beings (Holmes 1989,
McKeogh 2002). Assuming Augustine’s metaphysical beliefs about the
afterlife and the ultimate rectification of terrestrial injustice by God,
it follows that anything which transpires on this planet is of relatively
little consequence. Human beings may mistakenly harm, punish, and
even execute other human beings, but justice will finally prevail: the
falsely executed will be recompensed, and terrestrially undetected sin-
ners, including murderers, will be punished in the afterlife.6
If it were true that political leaders had privileged access to the
will of God, then perhaps their interpretations could be regarded as
authoritative for reflecting the truth as conveyed to them through
divine enlightenment. In that case, the wanting justification for the
claim that legitimate authorities possess a right to kill in the name
of groups (each of whose individual members lacks the same right)
would inhere in the direct transfer of authority from God to leaders.
However, with the separation of church and state in the modern
world, leaders can no longer, with any shred of plausibility, claim to
receive their policies directly from God. The primary legacy of the
Protestant Reformation was a thorough unmasking of pretentious
religious and political leaders who claimed to have special connections
to the Almighty. The Protestant Reformation led to a wide-ranging
secularization of Western culture, and a discrediting of claims made
by individual human beings to be speaking on behalf of God or to
possess divine rights derived from their appointment as leaders by
God Himself. Modern political leaders are elected or selected by their
human constituents through a political process; they are not ordained
from on high; they do not have more direct access to God than do the
people whom they represent.
Despite its deeply religious historical underpinnings, the basic
tenets of the just war paradigm remain today embedded within mili-
tary protocol. In truth, the metaphysical presuppositions of just war
theory do not cohere with the standards of secular humanism and
democracy, and in fact reflect an essentially medieval worldview. What
has survived as just war theory is a powerful rhetorical tool, involving
fallacious appeals to both authority and tradition, and playing upon
human frailty, especially the desire to believe that we are good and
our adversaries are evil.
Given the intractable epistemological and exegetical problems with

just war theory, it is probably not coincidental that the most bru-
tal battles and savage military rampages throughout human history
have been perpetrated by adversaries whose differences have inhered
in metaphysical worldviews held to be true as articles of faith.7 The
leaders of both sides to conflicts claim and often seem truly to believe
that God supports their cause:
We cannot give up what makes life worth living. It is worthwhile

because ours is a great mission. The mission was not given to us by a
worldly superior but by the God who created our people.
—Adolf Hitler8
It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that

it has come to us, instead of to our enemies, and we pray that He may
guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.
—Harry S. Truman9
May God bless each and every one of them and the coalition forces
at our side in the Gulf, and may He continue to bless our nation, the
United States of America.
—George H. W. Bush10
God is great, God is great, God is great, and accursed be the lowly.
—Saddam Hussein11
When Almighty God rendered successful a convoy of Muslims, the

vanguards of Islam, He allowed them to destroy the United States.
—Osama bin Laden12
America is a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our
most basic beliefs . . . America acts in this cause with friends and allies at
our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great republic will
lead the cause of freedom. The momentum of freedom in our world is
unmistakable—and it is not carried forward by our power alone. We can
trust in that greater power who guides the unfolding of the years. And
in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.
—George W. Bush13
* * *
Whether just war theory limits the barbarity and frequency of warfare—
as its advocates purport—would appear to be the ultimate test of its
value. However, the bloody history of group conflict amply displays

that Augustine did not make war possible but progressively more prob-
able, the Crusades being a particularly glaring example of the “good”
to which his theory gave rise.14 By defending the traditional paradigm,
just war theorists provide leaders with a ready-made rhetorical frame-
work through which to describe and rationalize their campaigns of
military aggression. So long as they succeed in producing an inter-
pretation seeming to reflect the template of just war theory, leaders
are free to wage their wars with legal impunity, facing the populace
and the press corps alike with a confident smile. Meanwhile, soldiers
return home in body bags, and the hapless inhabitants of enemy lands
are terrorized, maimed, and slain.
Just war theory and its central concept, legitimate authority, fail
to explain how the declaration of war by merely human beings con-
ventionally appointed by other merely human beings might render a
criminal act, the killing of an innocent person, morally permissible.
Even worse, because human beings find moral stories compelling and
psychologically comforting, just war theory serves as a powerful tool
of propaganda used to seduce people into supporting war. Far from
assisting in the quest for justice, appeals to just war theory motivate
the soldiers of both sides to kill and the civilians of both sides to fund
group-perpetrated violence.
To call a war “just” or “holy” seems to be the only way to per-
suade large numbers of otherwise nonhomicidal men to kill human
beings. Without persuasive appeals to the alleged dictates of justice,
could Hitler have mobilized the Germans to invade their neigh-
bors’ lands? This question has been ignored by advocates of just war
theory, who somehow seem to think that through defending the
dubious distinction in war between crimes and “unintended though
foreseen homicide” they are paving the way to peace. Theorists in
the just war tradition have spilled a lot of ink reasserting tautologies
and truisms such as “a just war must have a just cause,” or “wars
should not be waged unnecessarily.” In fact, by rearticulating views
already affirmed by most people, such writers may well increase the
frequency of war in general—not only the particular wars supported
by the writers, but everyone else’s as well. In the end, to defend the
possibility of a just war is to defend the general practice of war, to
affirm the right of conventionally appointed leaders to order mass
homicide. Whatever one’s own benevolent intentions may be, there
is no way of preventing other people—whether supporters of formal
nations or subnational factions—from applying just war theory in
their own idiosyncratic ways.
Far from placing real limits upon actual warfare, just war theory
instead serves as a sort of primer on how to compose motivational
speeches to galvanize support for the use of deadly military force.
This highly influential paradigm has led so often to war because
human beings are extraordinarily vulnerable to self-delusive moral
rhetoric. It is platitudinous that we should embrace good and shun
evil. Everyone, on each side of every conflict, affirms this statement.
But the universal affirmation of the thesis betrays its vacuity. Faced
with the long list of abominable crimes committed in the name of jus-
tice throughout history, just war theorists naturally claim innocence,
for they intend for their theory to promote only just wars, and it is not
their fault if other people use the theory for unjust purposes.
One of the guiding assumptions among contemporary just war
theorists appears to be that there is something somehow unacceptable
about arriving at the conclusion that war is never just. The reason-
ing seems to be that, since the original expositors of just war theory
certainly believed in the possibility of a just war, to conclude that no
modern war is just would be to misconstrue the founders’ meaning.
But there is a glaring problem with this line of reasoning: the world
has metamorphosed radically since the time of Augustine, Aquinas,
and Suárez. The authors of just war theory were religious scholars (in
both senses: religious men and scholars of religion). The nature of
weapons, the conduct of war, and the roles of leaders have all trans-
formed dramatically since then.
The crucial underlying assumption of classical just war theory, that
there is direct and veridical connection between political leadership
and the will of God, is no longer affirmed by the people of modern
democracies. Accordingly, there is no implausibility whatsoever in
supposing that those who devised just war theory would not defend
the same paradigm today. Just war theory may have seemed to apply
during the medieval times when it was codified to describe the prac-
tice of rival groups of equally equipped men who agreed to resolve
their disputes on the battlefield through bloodshed. In the twenty-
first century, however, only the thinnest threads of the culturally
complex fabric of that world survive. It seems, therefore, fitting that
the tenets of just war theory should continue to be labeled jus ad bel-
lum and jus in bello —in Latin, a dead language.
3
Tru t h a n d C onse qu e nc e s
Having found the bomb, we have used it. We have used it against those
who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who
have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against
those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of
warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order
to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.
—US president Harry Truman, August 9, 19451
T he influence of the just war tradition on military discourse is pat-

ent, but when war supporters are asked to explain why they advo-
cate taking up arms in particular contexts, they nearly always offer
some variant of consequentialist reasoning, as did US president Harry
Truman in explaining his decision to deploy atomic bombs against
Japan in 1945. War appears often to be regarded by its supporters
as a form of community self-defense, the underlying assumption
being that if more people will die if one does nothing than if one
goes to war, then one is morally obliged to fight. Truman did not in
fact use the bomb “against those who attacked us without warning,”
[italics added] for the leaders responsible for the surprise attack on
Pearl Harbor (including the commander-in-chief, Imperial Admiral
Yamamoto, who had been assassinated two years earlier) did not reside
in the targeted cities. Truman’s use of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) against the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
can instead be read more plausibly as reflecting the consequentialist
principle that innocent people must sometimes be sacrificed for the
good of the larger group.
The consequentialist approach does not claim to mete out justice,
for it looks to the future, not to the past. The assumption funding
consequentialist theories is simple and intuitive—indeed, tautologi-
cal: What’s done is done. This idea holds much appeal for many people:
although history cannot be altered, we can act so as to improve
the future. Various versions of consequentialism have emerged at
different times and places throughout history, perhaps the most

famous of which, utilitarianism, was introduced and developed by
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century. The
principle of utility concisely conveys the key prescription of classical
utilitarianism: “Always act so as to maximize the utility (happiness) of
the greatest number of people.”
Consequentialism seems a sensible outlook, and even some who
claim to favor a deontological approach to morality—which denies
that the rightness of an action is a function of its consequences—find
themselves appealing to results when it comes to warfare. Michael
Walzer writes:
The case for breaking the rules and violating those rights [to life of
innocents] is made sufficiently often, and by soldiers and statesmen
who cannot always be called wicked, so that we have to assume that
it isn’t pointless . . . the very existence of a community may be at stake,
and then how can we fail to consider possible outcomes in judging the
course of the fighting? At this point, if at no other, the restraint on
utilitarian calculation must be lifted (Walzer 1977, 228).2
Consistent consequentialists are ready and willing to kill even

innocent people, if through doing so the good of the group as a
whole will be maximized. In such circumstances, consequentialism
deems killing not merely permissible but obligatory, and this sense
of urgency invariably infuses the rhetoric of leaders calling for war.
Such an outlook is exemplified by the Obama administration’s policy
of targeted assassination of terrorist suspects, including the defini-
tion of all military-aged men in hostile regions as potential suspects,
along with anyone helping them in any way as “facilitators” guilty by
association (Becker and Shane 2012). The folk wisdom behind such
strategies might be summed up as “Better safe than sorry.” But the
policy simultaneously illustrates the marked influence of the just war
paradigm: once a legitimate authority has been named, he holds the
interpretive prerogative of deciding which means comply with the
alleged jus in bellum requirements on a just war.
The euphemistic manner in which collateral damage is perfuncto-
rily dismissed by the military and the media alike is perfectly in keep-
ing with the results-based framework of consequentialism, and the
tally of victims is subject to manipulation by those within the estab-
lishment who define the categories of “combatant” and “civilian.”
Young children are always civilians in the required sense, and given
the near inevitability of such deaths resulting from decisions to use
Tru t h a n d C onse qu e nc e s 49
military force in the modern world, some contemporary scholars

maintain that only consequentialist reasoning could justify war.
The consequentialist perspective is also reflected in international
law, which now prohibits the waging of war for purely punitive or
retributive causes. According to the Charter of the United Nations
(1945), war may be waged only when it will lead to an overall
improvement in the current state of affairs. The typical analysis of
international conflict claimed to necessitate resort to military force
begins with the identification of an intolerable aggressor, the leader
of a nation or group said to have engaged in objectionable practices
and who must be stopped. In recent times, the crimes cited have typi-
cally been murder, but looking more broadly at history, the crime said
to justify war has often been territorial theft.
Rhetoric notwithstanding, those who advocate war as the answer
seldom view conflict from the appropriate distance for an even
remotely accurate consequentialist prescription of the proper course
of action. This chronic myopia on the part of political and military
leaders involves a systematic miscalculation of what would be pre-
scribed by consequentialism, were it to be consistently applied in
assessing the alleged need for war. Immediate and short-term results
accruing to one’s own group are cited in decisions to wage war by
leaders, but virtually never are concrete long-term consequences—as
opposed to empty abstractions—given any serious consideration. In
part this is because of the sheer difficulty of predicting the probable
results of opting for military action versus refraining from doing so,
as Walzer explains:
Most of the time, we can make only short-term predictions, and we

have no way that even mimics mathematics of comparing the costs of
fighting to the costs of not fighting, since one set of costs is necessarily
speculative, while the other comes in, as it were, over an indeterminate
time span (Walzer 2004, 90).
Ultimately, the prescriptions of consequentialism are a direct func-

tion of the time slice being considered. One way to “justify” (spe-
ciously) any action is to assess its likely consequences only in the
proximate future. The shorter the length of time, the easier an action
becomes to justify: stop the clock immediately, and any action valued
in and of itself, for whatever reason, becomes intrinsically self-justified.
An accurate consequentialist prescription would need to be based
upon an integral calculation of the effects of waging war well into
the future, for destructive violence ramifies far beyond the narrow
temporal and spatial parameters of what may seem to be a limited

military campaign.
* * *
Predicting the outcome of any particular action is of necessity a spec-

ulative enterprise, but certain general guiding principles relevant to
future outcomes can be inferred from the history of warfare.
The Generation of New Victims

The deployment of military means by fallible human beings results
in the deaths of some people—most obviously, children and other
noncombatant civilians—who had nothing whatsoever to do with
the crimes orchestrated by their leaders and committed by other
members of their community. Such “collateral damage” is a widely
acknowledged and complacently accepted consequence of political
decisions to wield military force in the modern world, but the sec-
ond-order consequences of collateral damage may be equally if not
more weighty (by consequentialist standards) than is first-order col-
lateral damage. Through war, some people are deprived of their lives
and thereafter can no longer participate in human affairs. But, in
addition, survivors left bereft often perceive themselves to have been
gravely wronged. An accurate projection of the net effect of collateral
damage must, therefore, take into account the basic fact that in all
belligerent conflicts both sides are fighting because they believe that
they are right.
Each side interprets its own acts of killing as justified and views the
casualties inflicted by the enemy as crimes. All of these people cannot
be right, in an objective sense, for their claims are mutually inconsis-
tent. Still, each side interprets its own acts of killing as justified, in
terms of either self-defense or just retribution for the past actions of
other people who thus became the enemy. The fact that the parties
to conflict characterize their own acts of killing in terms of either
self-defense or just retribution reveals that consequentialism itself is
a metaview, applied by theorists in evaluating war from a distance—
whether geographic or temporal.
An accurate (rather than merely rhetorical) consequentialist analy-
sis of war and its real effects must take into account the perspec-
tive of the victims of the action, since they will and can only react
to what they perceive to be the truth. In predicting consequences,
what matters is not what the absolute truth happens to be, but what
those affected by military action interpret the truth to be. The people
affected by the use of military force base their reactions upon what
they take to be the facts, not the perspective of an omniscient being,
and least of all that of their adversaries. The tautology funding conse-
quentialism (“What’s done is done”) seems beyond rational dispute,
but the consequences of military action will always and can only be
a function of other people’s interpretations of what has been done to
them and their comrades.
Srdjan Dragojevi’s 1996 film Lepa Sela, Lepo Gore [Pretty Village,
Pretty Flame] illustrates the brutality and apocalyptic surreality of
the 1990s Bosnian War, showing how intergroup hatred is intensified
through war itself. Based upon a true event, when a group of Serbian
“Chetniks” were trapped in a tunnel (along with an American jour-
nalist) by Muslim fighters, this film helps to explain the seething
hatred of Serbs against the Muslims by depicting the cruelty of the
Muslim guerrillas themselves. To those outsiders who bought into
the anti-Serbian Manichean rhetoric used to justify the 1999 NATO
bombing of Kosovo, this film may seem to be a superlative piece of
Serbian propaganda, as it depicts the Serbs, not the Muslims (in this
case, a group of Croats) as the victims. Even so, such one-sided depic-
tions are extremely valuable for their ability to convey how a conflict
may actually be viewed by the partisans of one side. The behavior of
the Serbs becomes at least somewhat less incomprehensible under the
assumption that they regarded themselves as having been victimized
over a period of centuries, commencing with the Turkish coloniza-
tion. The spiraling ethnic hatred in this region has an extraordinarily
long and complex political history, with atrocities committed by all
sides leading to further atrocities by their adversaries in response.
Journalist Peter Maas explains a common presumption on the part
of those who support the swift intervention to stop atrocities com-
mitted abroad, and of which he was soon disabused upon his arrival
in Bosnia:
Flying into Sarajevo, I was interested in deeds rather than history, for I
had a quaint notion that the statute of limitation had long ago expired
on settling old grudges, and that barbarism in the name of historical
justice is still barbarism. It was, I must repeat, a very quaint notion
(Maas 1996, 25).
As Maas soon learned, the documented atrocities committed in Bosnia

were descriptions of a moment which did not capture and could not
address the long, complex, and bloody history of the conflict. For
this reason, in such labyrinthine cultural contexts, with centuries-

long histories of injustices committed by all rival factions, interven-
tion may be viewed as a further injustice unfairly inflicted by those
who, ignorant of history, side with whoever appear to be the victims
at T0, the time when the international community decides to direct its
attention to what is happening in that part of the world. Since all par-
ties to these disputes have their own veritable catalogues of historical
crimes committed against their brethren, the application of simplistic
Manichean categories to these groups at T0 constitutes, in the eyes of
those denigrated, yet another injury (Rangelov 2004).
In garnering support for military intervention, the international
community routinely ignores the etiology of the most recent crimes
committed by rival factions. This makes those castigated as the villains
even less amenable to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, for they
regard themselves as having been not only wronged over centuries by
their adversaries, but also slandered by contemporary self-appointed
(and either amnesiac or ignorant) moral judges.
Enemy leaders are typically identified as the parties ultimately
responsible for a government’s crimes, but bombing campaigns
stigmatize all those who support or once supported the regime in
power, despite the fact that in most—if not all—cases popular sup-
port of a criminal leader is based upon false information transmitted
to the people by the government itself. This situation explains why
the standing of criminal leaders may actually be improved through
the deployment of military means against their nation or group.3
Once savagely attacked, the members of a group may turn a deaf
ear to claims on the part of the aggressors that the leader of the tar-
geted group is a criminal. Indeed, one of the most likely effects of
assaulting the inhabitants of a country led by a criminal is to provide
them with what they interpret to be graphic proof of the story cur-
rently being promulgated by those in power. But even those who have
openly opposed the reigning regime may lamentably conclude that
their attackers are at least as bad as the leader to whose criminal rule
they have been regrettably subject (Cerovic 2001). Who but the evil
enemy would terrorize and kill innocent people and destroy the fruits
of years, decades, or even centuries of their compatriots’ labor?4
While terrorizing, harming, and humiliating the supporters of
a criminal in power (who often sincerely, albeit erroneously, regard
themselves as fighting on the side of justice), bombing campaigns
also indiscriminately jeopardize the leader’s detractors, people not
generally at liberty to flee, especially given modern immigration
laws. The prospective victims of a bombing campaign may also quite
naturally wish to continue to reside in what has always been their

homeland. Indeed, this constitutes the very raison d’être of the vast
majority of civil wars: a dispute over territory. The question in such
cases is not whether crimes are being committed: they are. The ques-
tion is whether military action will not exacerbate rather than alle-
viate the situation, given the inevitable generation of new victims,
which, far from mending, can further deepen the rifts between bat-
tling factions.
Fanta Régina Nacro’s 2004 film La nuit de la vérité [The Night
of Truth] portrays the emotional effects upon many of the people
of Africa of the unjust loss of loved ones through war. These effects
help to explain the seemingly endless series of mass killings on that
continent during the postcolonial period. Although the film is fic-
tional, the surreal atrocity depicted, the “barbecuing” alive of a rebel
soldier who killed and castrated the son of the wife of the president,
is based on the true story of what was done to Nacro’s own uncle (in
Burkina-Faso) in a stunning revenge killing viewed by the perpetra-
tors themselves as an act of just retribution.
Again, in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, many Iraqi children
suffered and died as a direct result of the bombing of water treatment
facilities by the US military.5 Antipathy toward the US government
increased dramatically among the people of the Middle East who held
that US leaders waged a war for oil and, in the process, killed many
thousands of innocent people. Those who viewed the United States as
mercenarily motivated in 1991 became inclined to interpret later mili-
tary incursions along similar lines. For those not already so convinced,
George W. Bush provided further evidence of such a view in 2003,
through waging an offensive war against Iraq in violation of interna-
tional law as articulated in the Charter of the United Nations (1945).6
Against the hopes of many, this general impression was not dispelled
by the Obama administration, which stepped up the campaign of
targeted assassination of suspects initiated by Bush and expanded the
list of countries subject to patrol by weaponized Predator drones in
the aftermath of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Whether or not the people who interpret the United States as a
rapacious imperial hegemon are right is irrelevant to the effects of
their perceptions, and only effects matter in consequentialist calcula-
tions. In the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many polit-
ical scientists and terrorism experts predicted that, far from helping
to combat terrorism, such unprovoked military action would provide
fuel for the fire of those recruiting for groups such as al Qaeda, a pre-
diction borne out by the virulent insurgency in the aftermath of the
invasion. The US State Department itself reported that the incidence

of global terrorism increased markedly after the 2003 invasion and
continued to increase during the subsequent years (Glasser 2005).
The consequentialist moral of these stories is clear: People have
no choice but to commence from their own interpretations in deter-
mining appropriate responses to what they take to have been acts of
unjust aggression. Collateral damage apologies are satisfying to the
killers, not to the families, friends, and comrades of the victims. That
the resort to military force generates new victims who often feel com-
pelled to avenge themselves and their brethren for what they interpret
to have been unjust attacks against them has been amply illustrated
by not only the bloodbaths in the Balkans, the slaughter of the Tutsis
by the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, and the violence perpetrated in
Iraq by insurgents against US occupiers and their collaborators since
March 2003, but also the decades-long vortex of violence between
the Israelis and the Palestinians, each of whose acts of killing have led
to cyclical retaliation.
The inextricable dependence of people’s actions upon their own
interpretations is also illustrated by the behavior of factional terror-
ists such as the killers of September 11, 2001, who destroyed not
only nearly 3,000 US citizens, but also themselves in the process,
thus demonstrating their belief in a cause worth dying for. Even if
only one of the hijackers aboard each of the planes knew that they
were all going to die, this case would suffice to demonstrate the
point. Whatever the true motives behind their actions, there can be
little doubt that factional leaders such as Osama bin Laden have suc-
ceeded in recruiting converts to their professed cause by highlighting
the consequences for innocent people of the military actions carried
out by the nations against which they inveigh. In the aftermath of
the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the occupied land became a “magnet” for
al Qaeda and other fanatical groups, who predictably capitalized upon
the interpretation according to which the United States had waged a
criminal war. One of the most graphic consequences of the resort to
deadly force by military institutions is the general proliferation of
terrorism, which must be considered in any sound consequentialist
analysis of whether war should be waged.
Terrorism
The refusal to “negotiate with terrorists” is a common refrain in
political parlance. It is often accepted as self-evident that terrorists
are so far beyond the pale that it would be morally reprehensible even
to exchange words with them. But the term terrorist remains elusive,
defined in various ways by various parties and used to condemn the
acts of killing committed by others. Judging from the use of the term
by the government administrators of nations, it would seem to be
analytically true that, whoever the speakers may be, they are not ter-
rorists. Terrorists refers exclusively to THEM, a lesser or greater set of
political actors determined by the sympathies of the speaker. Terrorist
is a term of derogation.
Political terrorism is regularly condemned by public officials, but
every formal nation began as a group of informally assembled people
who at some point formalized their relation to one another and devel-
oped institutions to protect themselves and further their own inter-
ests. Nations are nothing more than conventionally delimited groups
of people bound by conventionally specified laws said to apply over a
particular expanse of land. Nations, in stark contrast to persons, are
insentient, unconscious artifacts, created by persons to achieve their
ends and satisfy their needs. A nation, as such, has no value indepen-
dent of the people it comprises.
Given the conventional nature of nations, policies of military inter-
vention serve as highly visible examples, to other groups and indi-
viduals alike, of proper response to crisis. The leaders of nations do
not espouse a coherent policy in resorting to deadly violence when
they offer as their rationale that the annihilation of innocent people
by other groups is abominable. In a world filled with finite and fallible
beings (properties shared by the populace and their leaders), the epis-
temological status of the conviction that one ought to wield deadly
force never surpasses the level of mere belief. Leaders who wage wars
when they believe that justice mandates such action must, in consis-
tency, accord the same right to others, whenever they find themselves
in similar situations, that is, whenever they believe that justice man-
dates recourse to deadly force. To resort to military means of conflict
resolution is to erect and defend by example a model of what is sup-
posedly permissible or even necessary conduct during times of strife.
Through upholding the warrant for the use of deadly violence against
their enemies, states transmit a deleterious lesson to political dissi-
dents convinced of the unjust practice of the government in power:
Justice may necessitate killing, even of innocent people.
Political terrorists appear typically to regard themselves as either
seeking vigilante justice or fighting what they take to be just wars.
The rationale of community self-defense may also be invoked by sui-
cidal killers, some of whom appear to believe that the sacrifice of
their own lives will save countless others. Because their victims are
typically noncombatants, terrorist actions more closely resemble acts

of modern war than vigilante killings, given that most war casualties
over the past century were not soldiers but civilians. There are of
course killers who do not conceive of their own crimes along these
lines, having themselves no political agenda or proclaimed moral mis-
sion, but the tendency of governments to conflate ideologically driven
terrorists with ordinary murderers shrouds the similarity between the
homicidal activities of factional groups and those of nations. The most
nocent terrorists have always been those who act under the aegis of a
formal institution, as did the Nazis under the Third Reich.
Political groups have agendas, and some deploy violence strategi-
cally in attempting to effect their aims. Terrorists are not “beyond
the pale,” intellectually and morally speaking, for their actions are
best understood through appeal to the very same justificatory schema
wielded by nations in defending their own military campaigns.
Terrorists interpret their own wars as just, while holding culpable all
those who benefit from the policies of the governments from which
they dissent. Terrorist factions agree with governments that war is
sometimes permissible and that justice may require actions likely to
result in the deaths of innocent people. Political terrorist groups and
the military supporters of nations share the same paradigm, disagree-
ing only about the facts, above all, who the bad guys are, and how the
class of noncombatants or innocents is to be understood.
To condone the commission of homicide by one’s own group in
times of strife is to exhort by example others to do the same, and
some political dissidents—revolutionaries or terrorists (depending
upon whether or not one agrees with their aims)—do follow this
advice. Convinced as they are of the unjust practice of governments
in power, such groups engage in violent acts of insurrection. Factions
lack the advantage of currently enshrined institutions, which natu-
rally perpetuate the very status quo claimed by dissidents to be unjust.
Many terrorist groups insist that their claims have been squelched or
ignored by the regime in power. But if formal nations may wage war
to defend their own integrity, sovereignty, and values, then why not
separatist groups? And if such a group lacks a nationally funded and
sanctioned army, then must not the group assemble its own?
In civil wars such as those between the Serbs and the Muslim
Croats and Ethnic Albanians, or between the Tutsis and the Hutus
in Rwanda, all sides conduct themselves according to their own rules,
armed by the weapons of states claimed to have been produced for
the execution of just wars. During intranational wars, the combatant-
noncombatant distinction ceases to apply in the minds of those who
fight soldiers who do not present themselves in military attire. In such

cases, the guiding distinction appears to be innocence versus guilt—
as always, interpreted by the killers themselves. Because all members
of the enemy community are regarded as complicit in—as collabora-
tors who aid and abet—what are interpreted as soldiers’ crimes, civil
wars tend over time to become more and more savage, culminating in
some cases in genocide, as in Rwanda and Darfur.
In advocating recourse to war as a means of conflict resolution,
one simultaneously advises others to follow suit whenever they find
themselves similarly situated. But different agents will define the class
of legitimate targets differently and will act under their own reading
of “the rules of war,” ultimately in accordance with their own inter-
pretation of the facts, determined by their idiosyncratic and abridged
understanding of history. The disturbingly common practice of sol-
diers’ rape of women on the enemy side, for example, has been ratio-
nalized by the perpetrators on the grounds not only that the women
are the enemy’s accomplices, but also that their ethnic group must be
eliminated. Rape victims produce more children of the rapists’ ethnic
group while preventing at the same time the production of more of
the enemy. Such ghastly aspects of war have recurred with regularity
over the course of human history and cannot therefore be regarded
as anomalous, unpredictable, or somehow incidental to the practice
(Jones 2010).
All parties who offer reasons for their acts of deadly violence offer
moral reasons. The leaders of first world nations hypocritically decry
terrorist actions by minority factions, while at the same time pro-
moting the idea that deadly violence is sometimes a requirement of
morality. The ongoing resort to terrorist means by factions should
be expected in a world where military institutions regularly devastate
territories governed by leaders stigmatized as criminals. Even well-
intended military missions produce ramifying threads of violence
throughout the world, as people decide to emulate the militarily pow-
erful and wage their own wars, whether via the apparatus of a formal
institution or not.
The P roliferation and D issemination of

W eapons and Technology
Arguably the most far-reaching consequence of modern military poli-
cies of dispute resolution by states is the production and international
dissemination of deadly weapons. To some it may seem intuitively
obvious that the more weapons there are in existence, the more
dangerous the world becomes. Others have argued, “More guns, less
crime.”7 On the international scene, the latter argument would seem
to be refuted by the reality of civil wars made possible only through
the weapons provided to underdeveloped countries (most obviously
throughout Africa and Latin America) by outsiders. Many advanced
industrialized nations with standing armies not only produce but
also export the very arms used by factions in civil wars and terrorist
actions, often in places incapable of producing those weapons them-
selves. Some may wish to restrict the use of the term terrorist to the
members of political groups who deploy deadly violence beyond the
bounds of any established legal system, but those killers, too, derive
their conventional weapons from more formal (and legal) military
institutions and industries.
Given the ease with which stockpiled arms are transferred from
regime to regime and provided by some governments to smaller
groups deemed at the time politically correct, weapons trade has
proven all but impossible to control (Feinstein 2011). When scan-
dals such as Iran-Contra are brought to light, seldom are the cul-
pable agents held more than nominally accountable for their actions,
generally interpreted to have been, at worst, misguided though well
intended (North 1995). Leniency toward military personnel and
political leaders who engage in or facilitate patriotic though illegal
weapons commerce appears to result from the assumption on the part
of most people that they and their comrades are basically good and
decent people, a positive self-image further strengthened by the deni-
gration of the enemy as evil.
The legal exportation of weapons itself raises no less vexing ques-
tions, for modern conventional weapons such as landmines and
uranium-tipped missiles are produced by and for the military institu-
tions of nations, though such weapons target civilian communities in
peacetime, long after the soldiers have retreated. The self-proclaimed
“good” nations participating most actively in weapons export trade
have effectively blighted large areas of the inhabited world with
weapons waste, unexploded and active ordnance that continues to
terrorize, kill, and maim innocent people years after the end of the
military conflicts in which the weapons were deployed (Smith 1997).
Although the calamitous effects of landmines have been well docu-
mented by human rights groups, the countries primarily responsible
for the production of these weapons have remained blithely insouci-
ant of the devastation which they wreak.
No Man’s Land (2001), directed by Danis Tanovic, offers a scath-
ing critique of the hypocrisy involved in the ongoing production of
cruelly destructive weapons such as landmines, which continue to

be used in wars formally decried by the government officials of the
very nations from which the weapons derive. In this case, a land-
mine designed to explode not when pressure is applied, but when
the weight on top of it is lifted, is placed by a Serb under the body of
a wounded Bosnian (Muslim) guerrilla warrior while he is sleeping,
making it impossible for him to move. A German explosives expert
and de-miner is called to the scene by the UN casques bleues (peace-
keeping forces), but he regretfully concludes that it is impossible to
deactivate such mines as a result of their “ingenious” design. The
man is left at the scene to die.8
An apparently common belief among military planners, that
international constraints upon the use of weapons should be based
solely upon considerations of strategic exigency, is illustrated by the
refusal of China, Russia, and United States to sign the Ottawa Treaty
banning the production, sale, use, and dissemination of landmines.
Sound consequentialist projections regarding landmines must take
into consideration the long-range effects, which have been amply
documented. Yet the landmine debacle is but a symptom of the much
more general problem of weapons proliferation and transfer.
In the modern world, weapons are readily available to the advo-
cates of all causes and to both sides of every conflict. As a direct
result of the capitalized weapons industry, propelled by the continual
flow of federal taxes to the military, even some of the poorest and
least stable countries in the world are well armed, for the weapons of
wealthy nations are stockpiled, deployed, or sold. In a market-driven
economy, the continuous production of weapons by profit-driven cor-
porations can only be justified if stockpiles are depleted in one way or
another. When older weapons are rendered obsolete and replaced by
more technologically advanced weapons, the former are furnished to
nations for whom the weapons are highly advanced—relative to those
which they already own.
Without weapons, no dictator could wreak havoc upon the people
of another or his own land. But regimes frequently change—above
all, in regions of political ferment—and new leaders inherit the arse-
nals of their predecessors. Through supplying weapons even to leaders
whom one believes at the time to be one’s allies, one has no reason-
able grounds for believing that those weapons will not, eventually, be
used to commit murder. Political leaders may change, be corrupted
by power, as the adage goes, causing alliances to wax and wane. This
issue is virtually never broached in mainstream discourse, but it is
arguable that in actions such as the slaughter of the Tutsis by the
Hutus, the oppression of the ethnic Albanians by the Serbs, the inva-
sion of Kuwait by Iraq, or the gassing of the Kurds, those who armed
the criminals were accomplices to their crimes.
In About Baghdad, Sinan Antoon’s 2004 documentary of Iraqis’
reactions to the US invasion and occupation (the interviews were con-
ducted in July 2003), several people convey the perspicuous message
that “the United States installed Saddam, and the United States took
him out.” These Iraqis, while critical of the regime under which they
have suffered, are equally critical of the United States for having sup-
ported Hussein in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War and, above all,
for having provided the dictator with the means to oppress the people
under his rule. Strikingly, Western military aid to Iraq was actually
increased subsequent to Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds.9
Given the widespread suffering caused not only by the US govern-
ment’s support of the Iraqi dictator, but also by the US-instigated
1991 Gulf War and the sanctions imposed during the twelve-year
period between the two wars (1991–2003), the Iraqis interviewed in
About Baghdad express more than a little skepticism about the official
story, according to which the US military came to liberate them. The
apparent insouciance on the part of the invaders toward the plight
and degraded living conditions of the Iraqis in the aftermath of the
2003 invasion—including their lack of adequate water, medication,
and electricity—served to confirm in the minds of skeptics that the
“liberation” story was a sham.
Saddam Hussein became a powerful dictator through his accu-
mulation of weapons from the international community dur-
ing the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. Likewise, Osama bin Laden was
trained and armed by the US military to combat the Soviet inva-
sion of Afghanistan. The notorious School of the Americas or SOA
(recently renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation” or WHISC), located in Fort Benning, Georgia, and
run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has as alumni some
of the most reviled human rights abusers to have emerged in Latin
America, including Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama;
Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina; Juan Velasco
Alvarado of Peru; Guillermo Rodríguez of Ecuador; and Hugo
Banzar Suárez of Bolivia. Other SOA alumni have been credited with
crimes against humanity committed in El Salvador, Chile, Mexico,
and Colombia.10
As the people living under US-backed military dictatorships,
including the government of Saddam Hussein, became all too aware,
an arsenal of weapons is the sine qua non of crimes against humanity.
The widespread dissemination of weapons to other countries was

rationalized strategically during the Cold War by Western military
planners who regarded the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire intent
upon colonizing the world. However, since 1989, Cold War logic no
longer applies, and the essentially economic forces driving weapons
proliferation and transfer have become progressively more difficult to
disguise (Higgs 1990, 2006).
Whatever may be the intentions of those who wage war in the con-
temporary world, there can be little doubt that the rapidly expanding
weapons industry has as its consequence that the leaders of countries
with large arsenals may simply assume that such weapons should be
deployed whenever the “opportunity” arises. Consider US president
Harry Truman’s fateful words, “Having found the [atomic] bomb, we
have used it.” Weapons are a readily available resource, and some lead-
ers may reason that they should be used rather than “wasted.” Large
arsenals of stockpiled weapons may impel leaders to opt precipitously
for the use of military force without having exhausted all routes to
a pacific resolution of the conflict. With an army and an abundance
of weapons ready at hand, the leader of a nation may be tempted to
implement military measures prematurely—as the first, not the last
resort—though they will clothe their decision in just war rhetoric,
insisting that they have no choice.
The higher the frequency of recourse to deadly force, the more
normal it seems, and the more likely it becomes that force will be
deployed precipitously in the future. While US president Bill Clinton
may have seemed relatively pacific in comparison to George W. Bush,
in fact, during Clinton’s presidency, Iraq was bombed on a regular
basis. Clinton also engaged in “preemptive” attacks elsewhere, for
example, the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan falsely
presumed to be producing not aspirin but chemical weapons. The use
of military force by U.S. president Barack Obama against the regime
of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya without first seeking approval from
congress illustrated the tendency of executive military power continu-
ally to expand.
The provision of weapons by first world to third world nations in
Latin America and elsewhere throughout the twentieth century led to
mass murder all over the planet. Nonetheless, the ongoing build up of
weapons and defense systems appears to be justified in many people’s
minds on the grounds that the world has become more dangerous
as a result of the increased capacity for destruction shared by nations
such as India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. But the short-term
“solution” would seem to be the long-term cause of the very danger
against which wealthy nations continually arm themselves and their

current allies. In 2007, billions more dollars in US military aid were
promised to Saudi Arabia (from which most of the hijackers of 9/11
hailed), Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Israel,
and Egypt, in a spectacular display of either a failure to remember the
etiology of the crimes of Saddam Hussein or a blithe denial of US cul-
pability in creating the dictator he became (Gray and Pleming 2007).
The military empowerment of outsiders was seamlessly continued
by the Obama administration, which provided billions of dollars in
weapons to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain (Landler and Myers
2011). Strikingly, in December 2011, a sale of $11 billion of arms to
Iraq was being pushed despite concerns that the prime minister, Nuri
Kamal al-Maliki, was in the process of consolidating power to exclude
Sunnis and promote a Shiite government—in defiance of what was
supposedly one of the conditions upon military aid packages to that
country (Schmidt and Schmitt 2011).
Conventional weapons derive directly from the military sup-
ply industry, but terrorists have also developed innovative weapons
through the use of materials with nonmilitary applications, for exam-
ple, sulfuric acid or ammonium nitrate. The killers of 9/11 inge-
niously deployed domestic airplanes already located within the very
nation to be attacked and succeeded in slaughtering thousands of
innocent people and terrorizing millions more. Given the possibility
for such innovative destruction by terrorist groups, it would seem that
the idea so enthusiastically promoted by national leaders, that killing
human beings through war is sometimes a mandate of justice, can
only further spur terrorists to devise ever more creative and insidi-
ous means to destruction, in tandem with the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) refinement of the implements
of homicide used by formal militaries.
* * *
Given the structural and ideological similarity between factional

political violence and formal military campaigns, the leaders of estab-
lished nations delude themselves in supposing that they will quell
terrorism through threats, weapons proliferation, and the assassina-
tion of suspects. Terrorists such as the members of al Qaeda view
themselves as warriors for justice. This suggests that unless the stance
toward war embraced by most governments of the world transforms
radically, terrorist activity should be expected to increase over time
(Calhoun 2002c).
Deployments of massively destructive weapons by governments

and the tyrannical use of targeted assassination against suspects serve
as approbations of the use of homicide in achieving political aims,
and all the more now that modern wars are broadcast around the
globe by the media. Domestic coverage of US wars is delivered in an
anodyne form, omitting graphic depictions of the blood, carnage,
horror, and grief caused directly by the US military. Internationally
disseminated images can be far less pretty, and people’s opinions are
formed by what they have seen, not by what the killers may wish for
them to believe.
As the rash of mass killings by young people in the United States in
recent decades reveals, the message that homicide is sometimes oblig-
atory is persistently and continuously inculcated in a pro-military cul-
ture. It is also arguably reflected in the increased incidence of gang
violence—which mirrors on a microlevel the practices of factions dur-
ing civil wars—in addition to the deadly campaigns waged by vigi-
lante groups within the United States. The very existence of some
violent groups—for example, MS (Mala Salvatrucha), comprising
El Salvadoran immigrants—was a direct consequence of US military
action abroad.11
The term blowback, first used in March 1954 by the CIA, refers to
“the unintended consequences of covert operations against foreign
nations and governments,” specifically, those consequences harmful
to the very people said to be defended by the operations in question
(Johnson 2003). As the legacies of the Cold War reveal, the effects
of institutionalized policies of destructive violence extend far beyond
the temporal and spatial parameters of what may seem to be a nar-
rowly delimited conflict. During the Cold War, the United States
and the Soviet Union did not engage in direct combat with one
another, but both supported proxy battles all over the planet and,
in the process, dispersed deadly weapons widely and trained many
men to kill.
The word blowback is fairly new, but the concept is as old as society.
In medicine, the term is iatrogenic: doctor-induced illness or death.
Just as physicians do not intend to destroy their patients, though they
sometimes do, national security strategists do not intend to under-
mine national security. Nonetheless, US military policies directly
engendered the flagrant problems of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin
Laden, in addition to many less obvious and rarely discussed cases
(Johnson 2004). The unchecked growth of the military machine is
arguably itself an instance of blowback, for the amount of money
allocated to defense industries and their subcontractors augmented
enormously over the past century, and the weapons produced have
been used to oppress and kill people all over the planet.
With the ever-increasing lethality of modern weapons, the conse-
quences of friendly fire have also become far more devastating than in
the wars of past centuries, when the soldiers accidentally wounded by
their own comrades had some chance of surviving the damage wrought
by more modest means.12 Viewed more generally, the increasing pro-
portion of allied deaths caused by friendly fire in any conflict weighted
heavily toward the militarily powerful constitutes a metaphor for the
entire framework of the modern military in recent years.
“Friendly fire” represents the empowerment of what became mass
murderers throughout the twentieth century, when strategists repeat-
edly made the tragic mistake of assuming that “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend,” as in the case of the US support of bin Laden
against the Soviets. Once the “Godless” Soviets had been defeated,
bin Laden set his sights upon what he viewed as the equally “Godless”
Americans (Danesch 2004). By continuing to create their own ene-
mies, strategists evince a neglect of history and an ill-founded faith in
the power of weapons and deadly violence to quell conflict, ignoring
the long-term consequences of military policies for people, particu-
larly those of other lands.
* * *
Leaders make lofty rhetorical claims to be acting on behalf of human-

kind, but they generally remain loyal to their own groups, and have
often displayed a willingness to sacrifice outsiders to achieve politi-
cal aims. No less than anywhere else, in modern Western democratic
nations, leaders are manifestly chauvinists, who invariably ascribe far
more moral weight to their own citizenry than to outsiders, often
disregarding altogether the probable consequences of their current
policies for future generations—both compatriots and noncompatri-
ots. Such chauvinism and myopia should come as no surprise, for
Western leaders are public servants who work only for those who have
appointed them. Public administrators have been delegated responsi-
bility and empowered by people depending upon them to protect and
perpetuate their interests.
The realities of administration notwithstanding, when touting their
wars, leaders often claim to be fighting for humanity, even when it is
patent that the interests weighed most heavily are those of the leaders’
own countrymen. In contemporary Western civilization, the discrimi-
nation between persons by appeal to morally irrelevant properties such
as gender and race has been officially discredited. Yet the very error
committed by sexists and racists is condoned and even encouraged by
patriots and nationalists when it comes to citizenship or birthplace.
Patriotism, or devotion to one’s homeland (etymologically, father-
land ), has been esteemed by human beings for as long as there have
been countries. Throughout history, soldiers fighting on behalf of
their groups have been motivated to commit acts which would be
crimes if carried out by individuals with no political commitment. But
to distinguish people along national lines, prioritizing the interests of
an “in” group to those of the “outsiders,” is erroneously to elevate
one’s place of birth to the status of a morally relevant property.
When bombing campaigns are carried out without engaging
ground troops to any significant extent, this reveals the attacking
military’s willingness to kill for causes not thought to be worth
dying for. The more and more frequent use of Predator drones
pushes this risk aversion to its logical limit (Calhoun 2011a). US
leaders are sometimes ready and willing to send their troops abroad
to fight wars on enemy terrain, as in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and
Iraq. However, in these cases, the civilian population of the United
States has enjoyed the insular protection provided by vast bodies of
water on both sides. This willingness to put “enemy” civilians at a
risk of death not shared by US citizens reflects, again, nationalistic
prejudice. In equally weighing the interests of all those likely to be
affected during conflicts such as the Vietnam War, the 1991 Gulf
War, or the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan in 2001 and
Iraq in 2003, soi-disant utilitarians would be hard-pressed to defend
their actions. In all of these cases, many human lives were sacri-
ficed, and most of those killed were noncombatant civilians of enemy
nations attacked by self-proclaimed “just warriors” fighting in the
name of humanity.
* * *
In a consequentialist framework, the wisdom of waging war cannot

be dismissed a priori, for which actions will bring about the best
outcome is always an open question. To assess the warrant for a par-
ticular war, one must calculate its reasonably foreseeable effects. But
to assess the practice of warfare, one must calculate the reasonably
foreseeable effects of the practice. Those long-term consequences
need to be included in the final tally of any even remotely accurate
consequentialist calculation of whether or not to go to war in a par-
ticular case.
Even when war may appear to be the best solution in a specific,

apparently isolated and exceptional situation, the very decision to take
up arms may lead by way of example to many future such decisions on
the part of other leaders and groups, whose own missions will neces-
sarily be guided by their idiosyncratic understanding of history.13 The
ultimate cause of any event involves a complex nexus of factors, but
people’s conceptions of morality derive from the examples provided
to them by their predecessors, including the wars written into history
by their victors as just.
The most frequent response to the charge that war kills innocent
people appeals to quasi-utilitarian or consequentialist reasoning,
according to which it is sometimes necessary to kill some innocent
people to save an even larger number. Such rationalizations are nearly
always offered in times of war, but the history of human conflict sug-
gests that the orchestrated use of deadly force does not promote but
undermines community security. Deadly force addresses temporary
symptoms, not long-term causes of factional strife, as is evidenced by
the centuries-long cycles of spiraling violence between some groups.
In 1994 Rwanda, where the killers used primitive arms not derived
from Western nations (though they were imported), it seems clear
that the widely exported idea, that justice mandates the slaughter of
the enemy, itself made the genocide possible.14
The concept of the “state” was first introduced to the people of
Africa in an essentially tyrannical form, through violent colonization
by European invaders. That brutal history helps to explain why the
postcolonial picture in Africa remains stained with blood, for the new
governments have often modeled themselves upon the tyrannical and
corrupt structures of the former colonial regimes. In Darfur, as else-
where, tribal divisions were exacerbated by the government’s provi-
sion of weapons to select subgroups. That “violence breeds violence”
seems undeniable in such areas of ethnic strife. Some military sup-
porters, however, have drawn entirely different conclusions from the
cases of Rwanda, Kosovo, and Darfur. In addition to generating local
revenge killing in retaliation to perceived injustices, the slaughter by
groups of the members of other groups in these cases has given rise
to an entirely new framework for rationalizing war. Thus a striking
new metaconsequence has emerged out of the practice of war itself,
christened by its advocates as humanitarian intervention.
4
B om bs a n d C h a r i t y
We had to destroy the town to save it.

—US officer stationed at Ben Tri
during the Vietnam War1
Political leaders typically rationalize war to the populace through

appeals to consequences, justice, and self-defense, the latter of which
might seem to prescribe state sovereignty and noninterventionism.
However, in recent decades, more and more military action has been
advocated on behalf of people unable to defend themselves, though
the intervening parties’ interests appear not to be at stake. In contrast
to wars claimed to be necessary in self-defense, missions promoted
as humanitarian intervention are sometimes regarded warily by the
populace and military of the nations called upon by their leaders to
embroil themselves in the affairs of outsiders. Noninterventionists
who think of war as a form of self-defense regard missions such as
NATO’s 1999 bombing of Kosovo as misguided: at best, officious;
at worst, immoral.
In stark contrast, those who insist upon the necessity of military
intervention on behalf of the defenseless people of other lands main-
tain that failing to intervene is tantamount to permitting the victims
to be killed, the insinuation being that those who refrain from action
are in some sense accomplices to the crimes of the killers. Michael
Walzer writes: “Whenever the filthy work can be stopped, it should
be stopped. And if not by us, the supposedly decent people of this
world, then by whom?” (Walzer 2004, 81).
The seduction of such moral rationalizations of war becomes
far more compelling when the consequentialist calculation at least
purports to take into account the interests of outsiders, rather than
obviously benefiting the invaders at the expense of the inhabitants of
the land invaded. The guiding image of those who rally for military
intervention appears to involve a fleet of courageous soldiers rushing
to the aid of defenseless women and children trapped in the midst

of a murderous rampage ordered by their evil leader. How could any
decent person merely stand by?
Such fictional pictures may be rhetorically persuasive, but the
means of “rescue” wielded in modern military missions are primarily
bombs, the effects of which are purely destructive. There is clearly a
surface appeal to the idea of rescuing helpless victims, and our own
self-image as “decent” people may well depend upon our ability to
claim that we have done everything possible to, as Walzer puts it,
“stop the filthy work.” But the issue is far more complex than such a
simplistic characterization suggests.
Military forms of “humanitarian intervention” pose new questions,
for the intervening nations are not directly parties to the dispute alleg-
edly justifying recourse to war. The Charter of the United Nations
(1945) expresses the post–World War II perspective that only wars
fought in defense of sovereign nations are legal. But while the 1999
NATO bombing of Kosovo was not sanctioned by the UN Security
Council, neither was the mission officially condemned.2 As always,
given the inaccessibility of leaders’ intentions, their actual motives
for going to war can only be a matter of speculation. Nonetheless, in
the case of allegedly humanitarian interventions in places where the
economic interests of the attacking nations seem not to be at issue,
people generally disposed to oppose military action may be persuaded
to accept the most rather than the least charitable of the possible
rationalizations for going to war (Barnett and Weiss 2008).
Many liberals who vehemently opposed the 1991 Gulf War were
not so averse to, and some even vociferously supported, NATO’s
1999 campaign in Kosovo, for the rationale offered by those promot-
ing the mission appeared to be untainted by morally dubious ulte-
rior motives. The dominant line of reasoning, widely promulgated
by supporters of the bombing of Kosovo, was articulated by Lloyd
Axworthy, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, at the G-8 summit in
Cologne on June 9, 1999:
None of us sitting around this table, members of NATO, has discerned

or envisioned any sort of strategic advantage that might rationalize an
intervention in Kosovo. No source of oil or ore is in danger. No vital
tactical position or ocean access is in question. There are no knowl-
edge assets to protect. In fact, there is nothing but a relatively poor
population in a disadvantaged part of Europe being victimized by its
very own government. This is the reason why we were moved to act,
not by the cold calculations of realpolitik (Hubert and Bonser 2001,
125; my translation).
B om b s a n d C h a r i t y 69
Notwithstanding the apparent sincerity of such proclamations (of

which there were many), in the view of critics of the Kosovo cam-
paign, the allegedly benevolent intentions of those who intervened in
the conflict were difficult to reconcile with their modus operandi.
During the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, ostensibly aimed at
squelching human rights violations committed by Serbian soldiers
at the behest of Slobodan Milosevic, many innocent people were
killed: reliable reports indicate that the toll of civilian life exceeded
that of military casualties. NATO also destroyed numerous civilian
structures, including every major bridge in the region. The bombing
campaign itself catalyzed the rapid expulsion by Serbian soldiers of
hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians, who were thus rendered
refugees in a matter of days.
In fact, the majority of killings of ethnic Albanians by Serbs
occurred after the initiation of NATO’s bombing, not before.
Furthermore, both of these consequences had been predicted by
experts before the campaign commenced. Once the bombing had
come to an end, it emerged that soldiers and civilians alike had been
exposed to radiation as a result of the decision by the mission’s execu-
tors to deploy depleted uranium-tipped missiles. This was a danger of
which the Pentagon was well aware, though they failed to apprise the
other members of the alliance at the time.
Ground troops were not deployed during NATO’s 1999 mission in
Kosovo, only relatively high-flying bomber planes, apparently because
the use of ground forces would have met with widespread disapproval
among the people of the intervening nations. The resistance on the
part of political leaders to risk the lives of military personnel resulted
in a higher risk of death for noncombatants, albeit nonnationals, and
increased the incidence of other forms of collateral damage as well.
Among many other mistakes, on May 13, 1999, a fleet of USAF F-16
bombers attacked a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees, killing forty-
eight people and seriously injuring sixty more. The Chinese Embassy
in Belgrade was also bombed.3 After the mission had come to an end,
US leaders refused to grant aid to help to rebuild the devastated land,
claiming that the people would first have to oust Milosevic. Can this
military campaign be properly characterized as an instance of human-
itarian intervention? Can, more generally, charity come wrapped in
the casing of a bomb?
Noncombatant deaths and massive damage to civilian structures
were directly caused by NATO during a campaign supposedly under-
taken to assist the Kosovars. If the executors of this mission were con-
cerned with the plight of the people of Kosovo, then why were areas
densely populated with civilians attacked? Why did ground troops

not directly confront the enemy soldiers to call an immediate halt
to their actions? Why did NATO reduce to rubble so much of the
infrastructure of these people’s society? If the purpose of bombing
“dual targets” such as bridges, power plants, and radio stations was to
demoralize the civilian population to the point where they might rise
up against Milosevic, then was not NATO using the people of Kosovo
as the means to its own military and political ends? Unalloyed benev-
olence does not obviously mesh with the type of insouciance regard-
ing civilian casualty risk evinced in the bombing of city centers.
The 1999 NATO bombing of Kosovo is only one case, the wis-
dom of which is naturally open to debate and the execution of which
can be evaluated through a detailed analysis of what was done and
what, in the aftermath of the mission, took place.4 That the bomb-
ing of Kosovo was poorly orchestrated would not invalidate all pos-
sible military missions of humanitarian intervention. However, even
if we wish to distinguish the NATO action in Kosovo from the long
series of invasions equally depicted by nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century colonizers as benevolent interventions, unanswered questions
remain, first and foremost, whether such initiatives cohere with our
other moral views.
* * *
Advocates of state sovereignty insist that the right to self-defense on the

part of a nation is so weighty that most, if not all, intrusions by other
nations constitute veritable declarations of war against the people of the
trespassed land. That the people of a nation have the right to contend
with their own problems is not an idea found only in books. Members
of communities who regard intervention as in some sense degrading
hold precisely this view. As an illustration of this perspective, in Randa
Chahal Sabbag’s film Civilisées (2000), based on the twenty-year civil
war in Lebanon, soldiers attack a representative of Médecins sans fron-
tières [Doctors without Borders] who insists that he has come to help
them. Notably, even one of the wounded soldiers, who could benefit
directly from medical assistance, spurns the French doctor, telling him
to mind his own business. A similar exchange is depicted in the film
Black Hawk Down (2001), also based on a true conflict, when a US
pilot taken prisoner in Somalia is asked by his captor:
Do you really think if you get General Aidid, we will simply put down
our weapons and adopt American democracy? That the killing will
stop? We know this: without victory, there can be no peace. There will
always be killing, you see? This is how things are in our world.
The crux of this controversy concerns the level and moral quality
of political content necessary for an established state to merit sov-
ereignty. Some writers insist that the people of other lands have the
right to erect and maintain state structures according to their own
understanding of justice, even when it conflicts with our own. Others
would deny the status of sovereign state to flagrantly and incurably
unjust structures (Beitz 1980). The question ultimately becomes:
of all of the corrupt leaders in the world, which of them must be
stopped, and by whom?
Staunch champions of sovereignty reject the validity of any mili-
tary mission not bearing directly upon the intervening nation’s
interests. But war advocates who hold that leaders are not obliged
to weigh the interests of all people equally may insist (somewhat
less emphatically) that no nation could be required to help outsiders
in need, though this may sometimes be permitted. Humanitarian
interventions, by definition, do not involve the strategic or eco-
nomic interests of the intervening nations. Accordingly, it is some-
times said that the military personnel in such cases are acting
“above and beyond the call of duty” and that the beneficiaries of
military intervention should, therefore, simply be grateful that any
form of assistance whatsoever has been offered. In this view, since
the intervening nations are doing the recipients of their action a
favor to which they are in no way entitled, they have no grounds for
complaint when the mission is not a resounding success or mistakes
are made.
Such supererogatory wars may not cohere with the principle of last
resort, nor the idea that noncombatants are immune from attack. To
claim that war is a last resort is to assert that the situation is desper-
ate. But it does not make sense, in truly dire circumstances, to select
one’s strategies by appeal to popular opinion polls or the guiding
principle that one’s own soldiers ought under no circumstances to
be harmed, even at the price of noncombatant—albeit nonnational—
lives. Yet precisely such considerations seem to have guided NATO
strategists, who excluded from the outset the deployment of ground
troops during the 1999 Kosovo mission. By refusing to risk the lives
of military personnel, strategists may significantly decrease the prob-
ability of success, making it far more likely that the entire undertak-
ing will have been otiose or that the outcome will be worse than had
they done nothing at all.
Those who reject the legitimacy of supererogatory wars some-

times maintain that, because all military missions result in the
deaths of people who otherwise might not have died, in humanitar-
ian interventions, military personnel should be held to even higher
standards than usual when it comes to noncombatant immunity.
One “usual” standard involves what has come to be called “the doc-
trine of double effect,” the legacy of Aquinas by appeal to which just
war theorists continue to understand the jus in bello requirement
of proportionality. In this view, foreseen albeit unintended deaths
of persons officially immune from attack are permissible so long
as they are neither disproportionate nor a part of the very means
to the intended moral end. The other “usual” standard is, again,
prescribed by consequentialism: the outcome of a morally permis-
sible action must represent a net improvement in the overall state of
affairs for all affected parties.
That the executors of military forms of humanitarian intervention
must be especially observant of noncombatant immunity would seem
to imply that an outside nation should be inclined to eschew inter-
vention except in worst-case scenarios. However, because utilitarian-
ism (and consequentialism, more generally) does not accommodate
our ordinary notion of supererogation, military intervention is never
optional in a bona fide utilitarian view. Only one action maximizes
the good for the greatest number, so any particular action either is
obligatory, or it is forbidden. In a given set of circumstances, a leader
will be morally obliged either to wage war or to refrain from doing
so. Correlatively, a particular policy within a campaign, such as the
decision of NATO leaders not to deploy ground troops in Kosovo,
either is permissible—which, in the utilitarian view, is simultaneously
obligatory—or it is prohibited. If the refusal to deploy ground troops
resulted in a less than optimum outcome, then that policy was simply
wrong, and if more damage than good was done through the mis-
sion, then the operation was a mistake, even if some of its executors
and supporters had only the best of intentions.
While in basic agreement with noninterventionists regarding
“humanitarian” military missions, pro-military champions of sover-
eignty hold that defending one’s self and one’s fellow citizens is a spe-
cial case: one has special connections to those people and, therefore,
relational duties to them, on analogy to the parent and the physician.
Such a position might seem to be unsound in a genuinely consequen-
tialist framework, given that where one happens to have been born
is entirely a matter of chance and arguably of no moral relevance.5
And surely no one is morally obliged to support the local regime in
power simply because it is the local regime in power. Counterexamples

such as Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, Amin’s
Uganda, and Pinochet’s Chile leap immediately to mind.
* * *
According to commonsense morality and the laws of civil society,

there is a default presumption against killing human beings. However,
when people succumb to malnutrition or disease, we do not hold
morally culpable all those who might have saved them. Within civil
society, parents and physicians are regarded as exceptions to the rule,
for they have extra obligations to attend to the needs of children and
patients. But even physicians and parents have incurred special obliga-
tions only to their own patients and children, not to all of the patients
and children of the world. In considering the possibility of humani-
tarian intervention, the question arises: if parents are responsible only
for their own children’s well-being, and doctors only for their own
patients’, then how can it be morally obligatory for the people of one
nation to save the people of another?
Proponents of intervention may regard such a question as cal-
lous, but one must, realistically speaking, move beyond the rhetoric
of rescue and ask what such an obligation to save people from one
another would actually imply. In civil society, positive acts of killing
are sharply distinguished from negative omission or nonaction, where
an agent refrains from rescue though he might have helped a victim
in need. To offer only one of many possible examples, in the United
States, homeless people—including, in recent decades, significant
numbers of US veterans of foreign wars—sometimes die of exposure
in the streets of cities with vacant houses and apartments available, in
principle, for human use. No one holds the owners of such proper-
ties responsible for the deaths of the people who might have been
saved through the provision of shelter. The most straightforward way
of understanding the importance ascribed to this distinction is that
positive action reflects a positive intention, while negative omission
reflects only a lack of intention. In cases of negligence and malprac-
tice, specific agents (parents and doctors) are held culpable for deaths
resulting from their failure to attend positively to the needs of victims
to whom they are specially related.
Nonetheless, under the plausible assumption that all human
beings are moral persons (subjects of morality), some have suggested
that one should not, in considering the possibility of recourse to war,
weigh more heavily one subset of humanity than another, even if one
happens to be a national leader. This perspective was expressed by

former UN secretary general Kofi Annan when he appealed to pow-
erful nations to be more consistent in their interventions, rather than
becoming involved only when their own state interests are at stake.
Annan was calling upon the administrators of powerful nations to
view all human beings as members of the world community (Williams
2000). In such a cosmopolitan picture, what matters above all is the
outcome for humanity, not simply the net outcome for one’s own
compatriots.6
When the very existence of an ethnic or religious group hangs in
the balance, advocates of intervention insist that action must be taken.
The credibility of this rationale might seem to fly in the face of the
habitual refusal on the part of first world nations to intervene in noto-
rious cases such as Rwanda and Darfur. But humanitarian interest
rationalizations also seem, on their face, inconsistent with the refusal
to provide significant aid to countries whose inhabitants succumb
far more often to starvation, illness, and natural calamities—such as
floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes—than to death by murder. Why
should it be morally obligatory to save people from one another but
not from nonhuman foes such as droughts, disease, famine, and other
natural disasters? Does the practice of the military “rescue” of the
people of other lands in fact cohere with our other more general poli-
cies regarding third world nations, the inhabitants of which so often
desperately need food, medication, and clean water, while wealthier
nations stand by for the most part incognizant of or oblivious to their
plight?7
One might reply that, in prospective cases of humanitarian inter-
vention, a broader set of vital interests, on the part of humanity, is
involved. Human beings should not be in the business of killing other
human beings, and least of all as a matter of institutional policy on
a large scale. In this view, all civilized nations have humanitarian
interests at stake in preventing and halting the murderous policies
of criminal regimes. Those who draw moral distinctions between
man-made and natural disaster may observe that death by murder is a
direct result of volitional human action. In contrast, the mere lack of
food, medicine, potable water, shelter, and so on, is not always attrib-
utable to malevolence on the part of human beings, and this is why
instances of the former, but not the latter, involve “vital humanitarian
interests” and necessitate intervention.
It is of course true that what are now the most powerful nations
came into being through the exploitation and slaughter of the indig-
enous people of undeveloped lands. However, the causal connections
between first world opulence and third world destitution are specu-
lative and remote: both the perpetrators and victims of the original
crimes passed away long ago. Whether or not it is valid to ascribe
moral responsibility for starvation and premature death in third world
nations to people thriving elsewhere would seem to require in each
case a detailed empirical analysis.8 When famines are the result of
conscious decisions on the part of leaders and thus have clear political
causes, then they should not be viewed as natural disasters at all. In
cases where famines are positively intended (rather than merely the
result of incompetent administration), they are more plausibly viewed
as forms of arms-free warfare. Indeed, some have argued that politi-
cally generated famines may be the most insidious form of warfare of
all, an extraordinarily efficient way of slaughtering entire populations
without taking up arms (Sen 1981).9
Notwithstanding the political realities giving rise to mass death by
starvation, drawing a sharp distinction between man-made and natu-
ral disaster remains the most charitable way of explaining what may
seem to be inconsistent behavior on the part of nations far more will-
ing to provide assistance in the form of deadly weapons than through
life-sustaining food, water, and medicine.10 The attitude of US lead-
ers toward the AIDS epidemic in Africa can be understood along
these lines. In this view, AIDS is a nonhuman enemy, so, although
the continent of Africa is being ravaged by the disease, US leaders
have not felt obliged to offer significant assistance to combat and pre-
vent the spread of AIDS beyond US borders.11
The moral import of the distinctions between (1) man-made and
natural catastrophe, and (2) killing and letting die is crucial to any
plausible defense of Western nations’ relative insouciance toward the
plight of the people of Africa in the turbulent postcolonial period.
However, only the first of these distinctions is upheld by those who
support military forms of humanitarian intervention—at least while
they are in the process of defending such action. It seems clear that
war supporters do accept the moral distinction between killing and
letting die within the bounds of civil society. Yet to support military
means of humanitarian intervention requires that the distinction be
suspended, for such missions physically cause the premature deaths of
some human beings through efforts to rescue others.
* * *
According to those who distinguish just from unjust war, collat-

eral damage and war crimes are mutually exclusive interpretations
of positive and deadly actions reflecting the intentions of the agents

involved, as Aquinas explains:
Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is
intended, while the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take
their species according to what is intended and not according to what
is beside the intention (McKeogh 2002, 64).
Aquinas introduced this idea in explaining what he took to be the

moral permissibility of self-defense (which Augustine had rejected),
but today the doctrine of double effect is invoked to exculpate mili-
tary personnel for having killed civilians. So-called collateral damage
killings of innocent people are said to be permissible during wartime,
even if foreseen, so long as they are not intended, whether as ends
in themselves or as the means to other aims. If an elementary school
is situated in the vicinity of a crucial military target, then bombing
the site might still be permissible, even though doing so may well
result in the destruction of the school and the deaths of numerous
innocent children and teachers. In contrast, the doctrine of double
effect would not sanction the direct targeting of the school itself, for
noncombatants are immune from attack. The alleged immunity of
noncombatants does not, according to just war theorists, preclude
war. However, Robert Phillips explains, “the permission of collat-
eral evil must be justified by considerations of proportionate moral
weight” (Phillips 1984, 31).
The manifestly plausible requirement of proportionality is affirmed
by many, but in actual practice its application is entirely obscure, and
it is difficult to stifle the suspicion that military spokesmen simply
assume the requirement to be fulfilled in their retrospective reports
of collateral damage, wherever and whenever it occurs. In the most
controversial cases, “dual” targets—electrical power plants, radio
stations, oil refineries, and water treatment plants—are intention-
ally destroyed. War opponents have often asked what noncombatant
immunity might possibly mean, if densely populated urban areas and
structures essential to civil society are regarded by military strategists
as legitimate targets.12
The doctrine of double effect is indeed a doctrine, not an intrinsi-
cally valid and self-evident justification for the killing of innocent
people. The doctrine is used to excuse collateral deaths by making a
rather banal observation not unrelated to the manifestly plausible idea
that ought implies can. Those who appeal to the doctrine of double
effect presuppose the necessity of war, and then explain why, contrary
to the proscription within civil society, the slaughter of innocent

people is permissible. The solution to the puzzle is supposed to be
that, notwithstanding the suffering, fear, trauma, carnage, and pain
caused, these killers intended to achieve something good through
their actions, and the unfortunate collateral damage victims were not
a part of the means used to achieve the intended military aim.
Advocates of military forms of “humanitarian intervention” some-
times characterize war opponents as morally remiss or even immoral
for refusing to support interventions said to be intended to stop the
slaughter of people by criminal regimes. But war supporters often
seem to want to have it both ways, insisting that military action,
which will (in the modern world) result in the deaths of innocent
people, is sometimes necessary, while denying that positive assis-
tance is morally obligatory in other sorts of cases. Is such a position
coherent? Military supporters who insist upon the obligation to use
deadly force to stop other people’s acts of aggression are assuming
that they (the interveners) would be morally culpable for failing to
intervene. This is a curious stance, if intentions are supposed to be
relevant to morality, for noninterventionists do not intend to permit
slaughter. Rather, in refusing to take up arms or to support those who
do, noninterventionists intend to refrain from killing. Furthermore, if
the long-term consequences of resort to deadly force can be foreseen
(see chapter 3), then those who insist that intervention is obligatory
should, in consistency, hold themselves equally responsible for all of
the other unintended consequences of their actions as well. Can one
reasonably maintain that providing potential criminals with weapons
is morally permissible, while failing to stop them from using those
weapons is not? Every possessor of a weapon is a potential criminal,
and leaders with arsenals at their disposal are potential war criminals,
as was regularly demonstrated throughout the twentieth century.
Those who oppose intervention reject the insinuation that their
inaction is causally related to the deaths effected by other agents.
The causal net is far too complex and their own connections to the
deaths much too tenuous to ascribe responsibility to war opponents
for other people’s acts of killing. If the murderers suddenly decided
not to kill their victims, the noninterventionist’s plan of action
would be in no way altered. The war opponent intends the negative
consequences of refusing to fight neither as an end nor as the means
to the deaths brought about by other agents. In other words, the
deaths said by some war advocates to “result” from the noninterven-
tionist’s inaction are, at the very worst, a form of “collateral damage”
(Holmes 1989).
Perhaps if the war opponent does nothing, then a murderer will

kill innocent human beings. But those who oppose the use of deadly
military force cannot reasonably be held responsible for and surely
ought not to bear the burden of the existence of all of the evil in
the world. If ought implies can, then no one is morally obliged to
prevent all of the people of the world from being killed, for no one
is capable of doing that. The very reasoning invoked by military sup-
porters to excuse collateral damage killings simultaneously absolves
war opponents from responsibility for refusing to take up arms or to
support those who do. If humanitarian intervention is best construed
as supererogatory, then the war opponent emerges equally unscathed,
merely declining to fight where the war supporter maintains that it is
permitted (Calhoun 2001a).
* * *
All About Darfur (2005), directed by Taghreed Elsanhouri, exam-

ines the complexity of the Sudanese conflict through live, unscripted
debates between the Sudanese people themselves, in which simplis-
tic dichotomies between Arab and African, North and South, are
revealed to be false and altogether inadequate for explaining the trag-
edy of Darfur. In addition to rejecting Manichean reductions, the
people interviewed express a wide range of opinions on the wisdom
of intervention, with some maintaining that the West has failed in its
refusal to intervene so as to stop the crisis, while others remain suspi-
cious of so-called benevolent “invaders,” pointing out that colonial
powers always claimed to be conducting “benevolent” interventions
in the affairs of people supposedly unable to manage themselves. The
interviews reveal considerable disagreement among the Sudanese
themselves—the would-be beneficiaries—about the wisdom of inter-
vention by outsiders. While some support the idea of being “saved”
by wealthy Western governments such as the United States, others
express their profound suspicion that any such intervention can only
be motivated by ulterior, imperialistic motives.
Perhaps interventions such as NATO’s bombing of Kosovo in 1999
should be construed as supererogatory, or perhaps they should be
interpreted as protecting humanitarian interests. However, there is a
third way, namely, to accept the realist hypothesis, that nations inter-
vene when and only when their selfish interests are at stake. In this
view, so-called humanitarian intervention is but a variation on the
projects deceptively labeled by French colonizers as missions civilisa-
trices [civilizing missions]. There are multiple reasons for thinking
that apparently selfless interventions are ultimately self-interested.

Most obviously, nonmilitary aid to the people of impoverished lands
is meager indeed when compared to military aid packages, and very
little work toward humanitarian intervention is carried out along
preventive lines. Indeed, the profligate military empowerment of
outsiders has often led directly to the crimes said to justify military
intervention on the part of those who armed the criminals. Powerful
nations continue to arm outsiders and then wait until massive havoc
has broken out before implementing their one-size-fits-all military
solution to conflict: retaliatory bombing.
Looking back at the wars of the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury, one finds that many of the battles fought by smaller nations
and groups during that period were funded by one or the other of
what were the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet
Union. Those missions, when publicly discussed, were characterized
by the instigating leaders as crucial to their own nation’s vital inter-
ests. During this period, US leaders preached the need to check the
global spread of communism by the Evil Empire, while Soviet leaders
simultaneously warned against the engulfment of all people by the
forces of greed fostered by capitalism. The ideological battles between
capitalists and communists during this period were fought on the ter-
rain of satellite surrogate nations, to the detriment of the people of
those lands, most visibly and catastrophically in Vietnam. The people
caught in the crossfire of these conflicts were essentially sacrificed
for US and Soviet interests, though each of the arch rivals relentlessly
claimed to be the beacon of humanity.
With the end of the Cold War, military missions instigated or
funded by third parties are no longer directly defensible by appeal
to communist or capitalist ideology. This is not, however, to say that
the United States no longer supports battles fought by outsiders in
other parts of the world. The ongoing “war on drugs” in Colombia
has been generously funded by the US government on the grounds
that the illegal exportation of drugs has adverse effects upon the
United States (Petras and Morley 2003).13 Supporters of this initia-
tive insist that illegal drug trafficking adversely affects Colombians
as well, but that is not the primary reason cited for US support of
the war. Those who oppose this initiative maintain that the United
States, by supplying some Colombians with massive military sup-
port and destroying large tracts of land through the use of chemical
agents poisonous to people as well as plants, has perpetrated and is
perpetuating a war with tragic consequences for Colombians them-
selves. The motives seem at best chauvinistic and, at worst, at odds
with the genuine benevolence needed for an intervention to qualify

as truly humanitarian.
Somewhat ironically, even regarded from the perspective of US
interests alone, Plan Colombia has proven to be of questionable
efficacy, for cocaine production in Colombia and use in the United
States have both increased since the waging of this “war on drugs”
(Lakshmanan 2006). Yet because this program is persuasively pack-
aged by its marketers in just war –speak, people tend to regard the
mistakes made as morally permissible, if unfortunate, and no one is
held accountable for the lives destroyed through the massive injec-
tion of US military aid into the land. Military aid is, of course, an
anodyne and misleading euphemism for the provision of homicidal
weapons and the training of people to use them.
The criminal dictators who degrade and usurp the lives of inno-
cent people are not born but made. Accordingly, given that the mass
murders of criminal regimes become possible only through the ready
availability of weapons, the first step toward preventing the creation
of monstrous despots in the future would seem to be to call a halt to
weapons exports today. However, because the weapons industry has
evolved into a major capitalistic force, widespread restrictions upon
the exportation of weapons would be opposed by those who view a
nation’s economic interests as more important than the vital interests
of humanity, though the latter would surely be served by an abolition
of the practice. The pro-intervention stance—that nations must pre-
vent the murder of people by criminal regimes—is flatly contradicted
by the grim reality of international weapons trade. Most of the weap-
ons in existence were exported by first world nations to less powerful
and, more significantly, less stable nations altogether devoid of the
means to produce such weapons themselves.14
The reality of promiscuous weapons commerce renders ironic that
war opponents should be charged with immorality for refusing to sup-
port the military institutions of nations in campaigns against enemy
regimes. Yet the very fact that the United States and its allies are so
loath to offer assistance in any form other than military destruction
provides evidence for the claim that cases of apparently disinterested
intervention are really self-serving, when all is said and done. Certainly
one way to gauge the sincerity (or, perhaps more charitably, the coher-
ence) of nations involved in allegedly “humanitarian interventions”
such as the bombing of Kosovo in 1999 or the ousting of Muammar
Gaddafi in Libya in 2011 would be to examine their policies regard-
ing weapons exports. In 2012, US president Barack Obama agreed to
resume arms trade with Bahrain, in spite of the protests of the people
of that land (Fahim 2012).
Those who advocate free-market weapons trade recite the familiar

refrain that weapons are not intrinsically good or evil, but become
the vehicles of evil when they are misused. Yet it is obvious that non-
existent weapons cannot be misused, and the only sure way to prevent
a weapon from being used to commit murder is never to produce it at
all. The vast majority of the weapons of modern war have no defensive
function whatsoever. Landmines and cluster bombs are not shields
and are used only to destroy people and property located far away.
The continual depletion and replenishment of stockpiled weapons
is necessary for the capitalized weapons industry to perpetuate itself,
and it would be naïve to suppose that corporate leaders and the politi-
cians whom they support are somehow immune from these economic
forces.15 But the pro-military, “just war” paradigm provides corporate
leaders, weapons industry workers, and government administrators
alike with a framework through which to interpret their own con-
tributions to the ongoing proliferation and dissemination of deadly
weapons as praiseworthy. We must always be ready to fight the evil
enemy, the reasoning goes. We must develop the most sophisticated
military means available, despite the fact that modern war results pri-
marily in the deaths of people who have nothing whatsoever to do
with the crimes allegedly justifying violent retaliation.
A further contributing motive not to be overlooked or diminished
is that the military authorities of nations such as the United States
may on occasion feel the need to engage their troops in “target prac-
tice” for potentially decisive conflicts in the future. Domestic train-
ing in simulated war-game scenarios does not involve the deployment
of the massively destructive weapons available for use in real mili-
tary conflicts. It seems clear that the US military viewed the 1991
Gulf War against Iraq as a felicitous opportunity to test weapons and
aircraft that had been kept under wraps, sequestered in storage, for
years. Similarly, during NATO’s bombing of Kosovo, detailed statis-
tics on the accuracy and efficacy of weapons, aircraft, and personnel
were tallied. Flying high above the terrain, bomber pilots minimized
their own personal risk of harm at the expense of their noncombatant
victims, while generating plenty of data for military analysis.
* * *
The rescuer narrative is simple and monolithic; history is not. The

further one penetrates beneath the “official” story, the more lay-
ered and complex the reality of what actually transpired reveals
itself to be. Walzer has vocally supported military missions of
allegedly humanitarian intervention, but he does concede that
“an absolutely singular motivation, a pure will, is a political illu-

sion” (Walzer 1991, 11).
As is true of war more generally, the bombing of Kosovo is best
understood in the broader historical context in which it occurred: the
international community, ashamed at having allowed Hutu extrem-
ists to savagely slaughter 800,000 unarmed Tutsis over the course
of several weeks in 1994, felt the need to take action when what was
claimed to be a similar scenario arose in Kosovo. The transport of
enormously destructive bombs to drop upon another people’s land
is an intrinsically offensive (not defensive) act, yet many people who
had been horrified to learn what transpired in Rwanda—while the
United States and other members of the United Nations blithely
stood by—vociferously supported the mission in Kosovo, reasoning
that they could not permit another genocide to transpire. The slip-
pery slope from self-defense to “defense” has led many war supporters
to embrace in such cases a false dichotomy: either we must intervene
militarily, or we must complacently stand by.
Even accepting (most charitably) what may have been the good
intentions of some of those who supported the intervention in
Kosovo, the options are never only these: bomb or do nothing. In
1994 Rwanda, virtually all white people were successfully evacuated
during the opening phases of what became a genocide, which implies
that the black people begging to be taken with them could have been
evacuated as well. They might have been sheltered, for example, in
refugee camps set up outside of Rwanda, where they would have been
able to wait out the brutal civil war raging between the Tutsi para-
militaries and Hutu extremists. To suppose that the failure of the
international community in 1994 inhered in its having refrained from
bombing Rwanda is to embrace an entirely false picture of the avail-
able alternatives.
In fact, given the nature of the conflict in Rwanda, bombing that
land might well have killed as many if not more people than the
genocide itself. Moreover, the Tutsis presumably “benefiting” from
such action would have been terrorized not only on the ground but
also from the sky—as happened in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan—
compounding both the physical danger and the psychic trauma of the
victims themselves. The point here is not that it would have been easy
to prevent the Rwandan genocide, which had long historical roots in
ethnic divisions exploited politically during the Belgian colonization
and occupation, but to reject the idea that the failure on the part of the
international community in 1994 was its refusal to apply massive and
tyrannical force to the region from on high, as was done in Kosovo.
The story of the Serbs and their Muslim adversaries in Bosnia bears
striking similarities to that of the Hutus and the Tutsis, for in both
cases the ethnic divisions used to justify slaughter by one group were
intensified by outsiders. Under Turkish rule for four hundred years,
some of the people of the Balkans converted to Islam and enjoyed
a privileged political status as a result. Similarly, the Belgians in
Rwanda empowered the Tutsis to the disadvantage of the Hutus. In
both of these cases, the colonizers themselves exacerbated the ethnic
divisions which later gave rise to genocide on the part of the under-
privileged group, whose members felt that they had been wronged by
their adversaries, those unjustly elevated by the colonizers to a higher
social class.16
It is through the lens of Rwanda, and before it Somalia and the
Balkans, that the Kosovo mission becomes comprehensible as a part
of a much more detailed narrative. Those primarily responsible for
the intervention, notably US secretary of state Madeleine Albright
and US president Bill Clinton, were eager to recover from the dis-
grace of their neglect of Rwanda in 1994. The refusal to embroil the
United States or the United Nations in the Rwandan conflict was in
turn a policy decision informed in part by the 1993 Somalian fiasco,
when US marines descended upon the city of Mogadishu in black
hawk helicopters in a botched ambush attack that left nineteen sol-
diers dead and generated widely disseminated photographs depicting
Somalian “gratitude” for US intervention.
Near the beginning of the Rwandan episode leading up to the
genocide, a group of Belgian peacekeepers were executed, an action
the most immediate effect of which was undoubtedly to remind US
and UN leaders of what had transpired in Somalia. But the cases were
very different. In Somalia, the US military aggressively and offensively
attacked, attempting to determine the outcome of the conflict, as it
had done in so many other cases (in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama,
Vietnam, and elsewhere). In Rwanda, in contrast, the Belgian peace-
keepers slain were standing guard at the residence of the prime minis-
ter, Agathe Uwilingiyimana. To draw conclusions about Rwanda from
the case of Somalia would be to erroneously assimilate the offensive
and aggressive activities of the US marines with the defensive and
pacific activities of the Belgian peacekeepers.17
In Kosovo, Clinton and Albright (among others) attempted to
have it both ways: to take action—carry out military operations—
but without risking the lives of US military personnel. The solution
arrived at, the massive bombing of Kosovo from on high, did not lead
to the death of even one US soldier. The bombing of Kosovo did,
however, directly precipitate the killing of some and the swift evacu-
ation of thousands of ethnic Albanians—precisely the ends sought
by belligerent Serbs. NATO’s risk aversion grew even more marked
in the years following the Kosovo mission. A series of NATO-led
International Security Force memos examined by the Independent in
July 2011 revealed that efforts to minimize the killing of civilians in
Afghanistan had become a “secondary consideration,” with greater
priority given to the avoidance of “blue on blue” or “friendly fire”
incidents (Brady 2011).
* * *
Whether or not some individual war supporters’ intentions are benev-

olent, the broader rubric of humanitarian intervention, buoyed by the
just war paradigm, provides a respectable cover for whatever moti-
vates political and military leaders to opt for war.18 In considering
the conduct of modern military institutions, war critics ask: What is
the nature of the self being defended? Administrators have reasons of
self-interest for maintaining their institutions in their current form,
and military administrators are no exception to the rule. NATO was
established for the purpose of defending the West against the threat
posed by the Soviet Union, now nonexistent. With the end of the
Cold War, one might have thought that, given NATO’s raison d’être,
the logical conclusion would be that NATO should come to an end.
Along these lines, some critics observed during the 1999 bombing of
Kosovo that those employed by NATO had vested interests in justi-
fying the organization’s continued existence. Today, NATO’s future
seems secure, as several Eastern European countries (formerly a part
of the USSR) have joined forces with NATO to combat the vague,
ubiquitous, intangible, and eternal—indeed, metaphysical—enemy:
terrorism.
The political economy of any enterprise involving a variety of dis-
parate agents is extraordinarily complex, involving a diverse set of
interests and values all of which contribute to the policy finally agreed
upon by those with the power to act. It is one thing for intellectuals to
sit around a table devising humanitarian rationales and guidelines for
intervention and quite another to be able to ascertain what precisely
the administrators of a nation or group of nations intend through a
campaign such as that waged by NATO in 1999. Was NATO’s mili-
tary attack upon Kosovo an instance of humanitarian intervention?
Or was the bombing of Kosovo merely target practice for US forces
and their allies? Were the Kosovars used as the means to military and
political ends? Was the adventure in Kosovo primarily motivated by

the perceived need to demonstrate NATO’s usefulness in the post–
Cold War period?
During the bombing of Kosovo, the insouciance displayed toward
the very civilians claimed by NATO leaders to be the recipients of
humanitarian intervention rendered implausible that the mission
was intended primarily to help them. Genuinely humanitarian inter-
vention would involve the defense of, not an assault upon, people
who have already been victimized by a criminal in power. Genuinely
humanitarian intervention would surely involve the provision of essen-
tial resources such as water, food, shelter, medicine, and clothing. It
would involve the widespread dissemination of reports documenting
the crimes committed by the offending regime. Humanitarian inter-
vention may necessitate that prohibitive immigration restrictions be
lifted, or that people at risk be escorted to safety. In real-world bomb-
ing campaigns, the destruction of the fruits of years, decades, and
sometimes centuries of human labor; the brutal resort to terror and
threats; and the slaughter of entirely innocent people perfunctorily
dismissed as “collateral damage” are buried within the dense fabric
of the benevolent “rescue” tapestry. The executors of intervention
understandably prefer to ignore or downplay such consequences, but
the people on the ground cannot.
The moral centrality of intentions is evident in the distinction
often made between natural and man-made catastrophe, but to accept
the doctrine of double effect, according to which collateral damage
is permitted, is simultaneously to vindicate the categorical opposi-
tion to war on the part of pacifists, who are thus defended, aptly
enough, “collaterally” as well. Since war opponents in no way intend
whatever may be said to be the bad consequences of their refusal to
take up arms, the doctrine of double effect, if valid, would simultane-
ously imply the permissibility of pacifism, thus effectively refuting the
claim that the resort to deadly force is sometimes morally required.
Moreover, because the practice of military intervention—whether
intended humanitarily or not—conflicts with our commonsense dis-
tinction between killing and letting die, the noninterventionist stance
best reflects the moral principles upheld within civil society.
5
T h e O t h e r S i de of t h e S t ory
( N egl ec t e d P e r spec t i v es )
There will not be a safe place in Baghdad . . . The sheer size of this has
never been seen before, never been contemplated before . . . We want
them to quit, not to fight, so that you have this simultaneous effect—
rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima— not taking days or
weeks but minutes.
—Pentagon official1
W ars are officially waged against enemy regimes, yet those pun-
ished are nearly always the less-powerful inhabitants of the offending
nation, people who often had nothing whatsoever to do with the
actions allegedly being redressed. During wartime people often pre-
sume that the supporters of an enemy’s military are complicit in their
crimes. Meanwhile, the innocent victims are written off as morally
innocuous “collateral damage.”
That the reigning just war paradigm exalts enemy and allied leaders
alike is demonstrated by the outcome of the 1991 Gulf War. The inter-
national community waged a war in response to the Iraqi dictator’s
invasion of Kuwait which left him even more firmly entrenched than
he had been before. Saddam Hussein was eventually removed from
power, captured and killed, but not before many thousands of inno-
cent people and conscripted soldiers had been destroyed. The price
paid for the removal from power of a tyrant who had been installed
and emboldened by the international community was the execution
of untold numbers of entirely innocent people with no power to resist
either their leader or those who waged war against him.
Many cases throughout history have illustrated that in countries
run by militarily powerful despots it may be infeasible for citizens to
express dissent without risking their very lives. The question there-
fore arises: How can it be morally permissible to punish, terrorize, or
even kill for a leader’s crimes people who never selected the leader,
and in some cases actually attempted to prevent him from becoming

their leader? One might wish to insist that whenever people freely
select their leaders, they bear at least some responsibility for the mis-
takes made and crimes committed by their government. However,
even in those cases where a leader wins by a majority vote, the minor-
ity selected someone else altogether. Moreover, in supporting the use
of military force against enemy nations, war advocates appear to for-
get or neglect that a significant proportion of any enemy nation’s
population cannot be said, in any reasonable sense, to support the
regime in power, since they are incapable of having informed political
opinions. Most obviously, children fall into this category, but so do
large portions of the adult populace governed by any regime exercis-
ing total control over the information to which ordinary people have
access. The story believed by those who support the reigning regime
was penned by those in power. Were the people provided with the
facts, as opposed to the just war picture painted by their government
and disseminated by the state-controlled media, they might very well
withdraw support from the powers that be.
Some of the citizens of nations run by criminals are indeed guilty
of crimes, not in virtue of their group affiliation, but for the wrong-
ful acts which they themselves have carried out. The inhabitants of
entire nations tend to be lumped together in the same category dur-
ing wartime, but to fail to dissent from the policies and practices
of the regime in power is not to condone them. Although it is sel-
dom even mentioned, much less taken seriously, what amounts, in
practical terms, to the ascription of responsibility to the citizens of a
nation for its leaders’ crimes is both rationally and morally dubious.
When US president Harry S. Truman claimed that “we have used it
[the atomic bomb] against those who attacked us without warning
at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and exe-
cuted American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned
all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare,” he committed
the fallacy of guilt by association, presuming that the inhabitants of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were somehow responsible for the attack
on Pearl Harbor. Tragically, the vast majority of the victims of the
atomic bombings had committed the “crime” only of being Japanese
nationals.
To take what would be an analogous scenario in the domestic con-
text, parents are typically held responsible, to a certain extent, for the
misconduct of their juvenile delinquent children within civil society,
the reasoning being that the parents are the children’s legal guard-
ians and moral role models. When young criminals cause problems in
Th e O t h e r Si de of t h e St or y 89
society, their parents may be regarded as having been to some degree

remiss. However, the converse implication, that children should be
held accountable for the actions of their parents, is preposterous.
By whatever means physically mature adults became the way they
happen to be—malevolent or benevolent, criminal or law-abiding—
children play no role whatsoever in the character formation of their
parents. But if children are in no way morally responsible for the
crimes of their parents, then the transfer of responsibility from lead-
ers to citizens should also be rejected in cases where the leader does
not represent the will of the people, as is always true of children, and
of the populace more generally when the leader is a dictator who has
used coercion, including deception, to achieve and maintain power.
* * *
The most telling distinction between war opponents and supporters

would seem to be the importance they ascribe to the third-person
or “objective” accounts proffered by military spokesmen and the
first-person or “subjective” effects upon the victims of war. During
press conferences, operations may be praised for having limited col-
lateral damage to fifty or one hundred civilian deaths, small numbers
when compared to the entire population potentially affected. However,
viewed from the perspective of the victims themselves, whose lives are
terminated prematurely through the decision of political leaders to
wield deadly force, the deaths can only be seen as grossly unjust.
In discussions of proportionality, the plight of collateral damage
victims, stripped of moral personhood through the termination of
their lives, seldom receives more than nominal mention. The intent
to harm marks an act as criminal, so whether collateral damage vic-
tims have been wronged during war is said to be a function of the
intentions of the people who dropped the bombs or pulled the trig-
gers, and finally measured by the extent of devastation relative to the
military objective achieved. Somewhat suspiciously, the answer given
by military spokesmen always seems to be “No.” Though now dead,
collateral damage victims have not been wronged by their killers, for
the war is a just one, the victims were neither targeted nor used as a
means, and the action culminating in their deaths was strategically
necessary.
The pro-military, just war paradigm conflicts with the concern of
human rights advocates to protect all persons from aggression, for it
assumes that entirely innocent people, who pose no threat to any-
one, may be killed during war. Accidental deaths may be the result of
criminal negligence within civil society, but collateral damage killings

of the civilians of other nations are, at best, briefly mentioned in a
tone of regret and then forever forgotten. If there is no apocalyptic
judgment day when all miscarriages of justice on earth might finally
be rectified—as just war theorists Augustine and Aquinas believed—
then nothing could be worse to persons themselves than the usurpa-
tion of their very lives.
Judging by their own words, high-level political and military lead-
ers sometimes appear not even to be fully aware of the reality of such
victims. Consider the following remark by former US secretary of
defense Robert S. McNamara regarding mistakes made by “any com-
mander” during wartime:
He has made mistakes in the application of military power. He has

killed people, unnecessarily, his own troops or other troops, through
mistakes, through errors of judgment.2
Significantly, McNamara omits civilian casualties from his account of

the sorts of mistakes made by “any commander.” But while approxi-
mately 58,000 US soldiers died in Vietnam, many times more civil-
ians were killed. McNamara somehow managed in his mind to file
collateral damage away, as though the civilian casualties had been
nonexistent all along.
No less than their civilian political leaders, the military officers
who execute war and directly generate collateral damage may not be
at all concerned with its quality or extent, as was exemplified through
US general Tommy Franks’s reply, “We don’t do body counts,” when
queried regarding the casualty toll during the 2003 invasion of Iraq
(BBC News 2005). The classical view on noncombatant immunity
and collateral damage would seem to require a tally of the number of
deaths in order to be able to assess whether or not the cost in lives was
commensurate with the military objective achieved. General Franks’s
frank response underscored that the idiom of the just war tradition is
used today rhetorically. It is not used to determine the actual justice
of a military campaign nor as a means of constraint, but to rational-
ize whatever action the commanders have already decided to under-
take. The bluntness of his response was exceptional, but the general
attitude expressed by Franks is not. During the 1991 Gulf War, to a
question regarding the number of Iraqi casualties, Colin Powell, the
head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replied, “It’s really not a number I’m
terribly interested in” (Tyler 1991).
Paul Tibbets explained in these terms the choice of the metrop-

olis of Hiroshima as the recipient of the first atomic bomb ever
deployed:
The group had been told to select some targets in Japan that had not
been bombed. In other words, they wanted virgin targets. And the
reason behind it, even though not given to the group at that time, the
reason behind it was that they wanted to be able to make bomb blast
studies or bomb damage studies on virgin targets once the bombs
were used. They were definitely military targets, there was no ques-
tion about that, and they offered such a, well, you could almost say a
classroom experiment, as far as being able to determine later the bomb
damage.3
Some of the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings viewed themselves

as having been used as guinea pigs, for US strategists had selected
pristine sites, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the targets of bombs new
to the practice of war.4 Such an interpretation is certainly not refuted
by Paul Tibbets’s remark, according to which these sites permitted
a careful study of the effects of nuclear weapons without having to
make adjustments for previous damage to these specially selected
cities, which up until then had been spared military attack. Given
that the United States had by that time already destroyed over one
hundred other Japanese cities through firebombing, it seems doubt-
ful that strategists would have left any militarily important targets
fully intact. Indeed, the most plausible explanation for the fact that
Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not been bombed before August 1945
would seem to be that the cities were not military centers. The 1945
atomic bombings raise in a ghastly and unforgettable way the ques-
tion of noncombatant immunity in war.
Again, the US administration claimed for years that the people
of Iraq would be better off after Saddam Hussein had been removed
from power, yet many thousands of Iraqis were stripped of their lives
not by the dictator, but by those who waged war against him. From
their own perspectives, the annihilation of entirely innocent people
by the US military would seem to be no less a crime than to have been
killed by the Iraqi leader himself. Similarly, when the United States
undertook to wrest power from the Taliban in 2001, many war sup-
porters claimed that Afghans themselves—in particular, oppressed
women—would benefit greatly.5 Many thousands of those people
are now dead. Whether or not any of the various justifications prof-
fered for war in these cases were sound continues to be debated. But
because resistance groups located within both nations protested the

bombing of their own lands, it is unclear how such military cam-
paigns, imposed by outsiders and openly opposed even by some of
those persecuted by the government in power, might be justified
both in their name and against their will.
The people erased through war also leave behind a legacy of loss
and pain—in some cases, irreparably shattered lives—for they were
not nameless numerical data to their loved ones, as they were to their
killers. Only through considering the first-person perspective of vic-
tims themselves, not the euphemistic and fictional depiction of the
perpetrators, can the reality of collateral damage be grasped:
The whole building was making a groaning and creaking sound. The
steel sounded like it was moaning. I thought we were all going to die,
that the building was going to collapse right then and there . . . My first
reaction was that it was an earthquake. Then I thought of a bomb.6
Every night the planes used to come bombing, and I never slept.
Forty-five days I never slept. Drinking, sitting beside my piano . . . It
was so scary, and I didn’t want to show my fear to my family. I tried
to pretend I am a brave man. For me, it was terrible. I became old[er],
maybe ten years, so quickly.7
These two accounts—the first, of a survivor of the al Qaeda attacks

on the World Trade Center; the second, of an Iraqi civilian under US
bombing—convey the horror of what was done to people from their
own perspective. The emotions of fear and helplessness expressed in
the two cases are essentially the same, which implies that, from the
perspective of the victims themselves, the two types of action are
psychologically indistinguishable. The anguish of the inhabitants
of a nation under bombing results from the fact that these people,
who happen to be located through no fault of their own in countries
run by criminal regimes, have no way of knowing whether they will
survive. All they really know is that some, perhaps many, people are
bound to die when the military of another nation begins to drop
bombs from on high.8
The prevailing pro-military, just war paradigm altogether ignores
the perspective of the individual subjects victimized in war. Most
people uncritically assume that war is a legitimate form of community
self-defense, so they rarely reflect upon the meaning of military proc-
lamations such as “There will not be a safe place in Baghdad” from
the perspective of a prospective victim. While “only” thousands (not
millions) of innocent people were destroyed by US military forces
during the spring of 2003, millions were terrorized by the adminis-

tration’s ominous threat of shock and awe.
If terrorism is the threat of the use of deadly force against innocent
people in arbitrary ways, then it is quite difficult to understand how
else the widely publicized build up to the 2003 invasion might have
been understood by the Iraqis themselves. Recall that the very exis-
tence of the purported weapons of mass destruction (WMD) serv-
ing as the pretext for the war had not even been established, much
less their location. From the perspectives of those threatened with
the use of deadly force in their own homeland and in retaliation to
other people’s actions, they are being terrorized no less than were the
victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and its survivors, who
continued to live in fear subsequently as well.
The quality and extent of the trauma suffered by terror victims
is a function of neither the precise identity nor the intentions of the
persons threatening or deploying deadly force. Does the suffering
endured by a person gassed to death in a concentration camp dif-
fer significantly from that of a person incinerated or asphyxiated by
a fire bomb? If the former is wrong, how could the latter be right?
Each and every nameless collateral damage victim is erased from the
pages of history, which is precisely what Hitler tried to do to the Jews.
There is a sense, then, in which each innocent person exterminated by
the weapons of war for other people’s crimes suffers his own private
holocaust.
* * *
The perspectives of victims are considered relevant when they are

harmed by individuals within civil society or by subnational factions,
whose use of deadly force, although politically motivated, is often
characterized in criminal, not military, terms. In contrast, many peo-
ple accept the one-sided descriptions by their own government of its
military missions—including the perfunctory dismissal of so-called
collateral damage—as true and authoritative accounts. What war sup-
porters fail to recognize is that the generalization of their position
would seem to imply the virtual impossibility of wrongful killing.
Human beings—whether compatriots, allies, or enemies—act on the
basis of their own values and beliefs, and interpret their actions in
accordance with the same.
In wars conducted by formal military institutions, the perspec-
tives of the victims drop completely out of the picture, as the killers
themselves are granted the last word on their own acts of killing. The
complacent acceptance of this situation has arisen, at the first level,

through the government’s monopoly on the use of force within its
borders. The complacency is further strengthened by the fact that
killing by militarily powerful nations is carried out today in lands
far away, against people not protected by the civil rights enjoyed by
the citizens of the nation being “defended” abroad. What would the
analogous scenario be, within civil society, were the prevailing mili-
tary paradigm to be applied consistently, with regard to all acts of
killing?
Homicides within civil society are on occasion legitimate acts of
self-defense, but in most cases, the victim’s life has been wrongfully
usurped by his or her killer. Still, there are at least two sides to every
story, and because erroneously punishing an innocent person consti-
tutes a gross perversion of justice, accused killers within civil society
are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
To falsely punish people for the crimes of others so acutely offends the
moral sensibilities of civilized people that they are willing to err to
the side of caution. Better to leave the murder of an innocent victim
unsolved than to multiply injustice through the false conviction of
another innocent person. One inevitable result of this practice is that
some offenders are acquitted and roam at large. But this is arguably
the lesser of two evils: it is worse falsely to convict and punish inno-
cent people than it is to permit some criminals to walk free.
This is not, however, to say that the homicide victim’s perspec-
tive may be summarily dismissed, even though he or she is no longer
able to explain what transpired. Instead, both sides of the story are
considered in a court of law, in the light of all available evidence bear-
ing on the case. The victim’s situation is re-created for the jury and
judge by the prosecuting attorneys, who attempt to demonstrate that
the person was unjustly killed by the accused. The vast majority of
indicted murder suspects enter a plea of innocence, but some of them
are finally convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of having wrongfully
terminated the life of another human being.
If only the killer’s point of view were taken into consideration
in judging an act of homicide within society, then the official story
would be that nearly no one has ever been wrongfully killed. The
vast majority of killers claim upon indictment to be innocent of any
wrongdoing, and those who do confess are often motivated by the
prospect of a mitigated sentence. Accordingly, if killers knew that only
their side of the story would be heard, then they would have no pru-
dential reason whatsoever for confessing.9 Such a hypothetical system
of “justice” would strike most anyone within civil society as absurd,
yet precisely this schema is upheld in the real world when it comes to
warfare.
When undeniable crimes are committed by troops during the exe-
cution of what has been proclaimed to be a just war—for example,
those at My Lai in Vietnam, or the series of atrocities committed by
enlisted soldiers and private contractors in Iraq since March 2003
or in Afghanistan since 2001—the individual soldiers implicated are
prosecuted and punished. However, the military establishment itself
retains the exclusive prerogative of interpretive authority. The cate-
gorical condemnation of an entire war as unjust—which would imply
that every act of killing by the perpetrators was a war crime—remains
beyond the realm of possibility, so long as the military administration
is itself granted the last word on the actions of its own troops.
Even involuntary manslaughter is considered a crime within civil
society. Accidental and negligent killings of one’s fellow citizens are
subject to prosecution by law. In contrast, a public expression of regret
for collateral damage victims—ironically directed to the citizenry of
the nation whose military destroyed them—supposedly exhausts the
reparation owed to the noncombatant casualties of war. In condon-
ing and excusing collateral damage, war supporters uncritically accept
the legitimacy of what we claim in domestic matters to be a morally
irrelevant distinction between persons: where they happen by chance
to live. The very possibility of any distinction between just and unjust
wars can only rest upon the purported legitimacy of moral communi-
ties smaller than humanity itself.
According to the reigning just war paradigm, civilians may be
killed, provided that they are not intentionally targeted. That non-
nationals may be made the victims of involuntary manslaughter,
while nationals may not, reveals that, in this worldview, some people
are more equal than others. The moral superiority of one’s commu-
nity to those falling outside its bounds is tacitly presumed by those
who maintain that collateral damage killings are beyond moral or
legal reproach and graphically illustrates the fundamental incom-
patibility of the just war paradigm with the vision expressed in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), many articles of
which are flagrantly violated through the practice of modern war
(see chapter 9).
The chauvinistic bias tinging decisions regarding appropriate
action in response to murderous crimes is well illustrated by the case
of Timothy McVeigh. In the aftermath of McVeigh’s 1995 bombing
of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City (which killed 168 peo-
ple, including 19 children, and injured hundreds of others), no one
suggested that the US military should be enlisted to bomb the killer’s

hometown. McVeigh committed a horrendous crime, for which he,
not his friends and family, was held responsible. Yet many US citizens
found it entirely unproblematic that thousands of innocent people
should die for the crimes of Osama bin Laden through the bombing
of Afghanistan in 2001.
* * *
Just war theorists use the doctrine of double effect not to test the
general practice of warfare, but to interpret the individual actions
carried out within a war already waged. Various epicycles have been
grafted onto the doctrine by theorists in their endeavor to exclude at
least some actions, including terrorist attacks such as the 9/11 mass
killings. Examples of these amendments include that the intended act
must be good in itself; that the direct effect must be morally accept-
able; and that the agent must have good intentions and aim narrowly,
positively seeking to minimize the foreseeable evil caused by his or
her well-intended action.
To see how these emendations do not circumvent charges of casu-
istry and tendentiousness, it suffices to consider the 9/11 attacks from
the perspective of a hypothetical just war theorist-cum-jihadist:
Arguably, the 9/11 attacks would have achieved the same intended sym-
bolic aim had they been conducted in the middle of the night, when the
targeted buildings (the WTC, the Pentagon) would have been empty or
nearly empty, with but a few late-night workers and janitorial staff on
the premises. However, the airplanes used to accomplish the legitimate
end sought would not have been available at that time (very few domes-
tic flights run during the night) and the darkness would have made the
effect of the media coverage of the attacks far less dramatic. Although the
deaths of the thousands of people killed were foreseen, they were not a part
of the very means to the end intended, to bring to the world’s attention the
hegemonic rapaciousness—both economic and military—of the United
States, which has killed countless numbers of helpless and entirely inno-
cent people. If our aim had been to destroy 3,000 people, then bombing a
stadium would have been a far more efficient way to do so. But that was
not the intended aim. The attacks were intended to display our righteous
anger against US war crimes abroad through destroying the symbols of
unbridled US power.
The assumption on the part of those who kill for the formal military
institutions of nations is that the moral distinction of importance
is that between combatants and noncombatants, and only the for-

mer may be targeted by just warriors. Factional killers, in contrast,
appear to hold the distinction of importance to be guilt versus inno-
cence. The hypothetical just war theorist-cum -jihadist might claim
(indeed, some have claimed) that the victims of 9/11 were not
innocent: they were directly complicit in the crimes of the US gov-
ernment, through not emigrating or otherwise disassociating them-
selves from the United States so as to avoid supporting its homicidal
regime. The literal combatant-noncombatant distinction appears to
be rejected by terrorists, who, in the manner of all military strate-
gists, have no qualms whatsoever about targeting “the bad guys,” so
long as they take the necessary precautions to spare innocent lives—
which is not to say that, however that class is defined, mistakes will
not be made.
Judging by their own words, it seems clear that the professional
soldiers of military institutions and the members of dissenting ter-
rorist factions alike interpret their own acts such that the intended
victims are in some sense guilty and therefore legitimate targets of
attack. Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 film La bataille d’Alger [The Battle
of Algiers], based on the resistance effort of Algerians under French
occupation, provides a persuasive illustration that factional killers
are indeed driven by what they take to be the necessity of military
action. Such “freedom fighters” target noncombatants who support
the repressive regime in power.
In the case of the 9/11 attacks, since the people employed at
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were directly support-
ing the criminal activities of the US government—so the just war
theorist-cum-jihadist’s reasoning goes—they could and should be
targeted, no less than the people who work in a munitions factory,
according to most orthodox just war theorists. But without the
nation’s enormous wealth, the US military would never have been
able to become the behemoth that it is. In this view, even the people
at the World Trade Center were contributing to US war efforts, not
only through allowing their federal tax dollars to be funneled directly
into the coffers of criminal killers, but also as cogs in the well-oiled
economic machine.
Under this sort of reading, the alleged distinction between com-
batants and noncombatants lacks moral import. What matters is who
is innocent and who is guilty, again, as interpreted by the killers them-
selves. Tellingly—and ironically—the rationale for terrorist killings
such as those carried out on September 11, 2001, was lucidly articu-
lated by then-US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld on March 4,
2002, in his explanation of the approach guiding the 2001 bombing

of Afghanistan:
We have assumed that where you find large numbers of al Qaeda and
Taliban, that there may very well be noncombatants with them who
are family members or supporters of some kind, who are there of their
own free will, knowing who they’re with and who they’re supporting
and who they’re encouraging and who they’re assisting” (Lichterman
and Burroughs 2004, 257).
With only minor modification, this same rationalization might be

applied to the intentional killing of all those who support what al
Qaeda and like-minded groups decry as the criminal US military.
All citizens who pay federal taxes are “supporters of some kind,
who are there of their own free will, knowing who[m] they’re with
and who[m] they’re supporting and who[m] they’re encouraging
and who[m] they’re assisting.” Note here also that the perpetrators
of the 9/11 attacks targeted US citizens in their workplaces, not in
their homes, where young children would have been harmed. Again,
this would seem to corroborate that, in the minds of the killers, the
victims of the 9/11 attacks were complicit in the crimes of the US
government.
Consider the perspective of any soldier who claims to be fighting
a just war or jihad. What is this killer doing? According to his allies,
he is killing for peace, justice, God, and so on. According to his ene-
mies, through his inexcusable slaughter of innocent human beings,
he represents evil incarnate. But in terms of the physical description
of what these killers are doing, the soldiers of both sides are directly
causing bodily harm to other human beings. Empirically, they are
engaged in the very same homicidal activities. In the moment of
action, the direct intention of a soldier is to kill. The leaders of each
side characterize the acts of killing committed by their own soldiers
as heroic, noble, moral, and just, while the acts of killing committed
by those on the other side, though no different in purely physical
consequences—piles of dead bodies—are said to be cowardly, base,
and immoral crimes.
* * *
The presumption that terrorists are criminals, not warriors, under-

went some transformation in the wake of the events of September 11,
2001, to which US government officials responded by waging what
they termed a war on terror. Terrorists are today characterized vari-

ously as criminals or warriors, depending upon whether the adminis-
tration is trying to distinguish its own military activities from the use
of deadly force by factions, or to rationalize the recourse to military
force in combating the enemy and its sponsors.
When the assumptions underlying the view according to which
war is sometimes permissible are carefully examined, it emerges that
political terrorists merely follow those assumptions to their logi-
cal conclusion, given the situations in which they find themselves.
Violent attacks by factions against strategic targets can be understood
straightforwardly as militarily permissible, at least as interpreted by
the perpetrators themselves. Small factional groups cannot usually,
with any chance of success, attack a formal military institution—the
9/11 attack on the Pentagon was a spectacular exception to the rule
with symbolic, not military value—so instead they select targets for
their shock appeal.
Secrecy is often thought to be a part of the very essence of ter-
rorism, but the covert practices of terrorist groups are due in large
part to their illegality. The members of such groups often hide their
identities (or at least camouflage their own involvement in particular
acts of killing), not because they believe that their actions are wrong,
but because it would be imprudent to expose themselves. If one is
subject to arrest for publicly committing an act, then one’s efficacy
as a soldier for the cause in question will obviously be short-lived.
It is precisely because factional groups reject the legitimacy of the
reigning regime that they undertake secretive initiatives best under-
stood as militarily strategic. “Intelligence agencies” are an important
part of formal military institutions as well, and secrecy has long been
regarded as integral to martial excellence.
Government leaders often speak as though terrorists are beyond the
reach of reason, but the fact that most factional killers are governed
by prudence and deploy violence strategically illustrates that they are
not “beyond the pale,” rationally speaking. At the other extreme,
suicide missions, in which individuals openly and knowingly act so as
to hasten their personal demise, are undertaken only when such mar-
tyrdom appears to be the most effective means of drawing attention
to the source of the grievances being aired. Far from being beyond
rational comprehension, the actions of terrorists are dictated by mili-
tary strategy deployed in the name of what the agents themselves take
to be a just cause. The extreme lengths to which terrorists are willing
to go, the sacrifices they will make in their efforts to effect a change
in the status quo, demonstrate their ardent commitment to a cause.
That political terrorists are not sui generis can be further illus-
trated as follows: Imagine the commander in chief of any established
nation being, instead, the leader of a group dissenting from the cur-
rently reigning regime. Take, for example, the case of Israel. Suppose
that the Palestinians, not the Israelis, controlled the territory under
dispute. The very same person’s acts of deadly violence (or his enlist-
ment of comrades to commit such acts) do not differ in his own mind
merely because he has been formally designated the commander in
chief in one case but not in the other. Both parties to every conflict
maintain that they are right and their adversaries wrong, and ter-
rorist factions are no exception to the rule. When one considers the
actions of terrorists from their own perspectives, it becomes difficult
to identify any morally significant distinction between what they do
and what formal nations do in flying planes over densely populated
enemy lands and dropping bombs, knowing full well that innocent
people will be harmed.
The generally accepted view is that the intention of planting bombs
in public places such as the Federal Building in Oklahoma City or
the World Trade Center in New York is to terrorize, and the people
who do such things are terrorists. According to the pro-military,
“anti-terrorist” view, although some innocent people were trau-
matized and killed during the Vietnam War, the 1991 Gulf War,
NATO’s 1999 bombing of the former Yugoslavia, the invasions of
Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and the bombing of Libya in
2011, whatever the intentions behind those actions may have been,
they certainly were not to terrorize people.10 However, if what is mor-
ally reprehensible about terrorism is that individual centers of con-
sciousness are traumatized, then wars waged by formal groups are
no less—indeed, perhaps more—devastating to the innocent persons
victimized than are terrorist actions such as those perpetrated on
September 11, 2001.
The physical effects of dropping technologically sophisticated
bombs upon the residences and workplaces of human beings are
empirically indistinguishable from the effects of the actions of fac-
tional terrorists who plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The
pain and suffering experienced by the innocent victims of war may
be equally horrific, if not worse, than that of the victims of criminal
homicide, especially given the nature of modern military weapons.
People lethally maimed by bombs do not always perish instanta-
neously; they may lie writhing in pain for an extended period of time
before they finally die. But the gory details of how collateral damage
victims’ lives are usurped by those who have killed them are never
relayed in the reports prepared by military spokesmen for public con-

sumption (Calhoun 2001e).
In stark contrast, the viewpoint of the victims of terrorist actions
committed by subnational groups are highlighted, rather than being
euphemistically dismissed or ignored. When on March 11, 2004, the
simultaneous explosion of several trains in Madrid killed some two
hundred people and injured many more, the horror of the act was
patent. Images of mangled bodies being carried out of the wrecked
trains were transmitted by all major media outlets. In contrast, the
1991 Gulf War was depicted by the media as a bloodless sporting
event, and no major media outlet in the United States transmitted
images of the multiple thousands of civilians killed by US bombs
during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In comparing these cases, it would
have taken dozens of the coordinated train attacks in Madrid to add
up to the slaughter of innocent Iraqis by the US military in March
and April of 2003, not to mention the toll throughout the years of
the US occupation.
In reflecting upon the events of 9/11 alongside the 2001 war on
Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, one is immediately struck
by the fact that the objects of critique in all three cases were govern-
ments, but the victims of the actions were for the most part inno-
cent people bearing no responsibility whatsoever for the crimes of
their leaders. The grievances of the 9/11 killers appear to have been
with the US government and the hegemonic domination exerted by
its military and economic institutions symbolized by the Pentagon
and the World Trade Center. Yet an even greater number of innocent
Afghans were destroyed by US forces whose grievances were with the
Taliban government for its having supported those responsible (above
all, Osama bin Laden) for the 9/11 attacks. The 2003 invasion of Iraq
led to the deaths of multiple times the number of innocent civilians
killed on September 11, 2001.
In ridiculing arguments to the effect that the proposed cure (war)
is worse than the disease, military supporters unerringly make refer-
ence to the distinction between cases by appeal to the alleged inten-
tions of the killers. Walzer is typical:
A few left academics have tried to figure out how many civilians actu-
ally died in Afghanistan, aiming at as high a figure as possible, on the
assumption, apparently, that if the number is greater than the number of
people killed in the attacks on the Twin Towers, the war is unjust . . . But
the claim that the numbers matter in just this way—that the 3,120th
death determines the injustice of the war—is wrong. It denies one of
the most basic and best understood moral distinctions: between pre-
meditated murder and unintended killing (Elshtain 2003, 79).
Is this really one of the most basic and best understood moral dis-
tinctions? Or does it merely represent a fairy-tale version of human
commerce, according to which the evil enemy has categorically evil
intentions, while the killers on one’s own side have only good inten-
tions, no matter what they do? But what if those “good” soldiers
drop megaton bombs on metropolitan areas; use atomic weapons
against cities teeming with civilians; saturate the soil with toxic
agents and thus poison the people who live off the land; plant land-
mines capable of maiming and killing children for decades to come;
launch depleted uranium missiles; scatter cluster bombs, napalm, and
white phosphorous throughout regions inhabited by altogether non-
threatening people? The rhetorical tropes put forth by factional fight-
ers in rationalizing their use of deadly force mirror those offered by
national leaders promoting war, most notably that “we are good, and
they are evil.” But if the slaughter of 3,000 innocent Americans on
September 11, 2001, was a moral abomination, one can only marvel
at the suggestion that the slaughter of multiple times that number of
innocent Afghans and Iraqis might be anything but worse.
Whether or not we accept the Manichean rhetoric used to decry
the killings by our current enemies and defend the homicidal actions
of our nation’s soldiers and our current allies, this emphasis upon the
intentions of the killers altogether neglects the perspectives of the
victims, effectively denying their moral personhood. Precisely herein
lies the crux of the problem with the just war paradigm, which was
devised centuries before the recognition of universal human rights. To
claim that the moral permissibility of an act depends solely upon the
intentions ascribed to the actors by those who take up arms against
them is to deny the moral personhood of those who will be annihi-
lated during the war. But the people destroyed in wars suffer the same
devastating fate whatever their killers may have wished or claimed to
aim to achieve. Military supporters blithely assume that they have
access to the intentions of the enemy (by definition evil ), and that
the killers on their own side have uniformly good intentions, their
unfailing source of absolution, regardless of the magnitude of death
and destruction wrought. War opponents, in contrast, recognize that
both sides regard what they are doing as in some sense “good”—
though they may well be and often are deluded or confused.
What should matter above all, morally speaking, is not the story
told by the killers about their very own acts of homicide, but the
perspective of the victims. Of course, when the victims are on the war
supporter’s own side, appeals to emotion are everywhere on display:
As the war against terrorism continues, we should recall all those walls
lined with handmade signs imploring, “Has anyone seen . . . ” and the
people on television describing sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sis-
ters, brothers, children, grandchildren, fiancés, colleagues—the gallery
of grief (Elshtain 2003, 8).
When, instead, the victims are on the enemy side, they are nameless,
faceless collateral damage, said by their killers to have been ultimately
destroyed by the evil enemy.
Consider, for example, the “documentary” films produced by the
US War Department during the 1940s. These films do depict graphic
images of civilian death and suffering, but only of people victimized
by the enemy. Appointment in Tokyo (1945, directed by Jack Hively),
which relays the story of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines
and the US response, is replete with images of the blood and gore
generated by the Japanese. At the end of the film, the atomic bomb-
ings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are shown in split-second images of
large conflagrations in the sky—with no images of any human beings
anywhere in sight.11
* * *
The ultimate problem with using intentions to diminish or dispel

moral culpability for the deaths caused by the military is that the same
logic applies to both sides of all conflicts. As misguided as the sol-
diers on the enemy side may be, their actions are undeniably informed
by the story told to them by their leaders. When soldiers kill under
command, their own leaders—whether of nations or factions—have
characterized the positively intended deaths as mandates of justice.
Soldiers, whether allied or enemy, from nations or factions, appear
to believe themselves to be killing for good reasons. But according to
the just war paradigm, this would seem to imply that the killing of
the civilians of neither side is morally wrong, provided only that the
killers do so with “right intention” and draw the lines between legiti-
mate and illegitimate targets such that only the former are intended,
whether directly or indirectly as a means to the larger objective.
A similar argument applies equally well to leaders. There may be rare
cases in which an agent claims to be doing evil for the sake of evil,
but far more often than not, leaders pursue what they take to be good
ends through what they acknowledge to be regrettable though neces-

sary means.
Films such as The Secret Life of Adolf Hitler (1958), Untergang
[Downfall ] (2004), and Im Toten Winken: Hitlers Sekretärin
[Blindspot: Hitler’s Secretary] (2002), present pictures of Hitler and
the Nazis as human beings little different from the leaders, admin-
istrators, and soldiers of other military societies throughout history.
These films reveal how vulnerable people are to moral rhetoric and
propaganda, and how the Nazis themselves were deeply committed
to such moral concepts as loyalty and trust (Calhoun 1998). The
Nazis and their sympathizers did not regard themselves as criminals,
and some among them committed suicide upon defeat, not out of
compunction for their crimes, but because they could not bear the
thought of a world without National Socialism. Regarding the Nazis
from their own perspectives makes it difficult to accept the simplistic
“monster” hypothesis favored by most contemporary war supporters
and reflected in accounts such as Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great
Dictator (1940), which, while brilliant in its own way, promotes the
popular caricature of Hitler as a buffoon or a laughable lunatic and
fails altogether to explain how he managed to seduce nearly the entire
population of Germany. Few today would accept an interpretation of
Hitler’s campaign according to which what he really intended was to
make the world a better place, yet his “willing executioners” had been
persuaded to believe precisely such a story.12
Intrinsically evil intentions are ascribed retrospectively to the per-
petrators of war in some cases because of the sheer magnitude of
destruction. However, when the killers are on one’s own side, the
actions are typically regarded as mere—morally innocuous—mistakes.
At the end of the day, the “tolerable” amount of devastation appears
to be a function not of the inaccessible intentions of the actors, but of
one’s prior beliefs regarding the wisdom of recourse to military force
in the first place.
National leaders harshly denounce the members of subnational fac-
tions who wield deadly force, but history attests that criminal leaders
may order their troops to wield deadly force either in the name of a
nation (as did Hitler, Mussolini, Amin, Pinochet, Hussein, Milosevic,
et al.), or in the name of some other cause or sub- or transnational
faction (such as KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army], ETA [Euskadi
Ta Askatasuna], IR A [Irish Republican Army], FARC [Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia], PLO [Palestine Liberation
Organization], Hamas, and al Qaeda). Factional groups abide by
their own rules precisely because they reject the status quo of the
society from which they dissent. Such groups have separatist or activ-
ist agendas, their ultimate objective being to alter conventional bor-
ders or laws. The members and leaders of many subnational factions
have been committed to causes such as liberty, independence, and the
overturning of oppressive regimes, as is expressed by the oft-recited
refrain of guerrilla warriors that peace and justice do not always coin-
cide. The point here is not to defend the use of deadly violence by
subnational factions, but to observe that their reasons for killing, no
less than those of national leaders, are invariably political or ideologi-
cal, stemming from their own interpretation of a cause as just : “One
man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Political terrorists wholeheartedly embrace the prevailing
pro-military view according to which deadly military action is mor-
ally permissible. But terrorists delimit their groups as distinct from
(the current) nations, and they target people whom they regard as
guilty. They are evidently misguided in their tactics, but the adher-
ents of separatist groups who resort to deadly force are nonetheless
right that the nations in existence are historically contingent, not a
part of the very essence of things. Through appropriating military
rationales and means, such terrorists highlight what is obvious but
seldom recognized or perhaps simply forgotten: nations are conven-
tionally assembled groups of people who appoint their leaders just as
subnational factions do.
To characterize political terrorists as factional soldiers is not to
defend their causes, which have often been dubious indeed, but only
to observe that they are much more similar to the troops who fly
abroad to kill other people than military supporters are willing or,
perhaps, able to concede. We like to believe that our own leaders are
good, but so do the citizens of all nations and the members of all
groups. This form of wishful thinking has been evident throughout
the history of human society and is arguably one of the most impor-
tant causal factors in what have been reinterpreted in retrospect as
atrocious missions of mass murder, committed everywhere and always
by the willing executioners of political leaders—whether of nations or
of factions.
* * *
The reason why it may seem on its face ludicrous to assimilate the
commander in chief of a nation at war with a political terrorist or
a military officer acting in violation of the Geneva Conventions is
because, in the first of these cases, the perspectives of the victims are
dismissed as irrelevant. National leaders stoutly proclaim that they

will not negotiate with terrorists, meaning the members of factions
who threaten violence against innocent people with the aim of secur-
ing compliance with political demands. Yet every bombing raid in
every war waged abroad by the formal military of a nation involves
strategic terrorism, the threat of death to those who fail to comply.
When national leaders decry terrorist acts (using their own definition,
committed by groups other than the military institutions of formal
nations who happen at the moment to be allies), the populace seems
for the most part to agree. However, from the perspective of collateral
damage victims, the provenance of weapons has nothing whatsoever
to do with their lethality. Nor could there be anything less relevant to
such victims, whose lives are in effect stolen away, than their killers’
mode of dress or political commitments. From the perspectives of its
victims and traumatized survivors, terrorism is no more and no less
than the arbitrary and coercive threat of death.
International criminals are often plausibly viewed as guilty, but
retaliatory military actions terrorize and punish innocent people—
both those killed and those left scarred and bereft—for crimes which
they did not commit. If it is wrong to punish the innocent for the
crimes of the guilty, then collateral damage casualties are no less the
victims of grave injustice than are those arbitrarily killed by smaller,
less stable, and informal factions. The alleged “immunity” of non-
combatants does not protect them during wartime, for they are regu-
larly killed by the very military institutions who claim to uphold the
distinction between noncombatants and combatants, and insist that
only the latter are ever intentionally targeted by good soldiers.
To support modern war is to condone the slaughter of innocent
people unfortunate enough to have been born in the wrong place at
the wrong time. Viewed from the victims’ perspectives, the actual
effect of military interventions against nations led by criminals is not
to serve justice, but to multiply injustices. The common construal of
war as a sometimes necessary evil implies that war may be waged when
the alternative (not waging war) would have even more dire conse-
quences. Factional terrorists most likely reason along precisely these
lines. Indeed, the urgency of the terrorist’s situation to his own mind
makes his own claims regarding last resort all the more compelling to
himself and his comrades. Some political terrorists, no less than the
military personnel and strategists of established nations, may truly
regret the deaths which they effect. It is because they believe that
their or other people’s rights have been violated that groups engage
in the activities labeled terrorism.
People tend to be highly skeptical about the rationalizations of

individual assassins within civil society, and equally if not more
skeptical about the reasons for killing proffered by political factions.
Nonetheless, war supporters display a remarkable degree of credulity
when it comes to the pretexts presented by their own leaders for the
use of deadly force. Such war supporters seem to be either unaware
of or oblivious to the long, bloody history of misguided wars waged
in the name of conventionally delimited nations by conventionally
appointed political leaders.
6
R e a l L e a de r s
I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes

70 million people will be dead.
—US president Richard Nixon1
No leader openly claims to be waging war to exercise his “will

to power” or to further his nation’s imperialistic and hegemonic
aims. The people of civil societies do not agree to fund homicide,
and soldiers do not agree to murder on command. 2 Successful
leaders are well aware of these facts. Massacres such as were car-
ried out during the Nazi reign of terror are accomplished through
insisting that the warriors’ cause is just, or even noble. As head of
state, Hitler perversely claimed that his war was just and necessary,
which seems preposterous in retrospect but was nonetheless whole-
heartedly accepted by the soldiers who fought, killed, and died for
der Führer, along with the civilians who supported the war effort
(Botwinick 1998).
“All’s fair in . . . war” expresses a realist perspective in rejecting the
concept of a moral or just war. Yet moral rhetoric plays the decisive role
in motivating troops and citizens to support the military campaigns
instigated by leaders. The idea that leaders who deploy just war –speak
may do so precisely and only because it is rhetorically efficacious does
not arise often in the minds of the populace during times of crisis,
although they usually are aware that the enemy leader has a strong
following. But why, after all, do “evil” leaders have loyal followings,
if not because they devise stories along the lines of those promul-
gated by our own “good” leaders? Behind closed doors, political real-
ists may regard just war theorists with derision, but only the rhetoric
of just war provides leaders with the essential interpretive recipe for
galvanizing the people of their nations to support and execute wars.

Do leaders believe what they say?
* * *
If moral relativism is true, then there is no substantive sense of immo-

rality, for agents are “bound” only by moralities selected or created
by themselves. To affirm moral relativism is to deny moral absolutism
and to reject the rational validity of our ordinary practices of moral
judgment. If it is true that no moral principle applies to all people
in all places at all times, then whenever agents act in apparent con-
tradiction to a moral principle, they thereby illustrate that they do
not affirm it in the moment of action; their feelings of compunction
(if any) would seem to be irrational (Calhoun 2001d). In explaining
what he takes to be the relativity of moral principles and the rational
constraints upon the moralities accepted by people, Gilbert Harman
writes, “Total pacifism might be a good principle if everyone were to
follow it. But not everyone [does], so it isn’t” (Harman 1977, 77).
Moral relativism is a coherent stance, but what is usually construed
as war realism involves accepting commonsense morality as applicable
to the actions of individuals in most contexts, but inapplicable during
times of war: “All’s fair in . . . war.” In this view, nations have dynam-
ics all their own and cannot be morally judged; they are situated in a
quasi-Hobbesian state of nature, whatever arrangements citizens may
devise domestically in their endeavors to establish order at home. In
fact, both nations and wars—in contrast to earthquakes, hurricanes,
and plagues—are artifacts. Nothing in war is preordained, and any
war in history might not have been waged.
The very concepts of credit and blame serving as the basis of the
ubiquitous practice of human moral judgment are comprehensibly
applied only under the assumption that the actions of people are
largely under their own volitional control. War constitutes a set of
independent and discrete actions no less subject to moral evaluation
than are any other human actions. If every bomb dropped is the out-
come of an intentional and willful human act, then how can war lie
“beyond the pale” of human morality? Individual people initiate and
execute wars, and military missions are, from start to finish, entirely
of human device (Alain 1995). How could a group of agents each of
whom acts immorally be irreproachable en masse?
If absolutism is true, then in any war at least one of the two sides
is killing unjustly. The realist position—according to which particu-
lar acts of killing are subject to moral condemnation, while the mass
killings of nations are not—rather oddly denies the additive quality
R e a l L e a de r s 111
of evil. According to this form of war realism, though one side is

effectively committing murder, the summation of those murders is
not susceptible of moral judgment. Those who insist that “all’s fair
in . . . war” are committed to highly unintuitive implications such as
that Hitler’s war was beyond moral reproach. But anyone who upholds
the absolute immorality of murder surely must own that Hitler’s war
was a long concatenation of unjust executions no less than is the entire
set of contract killings ordered by a Mafia boss.
Sociological and psychological hypotheses about human nature
undergird realist interpretations of war. It is sometimes said, for
example, that human beings are essentially belligerent, mercenary,
and cruel. Those attributes do seem to apply to some people, but as
global accounts of the phenomenon of war, they explain both too
much and too little. There is a sense in which such self-proclaimed
“realists” change the topic of discussion, switching the level of analysis
from normative (moral) to descriptive (sociological). Political groups
and wars are all the creations of individual people, whose conscious,
deliberative decisions and subsequent actions transform the world in
which they live. In the end, global explanations appealing to allegedly
essential human traits prove to be either false or tautological and, in
either case, inadequate to account for specific, concrete wars in the
real world. Why should it be that war “breaks out” in one place and
time as opposed to another?
In contrast to realists, pacifists and just war theorists are idealists,
who insist upon the applicability of moral concepts to war.3 Their
mutual affirmation of absolute morality notwithstanding, just war
theorists sometimes regard pacifists as their ideological enemies.
Elizabeth Anscombe, for example, laments the obliteration firebomb-
ing of Germany during the 1940s, a concern surely shared by any
pacifist. But Anscombe blames pacifists in part for the tendency of
military personnel to conduct themselves as though no limits what-
soever upon the conduct of war need be heeded:
Pacifism and the respect for pacifism is not the only thing that has led
to a universal forgetfulness of the law against killing the innocent; but
it has had a great share in it (Anscombe 1970, 50).
This creative reading is not restricted to Anscombe. Consider Robert

Phillips’s explication of the idea:
The influence of pacifism is far greater than the number of its adher-
ents would suggest . . . Anscombe’s point is just that insofar as pacifism
is regarded as an ideal for the mass of men, it is an ideal short of which
they will inevitably fall. But the damage will have been done. Having
dirtied their hands by resorting to evil means, there is no reason not to
go all the way and fight war à l’outrance as a means of securing victory.
If the use of force is evil, why limit ourselves once we have chosen to
fight? (Phillips 1984, 108–109).
Anscombe and Phillips situate pacifists and political realists in the

same camp, which is valid in one sense: both deny that war is ever
just. But what does this imply? Fatalists hold that war is inevitable,
given human nature. It is not the case that “everything is permitted,”
but it makes no sense to engage in moral analysis or assessment of
a war. People will do what they will do, unfettered by morality, when
it comes to warfare. Pacifists, in contrast, deny that war is inevitable.
Far from accepting that “all’s fair in . . . war,” pacifists hold essentially
the opposite view: all killing in war is tantamount to murder. No
one should be waging war in the first place. Anscombe and Phillips
maintain instead that some wars are justly waged, and that pacifists,
through insisting upon the injustice of all wars, actually impel sol-
diers and leaders to conduct themselves in the most savage manner
possible, with no moral restraints whatsoever.
There are far simpler and more plausible ways of explaining glaring
violations of the so-called rules of war ( jus in bello). The very same
data—the indisputable and widespread commission of war crimes
during wartime—would seem to be much better explained by the
fact that just war rhetoric is used initially by political leaders to galva-
nize support for a war. Once waged, the conflict takes on dynamics
of its own, determined by the specific missions implemented by mili-
tary officers who may hold any of a number of diverse views about
morality, ranging from absolutism to relativism. The military officers
who determine the content of specific missions within a war may be
political realists, or they may be idealists. According to this reading,
publicly proffered moral rhetoric is purely expedient, not justificatory.
Political leaders and military officers may or may not believe in abso-
lute morality, and they may or may not be idealists. Realist leaders
are not merely difficult to distinguish but in fact indistinguishable in
appearance from moral absolutists, since they naturally avail them-
selves of the rhetorical paradigm best suited to their aims. The realist
dagger, wherever it may hide, lies cloaked in moral rhetoric.
* * *
The triumph of just war rhetoric notwithstanding, a veritable moun-

tain of evidence exists for the realist posture of military officers
and strategists: the weapons of the modern world. Contemporary

Western leaders publicly decry the possession of biological, chemi-
cal, and nuclear weapons by the petty despots of other nations, yet
such weapons were first developed, studied, and produced in the
very countries now expressing concern about their potential misuse.
But to point to the potential misuse of a certain type of weapon pre-
supposes the possibility of its being correctly or permissibly used.
Cluster bombs, noxious gases, nerve toxins, and strafing weapons all
seem difficult if not impossible to reconcile with the classical just war
requirement of respecting enemy soldiers as human beings. Can such
means of destruction be accommodated within the just war picture
promulgated by the public relations representatives of military insti-
tutions? Weapons such as fragmentation bombs and napalm appear
to have been designed precisely so as to maximize the suffering of
their recipients. The very existence of such arms strongly suggests
that military planners envisioned their deployment, since adminis-
trators do not generally allocate scarce resources to the production
of weapons never to be used.4 Although the Nazis achieved a new
nadir in their development of chemical means to the extermination
of human beings, toxic gases had already been deployed militarily in
World War I.
Just war theorists such as Anscombe and Phillips, who blame paci-
fists for the fact that military personnel flout the jus in bello require-
ments once war has been waged, fail to appreciate that, for obliteration
bombing even to be possible, the massively destructive means for oblit-
eration bombing must first exist. Low-level soldiers do not them-
selves decide to deploy these weapons—they submit to their superior
officers in agreeing to do so. But the weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) fired by modern soldiers acting under order by their com-
manders require years to develop and produce. Notwithstanding the
self-righteous moral rhetoric of pro-military pundits, such weapons
continue to this day to be used by nations in their so-called just wars.
Can the existence of such inhumane military means be reconciled
with the “just war” picture proffered by the military institutions of
nations? No. It seems much more plausible that military planners and
strategists are often realists of one stripe or another, not idealists.
This closet realist hypothesis renders comprehensible why such delete-
rious weapons continue to be produced and have been disseminated
and deployed all over the world.
A 1980 UN convention banned the use of napalm against civil-
ian targets, but the United States did not sign the treaty. Because
collateral damage is a foreseeable consequence of modern war, in
choosing to use napalm (white phosphorous, depleted uranium

missiles, etc.), US military officers and strategists choose to risk
using it against civilians, as they did in both Afghanistan and Iraq.5
Colonel James Alles (commander of Marine Air Group 11) recalls
one of the deployments in Iraq: “We napalmed both those [bridge]
approaches . . . Unfortunately there were people there . . . you could
see them in the [cockpit] video” (Crawley 2003). The use of such
weapons against even combatants is no less morally dubious, pro-
vided only that one accepts the jus in bello principle according to
which enemy soldiers are to be respected as human beings. The
ongoing use of landmines and cluster bombs further exemplifies the
nearsightedness of military planners who order soldiers to fight with
little thought to the territories they blight and the future of com-
munities in effect permanently imperiled in the name of peace. Are
the leaders and military planners of the countries who continue to
develop, stockpile, disseminate, and deploy such weapons primarily
interested in justice and morality? Do they really wish to make the
world a secure and safe place for all human beings?
The closet realist hypothesis further explains a variety of other-
wise altogether mysterious facts about the US Department of Defense
(DoD). Lip service is paid to war veterans in commemorative speeches
on national holidays. But the US government’s treatment of the veter-
ans of the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War was shameful indeed,
at least when judged by the framework according to which these peo-
ple are supposed to be noble heroes. The veterans of the Vietnam
War were provided with little support—whether economic or psycho-
logical—upon their return home, with the consequence that large
numbers of them became social outcasts. A disproportionately high
percentage of those veterans were incarcerated for crimes committed
after their service, evincing the corruptive effects of training young
men to commit homicide (see chapter 7).
Subsequent to the US bombing of chemical factories in Iraq,
many veterans of the 1991 Gulf War developed chronic illnesses,
and serious health problems also arose as a result of the use of the
toxic defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam. In each of these cases, US
administrators refused for years to bear any responsibility for the
plight of their own veterans, though numerous studies confirmed the
statistical significance of their illnesses.6 (The “collateral damage”
victims—non-US nationals—of such contamination were, needless
to say, largely ignored.) Soldiers have often been used as guinea pigs
in studies of the effects upon human beings of a variety of drugs and
also of the radiation released by nuclear weapons.7 In the twenty-first
century, enlistees deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq have been plied

with drugs preemptively and heavily medicated after their service,
which may have contributed to the explosion in suicides among active
duty soldiers and veterans alike (Calhoun 2011c).
Were political leaders and military planners truly concerned with
justice and morality, such treatment of and insouciance toward their
very own soldiers would be puzzling, to say the least. But the “closet
realist” hypothesis explains all of the data at hand: why jus in bello
requirements are often flouted; why cruelly destructive weapons have
been and continue to be invented, produced, and used; and why the
plight of veterans has not been taken seriously by the very leaders who
sent them to fight. That war architects should offer moral rational-
izations for military intervention shows that they recognize that the
populace generally thinks that the burden of proof lies with those
who order their troops to commit homicide. But the use of the rheto-
ric of justice to galvanize soldiers to fight does not in any way demon-
strate leaders’ belief in the truth of what they say. It reveals only their
awareness that moral rhetoric is a highly effective tool in motivating
soldiers to do what they have been ordered to do, and in persuading
the populace to pay (Calhoun 2001c).
Again, it is plausible that some realists about war are simply global
relativists about morality, denying that a war can be unjust in an
absolute sense because, in a phrase: “Everything is permitted.” In
this view, moralities are human artifacts valid only within particular
contexts; people’s moral principles are based upon their own values
and prior beliefs; and no moral principle applies to everyone every-
where. Given any particular principle—for example, the proscription
against destroying innocent human beings—there exist people who
violate the principle in good conscience. According to the thesis of
moral relativism, people select and abide by those “moral” principles
thought to best serve their own interests.
Needless to say, it would be self-defeating for relativists to openly
display their true beliefs about morality—a “vain and chimerical
notion” (Kant 1964)—to others, and all the more for leaders who
need to secure cooperation if they are to achieve their political aims.
Leaders who intentionally deceive their populace through the use of
government-controlled media may or may not embrace a full-fledged
realism. Furthermore, those who deem lying to be morally permissi-
ble have no reason, from their own perspective, to refrain from lying.
Witness the Pentagon Papers.8 Or, to reach a bit further back, consider
the words of Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, author of The Art of
War (500 BC): “All warfare is based on deception” (1963, 66).
Hannah Arendt explains the practical advantage of duplicity for

leaders:
Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than
reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand
what the audience wishes or expects to hear. He has prepared his
story for public consumption with a careful eye to making it credible,
whereas reality has the disconcerting habit of confronting us with the
unexpected, for which we were not prepared (Arendt 1969, 6–7).
Did US president Truman truly believe that Hiroshima was a military

target? Here is what he told the American people:
The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished to avoid the
killing of civilians.9
* * *
That the actions of individual human beings are subject to moral judg-
ment while the wars of their making are not appears to be embraced
by at least some of those involved in institutions of national defense.
It is equally plausible that some political leaders and military officers
are idealists, who truly believe their own just war rhetoric. Politicians
have a well-established reputation for unscrupulousness, but some
among them may sincerely believe that war is sometimes the lesser of
two evils, and Truman may have numbered among the members of
this group.
To further complicate matters, there may well be leaders who
hold a quasi-Machiavellian view, believing in absolute morality while
maintaining that they must act immorally in their capacity as leaders,
if they are to succeed. Some leaders who lie to their people prob-
ably believe that they are acting as they must, given the realities of
administration. The noble lie has a long history, extending at least as
far back as Plato, who in the Republic wrote of the myth of the met-
als, according to which the various strata of society could be kept in
check by being “informed” that the predominant metal (gold, silver,
or bronze) coursing through their veins determined their proper sta-
tion in the just society.
It does not follow from the fact that political leaders do not observe
moral principles that they cannot or should not (Holmes 1989). But
does morality itself sometimes require killing in certain political
contexts, as military supporters maintain? A persistent image in the

public sphere is that of the active and powerful political man willing
to do what is important strategically to long-range goals, though it
may weigh heavily upon his conscience. The problem of dirty hands
refers to the alleged necessity of compromising one’s own moral stan-
dards and values as a means of maximizing one’s efficacy as a leader
or administrator. Is excellence in leadership somehow incompatible
with morality? Does doing what one ought to do in one’s capacity
as a leader preclude doing what one ought to do as a moral person?
(Calhoun 2004c).
When military supporters characterize war as undesirable but
necessary—the lesser of two evils—they effectively assert the real-
ity of the problem of dirty hands, according to which a leader must
compromise morality to administer well. Dirty hands result when an
agent is confronted with a conflict of duties and must choose between
alternatives none of which is desirable in and of itself. In this view,
sometimes the best course of action in the name of the governed is not
an entirely satisfactory option, morally speaking. The waging of war
is the most salient example of the alleged phenomenon of dirty hands
in the real world, with by far the most devastating consequences for
human beings.
Renaissance thinker Niccolò Machiavelli is the historical figure
most frequently associated with the problem of dirty hands. In The
Prince, Machiavelli enjoins those who aspire to acquire and maintain
power to follow the examples in history of men who were constrained
by no moral limits whatsoever (his favorite example being Cesare
Borgia). The advice offered in Machiavelli’s manual, while composed
in a unique historical context, applies not only to the sons of kings
but, more generally, to aspirant rulers.10 Machiavelli’s counsel to pro-
spective leaders is ruthlessly prudential: the ruler, in his capacity as
ruler, wishes to maximize his power and control, and to shelter him-
self from vulnerability to attack. If one is to rule successfully, then one
must be prepared to forsake morality:
You should therefore know that there are two ways to fight: one while
abiding by the rules, the other by using force. The first approach is
unique to Man; the second is that of beasts. But because in many cases
the first method will not suffice, one must be prepared to resort to
force. This is why a ruler needs to know how to conduct himself in the
manner of a beast as well as that of a man (Machiavelli 2002, 37).
Machiavelli’s work is revolutionary for calling into question the

conventional wisdom that the renunciation or compromise of one’s
moral principles is categorically bad. At the same time, Machiavelli is

acutely aware of the importance of reputation to effective leadership:
It is not necessary for a ruler to possess all of the qualities listed above,
but he must appear to possess them. I would go even so far as to say
that having these qualities and acting always in conformity with them
will be harmful to you; but if you merely appear to have these quali-
ties, they will be useful to you. Accordingly, you should seem to be
compassionate, faithful, humane, of integrity, religious, and indeed
you should be all of these things; but at the same time you should be
ready so that, when the occasion arises, you will know how and be able
to transform to their opposites (Machiavelli 2002, 68; italics added).
In this view, to accept the dictates of what we generally take to be

absolute morality is, in and of itself, a good thing, but those prin-
ciples must sometimes be forsaken, if one is to succeed as a leader.
Machiavelli is not, as some have misconstrued him to be, a moral
relativist, for he does not claim that leaders are immune from the
dictates of morality. He does not situate leaders “beyond the pale,”
but instead maintains that men must sacrifice conventional morality
in order to succeed. Machiavelli reasons that strategically savvy rulers
seek above all to maximize their power and control, and shelter them-
selves from vulnerability to attack by any and every available means,
even if they believe that morality is absolute. Effective rulers must be
prepared to forsake the requirements of morality, including the pro-
scription against killing human beings.
Whether or not Machiavelli happens to be right, so long as a leader
believes that the problem of dirty hands is a genuine one, he may well
conduct himself as a realist in the political sphere, even while affirm-
ing that homicide is absolutely wrong. Machiavelli not only offers
advice to prospective leaders, but also an implicit warning to those
who live under their rule: what we can reasonably expect leaders to do is
dependent upon not what they say, but what they believe.11
According to a tradition extending at least as far back as the
Sophists of ancient Greece, “might makes right.” The Sophists, who
observed that what matter in our dealings with human beings are
appearances, had a decidedly relativistic bent, though some among
them appear to have been skeptics with a practical interest in achieving
success (Guthrie 1971). The perspicuous insight of the Sophists was
that people are moved by what they have been persuaded to believe is
the truth, whether or not that appearance bears any correspondence
whatsoever to reality. Practically speaking, in the social context of
war, what drives voluntary soldiers to fight is not that their cause is
genuinely just, but that they have been persuaded to believe that it is
just. Might decisively determines the appearance of what comes to be
labeled right in the moment, though interpretations may be—and
often are—revised or rejected in retrospect.
The truth in the expression “might makes right ” is that whoever
pronounces “the last word” on a conflict is the victor. “The victors
write history,” so long as they have either persuaded the enemy to
capitulate, or annihilated all those whose opinions diverge from their
own. In the annals of Nazi Germany are speeches in which Hitler
proclaimed that the Jewish people would be eradicated, erased from
the pages of history. This idea was viewed by obedient Germans at the
time as perfectly in keeping with the power, nobility, and grandeur
of the Third Reich. In retrospect, many have recognized the repre-
hensible quality of the idea that one man’s murderous fantasy should
come to define reality. But the ghastly notion that an entire people
should be expunged from human history is merely the most extreme
expression of that which is upheld by all those who would annihilate
innocent people in the name of their own causes.
* * *
The seemingly endless list of atrocities committed by organized politi-

cal groups throughout human history suggests that Machiavelli’s per-
ception may well be shared by many leaders: “If all men were good,
this advice [to renounce morality] would be bad; but since men are
wicked and will not keep faith with you, you need not keep faith with
them” (Machiavelli 2002). No less than other human beings, leaders
follow the examples of their predecessors in deciding what consti-
tutes appropriate behavior. National security became defined as state
security during the Cold War, and military experts called upon to
advise political leaders today continue to array the proverbial “options
on the table” in keeping with that model (Shinoda and Jeong 2004,
Calhoun 2004a).
Machiavelli’s general Weltanschauung would seem also to offer
the best explanation for, among other phenomena, the regrettable
series of failed states marring the postcolonial landscape in Africa. To
summarily destroy human beings through so-called collateral dam-
age in contending with a stigmatized enemy is, from the perspective
of those who disagree, to multiply injustices. Herein would seem to
lie an explanation for the cyclical bloodbaths not only between the
groups of people whose ethnic divisions were politically exploited by
colonizers in Africa, creating what became deep rifts of animosity

between neighbors, but also in the Balkans and in Israel.
This same dynamic would seem furthermore logically to imply
that the US military’s annihilation of innocent people will continue
to lead others—who reject the administration’s interpretation of its
own acts of killing as morally innocuous while nonetheless sharing
the prevailing metaview regarding the permissibility of collateral
damage—to follow their example and attempt to stop US leaders, by
any and all means. Indeed, this outlook would seem to constitute the
very raison d’être of political terrorist acts, claimed by factional leaders
to be instances of just war.
People who have nothing to lose can be the most dangerous people
of all, for there may be no rational constraints whatsoever upon their
actions. Witness the number of factional terrorists in recent years who
have been willing to sacrifice their lives for what they came to believe
was their cause. When political leaders are backed into a corner—
placed in desperate or impossible situations—we should expect them,
too, to react accordingly. So, for example, during the 1991 Gulf War,
Saddam Hussein’s troops set many oil wells on fire.12 This was a gro-
tesque assault upon the environment and an obvious waste of Iraq’s
resources. But what behavior can be realistically expected of leaders
who are cornered in such a way that they are left with the possibility
neither for escape nor for saving face? Scorched earth practices (leaving
nothing behind for the invaders to plunder) have a fairly long history,
and were used to dramatic effect in cases such as the Russian effort to
thwart Nazi invaders.
New variations on the scorched earth theme have also been imple-
mented by suicidal terrorists, who would seem to be far more dan-
gerous than modern military corps. These self-styled soldiers utilize
novel—and, therefore, unpredictable—techniques, and play by their
own rules, not those of formal nations and institutions. Yet the strate-
gic prowess of factional killers itself impugns claims to the effect that
such people are entirely beyond the reach of reason. The question
must, therefore, be addressed: given that the enemy believes what they
believe, what is the best way to defuse the danger which they represent?
The pro-military paradigm commences from the conception of
others as objects to be talked about, not as conscious agents with
whom to communicate. But all people, including enemy leaders, act
on the basis of their own values and beliefs, confused though they
may be. An instructive example in this regard is relayed by former
US secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara in an interview with
director Errol Morris in The Fog of War (2003). McNamara reveals
what was his own apparent readiness to invade Cuba in the face of
the 1962 missile crisis: “The first day’s attack was planned at 1,080
sorties, a huge air attack.” He then proceeds to explain that President
Kennedy was finally dissuaded from ordering the invasion by Tommy
Thompson, a former ambassador to Moscow, who knew the Soviet
leader Khruschev personally and so was able to “empathize with the
enemy.”
The leaders of nations and institutions are conscious beings who
act on the basis of their own beliefs. Individual leaders, whether allies
or enemies, do not themselves regard their own intentions as evil. The
same is true of the soldiers enlisted to kill for a leader’s avowed “good”
or “just” cause. The policies adopted by a democratic nation are done
so in the name of the people, who must, in consistency, own that the
same policies are no less valid for the leaders of other nations acting in
the name of their own people. Among other things, if it is wrong for
the leaders of some nations to develop, stockpile, and test WMD such
as nuclear warheads, then it is wrong for others to do so as well.13
That all states are under the same obligations is denied by those
who regard the US position in the world as unique. In their view,
there is no contradiction in what are perceived to be US double
standards, for while we must, in fairness, “treat like cases alike,” the
United States is exceptional in such a way as to be exempted even from
the rules applicable to others. In spite of their vociferous condemna-
tion of the development of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons
capacity by other nations, US officials have refused to sign treaties
banning such weapons and dissolved (let wither) the antiballistic mis-
sile (ABM) treaty, which would have prevented the colonization of
outer space for military purposes (Wirbel 2003, Mosco 1989).
Logic notwithstanding, one can scarcely claim that such refusals
to sign international treaties (or decisions to renege on them) have
no tangible consequences for human beings. While, strictly speaking,
the formal principle treat like cases alike is not violated by US double
standards, the policies of nations directly affect the human beings who
live there by influencing the attitudes of outsiders such as factional
terrorists. But there is a far more profound practical problem with the
exceptionalism thesis: the birthplace of criminals is manifestly a mat-
ter of chance, so there is no good reason for believing that the United
States is somehow immune to the possibility that a criminal may rise to
power and use the mighty resources of the US military to wage crimi-
nal wars. Critics insist that precisely this was done when US president
George W. Bush ordered his troops to invade Iraq in 2003, in viola-
tion of the 1945 Charter of the United Nations (BBC News 2004).
That all leaders have their own perspectives, which must be taken
into consideration in any sensible approach to international affairs,
was expressed by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan
on February 1, 2002, in response to Bush’s assertion of the existence
of an axis of evil comprising Iran, Iraq, and North Korea:
We always advocate the principle of equality of all countries when

dealing with state-to-state relations, otherwise it can only undermine
the atmosphere for seeking resolution and harm the maintenance of
world peace and stability (China Daily 2002).
Quan’s statement underscores the importance of viewing other lead-

ers as persons with values and beliefs. The basis for a peaceful com-
munity of nations is the same as the basis for a peaceful community
of persons: the members of the group must treat others with the same
respect with which they expect others to treat them. Would an inva-
sion of Iraq by any nation other than the United States, the sole mili-
tary superpower at the time, have been tolerated by the international
community? Does might make right?
The reigning paradigm of military solutions to conflict admits the
subjective intention of the killers—provided that they number among
one’s own current allies—while dismissing the perspective of innocent
victims as irrelevant, and defining the intentions and perspectives of
enemy leaders (and soldiers as well, by extension) as intrinsically evil,
at least in the moment when the use of military force is being pro-
moted. But the interpretations of other people—including potential
terrorists—matter, strategically speaking, because they base plans, poli-
cies, and actions upon their interpretations, not upon ours. From the
perspectives of the inhabitants of nations with governments hostile to
US interests, the ongoing threat of preemptive war and the hovering
overhead of weaponized Predator drones would seem to be empirically
indistinguishable from the threat of terrorist attack. Under this inter-
pretation, civilians continually faced with the threat of the use of deadly
force in retaliation to their government’s policies are being terrorized,
while the leaders of those nations are placed in the psychologically dis-
concerting situation of not knowing whether they will be next in the
line of fire. Although many opponents to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
had hoped that the US government’s position on the preemptive use of
military force would be curbed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack
Obama, he instead expanded many of the Bush administration’s most
controversial programs, including the use of Predator drones to assas-
sinate terrorist suspects—along with whoever happens to be located in
the vicinity at the time. Obama also effectively called for the end of the
regime of Muammar Gaddafi, who subsequent to the NATO bombing
campaign was killed in Libya in October 2011 (Quinn 2011).
People, including government officials, are evolving entities whose
attitudes, policies, and practices transform over time, a point nowhere
better illustrated than in the widely publicized photograph of former
US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam
Hussein in 1983. Similarly, Russia, an important US and British ally
during World War II, came to be denigrated during the Cold War
as the Evil Empire by leaders such as US president Ronald Reagan.
The complete transformation from white to black of the image of the
Russians accomplished through the use of propaganda during this
period reveals, again, the efficacy of Manichean rhetoric in persuad-
ing the populace to support rationally dubious initiatives such as the
build up of vast stockpiles of nuclear arms.
A telling piece of historical evidence is the “documentary” or
“information” film The Battle of Russia, directed by Anatole Litvak
in 1945 as a part of the Why We Fight series produced by the US
War Department. In this film, the people of Russia—including Stalin
himself—are depicted as heroic and virtuous defenders of liberty.
A similarly positive depiction of the Chinese is found in the com-
panion film The Battle of China, co-directed by Frank Capra and
Anatole Litvak in 1944. Needless to say, these images were recast in
subsequent years as the “commies” were denounced as the new Evil
Enemy shortly after the defeat of the Nazis.
The practice of issuing categorical edicts about the so-called evil
enemy has been common throughout the history of conflict, but such
simplistic denunciations are both strategically and morally suspect.
The denigration of the enemy as evil incarnate precludes the very
possibility of dialogue, which alone accords others the dignity of hav-
ing their own perspectives on the situation and, even more impor-
tantly, is the most obvious if not the only way to avoid war and what
becomes the execution of civilians for the crimes of their leaders. The
blithe willingness to execute innocent people—written off as collat-
eral damage—in achieving political aims betrays the purely rhetorical
use to which leaders put just war–speak in defending their wars.
* * *
To support a particular war is to support a system without which

war would be impossible. This system involves a hierarchical power
structure at the top of which sit human beings said to possess the
legitimate authority to wage war. Who are these people? Nothing can
be said about them, a priori, in particular. They are everyone and no
one. They are Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini; Winston Churchill
and Harry Truman; Saddam Hussein and George Bush; Muammar
Gaddafi and Barack Obama. They may have been generals, as were
Franco, Pétain, Pinochet, Eisenhower, and Amin, or persons who
prudentially evaded military service, as did Bill Clinton and Dick
Cheney. They may have been saints (though no clear candidates come
to mind), or they may be psychotic. They may believe in absolute
morality, or they may view morality as a “vain and chimerical delu-
sion,” wielded rhetorically by the powerful to manipulate the weak.
Whoever the appointed legitimate authorities are, and whatever
their personal views on morality may be, in the reigning pro-military,
just war paradigm, they possess the authority to order other persons
to kill in the name of their nation or group. The soldiers who serve
in the military are professionally obliged to follow orders regarding
when and where to fight and whom to kill. They are not permitted
to question the political wisdom of the mission in which they have
been enlisted. What war opponents recognize but military supporters
either ignore or deny is that to condone any war is to endorse a politi-
cal hierarchy in which some people, situated on the lower rungs of
the ladder, are sacrificed for the goals of those at the top, though the
people designated leaders are no more and no less than fallible, albeit
exceptionally ambitious, human beings. Far from assessing history
realistically, many military supporters appear to assume that leaders
such as Hitler, Mussolini, Milosevic, Pinochet, Amin, Hussein, and
Gaddafi simply pop into existence ex nihilo, ready to commit murder
and mayhem at their caprice.
In truth, such mass murderers are created and supported by the
war system. Nothing could be more obvious than that if the leaders of
one’s nation are evil or confused, then the last thing that one should
do is to support them. Criminal leaders regularly lie to their people,
which would seem to imply that one really has no way of knowing,
contemporaneously, whether the government officials of one’s own
land are criminals or not. Tragically, the leaders most adept at mold-
ing the information to which their citizenry is provided access may
well be the most criminal of all.
More than five hundred years ago, Machiavelli observed and diag-
nosed the renunciation by leaders of morality on pragmatic grounds.
At the same time, Machiavelli effectively issued to the literate popu-
lace a warning about what they could reasonably expect from their
leaders. Yet people still today remain inclined to believe the stories
promulgated by the spokespersons of their own group, no matter

how outrageous they may seem to outsiders, whether geographical
or temporal.
Despite the disparity between the allegedly moral intentions of US
leaders and the magnitude of destruction wrought upon the civilian
population of Iraq during and in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf
War, many Americans believed and continue to believe that President
George H. W. Bush’s war was just. Critics of the 1991 Gulf War
rejected Bush’s rhetorical appeals to justice, insisting that control over
oil in the Middle East was the real reason for the war. In response to
that suggestion, Robert Phillips has remarked:
Oil was certainly a factor, but only in the sense that Saddam Hussein
sought to use oil to subsidize his nuclear weapons program and,
thereby parlay Iraq into world-power status as a nuclear power in the
region. It was to prevent that dangerous eventuality that the United
Nations sanctioned intervention (Phillips and Cady 1996, 82).
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Phillips is right. What is the
prudential lesson contained within the story of Saddam Hussein? Most
obviously, that the Iraqi leader might have been born and ascended
to power in the United States, and, if he had, then he would have lied
to his people just as he lied to them in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein
had risen to power in the United States, then he would already have
had ready access to the weapons and resources of the US Department
of Defense. In other words, he would not have had to spend his time
devising ways to achieve a nuclear arsenal, for he would already have
had one.
Those who reject the plausibility of such a scenario need to review
their history on how Saddam Hussein came to exert autocratic power
in Iraq. The fact is that Hussein persuaded high-level US leaders—
and those of other Western nations as well—to support, fund, and
arm his regime, both materially and technologically up until his inva-
sion of Kuwait in 1990. Surely, then, given that the Iraqi dictator
was sly enough to befriend Western security experts and diplomats
for decades, he would have had little trouble garnering support from
what are often much less reflective and informed US voters. But the
real possibility of a murderous tyrant’s ascent to power in the United
States does not rest upon the case of Saddam Hussein. It is defini-
tively demonstrated by the case of Adolf Hitler, who rose to power
in the republic of Germany, enthusiastically supported by the free
citizens of that nation.
The very system used to dismantle the Third Reich was essen-
tial to its establishment and maintenance: a system in which an elite
few possess the right to sentence to death (through war) their fellow
human beings for inscrutable reasons, provided only that they have
been wrapped in the shiny rhetoric of justice; a system in which sol-
diers are obliged to follow orders to kill whenever and wherever they
are called upon to do so. Hitler merely pushed this absurd idea to its
logical limit. Viewed from a moral perspective, no leader can be said
to possess the right to destroy people who through no fault of their
own find themselves in a land governed by (or said to be governed
by) criminals. Yet Hitler’s troops marched all over the continent sow-
ing death and destruction everywhere they went precisely and only
because they accepted the schema according to which they were to do
as they were told to do.
History teaches that the mechanisms by which human beings
become leaders in no way preclude the ascension to power of mass
murderers. Nor is any nation immune to the takeover of its govern-
ment by a criminal. Potential despots are born in every country, and
the identity of future criminal leaders cannot be known in advance.
Leaders such as Hitler, Pinochet, Franco, Mussolini, Stalin, Amin,
Pol Pot, Hussein, Milosevic, Gaddafi—to name but a few from a
lengthy list—do not themselves commit the homicides for which they
later become notorious in the annals of history. Rather, they enlist
their troops to execute those people whom the leader has stigmatized
as the enemy, all under cover of the just war paradigm. Politically
inspired mass murder is the result of coordinated groups acting in
accordance with institutionally sanctioned policy based on the “just
wars” written into history by the victors.
In the dangerous Weltanschauung of the just war paradigm shared
by the military supporters of both sides to every conflict, legitimate
authorities—merely human beings—are granted the status of demi-
gods, who mouth the rhetoric of morality while acting in direct con-
tradiction to the most basic principles of civil society. Nothing could
be more naïve than to suppose that political leaders appeal to the
concepts of just war theory for epistemological or moral rather than
rhetorical purposes. Despite the bloody lessons of history, soldiers
continue to wield lethal weapons when called upon to do so by their
commanders. Machiavelli’s astute analysis of how real political leaders
conduct themselves applies to compatriots and foreigners alike and
raises the question whether any person should agree to follow any
other person’s orders to commit homicide.
7
R e a l S ol di e r s
We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out
their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our
tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-
fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their
blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the
guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off
your face and realize that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what
once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do!
—US general George S. Patton1
Death and destruction are the immediate physical effects of war, yet
the image of courageous and noble warriors fighting for just causes
or rescuing helpless people remains an enormously appealing one.
The ritual celebrations of war found in virtually all cultures perpetu-
ate abstract and mythic images of the soldier as an admirable human
being whose sacrifice of his own life is worthy of praise. Military
institutions have long been an integral part of the governments of
nations, and those who died in combat are regularly commemorated
as virtuous and selfless heroes. The observance of holidays such as
Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day ensures that the soldiers of past
wars will continue to be paid nominal homage, no matter how the
world may change and regardless of what modern defense policies
may entail. With new technologies have come new weapons: swifter,
more efficient, and ever more lethal.
Intentional killing is a part of the very essence of warfare, and
the direct products of war are the same, whichever side one happens
to be on. Many men have been persuaded to fight through what
was claimed or suggested by leaders to be a direct causal connec-
tion between intentional homicide, on the one hand, and freedom,
justice, and peace, on the other. However, what will ensue once war
has come to an end is not predetermined or delineated in any way by
the collection of activities constitutive of a war. During the conflict,
the soldiers of both sides are doing no more and no less than attack-
ing the people designated by those in command as the enemy. Soldiers
do not produce liberty, democracy, and peace; they produce pain, suf-
fering, anger, fear, cripples, and corpses. Whether the shards of the
society under attack will later be pieced together by others to create
democracy or tyranny, peace or yet more war, has no logical or physi-
cal connection to what the soldiers do while deployed (Scarry 1985).
The chasm between the deposing of a tyrant and the establishment
of a peaceful society was well-illustrated in Afghanistan and Iraq, in
addition to Libya, more recently. In all of these cases, the power
vacuum left by “liberators” led to insecurity.
The fear of being socially stigmatized as a coward may drive even
some men who question the wisdom of a war to agree to fight, but
those who finally survive what are often preposterous trials may as a
result come to embrace the images of nobility and courage associated
with warriors throughout history. The remarkable resilience displayed
by some soldiers in surviving battlefield and prison camp experiences
is beyond dispute. But the question remains whether such soldiers
should ever have situated themselves so as to be on the battlefield (or
taken prisoner) in the first place. In films such as The Big Red One
(1980), directed by Samuel Fuller, one senses a reigning spirit of res-
ignation among the fighting men, whose initial optimism is steadily
whittled away as they witness their comrades killed, and a revolv-
ing door of replacements arrive on the battlefield only to die shortly
thereafter.
The extent to which soldiers on the ground may (and do) privately
criticize (through their own personal remarks to themselves or their
comrades) the politicians who have sent them to execute what are
sometimes manifestly impossible missions is especially striking in
view of the fact that the soldiers have agreed to present themselves
at the battlefield because of the very same officials’ judgments that
war is the solution to the problem at hand. Soldiers are required to
play a bizarre sort of game, in which they must attempt to survive an
essentially arbitrary series of tests, the parameters of which are set by
people who may or may not have any idea what they are doing. In
reflecting upon his own World War II experience, Charlton Heston
has observed: “Wars consist of luck. You come through, or you don’t
come through. The lucky guys come through. I was one of the lucky
guys.”2
Many men who in no way deserved to die have been slaughtered in
wars as a result of not their own mistakes but those of their leaders.
These victims become nominally recast as heroes later on down the
R e a l S ol di e r s 129
line, people said to have died for their country (or cause), who carried
out their duty and sacrificed themselves for their compatriots. This
idea is articulated by Vietnam War veteran Dieter Dengler in these
terms: “Only dead people are heroes.”3 Judging by postwar accounts,
Dengler’s is a sentiment apparently shared by many soldiers who suf-
fer guilt as a result of their fortuitous survival alongside what were
their no less courageous brethren.4 Other veterans hold a rather dif-
ferent view, expressed by Samuel Fuller, who fought in World War II
for three years, all the while watching men die at his side: “The real
glory of war is surviving.”5 The divergent views of Dengler and Fuller
derive perhaps in part from the reception met by soldiers returning
from the battlefield after an unpopular versus a popular war.
Once they find themselves on the battlefield, soldiers do often dis-
play courage under incredibly arduous and truly terrifying conditions.
However, their own virtues are neither necessary nor sufficient to
their ability to return home from the battlefield. When soldiers sur-
vive against all odds, for example, the prisoners of war (POWs) of the
Vietnam War who amazingly made it back home sound in body and
mind after in some cases years of deprivation and torture, the indi-
vidual virtues exhibited by these extraordinary men are depicted by
military spokesmen as inherent to the war enterprise.6 Such survivors
have often been put on display at events intended to rekindle flag-
ging support among the populace for what has come to be regarded
as a dubious mission, and all the more when the larger initiative has
proven to be essentially a long string of strategic blunders on the part
of high-level military and political leaders.7 The soldiers who miracu-
lously survive by dint of their own resourcefulness and cunning do so
not because of, but in spite of their leaders. Through the construction
of war monuments, the soldiers slain are solemnly honored as great
men who laid themselves upon the altar of peace, democracy, and
freedom. In reality, the vast majority of soldiers sacrificed in wars
were laid upon the altar of leaders incapable of resolving their con-
flicts with adversarial leaders except through the use of other people’s
lives as tender.
The military public relations schema in play during wartime and
annual remembrance rituals is predictable and diaphanous: whether
a soldier survives or dies, he is characterized as a hero after the fact
by establishment spokesmen, who obviously have vested interests in
persuading new enlistees to believe that they, too, can become heroes.
This image may be embraced by the fallen soldiers’ family and friends
as well, who understandably cannot bear the idea that their loved
ones died in vain, and who, once left bereft, may become even more
supportive of war than they were before.8 To skew the picture further,
those killed in combat are silenced irrevocably—we therefore do not
have their own perspectives on war. The people annihilated in war,
whether collateral damage victims or soldiers, lose their right to decry
what they have suffered the moment they are stripped of their lives.
That “history is written by the surviving victors” would seem to be
the most important factor in the perpetuation of the romantic image
of soldiers as heroes.
Dead soldiers’ perspectives on what they have done and what was
done to them are omitted from official stories of the outcomes of wars,
but some critics have attempted to re-create the soldier’s experience
through the use of cinematographic means. Films such as Terrence
Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998), which realistically depict the ter-
ror, frustration, anger, and desperation of soldiers during even wars
widely regarded as just, convey powerful antiwar messages. One sees
in such films the inhumanity and cruelty—even insanity—of what
soldiers are made to endure as a result of their status, whether they
happen to be situated on the allied or the enemy side. Many have
regarded the US soldiers of the Vietnam War as dupes or victims, but
films such as the Thin Red Line (about World War II) suggest that the
soldiers of even celebrated wars may differ in degree, not in kind.9
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), directed by Lewis Milestone,
is a timeless filmic depiction of the folly of young men rushing head-
long to their deaths (in this case, during World War I) for the delusive
images of those who persuade them to fight, offering a particularly
gritty picture of what it really means to be a soldier during wartime.
The men who fought in World War I, many of whom had been con-
scripted, faced the prospect of execution for desertion. In fact, most
soldiers throughout history and all over the world have been required
by their groups or governments to fight, often on pain of death for
refusal to do so.
Conscription and other forms of coerced combat pose a serious
challenge to the “soldier as altruist” portrait, for there is something
quite confused about eulogizing as selfless heroes men who donned
uniforms for the simple reason that they had no choice but to do so
(Alain 1995). Still, after a war has come to its close, such niceties are
brushed aside, as the myth according to which even coerced soldiers
deserve moral praise for having fought and died is recited yet again.
The romantic aura surrounding the image of the soldier persists in
part because people feel obliged to honor those who fought and died
in the wars waged by the past leaders of the countries still in existence
today.10 But it is false that all or even most of the people lying in
military cemeteries voluntarily sacrificed themselves for their coun-

try: many, if not most, did not.
That soldiers and officers are no more and no less than human
beings is well illustrated by classic films such as From Here to Eternity
(1953), La grande illusion (1937), and The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957), which highlight the absurdity of the situation in which men
find themselves during wartime, often battling not only the enemy,
but also one another in their quest for control over their own lives.
These films also display the essentially autocratic structure of military
institutions, whether they have been erected by and serve democrati-
cally appointed leaders or self-appointed tyrants.
Military men have a long-standing reputation for being hypermas-
culine, for being easily provoked to anger, becoming embroiled in
brawls even with their own comrades, and raping the women of occu-
pied territories. With the recent admission of women into the military,
even female enlistees have been raped by their fellow male soldiers,
and such crimes have been routinely overlooked by the officers in
charge.11 Historically, physical strength and “manliness” have been
an important part of soldiers’ self-image, but courage is no longer
necessary for those troops who “fight” at a distance using Predator
drones (Calhoun 2011a). Whether or not they risk death through
their service, soldiers do not act as autonomous and reflective human
beings, for they are not entitled within the military hierarchy to assess
the political warrant for war.12 In this sense, soldiers are indistinguish-
able from slaves, a point nowhere better demonstrated than in the his-
torically common practice of executing deserters who refused to fight
wars which they themselves believed to be unjust or misguided.
* * *
In the modern Western world, we do not usually admire adults who

submit subserviently to authority—soldiers are a striking exception
to the rule. Soldiers are conditioned to kill whomever they have been
ordered to kill, wherever they may be said to hide, even if they are
located thousands of miles away from the homeland presumably
being defended, and even if they happen to occupy densely populated
metropolitan areas. Beyond the suppression of his faculty of moral
sentiment—a veritable numbing of his emotions—the soldier’s voca-
tion also requires that he stifle his faculty of reason, at least so long
as he is acting as a member of the corps. The soldier is required not
to criticize but to submit, not to reflect but to obey. Soldiers are
positively indoctrinated to not criticize and to not reflect : to be ready
and willing to do whatever it is that they are told to do. Soldiers in

combat may have the liberty to carry out in the most efficient manner
a mission involving specific military objectives, but those objectives
are set by others and must be accepted, not contested, by the soldier
in his capacity as a soldier.
Modern soldiers fighting in foreign wars do not act on the basis of
their own interpretations of the alleged danger at hand, but on what
amounts to blind faith that the targets which they have been told to
obliterate are truly threatening. When noncombatants are acciden-
tally destroyed in the execution of a mission intended to defuse a
military target, soldiers, ensconced within the just war tradition, have
been trained to regard such deaths as unfortunate but unavoidable,
given military exigencies. Whether a soldier can rehydrate his capacity
to appreciate the suffering of his fellow human beings and the sanc-
tity of human life outside the context of the battlefield is an empirical
matter and will vary from case to case. If it is true, as Aristotle sug-
gests in the Nicomachean Ethics, that habits build character, then a
long-engrained trait such as imperturbability in the face of slaughter
may not be easily reversed.13
According to the just war paradigm, which forms the basis for
official military protocol, the proclamation of a legitimate author-
ity is supposed to render permissible a massively destructive action
such as the bombing of a military installation situated in the vicinity
of noncombatants officially immune from attack. During peacetime
such an action would be criminal, but during wartime it may be asked
of the soldier, and he is professionally obliged to follow orders, duti-
fully trusting the judgment of his superior officers. When a soldier
enlists—or does not resist conscription—he agrees to submit to the
authority of his superior officers and to act in accordance with his
leaders’ decrees.
Needless to say, the potential for disaster embedded within this
schema has been illustrated time and time again throughout history:
good soldiers follow the orders of their leaders, whoever they may
be. When a soldier kills under command, he does not know in the
moment of conflict whether the cause for which he is fighting is just.
He knows only what he has been told, the official story offered by his
leaders, which will be evaluated later, with the benefit of hindsight,
by others. Ultimately, one version of the story withstands the test
of time, becoming posterity’s characterization of particular soldiers’
acts of homicide. But soldiers themselves can never know when they
pull the trigger or drop a bomb that their own leaders will get the
last word. Soldiers can and do decide whether or not to fire weapons
and drop bombs in the moment of combat, but what will become the
prevailing interpretation of what they have done—whether murder
or acts of just war—is not something over which soldiers themselves
have any control.
More often than not, the only reason a soldier has to fight for
his country against the enemy is that he lives where he happens to
live.14 Soldiers’ moral interpretations of their actions depend entirely
on their blind faith in the stories crafted by the very people ordering
them to kill. The historical contingency of where a given soldier hap-
pens now to reside (usually his birthplace) suggests that the soldier’s
stance, that the enemy is wrong and his own leadership right, has
no rational basis whatsoever. Many Nazi soldiers doubtless believed
the propaganda according to which their leader’s cause was just, and
that is precisely how and why they were able to slaughter countless
innocent people who had been labeled by the Hitler administration
as the evil enemy.
* * *
In the classical just war framework, it is not the role of soldiers to

think critically, and this idea persists today, centuries after the separa-
tion of church and state to which the Protestant Reformation gave
rise. Even in modern Western societies, which claim to champion
the values of democracy and individual liberty, soldiers are trained to
obey without fail the orders of their superior officers. Disobedience
has been considered a capital crime in many armies throughout his-
tory.15 Soldiers who risk the death penalty for disobedience may view
their very submission to authority as a form of self-defense, regardless
of their personal feelings about the wisdom of the war in which they
have been ordered to fight.16
The military rationale for the blind obedience required of troops
is that the very expression of dissent may endanger not only a soldier
himself, but also his comrades, causing a unit ultimately to collapse
(Fogarty 2000). Such a tactical explanation makes logistical and stra-
tegic sense, but it presumes that the war is a just one, and the unit in
question is fighting on the side of justice. If, instead, the soldiers are
wrongfully killing human beings with each ambush, then nothing
would be better than for their unit to collapse.
Despite the murderous rampages to which the authoritarian
just war schema has given rise time and time again, military sup-
porters continue to insist that an important part of what it means
to be a “good soldier” is to accept the dictates of political authority
regarding when and where to fight. Francisco de Vitoria, an influen-

tial sixteenth-century Spanish theologian, maintained that soldiers
are endowed with invincible ignorance regarding the wars in which
they are deployed (Molinero 1998). In the just war tradition, soldiers
are to conduct themselves in accordance with the rules of just war ( jus
in bello), but they cannot be held morally accountable for what would
be immoral actions (if performed as civilians) when the war in which
they have been ordered to fight violates jus ad bellum and should
never have been waged.
Soldiers are sometimes exonerated or their sentences commuted
for crimes committed under command. Presumably they receive such
leniency because soldiers are required, in their regular line of duty, to
heed authority without question, as a matter of prudential and pro-
fessional necessity. Some war opponents may insist that the person
ultimately responsible for a wrongful death during wartime is the
soldier who dropped the bomb or fired the gun, but according to
all societies in which warfare is deemed sometimes just, the soldier is
obliged, professionally and legally, to follow the orders of his supe-
rior officers. While obviously illegal orders should not be obeyed,
the content of such orders may be camouflaged by the interpreta-
tions devised by commanders themselves. Every act of killing can
be described in a wide array of ways, and collateral damage victims
do not differ, in purely physical terms, from those who have been
murderously slain.
The concept of invincible ignorance forms the basis of the principle
of just war theory according to which prisoners of war must be treated
as noncombatants. In wars retrospectively condemned by posterity as
unjust, the responsibility is said by many to lie with the leaders who
waged the war, not with the soldiers who dutifully followed their
orders. Such reasoning is analogous to the case where an executioner
terminates the life of an innocent person falsely convicted and sen-
tenced to death: the employee was only doing his job. However, the
moral responsibility of military officers for their actions during war-
time was upheld during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals:
Servile compliance with orders clearly criminal for fear of some dis-
advantage or punishment not immediately threatened cannot be rec-
ognized as defense. To establish the defense of coercion or necessity
in the face of danger there must be a showing of circumstances such
that a reasonable man would apprehend that he was in such imminent
physical peril as to deprive him of freedom to choose the right and
refrain from the wrong.17
The problem with attempting to draw a line between officers, on the

one hand, and soldiers, on the other, is that military officers are sol-
diers, who follow the orders of their superior officers. At the terminus
of the chain lie the legitimate authorities whose decree of “just war”
propels soldiers lower down in the hierarchy to kill.
* * *
Assuming, for the sake of argument, the soundness of the just war
paradigm, the moral options for the soldier—whether conscript or
volunteer—can be summed up as follows:
To kill or not to kill:
1) if the soldier agrees to kill under order by a legitimate authority,

his side is fighting for either a just or an unjust cause
– if the cause is unjust, then the soldier has wrongfully killed
– if the cause is just, then the soldier has fought for a just cause,
though his actions may be unjust if disproportionate to the
gravity of the cause, or if there are nonhomicidal means to a
resolution of the conflict
2) if the soldier refuses to kill, his side is fighting for either a just or
an unjust cause
– if the cause is unjust, then by refusing to kill, the soldier has
failed only to kill wrongfully
– if the cause is just, then by refusing to kill, the soldier has
failed only to act
Given these alternatives, it would seem preferable to avoid at all costs

wrongful killing at the risk of failing to fight for a just cause. Even
assuming the validity of the prevailing paradigm, the justice of a cause
does not alone entail the justice of the attendant acts of killing commit-
ted by soldiers, since the war may not have been waged as a last resort,
with right intention, by a legitimate authority, and so on. Regardless
of the strength of the soldier’s convictions, there is always a substantial
probability that he is situated on the wrong side, and his own leaders’
account is false, whether simply mistaken or intentionally mendacious.
If a soldier believes that his group cannot possibly be wrong, what
can his grounds for this belief be? That his leaders’ story is plausible?
The same is true of the enemy leaders’ story, which is precisely why
they have a following. That the soldier’s leaders are the soldier’s lead-
ers? The same is indexically true of the soldiers of the enemy nation.
That the soldier’s leaders speak his language? That the soldier admires
and respects his leaders? That the soldier believes the media of his
own country? None of these factors affects the objective probability
that in serving as a dutiful combatant one may well be killing wrong-
fully, since all of the reasons for believing one’s own leaders apply
equally well to the soldiers on the enemy side. On the basis of this
wager, then, one can rationally reject each and every call to arms
proposed by each and every leader, given that the issues at stake have
been colored by the lens through which the populace and troops have
been permitted to gaze.18 Throughout history, mass murder has been
perpetrated by soldiers under order, most of whom would probably
never otherwise have killed.
Human error is ineradicable, but the consequences of military
error today are far greater than they were in ancient and medieval
times. To speak of war today is not even to speak of what classical
just war theorists referred to by that term. None of the weapons used
in contemporary warfare existed in Augustine’s day, and the weap-
ons of ancient and medieval times play no role in modern military
combat. The discovery of gunpowder and the development of fire-
arms changed forever the practice of warfare. Modern weapons such
as rapid-fire machine guns and missiles are vastly more destructive
than the knives and spears with which ancient and medieval soldiers
targeted other soldiers one by one.
Even worse, nuclear bombs and chemical and biological weapons
of insidious infiltration do not discriminate in any way between com-
batants and noncombatants. So-called smart bombs were designed
with the intention of minimizing tragic collateral damage, but such
munitions are only as smart as the people who select the targets at
which they are aimed. The possibility for error has always existed,
but labels such as smart bomb deceptively suggest that resorting to
warfare will be less baleful than in centuries past. In fact, nothing
could be farther from the truth. The killing of noncombatants will
continue for so long as war continues, Group Captain Tom Boyle (of
the United Kingdom Royal Air Force) explains:
The whole point of conflict, at the end of the day, is that casualties are
going to be caused. We are not going to get away from that. And from
what I can see, we do not have weapons, and we are not about to get
them, which are ever going to limit those casualties to non-civilians
(Boyle 2001, 37).
What has not changed over the centuries is the paradoxical nature
of the soldier’s situation. The station of the soldier has always been
rather strange, involving both bravery and blind obedience, daring

and submission. Morally and rationally speaking, the soldier’s situa-
tion is deeply perplexing, for while he may be convinced of the story
being told by his own leaders, he also knows, on some level, that
enemy leaders tell similar stories to their troops, which they also
believe. The situation of the enemy soldier is morally identical to that
of the allied soldier: each has been strenuously conditioned to believe
that his leaders’ cause is just and that the enemy is evil.
Wars are initially waged by political leaders but coordinated and
managed by military officers, whose personal views on the propor-
tional use of deadly force determine which particular means will
be implemented to achieve the larger objectives of the war—often
described in abstractions with no clear empirical correlates, such as
liberty and peace. Fallibility is a given in every realm of human activ-
ity, but the gravity of mistakes resulting from ill-conceived orders to
kill vastly exceeds that of ordinary errors of judgment with no direct
effect upon the very existence of some human beings. By accepting
their role, soldiers agree to submit to authority without question-
ing the interpretations offered by their superior officers, and to kill
whomever they have been told to kill.
Soldiers become the vehicles of evil when they agree to kill for
leaders whose missions are based upon falsehoods or lies. At the polit-
ical level, the activities of the allies and their enemy are described
in rhetorically empty, abstract terms, the mythic quality of which
is highlighted by the very fact that the leaders of both sides speak
essentially the same idiom—albeit in translation. But the similarity
between the two sides does not end with the rampant use by the
top brass of self-congratulatory rhetoric according to which they and
their comrades are the champions of good while their enemies are
evil. Far more significant is that the soldiers on both sides carry out
precisely the same sorts of tasks. The activities of the allies do not dif-
fer in physical terms from what the enemy is doing at the same time.
Das Boot (1981), directed by Wolfgang Petersen, conveys the story of
a group of German troops sent on a submarine mission during World
War II. The German soldiers were performing the same actions as their
adversaries: attempting to survive and to destroy enemy vessels and
troops, first and foremost because they presented an immediate threat
to the inhabitants of the submarine themselves. At the level of individ-
ual action, had the protagonists been speaking English, their activities
would not have differed in the least. It was a matter of sheer histori-
cal fortuity that the soldiers aboard German submarines had not been
born in England or the United States, in which case (ceteris paribus)
they would have found themselves aboard other submarines engaging

in the same activities but against the men now numbering among their
comrades.19 At the level of individual participation, fighter pilots bomb,
snipers shoot, ground troops charge (or “clear”), officers coordinate,
and all of these people are consciously aiming at, willfully intending,
the destruction of other human beings. These same people become
legitimate targets as a consequence of their having agreed—whatever
the basis of that agreement may have been—to target others.20
The rational conclusion of the above wager argument—that a human
being should not heed orders to kill handed down by other merely
human beings—is based upon our ordinary conception of morality,
which prioritizes negative to positive duties. So, for example, few peo-
ple consider themselves murderers for permitting, through inaction,
the poor people of other lands to starve to death. Accordingly, by
consistently applying our ordinary views of moral obligation to the
case of war, it would seem to follow that it is worse to kill erroneously
than to allow another person to die. One might of course argue—as
utilitarians do—that our ordinary distinction between negative and
positive duties is morally indefensible. But assuming commonsense
morality, according to which it is worse to shoot people than to fail to
provide them with food, the above wager argument provides rational
grounds for refusing to kill human beings at the behest of any other
merely human being.
Throughout the execution of a military mission, complex ques-
tions arise: Should heavily populated metropolitan areas be bombed
and civilian infrastructures destroyed? These questions are answered
by military professionals themselves, people who are obviously predis-
posed to believe that the use of the massively destructive weapons of
modern war is often permissible and sometimes necessary.
* * *
In the United States, modern career soldiers are employees who

receive compensation for performing their role: a salary, loan oppor-
tunities, health benefits for their family, and the opportunity to earn
a college degree. Reservists and National Guardsmen are similarly
remunerated. It would be difficult to deny that the force of entice-
ment to enlist often has much to do with the prospective enlistee’s
material situation: in a capitalist system, poor people are by far the
most vulnerable to military advertising campaigns, for which billions
of dollars have been spent by the US government. In modern capitalist
societies with voluntary armies, the disproportionate representation
in the military of people from the lower classes strongly suggests that
many of them enlist for pragmatic, not patriotic reasons.21
Soldiers and hit men are rarely discussed together, but the general
schema involved in their acts of killing is the same: commander→
killer→victim. The label applied in a specific case, soldier or hit
man, is determined by the context in which the killing takes place.
Ultimately, the label of the killer depends upon the status of the
person(s) whom the killer obeys. Rather oddly, the class into which
a given killer falls is a function of the properties not of the killer,
but of his commander. What are the grounds for believing, as many
people seem to, that killing by soldiers is not always wrong, though
killing by hit men always is? In both cases, the people to be killed
are targeted by the commander. The killer accepts the judgment of
the commander and agrees to kill under the assumption that the
commander’s reasons are good, or at least good enough. In both
cases, the killer becomes a killer through agreeing to kill. Without
knowing any more about the various agents’ reasons for accepting
the authority of their commanders, we have no clear basis for distin-
guishing these types of killers from one another. Both soldiers and
hit men do what they have been asked to do. Both accept orders to
kill (Calhoun 2002b).
The most obvious distinction between the paid soldier and the
hit man would seem to inhere in the putative authority of their com-
mander. The political and military leaders of established nations have
been appointed by their constituents to act on behalf of and promote
the interests of the people whom they govern. In contrast, those who
pay hit men to kill do not answer to any sort of officially sanctioned
group. Military and political leaders possess authority in virtue of their
having convinced some people that they should be named authorities.
The people who serve as soldiers more often than not simply assume
that their commander is right, without having seriously investigated
the question of justice—indeed, it is precisely the professional role of
soldiers to do as they are told without raising the question of justice
in a particular case. A professional soldier is a government employee
who carries out the orders of his superior officers, who are also gov-
ernment employees who execute operations when told to do so by
their leaders.
A hit man accepts contracts to kill from people not publicly acknowl-
edged as legitimate authorities regarding just killing. Hit men (illegal
contract killers) follow the orders of their bosses but are not paid from
funds legally procured from taxpayers by the government. Hit men
are often paid to kill by members of criminal syndicates who amass
wealth through extortion and theft, but they are also sometimes
hired by “ordinary” people with ordinary lifestyles and vocations. In
all of these cases, the hit man ultimately answers to the person who
pays him to kill. But the employers of hit men also take themselves to
be killing for reasons—they are not merely giving their money away.
Upon closer examination, the reasons for which some people pay hit
men to kill other people would seem to be morally indistinguish-
able from the reasons offered by the commanders of soldiers ordered
to kill. The prospective victim is, in some very particular sense, an
enemy. The hit man’s victim is no less an enemy of the “society” of
the boss than are the people targeted by the professional soldier dur-
ing wartime the stigmatized enemies of his nation.
To claim that illegal killing evinces a defect (moral blindness, cal-
lousness, or irrationality) in the agent would be to say that a soldier
who kills justly differs intrinsically from one who kills unjustly. But
the soldier’s own interpretation of his act of killing is independent of
the actual justice of his act. Precisely herein lies the basis for claims of
invincible ignorance in the just war paradigm: all soldiers are ordered
to kill by leaders who maintain that their cause is just. The rationality
of the soldier in question cannot be a function of the actual morality
of his action, but only of the agent’s interpretation of his action. Yet
the soldier typically does what he is told even though a substantial prob-
ability of error attends any individual’s participation in mortal combat,
given that at most half of all opposition leaders can be objectively right,
which implies that at least half of all soldiers kill wrongfully.
Those who enlist today not for economic reasons but because
they wish to be a part of the military may be enticed by mythic pic-
tures less obviously coercive than is penury. Consider the case of Paul
Tillman, a former NFL football player who had no economic need
whatsoever to become a soldier but did so out of patriotic fervor in
the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Tillman
was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004
(White 2004). Other well-known cases of American men who will-
ingly placed themselves at risk of death in the name of their country
have been US senator John Kerry and film director Oliver Stone, who
volunteered in Vietnam only to become disillusioned with the war
and to later retract their support of that intervention, having directly
witnessed how remote the reality of the war was from its fairy-tale
depiction by its promoters.22
Most of the men who fought in Vietnam for the United States
were required to do so by law, and although a number of famous
politicians—including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Bill
Clinton—found ways to evade the draft, for the vast majority of young
men it was not possible to use political connections or to matriculate
in a graduate program in order to avoid active military service. There
were, however, other ways to refuse to fight, and some less-privileged
men either expatriated or accepted prison sentences to avoid entangl-
ing themselves in a war which they either opposed on moral grounds
or recognized could lead to their own demise.23
* * *
The devastation of war is by no means restricted to its physical

effects upon innocent noncombatant victims and the unfortunate
soldiers killed or maimed in combat. If habits build character, then
the very practice of warfare should be expected to have a corrosive
effect, for soldiers are transformed through their service into killers
capable of destroying moral persons at the behest of merely human
beings. Soldiers are asked to perform a delicate balancing act, both
to renounce and to abide by morality in what may seem to be entirely
arbitrary ways. This may explain how and why torture has been prac-
ticed by military men throughout history, for example, during World
Wars I and II, in Algeria, and in Vietnam, to name but a few of the
most notorious cases.24
In March 2005, the Pentagon reported having identified at least
twenty-seven incidents of probable criminal homicide committed
by US military personnel guarding prisoners from August 2002 to
November 2004 (Associated Press 2005). The peculiarity of the idea
that it would be perfectly acceptable to extinguish a human being,
though not to mistreat him for the purpose of obtaining information,
may well induce cognitive dissonance in some troops, which may also
explain wartime atrocities such as the elevated frequency of rape by
soldiers at war. Having already lifted within their minds the proscrip-
tion to killing, some soldiers may go one step further, by setting their
entire moral worldview to one side and concluding that “everything
is permitted.”
In scenarios such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Vietnam War,
and the Nazi campaign, a general devaluation of human life arises. The
residents of the occupied lands are subjected to the sight of slaughter
carried out allegedly in the name of justice, and soldiers become the
direct executors of blood-drenched initiatives. The psychological casu-
alties among soldiers who have killed innocent people during war are
further “collateral” effects brushed aside by the establishment figures
who send young people abroad to fight and kill, risking not only their
lives, but also their moral and psychological well-being. Many soldiers
have suffered unimaginably on the battlefield, not only physically, but
also emotionally and psychologically, as a result of both what they
have seen and what they have done. In the worst cases, soldiers have
lost their very presence of mind, and sometimes this fact is not regis-
tered until after they have committed certifiably horrific crimes.25
What soldiers are asked and agree to do explains the degeneracy
seen among those who fight in conflicts as dubious as the Vietnam
War. Many veterans have become social outcasts and criminals after
their service.26 That soldiers become killers by killing is graphically
illustrated by some of the most notorious civilian murderers of the
twentieth century, including Charles Whitman, Richard Farley, Mark
Essex, Timothy McVeigh, and John Muhammad Allen. These men
were all trained to kill by the military, and each explicitly character-
ized his murders in military terms.
Soldiers involved in disastrous missions sometimes reach a break-
ing point, after which they are no longer able to do what they have
been asked to do. They defect, refuse to return to duty, in some cases
expatriate, seeking political and psychological asylum from what
combat has proven to be to them as participants in what they regard
as a colossal mistake.
How deeply classist the military is emerges in cases where soldiers’
own humanity is flatly denied by war architects. Consider, for exam-
ple, the disturbing revelation that psychiatric casualties of the 2003
invasion of Iraq were redeployed, with suicide becoming the number
one noncombat cause of death among active-duty soldiers, in some
cases after having been reactivated despite their protests (Woodruff
et al. 2008). In November 2007, it emerged that thousands of US
war veterans had committed suicide upon return to their homeland.
By 2012, suicides outnumbered combat deaths among active duty US
soldiers in Afghanistan as well (Williams 2012).
The treatment of soldiers as mere implements to be used and dis-
carded has not been peculiar to the US military. In earlier times, the
punishment of troops was primarily meted out in cases of defection,
disobedience, or dereliction of duty. During World War I, French
general Pétain devised the practice of placing disobedient soldiers—
those who attempted to evade service or desert—unarmed on the
front lines of the battlefield, thereby effecting their nearly certain
execution by the enemy. Such punishment was rationalized on deter-
rent grounds: to prevent other troops from following suit.
In the twenty-first century, when flagrant violations of the so-called
rules of war are brought to the public’s attention through the swift
dissemination around the globe of digital images, the powers that be

treat the cases as isolated incidents of crime committed by deviants.
The prosecution of soldiers in cases such as that of prisoner mistreat-
ment at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has appeared to be largely a matter
of public relations. While operating a prisoner camp in Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, precisely because the territory was beyond the ambits of
US law, government officials harshly condemned the troops involved
in the scandal at Abu Ghraib and took legal action against its immedi-
ate perpetrators.27 Ultimately, Abu Ghraib proved to be an extraordi-
narily effective red herring, distracting the public for several months
from the much larger and far more disturbing question whether the
war should ever have been waged. If the 2003 invasion of Iraq was
unjust, then every single person killed or otherwise harmed by the
invaders, whether soldier or civilian, was wronged.
In considering the public relations use to which the scandal at
Abu Ghraib was put by military spokesmen, the case of US staff ser-
geant Camilo Mejía is especially telling.28 Mejía was court-martialed
for desertion and sentenced to a year in prison after having refused to
return to Iraq. If soldiers were actually supposed to abide by their own
conscience in deciding when not to commit immoral and illegal acts,
then the outcome of this case would make no sense whatsoever. Mejía
refused to redeploy on grounds of conscience. He rejected the cause of
the war, claiming that it had been waged for oil, and the conduct of
the war, claiming that civilians were being slaughtered and prisoners
mistreated. When Mejía refused to participate further in what his own
conscience told him was an unjust war, he was denigrated as a crimi-
nal by the military establishment. Ironically, one of Mejía’s primary
grounds for refusing to continue his service in Iraq was prisoner mis-
treatment, precisely the basis for the court-martial of soldiers at Abu
Ghraib. Cases such as that of Camilo Mejía strongly suggest that the
story promulgated by the military administration, of good soldiers who
are supposed to retain ties to morality during their time fighting, is a
fiction. Rather than heeding the dictates of their own moral conscience,
soldiers are obliged to act in accordance with a principle perhaps most
aptly summarized as follows: Kill whomever you’ve been commanded to
kill—but refrain from acts that reflect poorly on the military.
The fate of soldiers postconflict has often revealed a continua-
tion of the process of dehumanization everywhere on display dur-
ing wartime, beginning with the renunciation of a soldier’s critical
faculties. According to the traditional myth, which continues to be
propagated by recruiters and to which leaders regularly pay lip service
during military and public relations campaigns, veterans of war are
supposed to be courageous heroes. Yet in the aftermath of the 1991

Gulf War, when thousands of troops developed chronic health prob-
lems, the administration repeatedly refused to take any responsibil-
ity for the widespread manifestations and devastations of the Gulf
War Syndrome, though all evidence pointed to inadequate protection
against exposure to chemical agents released when facilities known
to contain toxic substances were destroyed. Soldiers deployed in the
Gulf War had been ordered to bomb suspected chemical and biologi-
cal weapons factories, though this involved a callous disregard for the
troops’ own well-being.29
* * *
US military supporters generally disregard the many ill-fated and self-

defeating military initiatives engineered over the course of the decades
since 1945, including debacles such as Vietnam. Instead, pleasing and
heroic images deriving from World War II are proffered by politicians
and intellectuals alike in support of war. In February 2002, sixty US
academics in connection with the Center for American Values pub-
lished in the New York Times an open letter to the world on behalf of
all Americans, “What We’re Fighting For,” which was clearly mod-
eled after the World War II campaign, widely promoted through a
series of US War Department “information” films, Why We Fight.30
Pro-war images modeled after World War II are transmitted through
a well-developed idiom of euphemism and coded language as camou-
flage. Not only does this carefully crafted idiom lure young people
to enlist, it also distracts the populace from the harsh reality of what
war means to the individual human beings irreversibly transformed
through their commission of homicide.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the conscientious objectors
were vindicated, as the Pentagon Papers revealed that the US mili-
tary administration had regularly lied to soldiers and the populace
alike with the aim of garnering and maintaining support for an ill-
founded policy. The Vietnam debacle was persistently rationalized by
its architects in the name of national defense, but US involvement led
to the deaths of millions of Vietnamese, in addition to the 58,000
US soldier casualties (to say nothing of those whose lives were oth-
erwise wrecked). Looking back at Vietnam, it is safe to say that some
high-level leaders view lying as a perfectly legitimate and justifiable
practice. This raises the question why anyone continues to believe the
spokesmen for an institution—in this case, the US Department of
Defense—which has amply demonstrated its duplicity in the past.31
Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, most

people would rather cling to their comforting belief that what has
inherited the label defense is very much like what one does when
threatened in one’s home by a malevolent aggressor. Given the lengthy
chains of ignorance separating modern military pilots from their acts
of destruction, those engaged in one-sided bombing campaigns are
arguably more akin to snipers than to the warriors of ancient and
medieval times.32 The disturbing similarity between the vocation of
the professional soldier and that of the hit man—each of whom kills
on command in exchange for financial remuneration—may help to
explain why duplicity has been inextricably woven into the very fabric
of military discourse. Morally admirable and self-respecting people
would not agree to become illegal contract killers or hit men, but they
can be persuaded to “fight for justice” and “defend the nation.”
Skeptical questions about soldiering are equally questions about
funding what soldiers are ordered to do. If it is misguided to submit
to the orders to kill issued by another merely human being, then it
is equally misguided to ask other people to do such a thing. Military
supporters consistently fail to appreciate the awfulness of what is done
to soldiers themselves—said to be legitimate targets—whenever and
wherever they are ordered to place themselves in harm’s way. Most
witnesses of the horrors of war have been silenced for all time in the
graves where they lie. But even those who manage to survive lethal
assault often find their lives severely disrupted, having lost basic func-
tions once their own. These combatant victims, being out of sight,
are also out of mind—effectively rendered fictions along with the
nameless collateral damage victims of war.
As enlistment packages become more generous, professional sol-
diers in the capitalist system become more and more difficult to dis-
tinguish from what were historically termed mercenaries. Indeed,
in the twenty-first century, as large parts of the military have been
privatized through contractual arrangements with companies offer-
ing security services, many of the people working for the military
are literally “guns-for-hire” or mercenaries (Geraghty 2009, 2010).
But even the prospective soldier with no moral scruples whatsoever
against killing on command has strong prudential grounds for avoid-
ing military service. The tragedy of many soldiers whose lives have
been destroyed in combat in recent times is that they enlisted as a
means of gainful employment. In such cases, human beings agree to
soldier and die prematurely, or lose the basic health requisite to hap-
piness, in their endeavor to secure the means to live.
8
T h e M or a l F og of W a r
Helicopters are strafing the city with their guns, and so, you know,
already you hear explosions starting off, and they’re tellin’ us, “Your
rules of engagement have changed: anybody that’s in this city is bad.”
—US lieutenant corporal Travis Williams1
M ilitary supporters often conflate political and moral discourse,

under the assumption that war is a form of community self-defense, and
the nation’s survival supersedes all other considerations. Government
officials may regard their efforts to advance the economic interests of
a nation as instrumental to securing the well-being of their citizenry,
but in opting for war, they effectively divide humanity into distinct,
stratified classes, according to what are deemed morally irrelevant
properties within the bounds of civil society.
By promoting particular, concrete wars, military supporters uphold
a classist political hierarchy, with the human beings at the top dei-
fied and granted the prerogative to destroy human life through the
deployment of troops who have been reduced through their train-
ing to unreflective tools. Leaders fashion themselves as champions
of morality and justice, but their soldiers are used by them, in viola-
tion of the deontological moral principle that it is always wrong to use
people as the mere means to one’s ends (Kant 1964). The contemporary
practice of war furthermore contradicts the maxim that “all people
are created equal,” for the lives of soldiers and civilian victims alike
are said to be expendable by leaders during their “just” wars.
To uphold a genuinely moral perspective is to accept what is
referred to by modern philosophers as the overriding nature of moral-
ity. When morality is at stake, all other perspectives occupy at best a
second place. Yet war supporters sometimes write as though moral
considerations were only some among a variety of competing and
equally valid perspectives:
I am inclined to say that justice has become, in all Western countries,
one of the tests that any proposed military strategy or tactic has to
meet—only one of the tests and not the most important one, but this
still gives just war theory a place and standing that it never had before
(Walzer 2004, 12; italics added).
Ethical concerns are seldom controlling, but they are rarely absent
altogether (Grimsley and Rogers 2002, xxv).
These authors presume that morality is just another perspective, an

“option on the table” to be weighed among others. But one can-
not have it both ways: either morality is absolute, unconditional, and
supremely important, or else it is a vain and chimerical notion. Moral
relativism is a coherent stance, but war cannot be justified on absolut-
ist moral grounds through suspending morality itself. The overriding
nature of morality implies that, if it is immoral (or amoral) to kill
individual people within civil society to obtain their money, then, by
extension, wars waged for oil, to acquire new territory, or to protect
the economic interests of a country do not reflect a moral perspective
(Gendzier 2003).
The reigning military paradigm, according to which a person or a
small group may determine the fate of other persons, stripping them
of their values along with their very being, rejects the moral per-
spective presupposed by the laws of civil society in modern Western
nations. When the essential value of moral personhood is flatly denied,
or brushed aside as irrelevant, the policies in question promote non-
moral interests. Perhaps the leaders who implement such policies do
not recognize this contradiction, or perhaps they are relativists who
hold that morality is a vain and chimerical notion. The manifest will-
ingness of many leaders throughout history to sacrifice morality in
the name of morality may betray either realist or Machiavellian sym-
pathies (see chapter 6). A third possibility, historically quite plausible,
is that leaders may simply attach far more moral value to their own
comrades than to outsiders, elevating to the status of moral property
what is nonmoral group membership. Leaders who believe that their
own people are “special” or “superior” have often been willing to
pay the price of war using the lives of “outsiders” as currency. Many
political leaders throughout history have found it unproblematic to
sacrifice members even of their own society who happen to be situ-
ated at the lower economic strata: conscripts and “volunteer” soldiers
who enlisted as a means of gainful employment.2
Moral rhetoric is used to galvanize support for wars, but the con-
cept of moral person as a free and rational agent plays no role whatso-
ever in the military paradigm, with one notable exception: legitimate
authorities are granted the prerogative of deciding when to sacrifice
Th e Mor a l Fo g of Wa r 149
human lives for a cause regarded by them as just. Aside from this case,
the entire framework of “military science” excludes the first-person
perspective and promotes an amoral or immoral agenda, through the
use of euphemism, coded language, and empty abstractions with no
logical connection to the intrinsic and most immediate and direct
consequences of war: death and destruction.
Leaders—whether democratically or autocratically appointed—
invariably deceive their people in drumming up support for war,
whether through exaggerating the possible consequences of not taking
up arms or minimizing (or omitting mention of) the fully foreseeable
negative costs. The perspectives of the innocent civilians slaughtered
are systematically ignored by those who wage and support war, while
enemy leaders are reified in the sense that they are denounced as cat-
egorically evil or “beyond the reach of reason.” Meanwhile, enemy
troops, whether conscripted through force or coerced through decep-
tion, are made the direct targets of intentional homicide.
The grand irony in all of this is that moral rhetoric, not morality,
is gullibly accepted as overriding, with the result that so long as lead-
ers can devise virtually any moral rationalization for their war, then
countless people will support them, no matter how preposterous their
pretext may seem in retrospect or to outsiders. Hitler’s rhetoric was
typical:
Only the assembled and concentrated might of a national passion rear-

ing up in its strength can defy the international enslavement of peoples.
Such a process is and remains a bloody one (Botwinick 1998, 133).
* * *
The modern realities of restrictive immigration laws and mandatory

military service raise a serious albeit rarely broached question about
the morality of killing the soldiers of lands where men may have no
choice but to fight back when their country is attacked, on pain of
certain death for refusal to do so. In what sense have soldiers who will
be executed for refusing to fight elected their role?
In general, there are two possibilities for the enemy soldier: either
he is literally forced to fight (facing criminal prosecution or summary
execution for disobedience), or else he willingly does so, under the
sway of the moral rhetoric deftly wielded by his own political and
military leaders.3 Should the benighted soldiers of enemy territories
be destroyed for their gullibility? The manifest absurdity of millions
of young men running headlong to their own demise in wave after
wave of mass killing was readily apparent in World War I. But in cases
where enlisted men literally have no choice but to fight—where it is
not merely difficult but impossible to resist—the moral dubiousness
of obliterating them becomes all the more patent.
Consider the soldiers of Iraq killed in 1991. As objectionable a
leader as Saddam Hussein was, there seemed something fundamen-
tally unjust about slaughtering for the crimes of their dictator nearly
200,000 Iraqi men, as occurred during the Gulf War. That thou-
sands of those troops should have been killed while attempting to
retreat merely underscores the degree to which these human beings
were stripped of not only their lives but also their moral personhood.
A number of sources reported that some of the Iraqi soldiers killed
by US forces during the 1991 Gulf War were buried alive in their
trenches (Heidenrich 1993, Schmitt 1991, Sloyan 1991).4
During World War I, troops on the battlefield were gassed to
death, hardly an expression of respect for their humanity, regardless
of whether they freely enlisted or did not resist conscription. Could
these people have been treated in such a way while being viewed by
their killers as persons? Although some will reply that these disturb-
ing examples show only that in both World War I and the 1991 Gulf
War the principles of jus in bello were violated (others attempt to
interpret these actions as permitted by just war theory), on a much
more profound level, they reveal the delusive nature of the black and
white images guiding those who execute war. Even if one accepts the
condemnation of enemy leaders as evil, punishments are not meted
out through war in any way that might be said to cohere with the
moral properties of the people involved.
The pro-military paradigm, buoyed by the just war tradition, is pre-
sumed to set reasonable constraints upon the recourse to deadly force
between nations. However, the notion of a “moral” war is chimerical,
for to treat human beings as the enemy requires that they be objecti-
fied and their humanity denied so that the proscription against killing
them no longer applies. Rather than viewing the individuals whom
they kill as persons, soldiers, who have themselves been transformed
into weapons, depersonify their victims. “The enemy” is invariably
denigrated and often demonized by those in command, a practice best
understood as a measure of military expediency, as Walzer explains:
“We are extraordinarily dependent on the victim/victimizer, good
guys/bad guys model. I am not sure that any very forceful interven-
tion is politically possible without it” (Walzer 2004, 71).
There can be little doubt that indoctrinatory Manichean denunci-
ation of the enemy—whoever they may be claimed to be—is essential
to the military training programs through which soldiers are condi-

tioned to kill. The objectification of the enemy may be the only way
to galvanize soldiers to do what they, as civilians, would not in most
cases otherwise do. Che Guevara, who helped Fidel Castro to effect
the Cuban revolution, described the militarily necessary denigration
of the enemy in these terms:
Hatred as a component of battle; intransigent hatred toward the

enemy, pushing beyond the natural limitations of the human being
and converting him into an effective, violent, selective and imperturb-
able killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without
hatred cannot prevail against a brutal enemy (Castañeda 1997, 453;
my translation).
* * *
Racist, sexist, and classist conceptions of moral personhood have been

rejected by modern Western societies through their abolition of slav-
ery and the extension of civil rights to all men and women regardless
of their racial, economic, or social status. Yet in international conflicts
said to necessitate the recourse to war, the people involved are effec-
tively divided into six distinct moral classes: the leaders, the soldiers,
and the civilian population of the nation waging war; and the leaders,
the soldiers, and the civilian population of the nation against which
war is waged. From a moral perspective, all of these people should be
considered equal. However, the military paradigm implicitly imposes
a strict hierarchy of value upon them, as becomes clear through reflec-
tion upon the immunities enjoyed by some and the heightened risks
incurred by others of these groups.
In the case of the nation waging war, the legitimate authority
is said to possess the right to decide who may live and who should
die. At the same time, soldiers are said to possess the right to com-
mit homicide when called upon to do so. But the price that soldiers
pay for their legal immunity in killing the enemy directly and civil-
ians collaterally is more than outweighed by the fact that they for-
sake the right to their own lives in agreeing to fight. Soldiers incur
other costs as well, as evidenced by the preponderance of psychiatric
casualties among veterans throughout the twentieth and now in the
twenty-first century. The curiousness of the idea that one’s mode of
dress renders one subject to intentional killing by another agent in
similar attire was brought out tragically and graphically through the
US experience in Vietnam. Combatants and noncombatants were not
clearly distinguishable, for peasant men, women, and even some chil-
dren transported bombs and messages, thus engaging in intelligence
activities, subterfuge, and infiltration. Accordingly, the soldiers fight-
ing in Vietnam were often placed in the difficult situation of having
to decide whether to risk their own lives or to kill people who, by all
appearances, were civilians. When, in retrospect, it emerged that the
people whom they had killed were supposed to have been protected
by noncombatant immunity, the soldiers had to live with what they
had done, what within civil society would have constituted criminal
homicide. In fact, the noncombatants killed in Vietnam were living in
civil society: the US soldiers who killed them had invaded their land.
The civilians who pay for the war may enjoy a degree of protection
from the actual death and destruction wrought, provided that the
war is fought somewhere else far away. When the war is brought back
to the homeland itself—whether by the military of another nation or
through terrorist attacks in retaliation to military action, as occurred
on September 11, 2001—then civilians themselves are at a consider-
ably greater risk of death than are the leaders whose actions provoked
retaliation. The prevailing classist hierarchy of the military itself—
with soldiers obliged to follow uncritically the orders of their superior
officers, and expected, if necessary, to sacrifice their own lives—is
transferred through modern military practice to the enemy as well.
Strikingly, in virtue of their position of political power within their
own society, enemy leaders enjoy a degree of immunity from physical
harm not shared by their less powerful compatriots. When outsiders
opt to deploy military force, rather than addressing the government’s
crimes through other routes, the people most at risk are ironically
those least responsible for the conflict. After wars waged ostensibly
in response to their crimes, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein
continued to benefit from a level of security not shared by their com-
patriots (to say nothing of the casualties of those wars).5 How can
it be that the leaders of an enemy nation enjoy a greater immunity
from punishment through war for their crimes than do the children
of their land? This manifestly absurd implication is but one among a
set of glaring signs that moral rhetoric merely masquerades as moral
justification in modern war.
Until such time as they are literally deposed, the very leaders
whose actions provoked the recourse to war by outsiders have access
to the highest level of protection available to anyone within their
own land. The soldiers who fight for the nation against whom war
has been waged are said by their government to possess the right to
kill the invaders, in addition to having a right to defend themselves
individually in acts of legitimate self-defense. But the price soldiers

pay for their legal immunity in killing is more than outweighed by the
fact that they forsake the right to their own lives in agreeing to fight
(as opposed to seeking refuge in shelters, etc.). When such soldiers are
fighting only to evade their own deaths by execution for disobedi-
ence, then there is no reasonable sense in which they can be said to
have agreed to fight.
The reassuring rhetoric of noncombatant immunity notwithstand-
ing, the civilians of the nation under attack possess the least de facto
value of anyone in the entire military hierarchy, for they are subject to
arbitrary destruction and have no legal claim whatsoever, according
to either regime, when they or their family members are destroyed.
At the end of the conflict, the winner decrees whether the civilians
killed were murder victims or collateral damage, but these people,
many of whom neither chose nor provoked war, have been irreparably
wronged.
* * *
Troops are called to arms in the name of abstract values such as lib-
erty, peace, and justice, but what they are expected to do, indeed,
their primary task, is to effect the destruction of targets selected by
others. Modern soldiers with the physical capacity to refuse to fight
have agreed, in some sense, to do so. Some are volunteers; some
are conscripts; many have enlisted as a form of gainful employment
(Calhoun 2003a). The latter group can without hyperbole be said
to have accepted contracts to kill, for they only find themselves in
the position of committing homicide because they have agreed to
do so in exchange for financial remuneration. Do soldiers believe in
the causes for which their leaders have ordered them to fight? Some
probably do; others may not. Some may be “converted” through the
act of homicide itself.
What has sometimes been the hyperbolic patriotism of military
personnel becomes readily comprehensible in view of what they have
been persuaded to do. In the tendency of officials and troops alike
to support even dubious missions already underway, an important
dynamic comes into play: military leaders and soldiers are human
beings who must live with their own actions. Troops are professionally
obliged to follow the orders of their commander in chief, but many
of them may well have come to believe—by one means or another—
that the wars waged by their leaders and their own individual acts of
killing are just.
An instructive example in this regard is that of US lieutenant gen-

eral James Mattis, who frankly avowed on February 1, 2005, to a San
Diego audience that “actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know.
It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people.” Mattis then pro-
ceeded to elaborate upon his view:
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for
five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that
ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot
them (CNN 2005).
If we are to believe Mattis, the Afghans whom he somehow identi-

fied as having “slap[ped] women around for five years” had thereby
fallen from the class of “men” to creatures worthy of execution.
When Mattis explained that his victims deserved to die for their
mistreatment of women, he probably took himself to be offering a
politically correct account. What he revealed instead was that, when
asked to destroy human beings, soldiers may need to devise such
stories to persuade themselves to believe that what they have done
is right, to be able to live with themselves, perhaps even to be able
to sleep at night.
Here is how US captain Kermit Beahan, who dropped an atomic
bomb on the city of Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima had already
been razed (by Paul Tibbets, flying the Enola Gay) characterized his
act: “The target was there, pretty as a picture. I made the run, let
the bomb go. That was my greatest thrill.”6 Presumably the “thrill”
Beahan felt was to be one of the victorious warriors against Japan.
One wonders how he would have felt had he witnessed firsthand the
charred bodies of children generated by his action.
Mattis’s disconcerting admission that he actually enjoys killing his
victims was shocking because it flew in the face of the mythic view
held by those who know nothing about what it really means to be a
soldier.7 Moral rhetoric is used by political leaders in persuading their
citizens to support war efforts and by military marketers in luring
young people to enlist, but the business of the military is the business
of killing. Soldiers on the ground have been rigorously trained to
“engage” the enemy, which, euphemisms aside, amounts to no more
and no less than the commission of homicide.
Once a war is underway, soldiers’ convictions may be solidified
through killing for their leaders’ cause. This type of momentum
effect may drive those who have killed—or ordered others to kill, or
funded killing—to continue to do the same, to prove to themselves
that they were right to have done so already. Neither commanders

nor their troops wish to believe that they are murderers or dupes,
so they have a great deal at stake, psychologically speaking, in con-
tinuing to defend even delusive and sophistic interpretations of their
own actions, denouncing the enemy as evil for so long as the conflict
persists.
When soldiers enlist, or do not resist conscription, they renounce
their right to refuse to fight in the event that they disagree with the
stated political objectives of their leaders. Soldiers may—just war the-
orists will insist, should—refuse to follow criminal orders, but the
lines between legality and illegality have become notoriously diffi-
cult to discern in the context of modern wars. Should a soldier use a
weapon of mass destruction (WMD) to raze a city such as Hiroshima
or Nagasaki, identified by his superior officers as a military target,
while recognizing that the site is also quite obviously a civilian popu-
lation center? Should a soldier bomb a mosque or school in which the
enemy or a cache of weapons is said to hide? In fact, in a quite general
way, the soldier finds himself doing what he would never have done,
were he not a soldier, including killing troops on the other side who
may well have had no choice but to fight. US soldiers were continu-
ally apprised, both in 1991 and in 2003, that Saddam Hussein was
a ruthless dictator, which no one denies but surely implies that the
coerced Iraqi soldiers killed were not morally responsible for follow-
ing their leader’s orders. They had no real choice, in any reasonable
sense of those words.
Ground troops may participate directly in killing, but they also
witness the killing of their comrades, which they may interpret as acts
of murder needing to be avenged.8 The generation of domino-like
emotive reactions goes some distance in explaining the sorts of mass
killings carried out by groups throughout the twentieth and into
the twenty-first century. Even wars waged for apparently just causes
unfold in unpredictable ways, as victims multiply and well-intentioned
military personnel are driven for psychological reasons to prove not
only to others—but also, and perhaps most importantly of all, to
themselves—that they have not killed and their comrades have not
died for nothing.
The decision to engage in war is a political one, but having once
killed for what their leaders have claimed to be justice, soldiers and
officers alike may develop strong motivations for continuing to defend
that cause and war as just, even when the evidence to the contrary
becomes overwhelming, as it did in Vietnam. This tendency may be
further intensified by the stratified and compartmentalized structure
of the military establishment in the modern world, for many links

of uncertainty are involved in every order to kill received by a com-
batant. The lengthier the chains of command, the more uncertainty
is introduced and, by extension, the more opportunities arise for
deception, duplicity, and self-delusion, on top of what may be entirely
guileless error.
Before the invention of airplanes, all combat was terrestrial, and
soldiers met their adversaries face-to-face on the battlefield. In such
conflicts, soldiers could easily conceive of their own acts of killing
in terms of literal self-defense. Confronted with the choice: kill or be
killed, soldiers were able in good conscience to destroy those enemy
soldiers who presented themselves as aggressors. In contrast, in the
age of airplanes, missiles, and computers, soldiers are ordered to bomb
targets selected for them by military strategists located far away from
the “theater” of conflict. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, enor-
mously destructive missiles were launched at Baghdad from 700 miles
away to destroy the antiaircraft defense systems of the Iraqi military so
as to facilitate subsequent bombing by US pilots while minimizing US
casualties. Many Iraqi civilians were killed by these bombs—vaunted
as “smart” by US spokesmen—and every resident of Baghdad was
directly terrorized throughout the duration of the campaign.
A logical curiosity, the defense of offensive bombers was the rea-
son for deploying the missiles launched in 2003 not from the United
States (or Britain or Spain, the governments of which also supported
the invasion), but from the Suez Canal. Yet the military personnel
who followed orders to launch the missiles no doubt regarded them-
selves as “defending” their own country through carrying out their
soldierly duties. US war supporters tend not to entertain such dis-
turbing reverse scenarios, but what they advocated in supporting the
action was similar in some ways to the 2001 attack on the Pentagon,
regarded by no supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as an act of just
war. The primary distinction between the two cases is that the 2001
attack on the Pentagon was not followed up by a massive bombing
assault upon Washington, DC, or any other US city. The destruction
of one wing of the Pentagon had primarily symbolic, not strategic,
value, though it may well have inspired a surge in al Qaeda sympa-
thizers among those opposed to US military policies and practices.
The question, in any case, remains: if the use of missiles launched
against the antiaircraft systems of a government counts as a form of
defense, then what, precisely, might count as offensive military action?
One can only marvel at the suggestion that all US military actions
are, by definition, defensive.
As a result of the radical increase in the lethality of modern weap-

onry, the accidental killing of innocent people has represented a very
serious problem for soldiers at war and in its aftermath. The frequency
of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among twentieth- and
twenty-first-century veterans of war illustrates how difficult it is for
most human beings to kill and witness the killing of others. In fact,
studies of the shooting rates of soldiers during World Wars I and II
revealed that human beings are not for the most part natural born kill-
ers. Many of the men sent to fight in those conflicts either refused to
shoot or deliberately misfired in an effort to avoid killing (Grossman
1995).9 To augment the lethality of their troops, US military leaders
implemented in subsequent decades rigorous training programs to sig-
nificantly increase the fire and kill rates of the soldiers of the Vietnam
War. Through these taxpayer-funded programs, modern soldiers were
and continue to be conditioned to kill unflinchingly on command.
Faced with the inherent psychological and emotional limitations of
human beings, high-level military strategists have pursued every con-
ceivable route in their quest to strengthen the weakest link in the chain
from command to killing: the human being. The need to integrate
the human factor into advanced weapons systems has led to extensive
research into the possibility of controlling soldiers through the use of
computer chips, and the US Department of Defense has sponsored
many drug studies in an effort to minimize the “all-too-human”
responses of soldiers ordered to kill (Gray 1989, Moreno 2006). In
recent years, troops have been preemptively medicated in preparation
for active duty. Such “strengthening” of killers is achieved through
damping their “vulnerability” to moral sentiment, the capacity for
which would seem to be essential to humanity (Calhoun 2000).
Paradoxically, modern soldiers are expected to forsake their own
humanity by suppressing their own rational and emotional faculties
during wars said to be fought in the name of humanity. The programs
intended to produce human killing machines have not been entirely
successful, and some have had dire consequences. The suppression
of conscience mandated by the soldier’s vocation may erupt later, as
compunction for his victims or, in some cases, in the moment of con-
flict itself. Many of the Vietnam veterans who had been transformed
into skillful killers and fought a vicious ground war under incredibly
difficult conditions suffered calamitous psychological repercussions
(PTSD) for their role in a conflict where noncombatants were often
mistaken for combatants. This problem re- emerged in the aftermath
of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with a veritable epidemic of new veteran
and active duty suicides (CNN 2009).
The members of the informally assembled insurgency in Iraq did

not don uniforms to alert US troops as to their combatant status.
Some among the Iraqis who resisted the US occupation fought vehe-
mently against what they took to be the unjust war waged against
their nation and felt no need to play by the rules of what they took to
be the criminal invaders. From the perspective of some of the insur-
gents, they were simply defending their homes. In this vexed urban
context, the accidental killing of civilians, unembedded journalists,
and comrades (through “friendly fire”) became more and more fre-
quent, as nervous soldiers on the ground sometimes opted to shoot
first and ask questions later in an entirely reasonable quest to protect
their own lives.
* * *
When people offer arguments for taking up arms, they often begin,
as did US president Harry S. Truman, by claiming that the enemy is
irrational, beyond the reach of reason, and must be stopped through
the use of military force:
Nobody is more disturbed over the use of atomic bombs than I am but
I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese
on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only
language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to
bombard them.10
The people—infants and senior citizens, Buddhist monks and school-

teachers—destroyed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the people
who attacked Pearl Harbor. Instead, the innocent people killed in
the atomic bombings of August 6 and August 9, 1945, were used by
Truman as the means to force the Japanese government’s surrender.
Ironically, then, Truman proved just the opposite of his premise—
that the enemy was irrational—by demonstrating that the Japanese
political elites were indeed willing to “listen to the voice of reason,”
if only the consequences of not doing so were ratcheted up to an
intolerable level.
The rhetoric of irrationality is not exclusive to the leaders of
established nations. Consider this statement by Ayman al-Zawahiri,
regarded at the time as the “right-hand man” of Osama bin Laden:
Our goal is this: to kill the greatest possible number of people. That is
the only language which the West understands (Danesch 2004, 7).
This example reveals, again, that the people slaughtered in cases involv-
ing what are claimed to be irrational leaders are being used as the
means through which the attacking party’s protest is communicated.
Military initiatives specifically intended to demoralize the civilian pop-
ulation to effect a swifter defeat of the enemy regime contradict the
very perspective of morality serving as the pretext for military action.
Military supporters wish to sharply distinguish soldiers from ter-
rorists, but the intentional slaughter of civilians has not been the
modus operandi only of individual murderers and factional fighters.
Grimsley and Rogers explain the more general military rationale
behind such actions as follows:
Toward the civilians under attack the message is slightly more subtle
but easy to discern: see, your regime cannot protect you, so accept our
rule. This is the classic rationale for attacks on civilians in areas under
revolt . . . A variant of this has become more prevalent since the rise of
mass politics: see your regime cannot protect you, so pressure your
regime to accept our terms . . . British planners employed it as a ratio-
nale for the area bombing of Germany during World War II (Grimsley
and Rogers 2002, xiii).
That attacks willfully intended to kill civilians are rationalized by

their executors by appeal both to the alleged fact that enemy leaders
cannot understand any other “language,” and because they are stra-
tegically efficacious, reveals that the charge of irrationality made in
such cases is purely rhetorical. While some glaringly megalomaniacal
leaders may be psychotic, this can hardly be said of the entire military
apparatus serving them under the guise of the pro-military, just war
paradigm.
The very structure of the military and its unquestioned
assumptions—that low-level troops and nonnational civilians may be
sacrificed in wars against criminal leaders—violates at every juncture
the principle according to which persons should never be used as the
mere means to one’s ends. The fact that the laying of soldiers upon
the altars of their leaders has been a standard operating procedure
since ancient times certainly does not show that it is right. While
comprehensible in a religious worldview such as that of Augustine
(who believed in eschatological retribution), the sacrifice of some
people for the political objectives of other people contradicts the most
basic moral principles of modern liberal democracy.
When leaders rationalize war by claiming that the enemy cannot
be reasoned with, they simultaneously maintain that they themselves
have no choice but to wield deadly force against the enemy. Such ratio-
nalizations ascribe a type of overwhelming power to the adversary:
the irrational enemy has coerced those who take up arms, by forcing
them to fight, effectively stripping them of their own liberty to decide
whether or not to commit homicide. In this way, the “irrational”
killers succeed in creating their adversaries in their own image. The
horror of the enemy’s acts of killing leads directly to equally horrific
killing by those who retaliate. In the incendiary bombing of both
Germany and Japan during World War II, the actions were painted as
retaliatory and retributive, but the victims were in many, if not most,
cases just as innocent as those destroyed by the enemy who “forced”
the allies to annihilate even more innocent people.
That the irrational enemy is often denounced during the very
same propaganda campaign—sometimes even in the same breath—as
the evil enemy provides yet more evidence that war makers select their
characterization of the enemy according to the rhetorical needs of
the moment. To maintain that the evil enemy is also irrational would
seem to be a contradiction in terms, for evil is a moral concept, and
morality arguably presupposes rationality (which follows from ought
implies can). Rabid dogs are not evil—they are dangerous. But rabid
dogs do not persuade people to kill on their behalf, which of course
political leaders do, by persuasively deploying moral rhetoric to galva-
nize their troops to fight and their people to support them.
An important corollary to the contradictory denunciation of the
enemy as both evil and irrational is that the standard ascription of
blame for civilian deaths to such leaders—“He made us do it!”—
cannot be made, if they are in fact beyond the reach of reason. One
cannot coherently maintain that the evil enemy is wholly responsible,
morally speaking, for collateral damage, if in fact they are irrational.
The evasion of moral responsibility by those who order the use of
homicidal weapons resulting in the deaths of innocent people is delu-
sive, to say the least. As what should be the final nail in this coffin,
the purely propagandistic use of the rhetoric of irrationality would
seem to have been definitively demonstrated by the theory of mutu-
ally assured destruction (MAD) developed during the Cold War
between the Soviet Union and the United States. MAD presumed
precisely the rationality—the prudential predictability—of the enemy
which the rhetoric of irrationality denies (Calhoun 2007b).
* * *
The willingness to kill on command, which involves the concomitant

suppression of conscience, is said to absolve soldiers from responsibility
for killing erroneously in those cases where their leader has waged a
criminal war. In the just war framework, this assumption would seem
to imply that most, if not all, soldiers killed in war have been the
victims of crimes. The soldiers fighting on the side of justice who die
have been wrongfully killed by the enemy. The soldiers on the other
side, however, who fight on the basis of their leaders’ mistakes or lies,
have also been wrongfully killed, given the circumstances of decep-
tion leading up to their having found themselves in harm’s way. Under
the assumption of invincible ignorance (see chapter 7), neither enemy
nor allied soldiers are culpable for what they have done, provided only
that they believe what their commanding officers say, which often
seems to be the case. Moreover, those soldiers who do not believe the
stories proffered by their leaders are typically fighting under coercive
conditions—whether physical or economic—which would seem to
imply that they, too, escape responsibility for their own actions. In
this way, a rejection of what is perhaps the most basic feature of the
very possibility of morality—the responsibility of agents for their own
actions—is built into the pro-military, just war paradigm.
At the culmination of World War II, when some Nazi leaders
and administrators were called upon to answer individually for their
crimes, engineered in the name of their nation, those indicted largely
shirked moral responsibility, blaming either der Führer or else the
system in which they had found themselves, as mere cogs in an enor-
mous and apparently unstoppable machine (Rosenbaum 1993). Alain
Resnais displays the depths of self-delusion involved in this system at
the end of his documentary film Nuit et Brouillard [Night and Fog]
(1955), when he flashes through a series of people who insist upon
indictment for war crimes that “Je ne suis pas responsable! [I am not
responsible!],” in response to which the director poses the incisive
question: “Qui, donc, est responsable? [Who, then, is responsible?]”
The evasion of responsibility by officials for the devastating conse-
quences of their freely waged and orchestrated wars was not unique
to the Nazis. Nations and groups may be characterized as more or
less irenic or bellicose, but the system in which political leaders are
granted the prerogative to wage war makes them by far the most
potentially dangerous individuals in the high-tech modern world. Yet
because of the complex political economy of this system, in which the
killers themselves are not identical with those who wage and manage
the missions, nearly no one is held more than nominally accountable
when war ends in catastrophe. The range and depth of the denial
of responsibility by military administrators for their own misguided
initiatives is well-illustrated by the case of former US secretary of
defense Robert McNamara, who went even to so far as to claim that
he did not remember having approved the use of Agent Orange, now
documented to have caused widespread illness and birth defects in
the aftermath of the Vietnam War.11
Vietnam and Nazi Germany were hardly anomalous: the diffu-
sion of moral responsibility is a basic feature of the pro-military, just
war worldview, in which individual people act individually, often in
ignorance of the actions of others and the actual motives of those
in command. One of the primary reasons why people continue to
uphold the right of leaders to wage war would seem to be precisely
because whenever civilians are erroneously targeted and destroyed, or
troops are needlessly sacrificed, a thorough diffusion of responsibil-
ity ensues. Mistakes were made. The leaders who ordered the mission
and the planners who selected the wrong targets can facilely absolve
themselves from wrongdoing by reasoning that they never physically
caused the death of anyone. But the troops may exculpate themselves
as well: they were merely doing their soldierly duty and were not per-
mitted to assess the political warrant for war.
If there has been a revolution in military affairs, it is that moral
responsibility has dropped completely out of the war picture. With the
expansion of the network of agents involved in military campaigns—
including, in the twenty-first century, large numbers of private mili-
tary contractors—the diffusion of moral responsibility has reached
an unprecedented state: neither lower- nor upper-level administrators
shoulder more than nominal blame for their devastating mistakes.
Bomber pilots effectively don moral blinders in agreeing to destroy
targets selected for them by other personnel safely sequestered within
technological command centers often thousands of miles away from
the battlefield —a term still used metaphorically, though population
centers are the sites of most modern wars.
The presumption of infallibility and the general insouciance toward
hoi polloi exhibited by political leaders is nothing new in history, but
with the progressive development and creeping spread of WMD, this
presumption has become more and more dangerous, and all the more
given that political leaders no longer risk harm to themselves through
waging war and so are no longer prudentially constrained, as were
the warrior-leaders of the past. Contemporary soldiers follow orders
handed down by people whose mistakes do not incur for themselves
the risk of death assumed by ancient and medieval military strategists.
To project and protect the image of their power, the leaders of
nations regard it as incumbent upon themselves to wield military force
in response to crimes such as those of September 11, 2001, under the
prevailing presumption that in times of strife one sends soldiers to
fight. This idea obviously derives from the history of warfare, but it
is perpetuated and intensified by the criticism as weak of those leaders
who decline to deploy troops. Contemporary leaders, no less than their
historical predecessors, prefer to be regarded as strong, and some may
be more interested in defending their own image than in reflecting
upon and assessing the probable consequences for other people of their
military responses to crisis. But the idea that leaders who wage war are
strong and those who refrain from doing so are weak derives from an
entirely different historical milieu, one in which leaders themselves par-
ticipated in the wars of their making, rather than observing them from
afar. Today’s warrior-policymakers enjoy privileged access to highly
secure shelters, impenetrable bastions effectively guaranteeing their
own safety in the event of policies gone awry. The series of courageous
political leaders abruptly ended at the moment when they ceased to
incur the risk of their own bodily harm through waging war.
* * *
Contemporary political and military leaders speak of their wars in

empty abstractions, with no mention of the cold hard facts about what
this will mean for individual human beings. The shattered skulls, splin-
tered bones, brains and guts splattered over city streets are a degree
of detail about which people prefer not to know, especially when they
have already expressed their support for a war. When the victims of
military aggression are screaming children who lie writhing in pain
as they slowly bleed to death, the mainstream media dutifully oblige,
sparing viewers the graphic images and parroting in their broadcasts
the same anodyne just war–speak used by officials in paying their last
tributes to this nameless, faceless collateral damage. In direct contra-
diction to the conception of moral responsibility reflected in civil and
criminal law, whether or not the noncombatants harmed have been
wronged is supposed to depend upon not what they themselves have
done, but the past actions of another person altogether (their leader),
along with the killers’ intentions, as defined by the killers themselves.
People do not support military action under the brute physical
description of what it actually entails: mass slaughter and indiscrimi-
nate destruction. They do, however, enthusiastically support wars
waged in the name of abstract values such as freedom, liberty, and
peace, apparently incognizant of or oblivious to the lengthy list of
leaders whose rampages succeeded to the extent to which they did as
a result of an equally false representation of what war really means.
Under the sway of such rhetoric, the support by the populace of a war
lacks moral legitimacy, based as it is upon a set of false premises, most

fundamentally, that there is some sort of necessary causal connection
between homicide and the stated aim and projected political outcome
of a conflict. Wars are initiated by leaders, and eventually, sooner or
later, they come to an end, when one or the other side is defeated
or capitulates. Between the initiation and the termination of a war,
all that transpires—as a result of a strange sort of pact between the
rivals—is intentional killing. The two sides conspire to create a war,
agreeing to continue to kill the enemy up until the moment when
the political leaders of one side finally agree to sign a piece of paper
(whether literally or metaphorically) signaling the official end of the
strife, after which further killing is once again classified as murder.
Soldiers who kill enemy soldiers after the armistice suddenly fall
into the category of criminals, though their attitudes toward their vic-
tims may not differ in the least from what they would have been had
their leaders held out a bit longer. The moral quality of the soldier’s
acts of killing is said to depend upon not his own intentions, but an
entirely independent act on the part of his leaders: the decision to
return to the negotiation table. What is most peculiar of all about this
arrangement is that both sides are in agreement that they will reconcile
their lower-level disagreement (often about land) through war, and the
basis of their agreement vastly exceeds the details of their ephemeral
dispute. The rivals accept the rules of military strategy and attempt to
win a game in which the leaders of each side freely participate, know-
ing that, eventually, one side or the other will be forced to retreat.
The tactics, weapons, and hierarchical structure of the military
on both sides are the same. The leaders of both sides have studied
the winning strategies of the decisive battles of the past. What makes
them enemies is manifestly not an inability to reason or communi-
cate; after all, they agree to play the very same game, suspending for
a short time, within a specific, narrowly delimited volume of space,
what is the proscription to intentional killing within their respective
groups. Instead, what makes the two groups enemies is no more and
no less than the intransigent will of political leaders—treated by those
beneath them on both sides as demigods of sorts—whose decisions
to pay the “price” of war ironically reveal their low estimation of
the value of other human beings’ lives (not their own). It is in some
ways remarkable that leaders who risk no harm to their own person
should still today continue to succeed in galvanizing their troops to
fight, kill, and die through the use of moral rhetoric in denouncing
the enemy’s acts of homicide. Rather than agreeing to settle their
differences before countless people suffer premature death, political
leaders choose, through deploying military force, to postpone further

dialogue until after the war.
When the support mobilized for a war is predicated upon a false
picture of the situation—an exaggeration of alleged threats, the deni-
gration of the enemy in stark Manichean terms, and the euphemistic
mitigation of the foreseeable negative consequences of war—then the
populace has been coerced through deception. The degree of coercion
is inversely proportional to the moral responsibility of war supporters
for the crimes committed in their name by soldiers acting in accor-
dance with their leaders’ abridged and one-sided version of the story.
A veritable vacuum of responsibility arises from the hierarchical
structure of the military: fallible leaders wage wars based upon false
premises (above all, that there is no alternative), and the people sup-
port and soldiers execute military missions on the basis of omissive
descriptions of what war entails. The fact that the atrocities com-
mitted during wartime are either recast in euphemistic terms or not
mentioned at all does not magically render them morally innocuous.
It is precisely because of such perspectival pictures, painted exclusively
by the victors, that leaders continue to be granted the legal right to
slaughter innocent people in response to the crimes of their leaders.
* * *
Conscience and responsibility play integral roles in the moral framework

of civil society; the successful functioning of the military mandates the
suppression or diffusion of both. There were places, once upon a time,
where the battlefield was a separate and clearly delineated space to which
some men freely traveled to resolve their differences in the manner of
dueling chivalrous knights. The game of war was then much easier to
navigate. Today, however, the battlefield is superimposed upon civilian
societies, generating a thick fog in which the guilty and the innocent,
combatants and noncombatants are jumbled together chaotically. Most
of the people affected by war were embroiled not by their own deci-
sions or actions but by those of other people. Civilians under bombing
wait helplessly for their fate to be sealed by unknown actors, essentially
chained within a system where they and their perspectives are ignored.
Those who survive will find their world transformed, but whether the
shards of society left behind will be pieced together to produce one
political result or another has nothing whatsoever, logically or causally,
to do with what was done during the war.
The highly deceptive pro-military, “just war” paradigm, placed
at the disposal of an extraordinarily zealous mass murderer, effected
what became the Holocaust. Millions of people were complicit in

that abominable plot, though most of them never personally mur-
dered anyone. All of the people who supported Hitler in one way or
another labored under cover of the false and delusive moral rhetoric
poured out in defense of what he and his regime claimed to be justice,
including the obnoxious “truth” that the “Aryans,” in virtue of their
nobility, must rule the world. The Third Reich was spectacular in
the range and scope of its claims, but a false pretension to knowledge
conjoined with a coercively deceptive characterization of war galva-
nizes other groups to commit or condone mass slaughter as well. The
soldiers who fought for Hitler were acting in accordance with the
widely shared view—derived from the just war tradition—according
to which their duty was to follow orders, not to question the political
authority of the leader of their land.
The most fundamental moral problem with war derives from the
false pretension on the part of some human beings to have the right
to annihilate others. Regardless of what leaders may claim, nothing
about what will happen after a war has come to an end is contained
within or determined in any way by the activities of war itself, the
immediate consequences of which are the same on both sides: physi-
cal destruction and homicide. Whether the corpses amassed during
war will constitute a prelude to democracy or tyranny, to peace or
further war, is not something over which soldiers and military officers
themselves have any control. The politicians who supported military
action will attempt to glue back together again the society fractured
through war, or else they will “cut and run.” But if the resort to war
is an admission of political failure, the inability to secure a society
without sacrificing part of it, then why should anyone believe that
the same political leaders will succeed in their aims once that society
has been degraded and some of its people erased from the face of the
earth? Why should anyone believe that those who wage war will effect
their originally stated aim, which they were manifestly not able to
achieve before the war?
The histories written by the victors posit a necessary connection
between wars and subsequent desirable events, while suppressing the
negative consequences, as though they had other, unrelated causes. In
fact, both peace and strife follow wars: wars are punctuated by peace,
and peace is punctuated by strife. But all that a particular war causes
are particular instances of death, destruction, terror, and grief.
9
De moc r ac y, Hu m a n R igh ts,

a n d Wa r
The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence

is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence
of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few
points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the
public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf 1
We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

—Condoleezza Rice2
I n recent years, one of the most frequently cited reasons for unleash-
ing military force upon the world has been the perceived need for
democratization. Democratic societies existed as far back as ancient
Athens, but modern democracies began to thrive only after the
centuries-long period of authoritarian rule of the Dark Ages. With
the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther advanced the illuminat-
ing truth that political leaders were mere men, with access to God
no more direct than that of the man on the street. In the nineteenth
century, John Stuart Mill promoted the “free marketplace of ideas” as
essential to democratic societies for the people themselves to be able
to adjudicate rival views, leaving the possibility always open for criti-
cism and the revision of the practices currently in place.
Democracy, the governance of the people, by the people, and for
the people, rests upon a fundamentally skeptical premise, that osten-
sibly rational people often disagree, and it is unclear which of their
many views might constitute knowledge as opposed to mere belief.
For virtually any belief held by one person, there is someone else
who believes its contrary, which is why only through the free expres-
sion and exchange of ideas can groups of people agree upon practices
acceptable to all. We may not know at any given moment in time
which of our many beliefs are false, but we need to develop manners
in which to survive and cohabit peacefully with others whose views
may diverge from our own. Having strong convictions in no way pre-
cludes the possibility of being mistaken, and some of our opinions do
change over the course of our lives.
Plato, perhaps the most famous critic of democracy in history,
appears to have regarded the execution of Socrates as a demonstra-
tion of the problematic nature of democratic rule (Plato 1981). Plato
regarded democracy as the second-worst political system and claimed
that since average people cannot lead well, the rulers of society should
be philosopher-kings (Plato 1974). That only some people are capable
of ascertaining the truth—or, in Plato’s metaphorically expressed
metaphysics, accessing The Forms through escaping from The Cave
to see The Sun—was a position denounced by Karl Popper in The
Open Society and Its Enemies (1962). The epistemological problem
for Plato and those of his ilk has always been and will forever remain
how to ascertain who the philosopher-kings might be. In the absence
of any sure way of accessing “The Forms” or determining who does
and who does not know the truth, we are left to our own devices in
selecting leaders who implement policies arrived at through dialogue
between people with different interests, values, and beliefs.
Plato’s suspicion that democracy was essentially a form of ochloc-
racy or mob rule was not without grounds. Politics has always involved
the cultivation of rhetorical powers of persuasion. Over the course of
the past century, with the advent first of television and then of the
internet, the importance of visual images has superseded that of the
ideas of the men and women who vie for the votes of the populace.
Nonetheless, as Winston Churchill famously observed, democracy
remains the least bad of the available political systems.3 In a democ-
racy, people are allowed to make their own mistakes, including the
appointment of leaders who may subsequently be replaced through
a form of electoral redress when they fail to deliver on their prom-
ises. Democracy appears to be the government of choice for rational
beings, who would not freely forsake their own liberty to decide for
themselves how to lead their own lives. People in democratic societies
do agree to compromise and to sacrifice some of their individual lib-
erty in exchange for security, but they do so freely.
The antithesis of democracy is despotism or tyranny, the issue by a
single person (or small group) of decrees to be heeded by all, on pain
of punishment for failure to do so. Tyrants throughout history have
availed themselves of what they themselves may regard as “noble”
lies, on the grounds that hoi polloi need to be placated and contained.
D e mo c r ac y, Hu m a n R igh t s , a n d Wa r 169
Tyrants ignore or deny the moral worth of other persons, basing poli-
cies and practices solely upon their own opinions and deceiving or
otherwise coercing people into compliance. In acts of what they take
to be self-defense, despots have often killed those who dissent, mut-
ing alternative views through the annihilation of the people who hold
and attempt to express them. Nevertheless, successful democracies
have managed to arise organically in history, through the activities of
people working together to wrest power from autocrats.
The practice of irrevocably muting the voices of dissent has been
especially common in societies under military rule. Political leaders
who eliminate human beings through the premeditated use of deadly
force often express Manichean worldviews, vaunting their own moral
righteousness and denouncing the enemy as irrevocably evil while
citing God as an ally. Some such agents operate within democratic
civil societies as well. Most obviously, vigilante killers, who mete out
what they claim to be justice by violating laws agreed upon by the
community in which they live, reject the rational and moral basis of
democracy.
In all conflicts, both sides claim that they are right and their adver-
saries are wrong, which implies—assuming the law of noncontradic-
tion—that one of the two must be mistaken. The resort to deadly
violence in lieu of dialogue undermines democracy because it pre-
cludes the very possibility of debate with those who have been killed.
“Vigilante justice” is undemocratic, first and foremost, because it
involves a refusal to express the grievances at issue and to permit one’s
peers to assess the evidence at hand. Vigilante killings of allegedly just
retribution destroy the possibility of the suspected criminal’s defense
of himself from the charges made against him. The burden of proof is
inverted by vigilante killers, who tyrannically presume that the people
whom they destroy are guilty until proven innocent. In punishing
another person without trial, the vigilante assaults the democratic
foundations of the judicial system.
* * *
The just war paradigm is essentially a form of ethics by authority,

where wars are waged on the basis of the wisdom of such action as
interpreted by the people who achieve the status of legitimate author-
ity within their group or nation. This paradigm might have seemed to
make more sense during the Middle Ages, when leaders were thought
to have special connections to the Almighty, which seemed to imply
that their authority transcended the purely conventional appointment
of a human being by other human beings. It was widely thought

in ancient and medieval times that God determined the moral law,
political leaders interpreted it, and the people were to submit to the
authority of their leaders on the grounds that they were communicat-
ing God’s will.
Theologians’ somewhat surprising success at persuading Christians
to reinterpret the teachings of Jesus Christ so as to permit retalia-
tory and proselytizing slaughter has led to the premature deaths of
countless unarmed persons—more than 50 million during the twen-
tieth century alone. To begin to understand the perspective of the
early expositors of just war theory, it is crucial to bear in mind that
they—religious scholars and scholars of religion—firmly believed not
only that errant leaders would suffer divine retribution but also that
the people wrongly killed in wars would be vindicated in the after-
life. Tellingly, Augustine, the “father” of just war theory, did not
even treat the issue of noncombatant immunity in his writings. In
truth, such a glaring omission seems quite logical in view of his own
unshakeable conviction in the reality of eschatological retribution.
Much has changed since Augustine’s day, yet his paradigm remains
in place and continues to be invoked by those who wage wars abroad,
even wars waged in the name of democracy. One argument against
attempting to coerce people to accept democracy is that in order for
such a system to succeed, the people must be ready to govern them-
selves. In societies where crime has been held in check for centu-
ries by an authoritarian government, removing the powers that be
may result in anomie, as it did in Iraq beginning in 2003, and in
Libya since 2011, among other places. Beyond these merely practi-
cal objections, there is an inherent contradiction between what those
who would impose democracy upon others say and what they do
(Calhoun 2007a).
Supporters of wars of democratization appear to recognize the
similarities between tyranny, factional terrorism, and vigilante justice,
but they fail to appreciate that the very same schema is also instan-
tiated by military killings carried out abroad. Democracy conflicts
fundamentally with the medieval schema of divine command theory
or ethics by authority intrinsic to the pro-military, just war view suc-
cinctly expressed by US president George W. Bush in these terms:
“I’m The Decider.”
In its epistemological presumption—that the stigmatized parties
are guilty until proven innocent—military bombing as a policy of
dispute resolution is closely related to vigilante violence within civil
society. In terms of consequences, however, bombing raids against
enemy nations are similar to acts of factional terrorism, for many if

not most of the victims of the use of military force are not even can-
didates for guilt—including enemy soldiers, whenever they have been
coerced to serve under a tyrannical regime.
The comportment of vigilante killers, fanatical factions, and “go it
alone” governments exemplifies a commitment to antiskeptical prin-
ciples rejected by democracy and dramatically displayed by the 2003
invasion of Iraq. In spite of the massive public protests by millions of
citizens in the United States, Britain, and Spain (to say nothing of the
rest of the world), US president George W. Bush, supported by British
prime minister Tony Blair and Spanish president José María Áznar,
ordered the 2003 invasion in the name of their own professed beliefs.
This action defied the directives of the world community and the
international standards of conduct established by the United Nations,
which had already implemented a procedure through which to ensure
the security of its member states, sending weapons inspectors to Iraq,
a procedure with which the Iraqi government had agreed to comply.
UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, charged with assessing
the extent of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, reported
in his March 7, 2003, presentation to the Security Council that there
was no evidence that Iraq had been reconstituting its nuclear arms
program. The Bush administration perfunctorily dismissed the report
and continued to ridicule the United Nations as “irrelevant.” The US
administration minimized the revelation that the documents regard-
ing an alleged attempt by the government of Iraq to purchase “yellow
cake” in Niger—said to evidence the existence of a WMD program—
had in fact been forged (CBS News 2003; Bonini and D’Avanzo
2006, 49–126). The burden of proof was inverted by US officials,
who claimed that they knew that Iraq was developing WMD and that
Saddam Hussein would have to demonstrate that he had destroyed
arms and equipment alleged to exist. By waging war on March 19,
2003, Bush called an abrupt halt to the UN process to which his own
government had agreed only months earlier, despite the fact that the
hypothesis that Saddam Hussein might actually possess WMD had
become less, not more plausible in the interim.
Some of those who support military action abroad make reference
to the fact that no effective international court for the prosecution of
criminal leaders exists. Walzer laments: “There is no global regime of
justice, and one can’t call such a regime into existence by wishing for
it” (Walzer 2001, 86). But the 2003 invasion of Iraq was presaged
by the US withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC)
in May 2002, conjoined with the following proclamation in the
National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSSUSA),

issued in September 2002:
We recognize that our best defense is a good offense (NSSUSA 2002).
The NSSUSA goes even so far as to explicitly assert the right to deploy
nuclear arms preemptively. At the same time, US officials vigorously
deny the right of other nations to develop such weapons as means of
deterrence and may well promote covert proliferation through poli-
cies claimed by the US government to be defensive strategies.
By inveighing against other nations’ development of nuclear arms
capacity, while maintaining that its own stockpiles are purely defensive,
the US administration effectively denies the right of other nations to
defend themselves on their own territory through nuclear deterrence.
But if killing in self-defense is morally permissible, then it must be
for all similarly situated persons, and if the concept of “self-defense”
applied to nations, then it would have to apply to all similarly situ-
ated nations. If one grants that US stockpiles of nuclear weapons are
purely self-defensive (deterrent), then, in consistency, such forms of
self-defense should be available to other nations as well.
The ultimate reductio ad absurdum of the US notion of “offensive
defense” can be summed up as follows:
If a nation may wage war preemptively against another nation which

may in the future develop weapons which it may in the future unjustly
deploy, then everything is permitted, for any nation can develop weapons,
and any weapon can be misused (Calhoun 2004b).
In recognition of these sorts of problems, even some among those

who do support war efforts under certain conditions were alarmed
by Bush’s decision to wage war on Iraq without having first sought
and obtained the approval of the UN Security Council, established
precisely in order to circumvent the precipitous recourse to war by
individual nations, all of which are run by fallible leaders. This is
not to suggest that the Security Council’s blessing would have made
the 2003 invasion just, but that Bush’s action was “beyond the pale”
even according to many people generally inclined to support military
action (Calhoun 2007c).
A number of authors have suggested that George W. Bush’s war
on Iraq was a violation of just war theory and that the antidote to
this bellicose period of history is to heed the prescriptions of the
just war tradition (Bacevich 2010, Rubenstein 2010, Geraghty 2010,
Huallachain and Sharpe 2005). However, George W. Bush, having

secured in October 2002 the permission of the US congress to wage
war in accordance with his own beliefs and on his own timetable,
possessed the legitimate authority to mobilize troops as he saw fit,
which was his prerogative according to the just war paradigm itself.
The Bush administration’s comportment, scandalous though it may
have seemed to many at the time, was in complete conformity with
the open-ended nature of the just war paradigm, according to which
all of the jus ad bellum conditions are interpreted by none other than
the legitimate authority himself (see chapter 2).
* * *
In the first reported case of assassination by Predator drone, on

November 4, 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under
the Bush administration executed six persons in Yemen without
providing any public defense of the action beyond the pronounce-
ment that the persons in question were terrorist suspects. This action
received scant critical treatment in the press and, having been blithely
accepted as a part of the “war on terror,” came to be regarded as a
standard operating procedure under the subsequent administration
of Barack Obama, who greatly expanded the assassination program,
publicly vaunting victories such as the execution of Osama bin Laden
on May 2, 2011, in addition to other terrorist suspects situated in
neither Afghanistan nor Iraq, the nations against which Bush had
waged wars.
On its face, the assassination of suspects is strategically absurd,
for to execute bona fide terrorists is to preclude even the possibil-
ity of learning what they may know about imminent attacks and the
identity of others involved in their networks (Calhoun 2003b). Even
worse, from the perspective funding democracy, the assassinations of
terrorist suspects judges them without trial as guilty of capital crimes,
applying the highly contentious death penalty as their sentence.4 By
extending the list of targets to include even US citizens, the Obama
administration vastly transcended the Bush policy, and inadvertently
initiated a judicial review process of the practice when civil rights
activists protested the execution without trial of US nationals (Becker
and Shane 2012, Martinez 2011).
Even if such actions violate international law, the summary execu-
tion of suspects, like the waging of offensive war, is permitted by the
just war paradigm, according to which it is the prerogative of legiti-
mate authorities alone to decide whether, when, and where to wage
war, even while knowing that this will culminate in the deaths of peo-
ple who never conferred political authority upon them and are fur-
thermore entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. The Constitution of
the United States includes provisions for checking the power of the US
president to wage war, but the commander in chief, a fallible human
being appointed through a conventional political process, retains the
prerogative to do whatever he deems necessary to defend the nation
in what he himself claims— in effect, decides— are cases of emergency.
Then, as was amply illustrated in Vietnam and again in Iraq, once war
has been waged, legislators are under great pressure to support the
troops, as the mantra “We are at war” becomes the explanation for
any and every military action undertaken. Once war has been waged,
the commander in chief becomes the legitimate authority regarding
matters of jus in bello. In practice, military officers decide what to do
on the ground, including which sacrifices of soldiers’ and civilians’
lives to make.
Monarchy and tyranny have been largely replaced by democracy
in the Western world, yet the political leaders of even democratic
nations continue to be granted the legal authority to annihilate
human beings through wars waged at their caprice. Military might
is not a measure of the truth, and the fact that executions carried
out by groups may achieve astonishing degrees of efficiency does not
show that the perpetrators are right any more than does the tyrant’s
ability to ascend to power through the use of “noble lies.”5 When
people are deceived into supporting a war effort through the rhetori-
cal use of exaggerated threats, then they have obviously been coerced
(Higgs 2005).
In democratic societies, political leaders are elected by their con-
stituents and wield power in their name. In contrast to egomania-
cal dictators, the leaders of democratic societies are accountable to
their constituents. What power such leaders possess has been con-
ferred upon them by the people to be used in their name. When
“the interests” of the people are contorted and misrepresented by
the mainstream media effectively acting as a ministry of propaganda
for the government, then the free marketplace of ideas is rendered
dysfunctional (Chomsky and Herman 2002). Ironically, the rheto-
ric of freedom and democracy has been wielded more and more in
recent years in galvanizing support for wars. But the leaders of dem-
ocratic nations impose themselves tyrannically upon the people of
other lands in attempting to change their society without having been
appointed by those people themselves. That such missions are under-
taken in the name of democracy does not diminish their tyranny, and
all of the people killed by such leaders have been wronged. Was it
worse to live under the iron fist of a dictator than to be destroyed by
self-proclaimed liberators? The dead can no longer answer this ques-
tion, having been stripped even of the freedom to think.
The overt conflation of offense and defense in the NSSUSA (2002)
and the insistence that Iraq was invaded in 2003 in an act of “preemp-
tive defense” did not revolutionize but rather acknowledged explic-
itly for the first time long-standing US military practice, which was
further confirmed by the continuation of many of the Bush policies
by Obama. Notwithstanding the shock effect of the Bush administra-
tion’s comportment with regard to the United Nations and Iraq, the
“Bush doctrine” calling for anticipatory or offensive defense merely
represents the ultimate logical extension of the idea that national
defense should be carried out beyond the borders of one’s own land,
a popular view reflected in the tendency of people to favor military
missions resulting in only small numbers of compatriot casualties—
whether civilians or soldiers.
The 2001 war against Afghanistan was arguably no less “preemp-
tive” than was the 2003 war against Iraq, but the former was sup-
ported by many nations opposed to the latter, no doubt in large part
due to the traumatic effect of the events of September 11, 2001, and a
natural desire at the time on the part of many political leaders to dem-
onstrate their solidarity with the United States. In addition, because
the connection alleged to exist between the Taliban and Osama bin
Laden was plausible, some supporters of the war against Afghanistan
viewed the action as in some sense retributive. War supporters simply
ignored the plight of the prospective collateral damage victims bear-
ing no responsibility for 9/11.
If the only possible moral justification for killing human beings is
literal self-defense, then the policy of “preemption” serves to illumi-
nate the salient problem with the general pro-military presumption
that bombing campaigns are one of the proverbial “options on the
table” in times of international conflict. If the permissibility of bomb-
ing campaigns itself implies the permissibility of preemption, then (by
modus tollens), a rejection of preemption logically implies a rejection
of bombing campaigns. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was only the most
flagrant display of the radical disparity between morally justifiable
self-defense and what has become the contemporary practice of war.
The rationale behind modern bombing campaigns abroad has always
been that such operations preemptively thwart what would have been
further acts of aggression on the part of the evil enemy. Precisely this
idea—that a nation’s leaders may engage troops abroad to kill people
and destroy their property—waxed the slippery slope from defense to

offensive defense.
US president George W. Bush’s brazen invasion of Iraq in 2003
laid bare in a spectacular way the quasi-medieval hierarchical political
structure embodied in the pro-military, just war paradigm, according
to which a legitimate authority may sacrifice other people for whatever
reasons he proffers for taking his nation to war, so long as he decrees
those reasons to be a “just cause.” Because the pro-military view is so
widely accepted, a powerful leader can today succeed in galvanizing
his troops to kill for virtually any reason at all, for the supreme com-
mander’s opinion that war is needed is automatically taken by many
to refute every possible argument against war. Bush’s success in per-
suading the US congress in October 2002 to pass H. J. Resolution
114 granting him carte blanche to wage war at his own discretion
merely illustrates this point.6
* * *
Democracy requires the free flow of information: without a market-

place of ideas, the dynamic quality of civil society in an open and
ongoing dialogue would be lost. This “openness” explains the dis-
semination of not only ideas and values, but also technologies and the
fruits of those technologies all over the world. Computers may have
been developed for military applications, but they have become stan-
dard equipment far from the places where they were first invented and
are today shaping the very identities of modern people. Many other
military innovations have also been divulged throughout history and
dispersed throughout the world, and not without reason: it is the
nature of information to be shared in an open society. To suppose
that one’s own inventions and ideas can or ought to be kept under
lock and key is to promote a closed, not an open society. That the
maintenance of a complex military apparatus for use in war requires
the secretive practices characteristic of totalitarian regimes constitutes
yet another way in which, far from promoting democratic values, the
pro-military, just war paradigm actually undermines democracy.
Consider the case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were exe-
cuted on June 19, 1953, upon conviction of conspiracy to commit
espionage for the Soviet government, to which they had transmit-
ted classified information regarding nuclear arms. The sentencing
to death of these people was rationalized on the grounds that they
were traitors to the United States. However, when viewed from the
perspective of a standoff between not two rival nations but two
conflicting worldviews, the execution of the Rosenbergs reveals that

the ideals of freedom supposedly guaranteed by the United States
are contradicted, indeed, sabotaged by its own most powerful insti-
tutions. Because freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of
democracy, there is an inherent tension in the notion that within an
ostensibly democratic society some ideas should be inexpressible. In
recent years, this tension has been underscored by Julian Assange and
Wikileaks (Arnaldi 2011). By publishing military and state secrets,
Assange has championed freedom of speech and revealed the inherent
contradiction in maintaining despotic institutions within ostensibly
open and democratic societies.7
The democratic conclusion to draw from the Rosenberg case is not
that people should be prevented from talking, but that the means to
total global destruction of human civilization should never have been
devised.8 Now that nuclear weapons do exist, promoting their further
proliferation through the ongoing development of novel means of
mass destruction is nothing if not imprudent, as should have been
decisively demonstrated to all by the Rosenberg case. US military
supporters prefer to regard the United States as having saved the
world from the Soviets (not to mention the Nazis), but the undeni-
able historical facts remain: if the United States had not already devel-
oped and deployed atomic bombs against Japan in 1945, then Soviet
leaders would not have felt the need to protect their people from the
use of such weapons through the development of equally powerful
means to mass destruction.
This was yet another sordid chapter of the epic tragicomedy in
which the United States has essentially constructed through military
empowerment each and every one of its own enemies. US strategists
themselves developed nuclear weapons, used them (twice) against
Japan, and then expressed outrage and dismay that Soviet leaders
should have seen fit to defend themselves and their populace against
such horrific weapons through the development of more of the same.
The rest is history: nuclear deterrence became at its acme—or nadir—
the strategy of mutually assured destruction (MAD), and nuclear
arms now exist all over the world.
Again, the United States has been largely responsible for the devel-
opment of the very biological and chemical weapons so vociferously
decried by officials in galvanizing support for preemptive wars. It is
true that Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, but he did not possess
the ability to do so until provided with the relevant scientific tech-
nology and support by the US government, among other Western
states. In this case, there was no espionage involved, and many of the
materials used by Hussein to oppress and destroy innocent people

were provided to him by ostensibly democratic governments.
To suppose that it is possible to prevent new weapons technology
from being shared with outsiders flies in the face of historical reality,
reflecting a recklessness that cannot be reconciled with the alleged
purpose of institutions of national defense. But to recognize the
folly of continuing to fund the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) to develop innovative implements of homicide, one
need not remember the Rosenbergs, nor even Saddam Hussein. It
would suffice to have read the newspaper in 2004, when Pakistani
scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed to having sold nuclear secrets
around the world.9
The provision of weapons and technology by the United States
to outsiders throughout the twentieth century led to war and mass
murder all over the planet, and the prudential moral of the cases of
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden seems clear. Yet the lesson
that should have been learned through the same mistake so often
repeated—the training and empowerment of potential enemies—
continues to be ignored by those who broker international weapons
exchange. Among many other arms deals, in early 2005, the Bush
administration agreed to sell F-16 bombers to Pakistan, in spite of the
fragile peace in that part of the world, where both President Pervez
Musharraf and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had in separate incidents
only narrowly escaped assassination. On weapons exports, too, the
Obama administration followed the Bush administration’s lead by
offering billions of dollars in military aid to various parties in Egypt,
Libya, Iraq, and Syria, all unstable nations in transition.
At this point in history, conventional wars against the United
States are all but precluded by the overwhelming bombing capacity
of the US military, which would apply crushing force in response
to an attack by any formal nation. Ironically enough, chemical and
biological warfare, in addition to other innovations currently being
sought—a particularly disconcerting example of which being “suit-
case nukes”—would seem to be the most likely means to be deployed
in the future by factions who wish to retaliate against what they
regard as US war crimes. By having developed and continuing to
develop such means, US strategists reveal that they learned noth-
ing from the case of the Rosenbergs, having simplistically concluded
that they were traitors, end of story. But the story did not end there,
nor was the moral nearly so simple. Instead, the lasting lesson to be
gleaned from the Rosenbergs is the same story told by Julien Assange
and Wikileaks: it is impossible to guarantee that secrets will be kept,
for the people employed by military institutions may or may not agree
with the reigning regime, and it is the nature of information to be
shared within an open society.
* * *
Through initiating wars abroad, so-called democratic leaders exert

political control beyond the ambit of their proper political domain,
tyrannically imposing their will upon nonnational people and effec-
tively erasing some of them from the face of the earth. Such wars are
claimed to be waged and fought in the name of values such as free-
dom, but dead people have no values at all. The executors of war may
not intend to execute innocent people, but from the perspective of the
victims of military intervention, this is precisely what has transpired.
In addition to flouting the skeptical basis of democracy, punishing
the innocent for the crimes of the guilty effectively denies the very
human rights often said to justify recourse to war, and which were
to have been protected through the checks and balances built into
American democracy by its founders.
With the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the social
class divisions of ancient and medieval times, according to which
some people were deemed more valuable than others, were rejected
by modern people. Ironically, however, far from enjoying greater
immunity from the ravages of war, civilians under perceived enemy
rule have become progressively more subject to the arbitrary termina-
tion of their lives by war makers since the penning of the Declaration
more than sixty years ago. The leaders of democratic societies who
order bombing campaigns abroad may preach that “all people are cre-
ated equal,” but their use of military force against enemy nations tells
otherwise. “Taking the battle to the enemy” results in a significantly
increased risk of death for the innocent inhabitants of enemy lands, in
a flagrant violation of several articles of the Declaration, according to
which all people, wherever they reside, possess equal rights.
Political leaders rationalize their commission of large-scale homi-
cide by claiming that they have no choice, that negotiation will not
work, and force is the last resort. Modern wars seldom harm the leaders
whose actions have provoked the retaliatory use of deadly force, which
implies that alleged analogies between war and the punitive justice
system within civil society are deeply flawed. Through the slaughter
of innocent civilians for the crimes of their leaders, war embodies the
very antithesis of just retribution. Many thousands of innocent people
were destroyed by US military forces in Afghanistan in 2001, and in
Iraq in both 1991and 2003. Those wars were waged in response to

the crimes of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, respectively.
Criminal leaders are identified as evil precisely because it is wrong to
kill innocent people, which they themselves have done. How can one
rationalize the further destruction of even more innocent people in
response to an evil leader’s crimes? (Lackey 2004, Holmes 1989).
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) includes both
positive and negative rights. The positive rights, such as to health
care and education, are unenforceable when the means to provide
people with the goods in question do not exist. However, the nega-
tive rights require no positive action or outlay on the part of any
agent or government, but only that persons not be violated through
the actions of others. Equal protections have been extended to the
citizens of modern societies through codified laws, but such laws are
effectively nullified during wartime, as the slaughter of people inno-
cent of wrongdoing but who happen to live in a land being bombed
is said to be permitted during a “just war.”
In modern military attacks upon densely populated cities, the
inhabitants of what have suddenly become war zones have no idea
whether or not they will survive. Such persons are subjected, in effect,
to a form of arbitrary lottery in which they never agreed to partici-
pate and from which they have no power to abstain. The losers of
what might be termed “the war lottery” die, but all of those selected
against their will to participate are condemned to await in fear their
uncertain fate. The practice of modern war effectively strips all of
these people—both the winners and the losers of the war lottery—of
their right to life, and specifically violates Article 3 of the Declaration:
“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” It is a
matter of no more and no less than blind luck, should civilians under
bombing happen to survive.
“Taking the battle to the enemy” protects civilians back home at
the expense of innocent nonnational persons’ lives. All of the people
of the land under attack are being treated as having less of a right to
life than do the civilians of the land from which the killers hail—
whether or not the nonnationals threatened with death number
among those unfortunate enough to die. The marked division drawn
by warriors between the civilian inhabitants of the invading army’s
own nation and those living under an enemy leader’s rule explic-
itly violates the following provision of Article 2 of the Declaration:
“No distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, juris-
dictional or international status of the country or territory to which
a person belongs.” Universality is reaffirmed in Article 7: “All are
entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of

this Declaration.” War strips the civilian inhabitants of a land under
bombing from any right to dispute what is happening, rendering
them hapless puppets at the mercy of the war makers. That the war-
riors may claim to be defending the people of the land attacked (and
some of whom are destroyed in the process) does not detract from the
basic fact that the outsiders are imposing their imperious authority
upon not only those whom they kill but also those whom they effec-
tively threaten with death (Calhoun 2012).
Within the just war paradigm, the unintended negative conse-
quences of a mission may not be disproportionate to the value of the
intended military objective, but how to understand “proportional-
ity” is the prerogative of the war architects themselves to decide and
will vary according to their priorities and values. In Afghanistan, as
Taliban fighters retaliated (foreseeably) to NATO attacks, they often
set their sights on easier to reach, more vulnerable civilian targets
deemed to be in complicity with the occupiers. Similar dynamics
obtained in Iraq as well, and as the postwar security situation degen-
erated, millions of Iraqis fled their homeland in a quest for shelter
and peace.
Saddam Hussein was eventually removed from power and killed
on December 30, 2006, but none of the victims of either of the two
US-led wars on Iraq can be said to have been “defended” by the
decree of an outside leader, whom the Iraqis never appointed, to
depose the dictator through the use of deadly force. The construction
of the Green Zone in Baghdad and the multimillion-dollar security
apparatus erected to protect the head of the Coalition Provisional
Authority, Paul Bremer—along with other nonnationals sent to Iraq
as a part of the reconstruction effort—belied the same hierarchy of
value. Ordinary Iraqis were subjected to much greater risk of death
than were the foreign occupiers of their land.10
The assumptions of the just war tradition conjoined with radical
changes in the nature of warfare have resulted in a greater tolera-
tion of civilian deaths in military missions, specifically when this is
deemed necessary to avoid the political backlash likely to ensue from
sacrificing soldiers for some other people’s cause. In keeping with
the general tendency toward risk aversion exemplified by the 1999
NATO bombing of Kosovo, leaders may refuse to put “boots on the
ground,” as did US president Barack Obama when he denounced
Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and ordered airstrikes on Libya in 2011,
or else they implement other measures designed to minimize combat-
ant casualties, including the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
to deliver bombs and missiles to declared war zones without risking

any allied warrior’s death.
The more and more frequent use of Predator drones graphically
demonstrates how what have become the standard operating proce-
dures of modern war flatly contradict the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights at every turn. Targeted suspects are identified as such
by anonymous analysts whose criteria for adding names to what is
essentially a “hit list” of people subject to summary execution with-
out trial are not open to judicial review—or any review, for that mat-
ter. How many of the people executed by Predator drone have been
altogether innocent of any crime? The family members of targeted
suspects and others who happen fortuitously to be present when the
strikes are carried out are often innocent. Such people’s annihilation
is perfunctorily written off by war makers as “collateral damage,” sup-
posedly regrettable but necessary during the commission of what is
presumed to be a “just war.” It emerged in 2012 that the body count
of collateral victims was being calculated by defining as combatants all
military-aged men in the vicinity of persons on the US government’s
hit list (Becker and Shane 2012). Such taxonomies are the prerogative
of the legitimate authority to decide and therefore do not conflict
with the just war paradigm.
All of the people intentionally targeted and killed were in effect
convicted without trial of capital crimes by those who decreed them
to be guilty before adding their names to the US government’s hit
list. That this practice might be objectionable—or even criminal—
escaped the attention of nearly everyone in the United States until
two Americans, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, were “taken
out” by Predator drone in Yemen in September 2011. Only then
did a few patriots reveal their true colors and their heartfelt belief
that “some people are more equal than others”—a flagrant denial
of the Declaration. With the intentional assassination of US citizens
abroad, pragmatists began at last to wonder what the world would be
like were the tables turned, if other (non-US) governments began to
deploy drones to eliminate their declared enemies in lands far away,
say, in the United States (Martinez 2011).
Patriotic war supporters may laud the slaughter of nonnational
suspects abroad, but the application of different standards of protec-
tion to one’s own countrymen and outsiders is a diaphanous preju-
dice on a par with racism and sexism, what is proscribed by Article 7,
among others. Modern advocates of “just wars”—often ironically
claimed to be waged in the name of human rights—blithely ignore
the Declaration, uncritically accepting the concept of the nation state
as sacrosanct and the divisions engendered by borders as a perfectly

valid basis for making moral discriminations between persons and,
specifically, in deciding who may and may not be killed. Article 11 is
flouted by those who order the execution without trial of suspects,
whether or not they are compatriots of the killers: “Everyone charged
with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until
proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all
the guarantees necessary for his defence.”
In violation of Article 11, the persons executed by Predator drone
are presumed guilty, not innocent, of capital crimes enumerated after,
not before, they are killed. To make matters worse, bribery of destitute
locals is the primary means by which intelligence is gathered in these
cases, and it is plausible that some among the bounty hunters have
exchanged the names of innocent people for wads of cash. The people
from whom the names of terrorists are solicited may in some cases be
desperate to find the means to provide for themselves and their fami-
lies, particularly in unstable postwar environments where their source
of gainful employment has been either disrupted or eliminated, as
when the Coalition Provisional Authority dismissed all Ba’ath party
members and soldiers in Iraq. Yet even the execution of innocent sus-
pects erroneously targeted is permitted in the just war paradigm, so
long as those who wield deadly force intend to assassinate only the
guilty. In other words, a return to just war theory is not the solution
to the problem of war profligacy and targeted assassination in the
twenty-first century. The just war paradigm precludes none of this
killing, provided only that it is carried out in accordance with the
decrees of legitimate authorities acting with “right intention.”
Critics who decried the use of “enhanced interrogation tech-
niques” such as waterboarding on prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Baghram,
and elsewhere maintained that they were violations of the laws of war
as articulated in the Geneva Conventions. What is seldom questioned
during wartime, and last of all by military supporters, is whether the
immediate threat of death, such as the specter of looming Predator
drones over the heads of civilians in a land under attack or being
patrolled for terrorists, constitutes a form of psychological torture. It
seems clear from the testimony of those who have endured protracted
exposure to such arbitrary threats that they do indeed violate Article 5
of the Declaration: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The people whose
homes and workplaces are destroyed through war are also denied the
rights asserted in Article 17: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived
of his property.” As for the children rendered orphans by war, their
entire life’s future prospects have been irrevocably diminished by the

slaughter of their parents.
Turtles Can Fly (2005), directed by Bahman Ghobadi, offers a
depressing look at some of the silenced survivors of war, children
whose lives have been entirely upended as a result of other people’s
decisions to address political problems using military force. The
orphans depicted, some of whom are missing limbs, reside in a refu-
gee camp near the Turkish border in Iraq, where they spend their days
clearing landmines for a pittance, a form of extended punishment for
crimes committed by others. Many of the landmines were planted at
the behest of Saddam Hussein as a way of further alienating and pun-
ishing the Kurds. After the attempted Kurdish coup—encouraged
but not materially supported by the George H. W. Bush adminis-
tration subsequent to the 1991 Gulf War—the surviving members
of this ethnic group were further concentrated in landmine-studded
northern Iraq.
The manufacture of weapons such as landmines by some countries
to be exported and used only abroad underscores the military deval-
uation of nonnational civilians and evinces a total insouciance for
universal human rights. So long as the warriors claim to intend that
such weapons be used against only enemy combatants, all of the post-
war devastation caused “collaterally” continues to be regarded as an
acceptable price to pay (in other people’s lives) by those who support
what they have been persuaded to believe are just wars. The moral
culpability of those physically responsible is fully defused by the just
war paradigm, according to which the actors are not blameworthy for
the damage wrought by their very own actions, provided only that
they had good intentions. “History is written by the victors,” and
the misery of survivors such as war orphans lies beyond the margins
of the official story, between the lines extolling the brilliant military
maneuvers of the victors of so-called just wars.
Just war theory was articulated many centuries before the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which explains in part the dominance
of just war–speak in the public sphere and also the failure of people
generally to recognize how the very notion of “collateral damage”
is a flat-out denial of universal human rights. To further complicate
matters, in recent decades, war has become an enormously lucrative
industry with the result that many economic forces conspire to sup-
port leaders’ decisions to export weapons, even to nondemocratic
governments, and to wield military force rather than pursue peace-
ful means of conflict resolution more assiduously. At the same time,
unscrupulous, opportunistic political leaders may divert attention
from domestic woes and burnish their own image as “strong” by pro-
moting unnecessary wars abroad. All of these forces act in tandem
to normalize and perpetuate war and make it difficult to see how
human rights might achieve more than a nominal status, so long as
the people of modern democratic states continue uncritically to accept
and scholars to promote the just war paradigm, which sanctions the
human rights-negating facets of “just wars” as perfectly permissible.
Modern leaders pay lip service to human rights, going even so far as
to rationalize their wars as necessary to protect humanity, but the
just war paradigm essentially precludes the realization of the ideals
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, many of the articles
of which are explicitly violated by the practice of modern war. The
two frameworks—of just war, on the one hand, and democracy and
human rights, on the other—are not merely antithetical but mutually
exclusive.
When democracy-speak and human rights rhetoric are used to
rationalize wars which hypocritically strip people of their most fun-
damental rights, there are real-world strategic implications as well.
The piles of dead bodies produced by the leaders of nations will be
interpreted by different conscious agents in different ways, and some
among those enraged by what they take to be war crimes will follow
the example of the killers by killing even more. Through persistently
subjecting innocent people to the ongoing threat of death, the US
government tragically validates the allegations of its enemies. As has
been amply displayed in Afghanistan and Iraq, some of those incensed
by what they take to be US double standards and rapaciousness will
decide to fight back, even sacrificing their own lives in the process.
Self-proclaimed US patriots decry the expression of dissent by war
opponents, but it could never be illegitimate or inappropriate for a
critic to point out the inconsistencies in the views and policies of those
who claim to defend democracy, for democracy itself presumes the
inviolable value of discourse. A true—rather than ersatz or propagan-
distic—defense of democracy at the international level would require
the implementation of multilateral practices of due process modeled
on those found within Western civil societies. Instead, under cover of
the just war paradigm, the secret and absolutist dealings of dictators
and their regimes continue to be condoned and even fostered in the
modern world, rendering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
little more than words on paper.
10
Wh y We (C on t i n u e to) F igh t
What he [the fatalist] at first thought to be inevitable, he helps to make

so through his very belief.
—Alain, Mars ou la guerre jugée1
T he long-standing presumption in favor of military means of resolv-

ing disputes is so deeply embedded in the hearts and minds of people
that the prospect of war’s abolition through any means other than the
very annihilation of the species may seem rather bleak. Most people
would probably agree that war should be a last resort, but many also
appear to believe that war is sometimes unavoidable and reject out of
hand the pacifist’s stance, maintaining that other s will wage war, and
so we must be prepared to fight back.
The idea that war is ultimately ineluctable derives from a general
pessimism about the limits of negotiation and the impotence of reason
in the international realm, and rests upon an equally pessimistic view
of human nature (Barash and Webel 2008). There will be corrupt
and evil though charismatic leaders, who keenly and systematically
deceive their people, and we must therefore be prepared to deal with
such creatures—so the reasoning goes. But universal claims regard-
ing the inevitability of war are irrelevant to analyses of particular
situations involving detailed plans of action on the part of individual
conscious agents. Fatalists often support or reject their own leaders’
calls to war. Fatalists either pay federal taxes, thereby contributing to
war efforts, or else they do not. Presumably these choices are under
the fatalist’s control.
Human beings are creatures of habit, including habits of thought,
and received views such as that “war is inevitable” are for this rea-
son quite difficult to dislodge, even as the nature of modern war
continues to transmogrify beyond anything even vaguely reminis-
cent of what was known as war in the past. This conservative cogni-
tive tendency is entirely comprehensible, for received views form the
basis of our reasoning about more controversial issues and so are

only rarely called into question. In fact, it would be impossible to
question even a fraction of our everyday assumptions without under-
mining our own ability to function (Harman 1986). We accept on
faith the opinions of authorities in virtually every realm of human
activity. Most of the time we do not ask questions at all, and when
we do inquire more deeply into this or that matter, we turn to “the
experts” (Calhoun 1997).
The experts in international politics are naturally considered by the
populace to be those officers, diplomats, and representatives either
appointed or elected to serve the nation. In the United States, how
defense is to be carried out is determined by the people employed
by the Department of Defense, who advise the commander in chief
about when and where to deploy military force. Self-reflective critique
is extremely rare at the upper echelons of military institutions. Only
people who believe in the rational defensibility of recourse to deadly
force freely enter the military, and officers rise in the ranks through
obeying the orders of their superiors. Government officials do some-
times later express misgivings about the initiatives instigated by them
in the name of national defense, as did former US secretary of defense
Robert S. McNamara many years after the end of the US intervention
in Vietnam. But the damage has already been done, in McNamara’s
case, to the detriment of millions of innocent people (McNamara
1996). In spite of such glaring mistakes, defense spending is unerr-
ingly supported by lawmakers, who base their legislation upon the
testimony of military officials, while at the same time answering to
the voters, most of whom simply assume that those in charge are
competent and have the people’s best interests in mind. In this way,
through an ever-accelerating and increasingly perilous spiral of both
psychological and economic forces, the just war paradigm continues
to prevail in a world in which the nature of weapons and aerial trans-
port have irrevocably altered the concept, the conduct, and the con-
sequences of war.
The major military initiatives of recent decades demonstrated
strategists’ remarkable degree of ignorance regarding the cultures
involved. Time and time again, the one-size-fits-all approach of mili-
tary force as a response to conflict proved to be counterproductive. In
Vietnam, military planners failed to recognize that the US invaders
were regarded not as liberators but as colonizers along the lines of the
French. In Afghanistan, the bombing campaign and dismantling of
the Taliban resulted in a veritable explosion in the production of nar-
cotics and the reign of local warlords throughout the land as a result
W h y W e (C on t i n u e t o) F ig h t 189
of a US-installed puppet government whose authority scarcely reached

beyond Kabul (Danesch 2004, 176–211). The deposing of Saddam
Hussein ignited ethnic conflicts and transformed Iraq into an incu-
bation chamber for terrorists. The ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in
Libya in 2011 led to marked instability and insecurity throughout the
land. The list goes on and on: all over the globe, flames of violence
have been fed, not extinguished, by military “solutions” to conflict.
Despite a lengthy list of military fiascoes, the pretension of cer-
tain knowledge of what will transpire should we fail to take up arms
pervades pro-military rhetoric, leading time and time again to a gen-
eral acquiescence to the alleged necessity of war. In 1991, presuming
knowledge of the catastrophe to follow should soldiers not fight for
their leader’s proclaimed cause, war supporters rehearsed the stan-
dard script, expatiating on the impending doom to ensue if Saddam
Hussein was not stopped. In fact, what we know from history—no
more and no less—is that the use of homicidal weapons will destroy
human beings. There is no logical connection between political goals
and the deployment of deadly force in densely populated regions
plagued by ferment and strife. There is a virtual guarantee that inno-
cent people will through the recourse to war be sacrificed.
The epistemological pretense in the war supporter’s claims is
remarkable in its marshaling of the evidence in favor of war. He claims
to know what will happen if his group does not take up arms, while
at the same time ignoring in the buildup to the war the reality of
the certain consequences of deploying homicidal weapons. To bol-
ster coercively deceptive pro-war propaganda, war critics are painted
as quixotic, if not delusional, for their alleged refusal to face up to
the reality of violent conflict between people. Once the death toll is
tallied, the war supporter holds the enemy alone responsible for the
devastation that transpired: “He made us do it !” The deaths of allied
soldiers and innocent civilians alike are invariably claimed by the kill-
ers to be caused by the enemy, not those who retaliated against them.
But if it is true that people are responsible for all and only the actions
which they choose to carry out or support, then there is something
terribly wrong with a system which destroys innocent people and sol-
diers coerced to fight in response to the actions of entirely different
people.
What has become in modern war the certainty of collateral dam-
age is accepted by extension as necessary by those who advocate
recourse to military force. Walzer is typical in this regard: “No just
war theorist that I know of even pretends to overcome the injustices
that are an intimate part of warfare itself” (Walzer 2001, 86). But if
military supporters knowingly choose injustice—an intimate part of

warfare itself —and this is tantamount to saying that evil means are
an unavoidable part of warfare, then the practice of warfare itself fails
the just war theorist’s double effect test. To say that immoral means
may never be willed as a way of achieving even a moral end would
seem to imply that each and every war, which entails the slaughter of
human beings and the transformation of some nonkillers into killers
through military training, is precluded. Whoever wills the end, wills
the means, and by supporting a particular war, one condones the
quite general practice of asking young people to kill on command
complete strangers identified as the enemy by whoever happen to be
the leaders of their land.
To dismiss the antiwar position out of hand, by defining it so as
to be obviously untenable, is to erect and blow down a straw man.
War opponents need not, for example, deny the moral permissibility of
legitimate self-defense. Moreover, some of the most avid war support-
ers in history—notably Augustine, the “father” of just war theory—in
fact rejected the moral permissibility of self-defense. These two views,
then, opposition to war and opposition to self-defense, are entirely dis-
tinct. Pacifists do not deny the existence of violent and bellicose peo-
ple, some of whom eventually become the leaders of groups. Instead,
pacifists are acutely aware that, just as to oppose war in general is to
oppose each particular war, to support any particular war is to support
a practice inconsistent with the most fundamental principles of mod-
ern Western civil societies, including the skeptical basis of democracy
and the framework of universal human rights. As war opponents have
often observed in consternation, the commission of a single act of
intentional homicide within civil society is considered criminal, while
the slaughter of thousands of innocent people, so long as they are
located in a land governed by someone identified as evil, is supposed
to be permissible.
In 1961, US president Dwight Eisenhower presciently warned about
what he termed the “military-industrial complex” (Fogarty 2000).
Subsequent to World War II, the newly established US Department
of Defense (DoD) expanded quickly to become an extremely pow-
erful and wealthy institution whose influence now ramifies radially
and across all borders as a result of subcontracting to ostensibly non-
military corporations in the global economy. Hundreds of billions of
dollars are allocated each year to those who run the Pentagon to use
as they see fit, with far more federal tax dollars allocated to the mili-
tary than to any other institution or program (Higgs 2004). Yet few
taxpayers seem concerned about the size of the blank check written
to the military each year, for they uncritically assume that anything
labeled “defense” is by definition worthwhile.2
The adoption of policies of conflict resolution consistent with the
principles of democracy and human rights has been severely ham-
pered by the relatively recent capitalization of the weapons industry.
Powerful economic forces conspire to perpetuate the reigning state
security model and foster the conditions for the incessant expansion
of military institutions. During the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury, military institutions became amalgamated with major multifac-
eted corporations, continually guaranteed profits through allocations
of federal income tax, collected and redistributed annually to military
contracts. To make matters worse, the usual prudential and ratio-
nal constraints upon profit-driven capitalists no longer apply when it
comes to military industry, the cost-plus contracts of which effectively
guarantee success whether the businesses are run well or not (Higgs
2006, 54–55).
Twenty-first century war profiteers generate not only weapons,
but also structures and supplies needed to rebuild lands devastated
by bombing. Even pharmaceutical companies have come to profit
from war, through the liberal dispensation of drugs to active duty
soldiers and veterans upon their return home (Calhoun 2011c). With
the privatization of many of the logistical aspects of military service,
modern war has become the most profitable enterprise in the his-
tory of human society. The case of Dick Cheney and Halliburton has
received some attention by war critics, but most Americans appear
not to be aware that Halliburton represents not an anomaly but the
rule. Many of the primary administrators of the DoD are executives
of the very companies hired to produce goods for and provide services
to the military and to repair or erect essential infrastructures in the
aftermath of war (Johnson 2003, 2004).
The fact that military destruction reaps huge profits for corporate
leaders, while purely charitable donations of food and water—or
even measures such as the mere transport of endangered persons
out of high-risk regions—do not, provides the best explanation
(albeit the least flattering) of why political leaders are loath to dole
out significant funds for nonmilitary humanitarian missions, but
when it comes to war, their generosity knows virtually no bounds.
In spite of the salience of such otherwise inexplicable discrepancies,
military supporters persist in their denunciation of war opponents
as naïve, as though they were incapable of facing up to the reality
of the existence of evil. In fact, the willful neglect of the economic
forces propelling the incessant expansion and reach of the military
is the consummate expression of political naïveté. Of the many blind

spots inherent to the pro-military, just war paradigm, none is per-
haps more conspicuous than the nearly total neglect of economic
issues, including the capitalized weapons industry, the privatization
of logistics and service, and the economic forces involved in “volun-
tary” enlistment.
Eisenhower could not have seen the form that the military-industrial
complex would eventually take once conjoined with the mainstream
media, creating what has by now become the military-industrial-cong
ressional-media-pharmaceutical complex. Elected officials are depen-
dent upon campaign funds deriving from not only contractors but
also subcontractors. The pro-military paradigm is promoted by the
direct producers and distributors of deadly weapons, but also many
others, including corporate backers of the media who stand to profit
from war. The result, diagnosed by Chomsky and Herman (2002),
Solomon (2003), and others, is that the voices of war opponents and
dissenters have been muffled by the mainstream media, thus assault-
ing in a most insidious way the free marketplace of ideas essential to
democracy.3
* * *
There is certainly no dearth of war profiteers in the twenty-first cen-

tury, but not all people who support war benefit financially from it,
and the self-propelling forces in support of war are not merely eco-
nomic: psychological factors may be just as important. Why do we
continue to fight? Stanley Hauerwas offers this answer:
We fight wars because our ancestors have fought wars. Wars provide us
a way to realize our continuity with our ancestors, to locate ourselves
within their continuing saga, and in the process, to give to that saga an
otherwise absent coherence over time (Hauerwas 2001, 408).
Narratives are not, in and of themselves, nocent. However, to pro-

mote the destruction of human beings by other human beings as a
way of clinging to a constructed notion of identity (usually national-
istic) is morally indefensible, under any plausible conception of moral
personhood (Calhoun 2011b). Such narratives are based upon the
elevation to the status of essential feature of one’s self the manifestly
fortuitous property of birthplace, in addition to the delusive accep-
tance of credit for one’s ancestors’ past victories and the concomitant
denial of responsibility for their crimes.
It is a stark testimony to people’s wish to believe in the self-

congratulator y pictures of themselves and their brethren inscribed in
history by the victors of wars past that, centuries after the Protestant
Reformation—through which the claims of political leaders to be act-
ing at God’s behest were discredited—the divine right of kings con-
tinues to be affirmed, even in ostensibly democratic societies, when
it comes to warfare.
The populace is inclined to accept the moral rationales offered by
its own leaders for waging war; it seems clear to many that the use of
force is sometimes necessary and that anyone who does not recognize
this fact must live in a dream. To those raised in military families, it
may also seem obvious that serving in the military is a respectable
and even admirable career. A rather enthusiastic subset of military
proponents, sometimes labeled war romantics, maintain that war is a
positive enterprise, which strengthens and unites peoples while build-
ing the characters of individual men.
The age-old aura of nobility and virtue associated with the mili-
tary appears to be presumed by its most vocal advocates to be shared
vicariously, through their use of moral rhetoric in persuading other
people to kill. But in what sense does it require courage for a leader to
send other people abroad to fight, kill, and die, or for a war advocate
to support such action? And do the modern soldiers who remotely
direct Predator drone unmanned aerial vehicles to home in on and
kill targets without risking harm to themselves bear any resemblance
whatsoever to the virtuous warrior praised by Aristotle and others in
ancient times?
As a result of military remembrance rituals and the pictures they
promote, war supporters regard as offensive suggestions to the effect
that soldiers might not instantiate the virtues attributed to them
throughout history. However, those who already lost their lives in
battle can hardly be harmed by criticisms of the general enterprise of
war.4 In contrast, potential soldiers can still be saved, and to sacrifice
their lives (to say nothing of their victims) as a means of honoring the
memory of dead soldiers as a part of a collective, delusive, and chime-
rical myth is a dubious practice, to say the least.
To appreciate some of the many complex forces sustaining a
pro-military outlook, suppose for a moment that the pacifist is right
in his belief that killing in war is morally indistinguishable from kill-
ing outside of war. In that case, a simple psychological explanation
would account for the widespread popular support of the military:
to face up to the wrongness of war, one would have to admit that
the “heroes” of one’s country were mere assassins. But the same
explanation applies equally well to the popular support of particular

wars, for one’s ongoing participation in or support of an unjust war
can only be buoyed by the difficulty of facing up to the implications
of having made a very grave mistake, indeed the gravest moral mis-
take that there could possibly be: to wrongfully kill human beings.
Economically speaking, nearly all of modern society is in complic-
ity, whether directly or indirectly, with the military. Obviously, all
people who pay federal taxes aid and abet the military and may be
similarly driven to interpret their own personal contributions as hav-
ing been in the service of justice. The perpetual expansion of a military
culture is further ensured by the dynamics of political campaigns in
a capitalism-driven media market. Whenever their local constituents
are employed in the production of weapons and other military equip-
ment, politicians are predisposed to favor military initiatives. Those
candidates who support the military can be said to hold an electoral
advantage in many cases, given that people do vote to further their
own interests, of which gainful employment is obviously one. But,
ultimately, the psychological and economic factors conspiring to pro-
mote a military society derive their persuasive force from what is by
and large an unreflective acceptance of the long-standing tradition
according to which war is a noble and just enterprise, conjoined with
the uncanny ability of people throughout history to persuade them-
selves to believe that “we are good, and they are evil.”
The rhetoric of justice is brandished by all leaders, and the idiom of
just war theory continues to be mouthed by military figureheads and
politicians. But just war theory does not provide the resources needed
to distinguish just wars from those involving false and self-delusive
interpretations on the part of leaders, and this is not a problem soluble
through exegesis, as it is structurally inherent to the paradigm itself.
If moral absolutism is true, then some people act immorally, while
if moral relativism is true, then morality is a vain delusion and chi-
merical notion.5 Any person could, in principle, be the leader of any
nation, and all nations are conventionally delimited and historically
contingent. Because just war theory assumes absolutism while imply-
ing relativism, it is self-contradictory and hence rationally untenable
(Calhoun 2001b).
That the metaethical paradox of just war theory should have gone
unnoticed by thinkers throughout its lengthy and sanguinary history
is hardly surprising. The earliest expositors and most avid proponents
of just war theory were Catholic theologians who conceived of legiti-
mate authority in a world yet to witness the Protestant Reformation.
Without affirming a substantive metaphysical and religious view akin
to that of Augustine and Aquinas, so-called collateral damage cannot

be coherently dismissed as morally innocuous, for if such victims are
not redeemed in the afterlife, then their destruction constitutes the
gravest possible injustice that there could possibly be.
Augustine himself rejected the very possibility of legitimate
self-defense, it being, in his view, sinful to cling so desperately to merely
terrestrial existence. But this would seem definitively to demonstrate
the motley and mosaic nature of the just war paradigm defended still
today by theorists. They invoke the pieces likely to be intuitive to
contemporary people, while ignoring the peculiarities of Augustine’s
own views, including not only his religious metaphysics and his ada-
mant rejection of what most everyone today regards as the obvious
permissibility of literal self-defense, but also his support of the prac-
tice of slavery. Augustine’s defense of both slavery and killing in war
was grounded in the doctrine of original sin. Moreover, Augustine
maintained that, through killing people, soldiers actually helped their
victims, by preventing them from sinning further (McKeogh 2002).
A version of this twisted line of reasoning is found in the rhetoric of
those who claim to wage war in support of democracy and end by
slaughtering many of the people “liberated.” What survive today as
the tenets of just war theory are as plausible as they are vacuous. Yes, if
anything is wrong, then murder is wrong. Yes, a just war would have
to be waged for a just cause, but this tells us nothing.
To support any particular war is to support the practice of war, the
transformation through training of human beings into killers who
agree to fight without questioning their commanders’ objectives. The
pro-military worldview further sanctions the production of deadly
weapons, both human and nonhuman, to be used for good or evil
purposes over which military supporters have no control. Decisions
regarding the use of those weapons remain the prerogative of the
leaders upon whom political authority has been or will be bestowed,
whoever they may be.
* * *
The fact that militaries have been held in high esteem throughout
human history does not show that war is ever just or right. The fact
that many or even most people may believe in just wars does not show
that any ever are, and the fact that wars exist does not imply that they
should.6 Those who choose to ignore economic reality, appealing to
tradition as their basis for supporting the military, fail to recognize
(or remember) that every single immoral practice finally abandoned
by civilized people was also a part of “tradition” up until the moment

when it was abandoned. Slavery, the legal ownership of wives by their
husbands, the abandonment of unwanted infant girls in ravines, and
the refusal to grant poor people access to education were all once
a part of “venerable” tradition. It is true that people today gener-
ally embrace the pro-military view, criticizing not the general practice
but, at most, specific missions such as in Vietnam and Iraq. But the
support by the populace of a particular moral stance results, more
often than not, from an uncritical conflation of legality and morality.
People do tend to accept the status quo as correct, but wrongheaded
practices can be and have been eradicated.7
The fact that it is difficult to admit a mistake does not detract in
any way from its having been a mistake. It was no doubt difficult,
perhaps even painful, for Confederate slave owners to face up to their
error in enslaving human beings for the purposes of their own per-
sonal economic enrichment. The difficulty of facing up to that mistake
did not diminish its wrongness; instead, it provided the best expla-
nation for the vehement resistance to what with time became more
and more difficult to deny: that slavery was indeed wrong. Rather
than categorically refusing to listen to the reasons offered by people
who oppose war in general, military supporters should pause to con-
sider the real possibility that Augustine—supporter of war and slavery
alike—might have been wrong in exhorting Christians to kill.
The oft-repeated claim by fatalists that war is inevitable proves more
often than not to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.8 War becomes necessary
because leaders call for war, the media support such calls, and the
people accept the testimony of the officials who have been charged
with protecting the nation and armed with the weapons of war. This
vicious mode of rationalization of wars has been rehearsed at regular
intervals throughout history. If we were to add up all of the civilians
slaughtered by leaders who waged their wars in the name of justice and
peace and then asked what would have happened, had their soldiers
refused to fight in and the populace refused to pay for those wars,
the balance sheet would clearly favor the pacifist’s categorical rejec-
tion of the practice. Had pacifists prevailed during the first months
of Vietnam, for example, millions of people’s lives would have been
saved. What did anyone in the world gain through the vehement sup-
port of the Vietnam War by those who ridiculed pacifists as naïve?
People throughout history have exhibited an inability to invert the
Necker cube at a given moment in time, to admit the possibility that
what is being called a justification for war might be no more than an
elaborate ruse or yet another catastrophic mistake. Perhaps, then, what
is needed is a spatial inversion. War supporters may not be able to take

seriously the possibility that their own leaders are downright evil or
profoundly misguided, but any one of them might have been born
somewhere else. In particular, consider the land governed by a leader
whom we currently believe to be a criminal. Any one of us might have
been born there. What would follow then? That they are good cowboys
in white hats, while we are evil rogues in black masks? That they cham-
pion democracy, freedom, and truth, while we oppress, tyrannize, and
deceive? That they believe in God and country, while we are the devil’s
conspirators? Perhaps, then, we are aiding and abetting the enemy of
humanity who lies and kills out of selfish desire. Perhaps, then, we are
currently preparing the way for the new “Hitler du jour.”
That people wish to believe that they are good and virtuous,
affirming to themselves their own righteousness through condemn-
ing the immoral and evil actions of others, is beyond dispute. People
also enjoy being associated with victors, whether they be professional
sports teams or their own country against its adversaries. Riding the
wave of World War II victory, US strategists managed during the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century to rationalize an astonishing array
of military interventions abroad, many of which served not to sup-
port but to undermine nascent democracies in the third world (Boggs
2003b, Chomsky 2003a, 2003b, 2006). The predictably homicidal
results of vast amounts of military aid poured into poor nations so
as to determine political outcomes by favoring one of two (or more)
rival groups has been witnessed time and time again, all over the
world. These harsh realities are in no way altered by the fact that most
US citizens know little or nothing about the long string of abortive
interventions paid for by their tax dollars on the grounds that “we are
good, and they are evil,” as was supposedly demonstrated for all time
by World War II, and a point of which military supporters regularly
“remind” their readers:
The fight against German fascism and Japanese militarism put us in

the world to stay. With our great power comes an even greater respon-
sibility (Elshtain 2003, 6).
There are acts of aggression and acts of cruelty that we ought to
resist, by force if necessary. I would have thought that our experience
with Nazism ended this particular argument, but the argument goes
on . . . (Walzer 2004, xi).
In view of the overwhelmingly negative consequences of post–World

War II intervention, to continue to support the use of military force
abroad on the grounds that “we defeated the Nazis!” is to be literally

blinded by wishful thinking and delusion. This mistake in reasoning
also represents a further instance of the fallacy of hypostatization or
reification, according to which, in this case, the United States (or the
Allies) is a static and eternally good thing.9 In the end, the govern-
ments of nations are only as good as the people who run them, and
a wide range of moral characters should be expected to be found
among any group of human beings, no matter where they happen to
live.10
Morality is undermined, not supported, when soldiers and civil-
ians are treated as means to the ends sought by leaders promoting
war (see chapter 9). Leaders who deploy moral rhetoric and exagger-
ate threats to deceive people into supporting wars, thereby compro-
mising their ability to make informed decisions, are propagandists,
not champions of morality, and such behavior reflects not democratic
values but tyrannical pretension. But if war is morally wrong, anti-
democratic, and strategically foolish, then this is not because one war
is. Rather, the tyranny and folly of war in general make particular
wars wrong. The demigod status ascribed to leaders by the just war
tradition is always a mistake, given the reality of human fallibility, but
the consequences of that mistake will vary greatly depending upon
the particular properties of a given leader. The fact that a leader has
been provided with the opportunity to use his power in such a way is
the ultimate cause of the devastation he wreaks. For this reason, it is
in some ways surprising that the very paradigm which permitted the
ascent of Hitler to an unprecedented position of power should have
thrived in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
What about Hitler? is an important question, but unfortunately
exactly the wrong moral is drawn from the story of the Third Reich
by military supporters. Hitler rose to power when Germany was a
republic, and he was electorally confirmed by the Germans years
before he began his murderous rampage across the continent and his
enslavement of millions of people in concentration camps. The affir-
mation of Hitler as a great military leader with the right to wage war
against other nations is what permitted the Holocaust to happen. As
in every other mass slaughter throughout history, soldiers ensnared
in the delusive rhetorical web of honor and nobility enthusiastically
agreed to fight Hitler’s war, aggressively marketed as “just.” Weapons
are used by those who wield them for their own purposes, whatever
they may be, and nothing could be more obvious than that through
the course of their lives people change. Accordingly, nothing pre-
cludes the possibility of a creature such as Hitler being elected in a
country with arsenals already stocked with nuclear arms. Were such a
person to arise as the leader of the United States, he would indeed be
able to achieve Hitler’s dream of controlling the entire world.
The legacies of the Holocaust have been neither the lesson that
might does not make right, nor that the slaughter of innocent people
is never permissible. Nor even the eminently reasonable idea that no
leader of one nation has the right to invade and kill the people of
another. Instead, modern militaristic societies have inherited from
the Nazis the use of propagandistic euphemism and coded language
in camouflaging the atrocities committed still today in the name of
nations and, what is equally regrettable, the wholesale diffusion of
moral responsibility for the innocent people slaughtered in the name
of justice.
* * *
In this work, I have attempted to transcend the superficial plane of

rhetorical debate where military supporters and war opponents have
long been trapped at an impasse. Rather than focusing upon a specific
war or leader, I have examined the “intuitively obvious” tenets of the
received view assumed by both sides in every war. These widely shared
assumptions have proven to be relics of ancient and medieval times.
They no longer correspond to the reality of modern warfare and radi-
cally conflict with modern views on democracy and human rights.
This “conventional wisdom” is of course extremely resilient, having
been transmitted from generation to generation over the course of
human history. While superficially plausible, the pro-military, just war
paradigm survives not for its coherence, nor for its efficacy, but simply
because human beings are creatures of habit, including highly resis-
tant habits of thought. The resilience in this case is easy to explain:
to renounce the pro-military view would require the Herculean act of
reinterpreting the fables of history in highly unflattering ways. This
difficulty notwithstanding, the pro-military view does not cohere
with our other more general moral views, or even commonsense, as
becomes clear once one penetrates the mirage-like veneer produced
through the use of euphemism and self-congratulatory moral rhetoric
in rationalizing wars.
This critique is not of any particular regime, but of an entire
quasi-medieval and politically authoritarian schema in which most
current governments are complicit. The preponderance of examples
involving the United States is a result of the fact that its incursions into
the affairs of other nations have been the most visible and sanguinary
in recent history, made possible by the unparalleled might of the US

military, which effectively precludes restraint by rival nations. But I
do not claim that the United States is any more mistaken in its general
approach to international affairs than are most other contemporary
nations. Nor do I believe that Americans are somehow more vul-
nerable to self-delusion than are any other human beings. Historical
circumstances, not nationally or racially determined qualities, led to
episodes such as Nazi Germany, the mass killing by the US military in
Vietnam, and the renunciation by US congressmen in 2002 of their
right and responsibility to prevent the US president from waging war
at his own caprice. As Stanley Milgram’s experiments revealed in the
1960s, human beings are often ready and willing to surrender their
faculty of reason to other human beings, provided only that they
have been designated authorities (Milgram 1963, 1974). But there is
no epistemologically sound basis for following orders to kill handed
down by the merely human beings who become political leaders.
It is a matter of historical fortuity that the United States should
today be the sole military superpower. Had history followed a differ-
ent course, my examples would have drawn primarily upon the crimes
of another regime. The difference between the United States and its
weaker and often conciliatory allies is that the latter do not possess
anything even vaguely approaching the military capacity to be able to
flout international law without risk of reprisal by other states. But the
reigning paradigm is propagated also by the leaders of the vast major-
ity of contemporary nations, through their public approval of, com-
plicity in, and complacency toward US interventions.11 This complex
system, which defends amoral and immoral policies through the use
of moral rhetoric, while enriching war profiteers-cum-policymakers
along the way, pervades virtually all facets of contemporary society,
making it extraordinarily difficult to assail. When might is on one’s
own side, it becomes all too easy to mistake it for right.
We have known since US president Harry Truman—before the Cold
War—that some leaders are ready and willing to deploy entirely indis-
criminate weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Truman deployed
the atomic bomb against Japan before the US-USSR stand off and the
emergence of the strategy of mutually assured destruction (MAD),
the vast production of nuclear weapons stockpiled in arsenals for the
purpose of deterrence. Truman’s pilots followed their commander in
chief’s orders to drop the atomic bomb, not only upon the densely
populated city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, but also, three days
later—in full cognizance of its atrocious effects—upon Nagasaki,
somewhat ironically, the only Christian center in Japan.12
Tragically, with the end of the Cold War, the specter of nuclear
holocaust may become more rather than less likely, as weaker nations
develop such weapons surreptitiously to protect themselves from pre-
emptive attack by the United States, which explicitly asserted—in a
truly Orwellian definition of the first-strike use of nuclear arms as
defensive action—the right to use such weapons whenever and wher-
ever it sees fit (NSSUSA 2002). When it comes to something as poten-
tially disastrous as the use of nuclear warheads—which can set off a
ricochet of mass murder—one must, rationally speaking, ask whether
those political and military leaders who alone have privileged access
to effective nuclear fallout shelters should also possess the prerogative
to use such weapons at their discretion.
Given the rate and range of technological innovation, it may not
be possible fully to predict what war will eventually become, but if
it remains on its current technological trajectory, the specter of the
combatant-free war may loom ahead, with unmanned aerial vehicles
(Predator drones) dropping neutron bombs to destroy the people
of enemy lands while leaving their property intact. If both sides to
conflicts were to adopt such means, then war would have reached
the acme of absurdity, for there would be no soldiers even pretend-
ing bravely to protect human beings. Instead, small committees of
political elites sequestered far away within impenetrable fortresses in
their “undisclosed places” would destroy the people of enemy lands
governed by other small committees of political elites, who would
themselves be the only ones among their compatriots to enjoy effec-
tive immunity from harm (they, too, would watch the war broadcast
for them in their secret and secure shelters).
Given the dominance of the United States, the administrators of
which appear intent upon neither ceding its preeminent political posi-
tion nor tolerating any genuine rival to US military might, war may
continue to instantiate the post-9/11 model, with the application of
overwhelming and indiscriminate force against tenuously related nations
in response to the crimes of individual people and small factions. The
outrage against US-inflicted atrocities is unlikely to abate so long as the
behemoth continues to wage wars abroad, perfunctorily dismissing all
of the damage it wreaks as “collateral damage.” It is therefore plausible
that the increase in global terrorism witnessed subsequent to the 2003
invasion and occupation of Iraq will continue, leading some who pro-
test US military aggression abroad to develop further innovative means
for exacting their equally indiscriminate revenge.
The ongoing and widespread practice of weapons exportation
reveals that the war system is not what it purports to be, for it does
not enhance but rather undermines the security of human beings

and is driven by extraordinarily powerful economic forces, buoyed in
large part by the unreflective affirmation by most of the populace of
the pro-military, “just war” view. To pretend that the United States
had nothing whatsoever to do with Saddam Hussein’s mass murders
and to continue to export homicidal weapons to potential despots is
to guarantee that history will repeat itself.
Rather than persisting in the morally objectionable practice of
bombing the inhabitants of nations led by criminals armed by the
international community, we should cease empowering future des-
pots and promote the free flow of information made possible by the
internet, through which the people of lands governed by criminals
can learn the facts and be persuaded to withdraw their support. The
establishment of an effective international tribunal through which
leaders themselves can be made to answer for their crimes may also
serve as a deterrent to those contemplating war. The alternative, to
blithely capitulate to “might makes right,” permitting the fallible
administrators of the currently most militarily powerful nation to
serve as judge, jury, and executioner wherever and whenever they
deem fit, is to forsake the moral framework upheld within civil soci-
ety by the people of the modern Western world.
No t es
1 Self-Defense and War

1. Turner made this remark, regarding his early 2004 service in Fallujah,
Iraq, with the First Squad of the Army’s Eighty-second Airborne
Division, in an interview included in the documentary film Occupation:
Dreamland (2005), directed by Garrett Scott and Ian Olds.
2. A similarly disturbing case occurred in New York City on November 25,
2006, when Sean Bell, a twenty-three-year-old black man, was shot on
his wedding day fifty times by a group of police officers (USA Today
2006). A more recent and very controversial case occurred in Florida
on February 26, 2012, when an armed neighborhood watch coordina-
tor killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black adolescent. See http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin.
3. This is thought by some to be a cogent argument against capital punish-
ment: a convicted and incarcerated murderer has already been incapaci-
tated and therefore no longer poses a threat to the community.
4. Important exceptions to this rule include cases involving soldiers threat-
ened with certain execution for refusing to take up arms, a practice not
restricted to tyrannical governments. In nations where capital pun-
ishment is not a possible consequence for desertion, soldiers are free
enough to be able to refrain from fighting, though they may of course
suffer social ridicule, incarceration, and other penalties as a result. See
chapter 7.
5. Cited in the documentary film Getting it Right, about the making of
Randall Wallace’s film We Were Soldiers (2002).
6. I can report, anecdotally, that during my month-long stay in Costa Rica
from December 2001 to January 2002, I met not a single person who
supported the 2001 bombing of Afghanistan. This attitude toward the
war was quite different from the prevailing pro-war spirit within the
United States, and vividly illustrated to my mind how one’s fortuitous
location can persuade one to believe (erroneously) that apparent una-
nimity is universal, when in fact it is peculiar to a particular time and
place.
7. See Occupation: Dreamland (2005), directed by Garrett Scott and Ian
Olds, for interviews with an entire squad of US soldiers (stationed in
Fallujah, Iraq, in early 2004), each of whom explains his decision to
204 No t e s
enlist in economic terms. It is a matter of common knowledge that

most members of the US Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) have
signed up so as to be able to pay for higher education.
8. The logical fallacies discussed in this book are defined in the glossary,
along with other philosophical terms. See pp. 221–231.
9. See Lamb, et al. (2004) for photographs of and data about many of the
areas of the (primarily third) world rendered by weapons waste either
altogether uninhabitable or very perilous to civilians. Regarding the use
of depleted uranium by the US military in 2003, see Fahey (2003). For
more information on the risks and legality of depleted uranium muni-
tions, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.
10. Stanley Kramer’s film On the Beach (1959) portrays the dismal out-
come of a disastrous nuclear conflict, the survivors of which hopelessly
await their deaths (by radiation being carried their way by the wind)
while pondering how such a war could ever have been waged. In con-
trast to Lumet’s and Kubrick’s related efforts, On the Beach emphasizes
the psychological effects on the victims, not the war’s perpetrators.
But all three films commence from the hypothesis of human fallibility
as the cause of such manifestly irrational war leading to the annihila-
tion of the very society which devised the “ingenious” weapons of its
ultimate demise.
11. An analogous problem arises with regard to capital punishment, but the
problem is far worse in modern war, for the people who die are nearly
never the agents whose policies have given rise to the conflict. Soldiers
and civilians often bearing no responsibility for the crimes of their gov-
ernment are killed instead. In contrast, some convicted capital criminals
have truly committed murders and so can be morally distinguished from
the people whom they have killed. This distinction is effaced in war,
where the people who die are innocent noncombatant civilians and often
coerced (either economically or through deception) soldiers, who may
be equally innocent in virtue of the process through which they became
soldiers.
12. A fictionally embellished but nonetheless thought-provoking version
of the story of Idi Amin is offered by Kevin MacDonald’s film The
Last King of Scotland (2006). A highly charitable view of the dictator
is offered in Barbet Schroeder’s film General Idi Amin Dada: A Self
Portrait (1975).
13. In the parts of the world where the functions of the police intersect
or overlap with paramilitaries or the military, especially those societies
under dictatorial rule, this first world distinction will collapse.
14. Strikingly, whether or not morality is absolute, the war advocate’s
rationalization for war will be found wanting. For if relativism is true,
then there is something confused about applying the standards of one
community beyond its own boundaries, as always transpires when one
nation attacks a dissenting group or nation. Although this is not a moral
mistake, since moral relativism implies that there is no substantive sense
No t e s 205
of immorality, it is a category or conceptual mistake to apply principles

beyond their proper domain (Calhoun 2001d). If moral relativism is
true, then the rightness or wrongness of an action is a direct function of
the community and context in which it occurs. In other words, if rela-
tivism is true, then the war advocate has no moral grounds for waging
war against a group whose leaders do not share the attacking nation’s
moral vision.
15. In addition to drawing a false analogy between military campaigns and
court trials, Christopher fails to appreciate the sense in which a type of
“political blackmail” is involved in every military campaign, for, through
the declaration of war, the people of a nation are in effect threatened
either to bring to a halt the objectionable practices of their leaders, or to
suffer the consequences.
2 The Triumph of Just War Rhetoric

1. US president Barack Obama made this speech on December 10, 2009.
The complete text is online at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes
/peace/laureates/2009/obama-lecture_en.html.
2. The other tenets of jus ad bellum (beyond last resort) are considered in
more detail in Calhoun (2002a).
3. An illuminating case in this regard was US president Bill Clinton’s diver-
sion in 1999 of all public scrutiny from his sex scandals to the conflict
in the former Yugoslavia. In this case, the Kosovo crisis appears to have
been exacerbated by the military action taken (NATO’s bombing), which
catalyzed the massive exodus of ethnic Albanians while simultaneously
increasing the number of those killed by the Serbs. Prior to Clinton’s
public announcement of the bombing campaign, nearly every media
critic in the nation had been focusing upon Clinton’s having lied under
oath in his testimony regarding the Paula Jones case. With the initiation
of bombing in Kosovo, the eyes of the media immediately turned to the
fate of the ethnic Albanians, and the “Hitlerian” Slobodan Milosevic.
Clinton had also bombed Iraq at another particularly difficult moment
during the revelation of his personal scandals. Wag the Dog (1997),
directed by Barry Levinson, portrays a similar use of war by a leader
(albeit fictitious) to distract the populace from his personal scandals.
4. The role of Che Guevara in the coup and the new government of Castro,
and his unsuccessful attempts to promote guerrillera revolutions else-
where (including the Congo and Bolivia), is recounted in Castañeda
(1997). See also Che, Part I and Part II (2008), directed by Steven
Soderbergh.
5. See Joyeux Noël (2006), directed by Christian Carion, for a persuasive
illustration of the arbitrariness of the position in which soldiers find
themselves during wartime as a result of where they happen to have
been born.
206 No t e s
6. By suggesting that the collateral damage conundrum is resolved through

an appreciation of Augustine’s religiosity, I do not mean to deny that lin-
gering questions remain for war supporters who affirm the existence of
God and the reality of eschatological retribution. For example, if God
exists and will eventually effect justice, why not wait for Him to do so,
rather than spilling blood here and now on earth? Religious war sup-
porters have devised a creative assortment of epicyclic responses to this
question. “God has spoken to me” is perhaps the most common and the
most preposterous.
7. Gilbert Harman (1977) has diagnosed as “the problem of observation
in ethics” that value judgments appear to be “cut-off” from any pos-
sible form of empirical confirmation. The eighteenth-century Scottish
philosopher David Hume (1985, 1992) called the analogous problem in
reasoning the “is-ought problem”: one cannot derive a prescription from
a description, or an ought from an is.
8. Hitler at the 1934 Nazi Party Congress, captured on film by Leni
Riefenstahl in the documentary/propaganda film Triumph des Willens
(1935).
9. This statement was made in a television broadcast by US president Harry
Truman to the citizens of the United States on August 9, 1945. Footage
of the address is included in the 1982 film The Atomic Cafe, directed by
Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty.
10. Cited in Sifray and Cerf (1991, 314).
11. Ibid., (1991, 316).
12. “Bin Laden’s Warning: Full Text,” BBC News, October 7, 2001. Online
at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1585636.stm.
13. From the 2004 State of the Union Address by George W. Bush. Online
at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040120–7
.html.
14. In her strident pro-West defense of war, Jean Bethke Elshtain first
asserts that “I have no interest in defending the Crusades,” and then
proceeds to defend them through an abbreviated account of what
transpired prior to those massacres, observing, among other things,
that “it is unsurprising that the crusaders saw the reconquest of
Jerusalem as an act of restoration rather than an imperial adventure”
(Elshtain 2003, 82).
3 Truth and Consequences

1. Cited in Wasserstrom (1970, 83).
2. Walzer here overlooks a plausible alternative to calling soldiers and
statesmen wicked: they may simply be ignorant. He also fails to recog-
nize that to accept utilitarian reasoning in war is to accept utilitarian-
ism, tout court. To maintain that “rights always trump,” except when it
comes to war, is to deny that “rights always trump.”
No t e s 207
3. The bombing did in fact seem to cause Milosevic supporters to become

even more devoted to him than ever before. In support of Milosevic,
websites (since dismantled) such as the “International Committee to
Defend Slobodan Milosevic” and the “International Action Center” were
mounted in response to the Serbian leader’s indictment for war crimes.
4. Frank Pfetsch persuasively chronicles the generation of wars from wars
during the twentieth century. In his view, the nearly universal failure of
adversarial parties to follow philosopher Immanuel Kant’s advice to con-
duct themselves postconflict such that “ein friedliches Zusammenleben
mit dem ehemaligen Feind ermöglichen können” [so as to permit a peace-
ful community life with the former enemy] (Pfetsch 2001, 19) is respon-
sible for the proliferation of violence by leaders who invariably claim to
be waging wars for peace.
5. “A demographic analysis of excess deaths from direct or indirect effects
of the 1991 Gulf War or from postwar violence indicates that the approx-
imate total is 205,500, of which 111,000 are attributable to postwar
adverse health effects” (Daponte 1993).
6. US apologists denied that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a violation of
international law, citing its legality as a response to Iraq’s failure to com-
ply with a variety of UN Security Council resolutions (Byers 2005).
However, Kofi Annan, then the secretary general of the United Nations,
eventually indicated (more than a year after the invasion) that in his
reading of the Charter, the invasion had in fact been illegal, as it side-
stepped the approval of the UN Security Council needed for any legal
intervention (BBC 2004).
7. Alex Tabarrok brought the example of Lott (2000) to my attention.
8. For more on landmines, see Hanson (2004).
9. According to Samantha Powers (2003, 149–150), US aid to Iraq was
doubled the year immediately following Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds.
10. For a broad overview of the activities of the SOA, referred to by its out-
spoken critics as the “School of Assassins,” see the School of Americas
Watch website: http://www.soaw.org/.
11. Members of what became this violent gang came to the United States
to flee US-funded violence in their own country. Some of them later
returned to El Salvador, effectively globalizing gang violence (Hayden
2004).
12. Courage Under Fire (1996), directed by Edward Zwick, explores the
psychological effects upon soldiers of their commission of friendly fire
killings.
13. This argument is a form of rule-utilitarian reasoning: maximizing out-
comes over the long run may require foregoing short-term maximiza-
tion, that is, strict adherence to act utilitarianism.
14. The machetes used in the 1994 Rwandan genocide were purchased from
China with foreign money poured into the country subsequent to the
coffee crash, what Kamola (2007) argues was a direct result of the fail-
ure to renew the 1983 International Coffee Agreement.
208 No t e s
4 Bombs and Charity

1. Source: Holmes (1989, 272).
2. The 1999 NATO mission in Kosovo was spearheaded and orchestrated
by the United States, and because at least one of the permanent mem-
bers of the UN Security Council, Russia, would in all likelihood have
vetoed any UN resolution mandating military action against the Serbs,
the mission was undertaken without seeking UN approval.
3. The CIA mistakenly provided the coordinates for the Chinese Embassy
in Belgrade during the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999 (Weiner
2007, 473–474).
4. A range of diverse opinions regarding this intervention is presented by
German scholars in Meggle (2004). Müller (2004) argues that most
people know precious little about the provenance of and the buildup to
the conflict. This state of ignorance precludes sound judgments about
the morality or justice of the actions taken.
5. Rule utilitarians might reply here that utility will be maximized in a
world in which people cultivate specific, chauvinistic loyalties. Wingo
(2007) gestures toward such a view.
6. A similar position, promoting the idea of humanitarian rights and which
would preclude risking “enemy civilians’ ” lives as a means of saving
one’s own compatriots, is articulated in Necochea (1991).
7. Regarding the widespread and devastating potable water crisis, espe-
cially in Africa, see Kirby (2003).
8. I do not wish here to enter into the debate about the extent to which the
descendants of criminals continue to benefit, while the descendants of
victims continue to suffer (or, at the very least, are at a significant mate-
rial disadvantage). My point here is only that those supporters of US
military action abroad who wave a “holier than thou” banner tend to
have very short memories. Or perhaps they are simply ignorant of history
(Zinn 2003).
9. Also see Gutman and Rieff (1999) and the film War Photographer
(2001), directed by Christian Frei.
10. If the potable water crisis is due in part to global warming caused by
the practices of first world nations, then there is a causal connection.
The documentary film An Inconvenient Truth (2006), directed by
Davis Guggenheim, suggests such a view.
11. By mid-2005 the cost to US citizens of the war on Iraq approached
$200 billion. The total amount pledged to battle AIDS in Africa by
the US was less than 1% of that amount. See the US State Department
website: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/2005/47996.htm.
12. According to Goodman (2006), during the 2003 bombing of Baghdad,
the Pentagon chose thirty as the “magic number” of permissibly foreseen
civilian casualties in deciding on acceptable targets for destruction.
13. For discussions of the complexities of the conflict in Colombia, especially
regarding the problem of human rights and the discrimination between
No t e s 209
soldiers and noncombatants, see Ruiz (1996). The various contributors

to the volume attempt to offer suggestions about how to convince guer-
rilla warriors to abide by International Humanitarian Law, supposing
that they can be convinced to “play by the rules” essentially sanctioned
by just war theory. In fact, the conflict in Colombia makes graphic
the inadequacy of just war theory for dealing with the vast majority of
modern wars, which take place between established governments and
factional dissenters or rival groups vying for power, as in postcolonial
Africa. The notion of legitimate authority is assumed to reside with the
head of state, a fundamentally conservative and flawed presumption,
given the reality of leaders such as Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet,
Amin, Milosevic, and Hussein.
14. Two films dealing directly with the topic of weapons exports and
“military aid” are Lord of War (2005), directed by Andrew Niccol, and
Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), directed by Mike Nichols.
15. The Nazi rampage is usually regarded as having been an essentially
fanatical mission of mayhem and murder, but Müller (2001) examines
the economic forces involved, wherein the pretext for the war (the need
to stop “the evil enemy”) was capitalized upon by German corporate
leaders to justify the expansion of the war machine. See Why We Fight
(2006), directed by Eugene Jarecki, for a close look at the economics of
the military apparatus in the United States.
16. These two cases raise the question of why ethnic divisions should have
been highlighted rather than downplayed by the US occupiers of Iraq
in 2003, who in registering voters considered the labels Sunni, Shiite,
and Kurd to be essential properties of the Iraqis, thus prefiguring the
real danger of civil war by deepening tribal divisions (also with long
and strangulating historical roots) in drawing up the foundational struc-
ture of the new Iraq. This point is repeatedly made by one of the Iraqis
interviewed by Sinan Antoon in About Baghdad (2004), who astutely
notes the similarities between the 1990s situation in the Balkans and
post-Saddam Iraq.
17. For more information on the Rwandan genocide and the response of
the international community during that period, see Ghosts of Rwanda,
a documentary film produced by PBS frontline in 2004, and Hotel
Rwanda, a 2004 film directed by Terry George and based upon what
transpired in 1994. Further PBS interviews and reports are available
online at http://www.pbs.org/search/?q=rwandan%20genocide.
18. One creative writer crafted an interpretation according to which even
the 1991 Gulf War was an act of benevolent intervention by developed
nations on behalf of the poor: “Those who say that this is a war for oil
speak the truth. The takeover of Kuwait, beyond violating international
law, put in Saddam Hussein’s hands an instrument of global strategic
capacity. But it is not the case that only developed nations would suffer,
for they have considerable reserves and demonstrated during the crisis
that they can tap into alternative sources and use conservation to deal
210 No t e s
with the problem. Most poor countries, in contrast, import their oil,
which is why they suffer the most when the prices abruptly rise” (Vargas
Llosa 1994, 35–36; my translation).
5 The Other Side of the Story

(Neglected Perspectives)
1. This statement, describing the imminent “shock and awe” campaign
against Iraq in 2003, was made on CBS News (West 2003).
2. This remark was made during an interview included in the film The Fog
of War (2003), directed by Errol Morris. Italics added.
3. Brigadier General Paul Tibbets was the pilot of the Enola Gay aircraft who
dropped the atomic bomb upon Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Footage
of this interview is included in the documentary The Atomic Cafe (1982),
directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty.
4. Footage of the testimony of some of the Hiroshima victims (hibakusha)
is included in the film 8:15—August 6, 1945 Hiroshima (2005), directed
by Martin Duckworth.
5. Osama (2003), directed by Siddiq Barmak, lends support to this post-
conflict rationalization of the bombing of Afghanistan by depicting the
deplorable conditions of life for women under Taliban rule. The bomb-
ings of both Afghanistan and Iraq were painted by some war supporters
as humanitarian interventions. Such characterizations became more and
more frequent responses to the failure of the missions to achieve their
originally stated aims: in Afghanistan, to stop Osama bin Laden; in Iraq,
to halt the alleged production of WMD.
6. These are the words of Gerry Gaeta, a 9/11 survivor (Murphy 2002,
49).
7. Footage of this interview with a survivor of the 2003 bombing of
Baghdad is included in the documentary film Voices of Iraq (2004). See
also Kukis (2011) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_of_Iraq.
8. Before the 2003 invasion, adult Iraqis certainly knew that mistakes
would be made, given the indelible memory of the 1991 Gulf War etched
in their minds. Consider, to offer only one of many examples, the noto-
rious “bunker incident” in Baghdad on February 13, 1991, when the
US military dropped two GBU-27 2,000 pound electro-optical “smart
bombs” upon a large neighborhood shelter in Al-Amariya district, kill-
ing more than 400 innocent people (Macgregor 1994). The erroneous
target coordinates had been provided to the military by the CIA (Weiner
2007, 427). Akira Kurosawa’s 1955 film Record of a Living Being (I Live
in Fear [Kimono No Kiroku]) examines the psychological effects upon
human beings of nuclear weapons and toxic radiation.
9. Dead Man Walking (1995), directed by Tim Robbins, illustrates a related
point. Although the protagonist killer eventually confesses to the crime
of which he has been convicted, this is only because he finds himself
No t e s 211
on death row. Curiously enough, although Robbins apparently opposes

capital punishment, this film would seem to constitute a defense of the
practice, suggesting as it does that the criminal would never have con-
fessed, had his own execution not been imminent.
10. The question does arise, however, why the US administration should
have chosen a locution such as “shock and awe” to describe its imminent
attack on Iraq.
11. Needless to say, this technique is hardly unique to US propagandists.
Other recent examples include both Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam
Hussein, who (along with their supporters) capitalized on the slaughter
of civilians by the United States, through widely publicized denuncia-
tions of what they identified as war crimes.
12. The expression “willing executioners” derives from Goldhagen (1996).
The Goldhagen hypothesis, according to which the Germans were pecu-
liarly vulnerable to the propaganda of the Third Reich (given their ante-
cedent values and horrendous prejudices), fails to account for the support
by the leaders and populace of other nations of often extraordinarily
brutal and protracted wars such as the US intervention in Vietnam.
6 Real Leaders
1. Cited in Scarry (1991, 1297). Nixon made this statement during the
Watergate crisis.
2. In The Big Red One (1980), director Samuel Fuller broaches the puta-
tive distinction between murder and killing, only the latter of which US
soldiers are said to engage in.
3. To discuss the different perspectives on and attitudes toward war, it is
necessary to abstract and generalize to some extent. It may be that no
single person falls always and consistently into one of these categories
(realist or idealist)—we all change our minds—and many people have
not thought through the implications of their beliefs. See the glossary
for definitions of all of these terms, pp. 221–231.
4. One exception to this rule would seem to be the assumption funding
MAD nuclear deterrence, namely, that both the Soviet Union and the
United States would refrain from nuclear deployment so long as they
believed that failing to do so would result in the “mutually assured
destruction” of both sides (Miller 1984). However, this line of reason-
ing, even if plausible—which some would deny—does not apply to the
production of conventional weapons such as cluster bombs, which can
have no analogous deterrent effect.
5. Many films were made by soldiers on the ground using digital cameras
during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Iraq Raw: The Tuttle
Tapes (2004), directed by Ryan Tuttle, includes scenes from Najaf and
Fallujah, where the soldier/director captured on tape the use of white
phosphorous by the US military.
212 No t e s
6. Information about Gulf War Syndrome is available online at http://

www.gulfwarvets.com/index.html.
7. Footage showing the soldiers involved in one such radiation test is
included in The Atomic Cafe (1982), directed by Rafferty, Loader, and
Rafferty.
8. The Pentagon Papers are available online at http://www.archives.gov
/research/pentagon-papers/.
9. This statement was made by President Harry Truman in a public radio
address directed to the citizens of the United States on August 9, 1945.
Footage of the pronouncement is included in the documentary film The
Atomic Cafe (1982).
10. The Prince, which dates from 1505, was addressed to members of the
Medici family. The treatise was originally dedicated to Giuliano de’
Medici, but upon his untimely death, Machiavelli readdressed the work
to Giuliano’s successor, Lorenzo de’ Medici. Note that many prospec-
tive rulers were sons of kings, that is, princes, during Machiavelli’s day.
11. I do not mean to suggest that Machiavelli himself intended for his work
to be read by the subjects of princes and who might thus benefit from its
content. In his discussion of political veils, Ajume Wingo (2003, 77–78)
observes that Machiavelli in fact intended his work, composed as a pri-
vate manual of advice, to be read only by the Medicis.
12. Werner Herzog’s 1995 film Lektionen in Finsternis [Lessons in Darkness]
presents haunting images of the oil fires in Kuwait some months after
the end of the 1991 Gulf War. In a metaphorical expression of man’s
destructive and capricious nature, some of the men (contractors for the
US government) working to extinguish the fires relight two of the oil
wells after having already worked assiduously to extinguish them.
13. From 1997 to August 2006, the US government conducted twenty-three
subcritical “non-nuclear” tests of WMD in Nevada. Critics have charged
that these tests violate the spirit of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty on Nuclear Arms.
7 Real Soldiers
1. This exhortation was made by Patton to his troops on June 5, 1944. The
complete text is online at http://www.rightwingnews.com/speeches
/patton.php.
2. Heston made this statement in an interview included in the documen-
tary The Making of Midway (2001), directed by Laurent Boureau.
3. In Werner Herzog’s 1998 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly,
Dengler also relays the truly incredible array of challenges—including
his capture in Laos and later transfer to a North Vietnam prison camp—
which he faced and surmounted as a young US enlistee in the 1960s.
4. The list goes on and on, but recent examples include We Were Soldiers
(2002), which is based on the true story of the battle of Ia Drang Valley
No t e s 213
in Vietnam, and Combat Diary: The Marines of Lima Company (2006),

which reenacts the experiences of US soldiers in western Iraq. The HBO
miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) relays the wartime experiences of
troops during World War II.
5. Fuller made this remark in the documentary film The Real Glory, which
accompanies the reconstructed version of The Big Red One, re-released
in 2003 (originally produced in 1980).
6. The intelligence, daring, and initiative of some military men is high-
lighted in films such as Apocalypse Now (1979) and Lawrence of Arabia
(1972), although the military virtues manifest themselves with very
different outcomes in the cases of Colonel Kurtz and T. E. Lawrence,
respectively.
7. Footage of one such ceremonial “welcome home” parade, in honor of
Lieutenant George Coker, a prisoner of war in Vietnam from 1966 to
1973, is shown in Hearts and Minds (1974), directed by Peter Davis.
Lieutenant Coker is also depicted in several other public arenas acting
as a well-meaning and entirely sincere defender of US intervention in
Vietnam, a conflict “won” by the United States—or so he reports to a
group of school children in one segment.
8. Increased patriotism, even unconditional support of the government’s
policies, appears to be the most common reaction to the personal loss of
a soldier through war. There are, of course, exceptions to this tendency:
those who become outspoken war critics upon losing loved ones. One
example is Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq on April 4,
2004. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan.
9. Oliver Stone’s film Born on the Fourth of July (1989) portrays the story
of Ron Kovic, whose involvement in the Vietnam War led him ulti-
mately to become an antiwar activist. A more famous example of this
sort of conversion from support of to opposition to the Vietnam War
is the 2004 Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, John Kerry.
The story of Kerry’s conversion is portrayed in the documentary
film Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (2004), directed by
George Butler.
10. While some modern films have been critical of war, depicting soldiers
as victims (whether slaves or dupes), many have promoted the idea that
military men are praiseworthy human beings. For technical reasons,
these films have often been produced with the collaboration or under
the direct supervision of the US Department of Defense. An inevitable
consequence of such collaborations is that the finished films promote a
positive image of the military enterprise, even when critical of specific
missions and mistakes. For example, Black Hawk Down (2001) includes
a telescoped scene in which a US marine chooses not to fire on an armed
child. For a detailed discussion of how Hollywood and militarism mutu-
ally fertilize one another, see Pollard (2003, 311–341).
11. The hypermasculinity of soldiers is depicted in many films, including
Patton (1970), Platoon (1986), and Full Metal Jacket (1987), in addition
214 No t e s
to the more recent Jarhead (2005), which is based on the memoirs of

1991 Gulf War veteran Anthony Swofford. Regarding the recent rash of
rapes in the US military, see Parker (2011). Regarding the recent epi-
demic of rapes in the Congo, see The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
(2007), directed by Lisa F. Jackson.
12. Robert Wiseman’s documentary Basic Training (1971) is particularly
insightful with regard to the degree of servility and blind submission
to authority required of soldiers. Fictional training-camp footage in
Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket (1987) would appear to be cor-
roborated by Jarhead (2005), based on a true story. The transformative
psychological effect upon war veterans of their homicidal activities has
been thoroughly explored in a wide range of films about Vietnam. But
the phenomenon is obviously not unique to US soldiers. For a film about
the plight of veterans in a non-US context, see Dias de Santiago (2004),
directed by Josué Méndez, which chronicles the postwar troubles of a
Peruvian war veteran.
13. Werner Fassbinder’s film The American Soldier (1970) presents the
disturbing portrait of a Vietnam veteran-turned hit man, who kills
impassibly.
14. There are exceptions to this general rule. Avid proponents of particular
ideological outlooks are committed to a movement or set of ideas for
which they are willing to die. The focus in this chapter is upon the
soldiers of well-established and stable nations (such as the United States
and its allies), not revolutionaries, who are typically much more involved
in decision-making processes regarding where and when to engage in
subversion or insurrection. See Rangel, et al. (1976), for a debate about
the proper role of the military in a less-developed nation, Venezuela.
15. Among them was the US Civil War, in which refractory soldiers on both
sides of the conflict were subject to execution for disobedience.
16. A trenchant criticism of the military execution of soldiers is presented
in Paths of Glory (1957), directed by Stanley Kubrick. See also Breaker
Morant (1980), directed by Bruce Beresford. Both films are based upon
true stories. This issue is discussed at length in Alain (1995).
17. This text is from the transcript of the Trial of the Major War Criminals
before the International Military Tribunal, 19 (1947, 1431), online at
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_major-war-criminals
.html.
18. Herein lies the importance of independent, unembedded media in
reporting to the populace what actually transpires during wartime, as
opposed to the images carefully crafted and disseminated by military
administrators concerned to promote and rationalize their own mis-
sions. This is also why the bias introduced into filmic depictions of war
supervised or approved by military personnel renders them more akin to
propaganda than to documentary representations of history.
19. Another film stressing the moral equivalence of German and allied sol-
diers fighting under order during World War II is A Midnight Clear
No t e s 215
(1992), directed by Keith Gordon. The converse perspective, that the

allied soldiers are every bit as bad as the enemy soldiers is cynically sug-
gested in Les Carabiniers (1963), directed by Jean-Luc Goddard.
20. Die weiße Rose [The White Rose] (1983), directed by Michael Verhoeven,
portrays the true story of a group of university students in Munich who
undertook to disabuse their compatriots of their delusions regarding
Hitler. All members of the group were executed shortly before the end
of the war, their sentence having been handed down by a civilian, not a
military court. Le chagrin et la pitié [The Sorrow and the Pity] (1969),
a documentary directed by Marcel Ophuls, relays some of the resistance
efforts made by French citizens against the Vichy regime, which actively
collaborated with the Nazis in deporting many French nationals to con-
centration camps where they were destroyed.
21. The proportions of African Americans and Hispanics in the military are
significantly higher than in the general population, which reflects the
fact that these are economically disadvantaged groups whose members
may also face racial discrimination in efforts to find nonmilitary (and
legal) channels to gainful employment.
22. John Kerry became one of the leaders of the Vietnam veterans’ antiwar
movement, and Oliver Stone produced the antiwar films Born on the
Fourth of July (1989) and Platoon (1986).
23. It goes perhaps without saying, given their own willingness to engage
combat troops not identical with themselves, that the evasion of active
duty by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Bill Clinton, was not moti-
vated by general antiwar sentiments, but by simple prudence.
24. Regarding the methods of torture used by French military personnel in
Algeria, see Fanon (1991[1963]).
25. Redacted (2007), directed by Brian de Palma, and Battle for Haditha
(2007), directed by Nick Broomfield, attempt to reenact two of the
shocking crimes committed by soldiers in Iraq. Both films offer context
to help to explain otherwise incomprehensible acts.
26. Kenneth Lee Boyd, a Vietnam veteran, was the one-thousandth person
to be executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death
penalty in 1977. Boyd was convicted of murdering his wife and children
in 1988.
27. Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), directed by Alex Gibney, and Standard
Operating Procedure (2008), directed by Errol Morris, investigate in
detail the crimes at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Baghram prison in
Afghanistan.
28. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camilo_Mej%C3%ADa.
29. Johnson (2001) relays the struggle of 1991 Gulf War veterans (more
than 100,000 of whom suffered debilitating illnesses after their deploy-
ment) against the US military administration’s persistent refusal to
acknowledge their claims. On the battlefield, soldiers concerned about
the chemical alarms going off were told that the mechanisms were mal-
functioning. In addition to the health problems suffered directly by
216 No t e s
troops, a disproportionately high percentage of deformed babies were

born to soldiers who had served in the Gulf.
30. Critics of this so-called letter from America noted the hubris involved
in the idea that because the signatories of the letter were well-respected
within academia, this should confer upon them the right to speak for all
Americans. The letter is reprinted as the Appendix of Elshtain (2003).
31. The Iran-Contra affair was another example of the same tendency toward
mendaciousness (Geraghty 2010, 62–64; Weiner 2007, 397–410).
32. An illuminating portrait of the “soldier as sniper” is offered in Enemy at
the Gates (2001), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. In contrast to Steven
Spielberg’s depiction in Schindler’s List (1993) of only Nazis as snipers,
Annaud depicts the Russian hero Vassili Zaitsev as essentially the profes-
sional equivalent of his Nazi rival Major König. Both men were enlisted
by their respective side precisely for their superior sniping abilities.
8 The Moral Fog of War

1. Williams was a radio operator for Lima Company, Third Battalion,
Twenty-fifth Marines, a reserve unit from Columbus, Ohio, deployed
to Iraq from February 28 to September 30, 2005. The survivors of the
group are interviewed in the documentary film Combat Diary: The
Marines of Lima Company (2006), directed by Michael Epstein.
2. A third, less well-known category involves those who soldier for other
types of rewards, including the prospect of citizenship for “green card
troops,” who agree to fight so as to accelerate their incorporation into US
society (Wong 2007). In the film Indigènes (2006), Rachid Bouchareb
examines the role played by colonial African soldiers in liberating France
during World War II. Algerian critics have pointed out that the film,
which focuses on four volunteer North African soldiers, all of whom
regarded France as the motherland, entirely omits the reality of the many
colonial African soldiers who were forced to fight (Coly 2008).
3. Alain (1995) relays some such cases of coercion from World War I, when
soldiers who retreated for what they claimed to be good reasons were
subsequently executed by their own comrades, who had themselves been
ordered to carry out the executions, on pain of death for disobedience.
For filmic illustrations of these practices, see the opening scenes of
Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2003), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
4. Regarding the killing of soldiers who were attempting to surrender in the
notorious “Highway of Death” incident, see the CBC Digital Archive
at http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/war-conflict/1991-gulf-war
/the-1991-gulf-war/the-highway-of-death.html.
5. Even Hitler and Goebbels were at liberty to take their own lives in the
face of defeat, which was certainly not the case for all those killed in
their stead, including the civilians who suffocated to death in basement
shelters as a result of allied firebombing.
No t e s 217
6. Beahan was reminiscing on his dropping of the atomic bomb upon

Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Footage of this interview is included in the
documentary film The Atomic Cafe (1982), directed by Kevin Rafferty,
Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty.
7. Mattis was promoted to four-star general in November 2007 and
appointed the head of US Central Command in August 2010. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mattis.
8. The important role of feelings of revenge in motivating soldiers to kill is
confirmed by many of the interviews in Michael Epstein’s documentary
film Combat Diary: The Marines of Lima Company (2006). One of the
troops even relays his desire to avenge his brethren through what he
describes as his own intention to murder the enemy.
9. The common practice in World War I of self-mutilation as a means
of avoiding active duty is depicted in the opening scenes of the Un
long dimanche de fiançailles (2003). In the twenty-first century,
self-mutilation was carried out by soldiers attempting to avoid reploy-
ment to Iraq (Dokoupil 2008).
10. Harry Truman wrote these words in his August 11, 1945, letter to Samuel
McCrea Cavert (general secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches
of Christ in America). An image of the letter is online at http://www
.t r umanlibrar y.org/f lip_books/index.php?t ldate=1945 – 08 – 09
&groupid=3705&titleid=&pagenumber=1&collectionid=ihow.
11. To cover a possible lapse of memory, McNamara exonerated whoever
did approve of the of use of Agent Orange, insisting that there was
no “list” distinguishing chemicals as permissible or impermissible for
use in war and, furthermore, that “I never in the world would have
authorized an illegal action.” Footage of the interview is included in
Errol Morris’s documentary film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from
the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). The ongoing effects of Agent
Orange (as a result of the toxic dioxin residue infused through large
tracts of soil) upon many rural areas of Vietnam are presented in Daniel
Sekulich’s documentary film Aftermath: The Remnants of War (2001).
Sekulich also examines the problem of unexploded ordnance and land-
mines in France, Russia, and Bosnia, which continue to terrorize the
inhabitants of the affected areas and to destroy innocent people decades
after the end of the wars during which the arms were deployed by strat-
egists who paid little or no attention to what would be the consequence
of their policies for future generations: the creation of essentially per-
manent war zones.
9 Democracy, Human Rights, and War

1. Cited in Botwinick (1998, 107–108).
2. Rice, at that time the US national security adviser (she was later appointed
US secretary of state), pronounced these words in a nationally televised
218 No t e s
broadcast on CNN on September 8, 2002, and they were subsequently

repeated by other members of the administration, including President
George W. Bush. Report online at http://archives.cnn.com/2002
/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/.
3. I am not here considering anarchism as a system. Philosophical anar-
chists deny that democracy is better than anarchism, and reject any sys-
tem which coercively restricts the freedom of an individual to act as he
or she sees fit.
4. Capital punishment has been outlawed in all but two ostensibly civilized
Western democratic nations: the United States and Japan. Information
on the European Union’s rejection of capital punishment is available
online at http://www.eurunion.org/legislat/DeathPenalty/deathpen
home.htm.
5. Leni Riefenstahl’s film Triumph des Willens (1935) covers the 1934
Nazi Party Congress and provides an illustration of how the Nazi move-
ment was propelled forward through a widespread propaganda cam-
paign based upon the rhetoric of virtue, morality, and justice. Although
Riefenstahl has been reviled by many for having produced this film, she
has observed in her defense (footage of the interview is found in Die
Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl [1993]) that during the year when she
made the film, Hitler was praised by many people around the world as a
great leader. Among them was Winston Churchill. In my view, Triumph
des Willens is an extraordinarily important historical document in that
it helps to begin to explain how the German people became swept up
into Hitler’s fantasy. The people who killed for Hitler wholeheartedly
accepted the pro-military view according to which justice sometimes
requires that human beings be killed through war.
6. A further illustration of the widespread and essentially blind commit-
ment to what Duane Cady (1989, 1991) has termed the warist world-
view emerged in the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11,
2001. Rather than taking to task the parties responsible for neglecting
to protect the homeland, the US congress acted immediately to approve
the allocation of yet more funds to the very institutions to have only
just exhibited their extraordinary inefficacy. This was particularly risible
in the case of the Pentagon, which proved incapable of protecting even
the physical perimeters of its own building, much less the borders of
the land. To add to the irony, that same year the Pentagon had reported
having “lost track” yet again of billions of dollars. In 2003, the amount
of money “lost” by the Pentagon reached an astounding $1 trillion
(Abate 2003).
7. For information on Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, see http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange.
8. The hubris involved in the supposition that the Soviets would never
have been able to develop nuclear arms were it not for the Rosenbergs is
hardly worth comment.
No t e s 219
9. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan, which offers

multiple links to newspaper and magazine articles about this case.
10. A number of films produced during the US occupation of Iraq stressed
the “Club Med”-like atmosphere reigning in the Green Zone. See Green
Zone (2010), directed by Paul Greengrass, and No End in Sight: Iraq’s
Descent into Chaos (2007), directed by Charles Ferguson.
10 Why We (Continue to) Fight

1. “Ce qu’il a d’abord pensé comme inévitable, il contribue à le faire par cette
croyance même” (Alain 1995 [1936], 177; my translation).
2. The extent to which this is literally a blank check is well illustrated
by some of Andrew Bacevich’s telling examples, including that of the
Comanche helicopter program (Bacevich 2005, 216–17).
3. In Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2003), Robert
Greenwald presents data according to which Fox News Channel viewers
actually increase their probability of holding false beliefs by watching its
programs.
4. Pace Aristotle (350 BC), who maintained that posthumous assaults
upon one’s reputation could affect one’s eudæmonia. Even if Aristotle
were right about this, the damage done to living soldiers by the ongo-
ing promotion of the morally destructive practice of war would seem
to vastly outweigh any impact upon the eudæmonia of the soldiers of
the past.
5. Either there is at least one moral principle applicable to all people at all
times, or there is not. Defined in this way, absolutism and relativism are
mutually exclusive and exhaustive. See glossary, pp. 221–231.
6. As the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume (1985,
1992) famously observed, from no matter of fact about what is the case
does it follow what should be the case.
7. Before the abolition of capital punishment in Germany, the majority of
Germans supported the practice. However, today, some years after the
execution of convicts was declared illegal, most Germans are opposed to
capital punishment.
8. Recent expressions of fatalism include Singer (2009, 436); (Coker 2004,
140–1); and Black (2001, 120).
9. The United States began almost immediately after 1945 to disassociate
itself from the Soviets, and so most people who commit this mistake in
the United States would not say that the Allies of World War II were
intrinsically good, but only the United States. People in Britain who
commit this mistake may think of the Allies as the Real Allies, and thus
exclude Russia as well.
10. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), directed by Frank Capra, paints a
particularly cynical picture of the types of people who tend to become
Washington politicians.
220 No t e s
11. Costa Rica is a rare exception, having abolished its military in 1948.
12. In what could only have been the nightmare to end all nightmares,
some of Hiroshima’s refugees had actually fled to Nagasaki under the
assumption that the United States would never entertain the possibility
of destroying that city.
G l oss a ry
Abstract concepts are often employed by different writers in different

ways. To avoid linguistic confusion, I here explain how I have used
the following terms:
absolutism— see moral absolutism
affirming the consequent = a logical fallacy in which a necessary

condition is mistaken for a sufficient condition. The fallacious argu-
ment has the following structure:
If p, then q
q
Therefore, p
Ex.: For a war to be permissible, its cause must be just.
Many war supporters confuse necessity with sufficiency in pointing
out the obviously unjust practices of leaders such as Saddam Hussein
and Slobodan Milosevic and concluding that war is automatically
permissible.
appeal to false authority = to ascribe to a person an ability based

only upon his or her status. Ex.: Political leaders are qualified to make
sound moral judgments. Problem: in fact, what we know about such
officials is only that they were capable of being elected or appointed
to their position.
appeal to force (argumentum ad baculum) = to impose one’s opin-

ion upon others through the use of terror and threats. This fallacy is
exemplified by the resort to military force in lieu of nonviolent means
of persuading the opposition of what one takes to be the truth.
appeal to the masses (argumentum ad populum) = to argue that,

because most people accept a certain view, therefore, it must be true.
Ex.: Most Germans during Adolf Hitler’s reign believed that he was
great. Therefore, he was great for so long as he reigned.
222 Glossa ry
appeal to tradition (argumentum ad antiquitatem) = to argue from

the fact that a tradition has persisted for a long time to the conclusion
that it is therefore valid. Ex.: Slavery existed for millennia. Therefore,
slavery was morally permissible.
begging the question (petitio principii) = to argue from a premise

to the same premise as a conclusion. Ex.: The justice of some wars
from history illustrates that some wars have been just.
burden of proof = those who hold the unorthodox position in a

debate must provide a justification—the default position needs no
justification. War supporters, who promote homicide, a practice pre-
sumed to be wrong within civil society, must explain how it can be the
case that the killing of innocent people becomes permissible through
the declaration of war by a conventionally appointed political leader.
composition (fallacy of) = to ascribe a property belonging to the indi-

vidual members of a set to the set itself. Ex.: The right to self-defense
of citizens implies a nation’s right to self-defense.
consequentialism = the normative ethical theory according to which

results are of paramount moral importance. Right (moral) actions
are identical with those which maximize outcomes. This teleological
approach contrasts starkly with deontological theories such as just
war theory, which are rule, not outcome based.
deontology = a general approach to normative ethics according to

which right action is more important than good effects. Rule-based
theories emphasize categorical principles such as “Thou shalt not kill”
and are deontological in that they are not dependent upon the outcome
of the action in question. If it is wrong to kill, then it is wrong to kill,
even if the consequences of following the rule would be catastrophic.
This approach represents the antithesis of teleology, according to which
right actions are determined by the good to which they give rise.
dirty hands (problem of) = the idea made famous by Machiavelli,

that an irreducible conflict exists between moral and administrative
excellence. In this view, doing the right thing as a moral person will
impede one’s ability to lead well. In other words, morality must some-
times be sacrificed by leaders, if they are to succeed as leaders. The
recourse to war, which clearly involves injustice toward some people,
exemplifies the problem of dirty hands.
Glossa ry 223
distinction without a difference (fallacy of) = to draw arbitrary

distinctions between relevantly similar things. Ex.: The interests and
rights of the citizens of one’s own nation have more moral weight
than do those of the enemy nation. This thinly veiled prejudice, akin
to racism and sexism, is presumed in collateral damage exculpations
of the supposedly acceptable though regrettable killing of “enemy”
civilians.
division (fallacy of) = to ascribe the property of an agglomeration to

its constituent parts. Ex.: The realist assumes that because nations are
not moral persons, their initiatives are beyond moral reproach. Even
among nonrealists, the complete diffusion of moral responsibility for
the practices and policies of nations emerges through a similar type
of thinking: if each part of the military machine is but a cog doing his
job, then no one is responsible at the end of the day.
double effect (doctrine of) = a principle first promulgated by St.

Thomas Aquinas to counter St. Augustine’s opposition to killing in
self-defense. The principle has been widely discussed by subsequent
thinkers in the just war tradition; it provides what they take to be a
test through which to assess the morality of specific military missions.
If the collateral evil caused through an act of war is directly intended
by its perpetrator, whether as an end in itself or as the means to an
end sought, then the act is forbidden. If, however, the collateral evil,
though foreseen, is in no way intended, then it may be permissible,
provided that the end to be achieved is sufficiently important.
ethics by authority = a general normative approach according to

which one should submit to authority. Children follow the orders of
their parents until they have achieved full autonomy, and soldiers who
submit to their superior officers do the same, as do military officers
who follow the orders of their commander in chief. The military sys-
tem exemplifies ethics by authority, since soldiers are not permitted
to question the wisdom of their leader’s call to war.
false analogy (fallacy of) = to draw conclusions about one thing

based on what is true of another thing, though they may have vir-
tually nothing in common. Ex.: Persons and nations are analogous,
so if the former have rights to life and self-defense, then the latter
do as well. Problem: not only do nations lack consciousness, sen-
tience, and rationality, they are also virtually never (if ever) born
innocent.
224 Glossa ry
false dichotomy (fallacy of) = to erroneously limit the alternatives to

two. Ex. 1: War supporters often suppose that in dealing with crimi-
nal leaders the alternatives are either violence or complacency. Ex. 2:
“You’re either with us, or you’re against us.” Ex. 3: “The enemy of
my enemy is my friend.”
felony murder rule = a legal convention according to which all nega-

tive consequences brought about during the commission of a crime
are the responsibility of the criminals themselves, whether or not they
intended those consequences. If an innocent bystander is accidentally
shot by a police officer in attempting to stop an armed robbery, the
armed robber is said to be guilty of murder.
free rider = a person who breaks the rules while expecting others
to abide by them. Typically the free rider benefits from the fact that
others follow the rules from which he exempts himself. By analogy, a
“free-rider nation” holds other nations to standards which it does not
apply to itself, for example, by developing and maintaining nuclear
arsenals while denying that other nations may do the same.
guilt by association (fallacy of) = to transfer responsibility for the

acts committed by some people to others, who are related in some
way, but distinct from the actors themselves. Ex.: To hold responsible
and punish people under dictatorial rule for the crimes of their leader.
Problem: even if their parents condone the leader’s crimes, the chil-
dren of a nation cannot, with even a shred of plausibility, be said to.
idealism = in theorizing about war, “idealists” are those who leave

open the possibility of there being an unjust war and deny that “all’s
fair . . . in war.” Both just war theorists and pacifists are idealists. The
former claim that some wars are unjust; the latter claim that all wars
are unjust. Both groups insist that morality applies to warfare no less
than it does to any other human endeavor.
ignorance (argument from) = to argue from the fact that one does
not know something to be true to the conclusion that it is not the
case. Ex.: We cannot think of any way to resolve international conflict
except through dropping bombs. Therefore, the only way to resolve
this conflict is to drop bombs.
invincible ignorance = a moral and legal protection said to be enjoyed

by soldiers in fighting wars under their leaders’ command. In cases
Glossa ry 225
where soldiers acted on good faith that their leaders’ war was just, but
it later emerges that it was not, the soldiers are claimed by just war
theorists to have been innocent of wrongdoing, provided that they
observed the requirements of jus in bello (justice in the conduct of a
war already waged) in their execution of the war.
is-ought fallacy = to argue from the fact that something is the case to
the conclusion that it should be the case. Ex.: Military bombings are a
routine response to international crisis. Therefore, they should be.
is-ought problem = the impossibility of deriving a prescription (“one

ought to . . . ”) from a statement of fact (“it is the case that . . . ”). This
is a general problem relating to the fundamental distinction between
facts and values. Scientifically minded thinkers have often maintained
that only facts exist in the world, and values are imposed upon them
by human beings.
jus ad bellum = a set of conditions devised by classical just war theo-

rists to limit the waging of war and to be able to evaluate wars waged
as just or unjust. The most widely embraced conditions are: just cause,
last resort, proportionality (of the effects of war, relative to the war’s
overall objective), legitimate authority, right intention, public declara-
tion, and reasonable prospect for success.
jus in bello = a set of conditions devised by seventeenth-century and

later just war theorists to limit the conduct of warfare. The most
widely embraced conditions are: noncombatant immunity, soldiers to
be respected as human beings, and proportionality of means to spe-
cific battle objectives.
just cause = the most obvious, and arguably tautological, jus ad bel-
lum condition upon a just war: it may only be waged for a just cause.
That a cause is just is a necessary, not a sufficient condition upon a
just war, according to the traditional paradigm.
just war theory = a group of ideas first advanced by St. Augustine

and developed over the course of the subsequent centuries by think-
ers convinced that war is sometimes permissible. This theory was an
innovation on the part of Augustine, who claimed that, contrary to
Christ’s apparent exhortation, Christians were permitted to engage in
deadly battles, provided that certain conditions were met. The core
of just war theory since the seventeenth century has consisted of two
226 Glossa ry
parts: jus ad bellum (justice in going to war) and jus in bello (justice in
the conduct of a war already waged).
just war tradition = a continuous, centuries-old paradigm, first

advanced by Augustine and refined by later thinkers, which now
forms the basis for the protocol of modern military institutions and
international law. The tradition affirms the possibility of a just war
and attempts to limit the damages of war through imposing restric-
tions on both its waging and its execution.
last resort = one of the most difficult of the traditional requirements

of just war theory to satisfy: War may only be waged when there is no
alternative. Contemporary just war theorists read this requirement
metaphorically, insisting that it does not preclude the possibility of a
just war. War opponents (who typically read the requirement literally)
insist that there are nearly always many other alternatives, which must,
morally speaking, be pursued before taking up arms.
legitimate authority = in just war theory, the person(s) with the

authority to wage war. Among the war supporters of well-established
and stable nations, legitimate authority is typically equated with “head
of state” or a legislative body such as the US congress. However, this
raises some nagging problems for just war theory, since (1) it is obvious
that some heads of state have been/are murderers, and (2) oppressed
minorities are never permitted to wage wars against their oppressors,
lacking, as they do, a “legitimate authority” in this sense.
metaethical = relating to the status of ethics. Do any moral principles

apply to all people at all times? The answer to this question delineates
the metaethical terrain. If the answer is “yes,” then absolutism is true.
If the answer is “no,” then relativism is true. The metaethical paradox
of just war theory is that it presupposes absolutism while implying
relativism (Calhoun 2001b).
military supporter = a person who accepts the received view accord-

ing to which war, the intentional use of homicidal force by groups
against other groups, is at least sometimes permitted and advisable.
modus ponens = an argument with the following structure:

If p, then q
p
Therefore, q
Glossa ry 227
Ex.: If a war is just, then all jus ad bellum conditions have been
satisfied.
This war is just.
Therefore, all jus ad bellum conditions have been satisfied.
modus tollens = an argument with the following structure:

If p, then q
not-q
Therefore, not-p
Ex.: If a war is just, then all jus ad bellum conditions have been
satisfied.
In this case, all jus ad bellum conditions have not been satisfied.
Therefore, this war is not just.
moral absolutism = the metaethical theory according to which at

least one moral principle applies to all people at all times, no matter
where they happen to live nor what their beliefs may be. The most
plausible candidate for this moral principle is the categorical proscrip-
tion against the killing of innocent human beings. Another possibil-
ity would be the gratuitous torture of innocent people.
moral personhood = a property unique to those beings subject to

and protected by morality. Sometimes said to be grounded in sen-
tience, consciousness, or rationality, this property is generally consid-
ered to be shared by all human beings.
moral relativism = the metaethical theory according to which moral-

ity is a “vain and chimerical notion” invented by human beings and
wielded by the strong-willed to manipulate the weak. No moral prin-
ciple applies to all people at all times regardless of where they live and
the circumstances in which they find themselves. People accept and
abide by moral principles only insofar as they reflect their own values
and promote their own interests. Moral relativism is the antithesis of
moral absolutism. Defined in this way, absolutism and relativism are
mutually exclusive and exhaustive.
necessary condition = in the true conditional statement If p, then q,

q is a necessary condition. If q obtains, it may or may not be the case
that p obtains. In other words, that q is the case does not suffice for p
to be the case, though p could never be true if q were not. According to
just war theory, just cause is only one of a group of mutually necessary
conditions upon a just war. War supporters often confuse this statement
228 Glossa ry
with its converse, if a cause is just, then the war is just, and erroneously
conclude that a just cause alone implies that the war is just.
noncombatant immunity = the property shared by persons not

in the business of fighting wars, in virtue of which they are said to
be the illegitimate targets of bellicose activities. Small children and
civilians are said to be protected by noncombatant immunity, but in
modern warfare these individuals are more often killed than are war-
riors. The distinction between noncombatants and combatants has a
long history and did make sense during earlier historical times, when
approximately equally equipped groups of men met on a battlefield to
settle their leaders’ disputes. Terrorists reject the distinction, focus-
ing upon what they take to be the guilt of their victims (typically
noncombatants), who are said by the killers to be complicit in the
crimes of the governments against which terrorists wage what they,
too, claim to be “just wars.”
pacifist = this term is often assumed to imply a complete rejection of

all forms of violence, in any circumstance, even those which the vast
majority of people would characterize as acts of legitimate self-defense
by innocent people threatened by aggressors. In this book, pacifist
refers to the war opponent, who rejects the practice of war while affirm-
ing the moral permissibility of legitimate self-defense. A pacifist in
this sense rejects the assimilation of war with legitimate self-defense.
Nuclear pacifists reject the possibility of a just nuclear war.
political realism = a very general theory, sometimes called Realpolitik,

according to which successful leaders sacrifice morality so as to be
able to lead well. This theory includes an affirmation of the reality of
dirty hands, à la Machiavelli—a commitment to power politics even
at the price of morality.
preemption versus prevention = this distinction was widely dis-

cussed upon the release of the 2002 National Security Strategy of the
United States of America, and especially in the aftermath of the 2003
invasion of Iraq. Military supporters who denounced the invasion
generally upheld this distinction, insisting that the action was not
strictly preemptive (undertaken to thwart an imminent threat) but
preventive (in anticipation of a vague and unknown possible future
menace). War opponents generally regard bombing campaigns as pre-
ventive as well, for they destroy people and property located far from
the homeland allegedly being defended.
Glossa ry 229
proportionality = a requirement of just war theory held to be impor-

tant to both jus ad bellum (the overarching aim of the entire war
must be weighty enough to warrant recourse to deadly force) and
jus in bello (within a war, specific objectives are to be achieved only
through the use of means proportional to the importance of those
objectives).
public declaration = the jus ad bellum condition according to which

those waging war must first warn the prospective victims, thus afford-
ing them the opportunity to capitulate and thereby circument war.
realism (war) = a general theory according to which wars are not

subject to moral evaluation. Often held to be true by people who are
neither nihilists nor relativists about morality. War realists maintain
that war is beyond moral judgment: “All’s fair in . . . war.”
Realpolitik — see political realism
reasonable chance of success = the jus ad bellum requirement accord-

ing to which war may not be undertaken unless there is a “reasonable
prospect” that the warriors will prevail. Otherwise, the war would
simply be an exercise in homicide (including suicide).
red herring = used to distract attention from one issue to something

else. The torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was a red herring
with respect to the question of whether Iraq should have been invaded
in the first place. More generally, focus upon jus in bello may distract
attention from the fundamental problems with jus ad bellum.
reductio ad absurdum = an argument disproving a conclusion through

showing that its implications are absurd and, therefore, impossible to
accept.
Ex.: If a nation may wage war preemptively against another nation
which may in the future develop weapons which it may in the future
unjustly deploy, then everything is permitted, for any nation can develop
weapons, and any arm can be misused.
reification (fallacy of) = to transform a complex of things into a

single entity to which properties are ascribed. Nations are merely
conventional assemblages of people, but these conglomerates are
reified into entities said to possess the right to exist, to wage war,
and so on.
230 Glossa ry
relativism— see moral relativism
right intention = one of the jus ad bellum requirements upon a just

war. The legitimate authorities waging war must do so for what they
take to be a morally good reason.
self-defense = the use of violence by a person to thwart an act of

unjust aggression. In legitimate self-defense, the harm inflicted is
intended to incapacitate, not to kill, the aggressor. Self-defense is
not premeditated, and when people use excessive force allegedly in
self-defense, they are typically charged with homicide.
sufficient condition = in the true conditional statement If p, then q,

p is a sufficient condition. If p obtains, then q obtains. In other words,
that p is the case suffices for q to be the case. For example, If a war
is just, then the cause of the war must be just. This statement does not
say whether or not any war has ever been just, but only that if ever
there were a just war, its cause would have to be just. This statement
is often fallaciously confused with the converse, if a cause is just, then
the war is just.
teleology = a general approach to normative ethics according to

which what is good is prioritized to what is right. Theories defin-
ing right actions as those which bring about good consequences are
teleological. In such a view, there is no right action independent of
an accounting of its results. It may or may not be wrong to kill; it all
depends upon what will happen if one does.
terrorism = the threat of the use of deadly force against innocent

people in arbitrary ways, often in the service of political aims.
utilitarianism = the most famous version of consequentialism, the

normative ethical theory according to which the right action is the
one which maximizes the good. In utilitarianism, the good in ques-
tion is the happiness or utility of the greatest number, where those
included in the calculation are all moral persons, defined as those
persons susceptible of happiness or utility.
There are two primary versions of utilitarianism, which are as
follows:
act utilitarianism = each prescribed action is to be calculated inde-
pendently of any other. For example, whether or not one should tell a
Glossa ry 231
lie is determined by the outcome of doing so. If utility will be maxi-

mized by doing so, then one should. If not, then one should not.
rule utilitarianism = certain rules, when generally adhered to, are
said to maximize utility. Although individual violations of the rule
might in an instance maximize the outcome of that particular act,
overall it would be better to follow the rule, since the utility of every-
one’s doing so outweighs the benefit accrued by individual viola-
tions of the rule. In reasoning about war, a rule utilitarian may argue
that since the outcome of wars is so overwhelmingly negative for so
many people, even in a particular case where war may seem advisable
according to act utilitarianism, it would be better to refrain from war,
since violating the presumption against war will have ramifying nega-
tive consequences far into the future.
war = the intentional use of homicidal force by groups against other

groups.
war opponent = a person who opposes recourse to war, the inten-

tional use of homicidal force by groups against other groups, whether
in a particular case, on empirical grounds, or more generally, on theo-
retical grounds.
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F i l ms C i t e d
8:15—August 6, 1945 Hiroshima (2005), directed by Martin Duckworth.

About Baghdad (2004), directed by Sinan Antoon.
About Sinan in Baghdad (2004), directed by Sinan Antoon.
Aftermath: The Remnants of War (2001), directed by Daniel Sekulich.
All About Darfur (2005), directed by Taghreed Elsanhouri.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), directed by Lewis Milestone.
The American Soldier (1970), directed by Werner Fassbinder.
Apocalypse Now (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Appointment in Tokyo (1945), directed by Jack Hively.
The Atomic Cafe (1982), directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and
Pierce Rafferty.
Band of Brothers (2001), HBO series directed by David Frankel and Mikael
Salomon.
Basic Training (1971), directed by Frederick Wiseman.
Battle for Haditha (2007), directed by Nick Broomfield.
The Battle of China (1944), codirected by Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak as
a part of the Why We Fight series produced by the US War Department.
The Battle of Russia (1945), directed by Anatole Litvak as a part of the Why
We Fight series produced by the US War Department.
The Big Red One [The Reconstruction] (1980 [2003]), directed by Samuel
Fuller.
Black Hawk Down (2001), directed by Ridley Scott.
Born on the Fourth of July (1989), directed by Oliver Stone.
Breaker Morant (1980), directed by Bruce Beresford.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), directed by David Lean.
Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), directed by Mike Nichols.
Che, Part I and Part II (2008), directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Civilisées (2000), directed by Randa Chahal Sabbag.
Combat Diary: The Marines of Lima Company (2006), directed by Michael
Epstein.
Courage Under Fire (1996), directed by Edward Zwick.
Das Boot (1981), directed by Wolfgang Petersen.
Dead Man Walking (1995), directed by Tim Robbins.
Dias de Santiago (2004), directed by Josué Méndez.
Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl [The Wonderful, Horrible Life of
Leni Riefenstahl] (1993), directed by Ray Müller.
246 Films Cited
Die weiße Rose [The White Rose] (1983), directed by Michael Verhoeven.
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
(1964), directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Enemy at the Gates (2001), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud.
Fail-Safe (1964), directed by Sidney Lumet.
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003),
directed by Errol Morris.
From Here to Eternity (1953), directed by Fred Zinnemann.
Full Metal Jacket (1987), directed by Stanley Kubrick.
General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait (1975), directed by Barbet
Schroeder.
Ghosts of Rwanda (2004), directed by Greg Barker and produced by PBS
Frontline.
Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (2004), directed by George
Butler.
The Great Dictator Chaplin (1940), directed by Charlie Chaplin.
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (2007), directed by Lisa F. Jackson.
Green Zone (2010), directed by Paul Greengrass.
Hamburger Hill (1987), directed by John Irvin.
Hearts and Minds (1974), directed by Peter Davis.
Hotel Rwanda (2004), directed by Terry George.
Im Toten Winken: Hitlers Sekretärin [Blindspot: Hitlers Secretary] (2002),
directed by André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer.
An Inconvenient Truth (2006), directed by Davis Guggenheim.
Indigènes [Days of Glory] (2006), directed by Rachid Bouchareb.
Iraq Raw: The Tuttle Tapes (2004), directed by Ryan Tuttle.
Jarhead (2005), directed by Sam Mendes.
Joyeux Noël (2006), directed by Christian Carion.
La bataille d’Alger [The Battle of Algiers] (1966), directed by Gillo
Pontecorvo.
La grande illusion (1937), directed by Jean Renoir.
La nuit de la vérité [The Night of Truth] (2004), directed by Fanta Régina
Nacro.
The Last King of Scotland (2006), directed by Kevin MacDonald.
Lawrence of Arabia (1972), directed by David Lean.
Le chagrin et la pitié [The Sorrow and the Pity] (1969), directed by Marcel
Ophuls.
Lektionen in Finsternis [Lessons in Darkness] (1995), directed by Werner
Herzog.
Lepa Sela, Lepo Gore [Pretty Village, Pretty Flame] (1996), directed by
Srdjan Dragojevic.
Les Carabiniers (1963), directed Jean-Luc Goddard.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998), directed by Werner Herzog.
Lord of War (2005), directed by Andrew Niccol.
The Making of Midway (2001), directed by Laurent Boureau.
A Midnight Clear (1992), directed by Keith Gordon.
Films Cited 247
Midway (1976), directed by Jack Smight.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), directed by Frank Capra.
No End in Sight: Iraq’s Descent into Chaos (2007), directed by Charles
Ferguson.
No Man’s Land (2001), directed by Danis Tanovic.
Nuit et Brouillard [Night and Fog] (1955), directed by Alain Resnais.
Occupation: Dreamland (2005), directed by Garrett Scott and Ian Olds.
On the Beach (1959), directed by Stanley Kramer.
Osama (2003), directed by Siddiz Barmak.
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2003), directed by Robert
Greenwald.
Paths of Glory (1957), directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Patton (1970), directed by Franklin D. Schaffner.
Platoon (1986), directed by Oliver Stone.
The Real Glory: Reconstructing The Big Red One (2005), produced by Brian
Hamblin and Richard Schickel, a documentary about the making of the
reconstructed version of The Big Red One.
Record of a Living Being (aka: I Live in Fear) [Kimono No Kiroko] (1955),
directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Redacted (2007), directed by Brian de Palma.
Schindler’s List (1993), directed by Steven Spielberg.
The Secret Life of Adolf Hitler (1958), produced by WPIX, Inc., as a televi-
sion documentary special.
Standard Operating Procedure (2008), directed by Errol Morris.
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), directed by Alex Gibney.
The Thin Red Line (1998), directed by Terrence Malick.
Triumph des Willens [Triumph of the Will] (1935), directed by Leni
Riefenstahl.
Turtles Can Fly (2005), directed by Bahan Ghobadi.
Un long dimanche de fiançailles [A Very Long Engagement] (2003), directed
by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Untergang [Downfall] (2004), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Voices of Iraq (2004), produced by Eric Manes and Voices of Freedom.
Wag the Dog (1997), directed by Barry Levinson.
War Photographer (2001), directed by Christian Frei.
We Were Soldiers (2002), directed by Randall Wallace.
We Were Soldiers: Getting it Right (2002), directed by Randall Wallace,
a documentary about the making of We Were Soldiers.
Why We Fight (1942–1945), a series of eleven feature-length “orientation”
documentaries directed by Frank Capra, et al.
Why We Fight (2006), directed by Eugene Jarecki.
I n de x
9/11. See September 11, 2001 Annan, Kofi, 74, 207, 234, 244
absolutism, moral, 110, 112, 194, Annaud, Jean-Jacques, 216, 246
219, 221, 226–7 Anscombe, Elizabeth, 37,
Abu Ghraib prison, 143, 183, 111–13, 233
215, 229 antiballistic missile (ABM)
affirming the consequent, fallacy of, treaty, 121
28, 221 Antoon, Sinan, 60, 209, 245
Afghanistan, 12, 17, 20, 23, 32, 34, appeal to false authority, fallacy of,
53, 60, 65, 82, 84, 95–6, 14, 16, 38–9, 42, 139, 169,
98, 100–1, 114–15, 128, 194, 221, 223
140, 142, 154, 173, 175, appeal to force, fallacy of, 14,
179, 181, 185, 188, 203, 22, 221
210, 215 appeal to the masses, fallacy of, 16,
Africa, 37, 40, 53, 58, 66, 75, 78, 33, 221
119–20, 208–9, 216, 236 appeal to tradition, fallacy of, 16,
African Americans, 215 33, 143, 195–6, 222
Agent Orange, 114, 162, 217 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 25, 34, 45,
Aidid, Mohamed Farrah, 70 72, 76, 90, 195, 223, 233
AIDS, 75, 170, 208 Argentina, 60
al Qaeda, 53–4, 62, 92, 98, 104, Aristotle, 132, 193, 219, 233
156, 234 Assange, Julian, 177–8, 218
Alain (Emile Chartier), 110, 130, assassination, 48, 53, 62–3, 122,
187, 214, 233 173, 178, 182–3
al-Awlaki, Anwar, 182, 240 Augustine, Saint, 25, 34, 41–2,
Albanians, ethnic, 56, 60, 69, 44–5, 76, 90, 136, 159, 170,
84, 205 190, 195–6, 206, 223,
Albright, Madeline, 83 225–6, 234
Algeria, 97, 141, 215–16 Axworthy, Lloyd, 68
All’s fair in … war, 110–12, Á znar, José Mar ía, 171
224, 229
Alles, James, 114 Ba’ath party, 183
al-Maliki, Nuri Kamal, 62 Bacevich, Andrew, 172, 219, 233
al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 158 Baghdad, Iraq, 60, 87, 92, 156,
Amin, Idid, 21, 73, 104, 124, 126, 181, 208–10, 240, 245
204, 209, 246 Baghram prison, 183, 215
250 I n de x
Bahrain, 62, 80, 237 bribery, 183

Balkans, 54, 83, 120, 209 Britain, 9, 156, 171, 219
Banzar Suá rez, Hugo, 60 burden of proof, 115, 169, 171, 222
Barash, David, 187, 233 Burkina-Faso, 53
battlefield, 11–12, 14, 45, 128–9, Bush, George H. W., 32, 34, 36,
132, 142, 150, 156, 162, 43, 125, 184
165, 215, 228 Bush, George W., 4, 32, 34, 36–7,
Beahan, Kermit, 154, 217 43, 53, 61, 121, 140, 170–3,
begging the question, fallacy of, 176, 206, 215, 218
195, 222, 225 Bush doctrine, 175
Belgrade, 69, 208 Butler, George, 213, 246
Bell, Sean, 203
Ben Tri, 67 Cady, Duane, 125, 218, 234, 241
Bentham, Jeremy, 48 Cambodia, 17, 20
Beresford, Bruce, 214, 245 capital punishment, 133, 173,
bin Laden, Osama, 20, 43, 54, 203–4, 211, 215, 218–19
60, 63–4, 96, 101, 158, capitalism, 3, 79–80, 138, 145,
173, 175, 178, 180, 206, 191, 194
210, 234 Capra, Frank, 123, 219, 245, 247
Blair, Tony, 171 Carion, Christian, 205, 246
Blix, Hans, 171 Castro, Fidel, 38, 40, 151, 205
blowback, 63, 234, 239 Categorical Imperative, 147, 159
Boggs, Carl, 197, 234 Cavert, Samuel McCrea, 217
Bolivia, 60, 205 Center for American Values, 144
bombing campaigns, 14, 52, 65, 85, Central Intelligence Agency
145, 175, 179, 224, 228 (CIA), 60, 63, 173, 208,
bombs, 10, 17–18, 69, 82, 89, 92, 210, 237, 243
100–2, 133, 152, 182 Chaplin, Charlie, 104, 246
atomic, 47, 61, 88, 91, 102–3, Charter of the United Nations
116, 154, 158, 177, 200, 217 (1945), 32, 49, 53, 68, 121,
cluster, 17, 81, 102, 113–14, 211 207, 236
firebombing, 91, 103, 111, Cheney, Dick, 34, 124, 140, 191, 215
216, 236 children
fragmentation, 113 during war, 20, 48, 50, 53, 57,
improvised explosive devices, 100 68, 76, 88–9, 95, 98, 102–3,
neutron, 201 152, 154, 163
nuclear, 136 noncombatant immunity, 224, 228
smart, 136, 156, 210 parental authority, 223
suitcase nukes, 178 right to protection, 13–14, 68, 73
Borgia, Cesare, 117 war orphans, 183–4
Bosnia, 51, 59, 83, 217 Chile, 60, 73
Bouchareb, Rachid, 216, 236, 246 China, 25, 59, 122–3, 207, 245
Boureau, Laurent, 212, 246 Embassy in Belgrade, 69
Boyd, Kenneth Lee, 215 Chomsky, Noam, 174, 192, 197, 236
Boyle, Tom, 136, 234 Christianity, 1, 25, 41, 170, 194,
Bremer, Paul, 181 196, 225
I n de x 251
Christopher, Paul, 22, 205, 236 conscription, 23, 130, 132, 150, 155
Churchill, Winston, 124, 168, 218 consequentialism, 47–51, 53–4, 59,
CIA. See Central Intelligence 65–7, 72, 222, 230
Agency Constitution of the
civilians United States, 174
collateral damage, 20, 41, 90, cosmopolitanism, 74
95, 151 Costa Rica, 203, 220
noncombatants, 18, 25, 48, 65 court metaphor, 22, 94, 205
nonnational versus national, 180, Crusades, Christian, 44, 206
183–4, 208, 223 Cuba, 38, 121, 143, 151, 189
right to protection, 13, 17, 69–70, cultural ignorance, 188
84–5, 102, 153, 156
slaughtered in war, 17, 20, 29, Darfur, 57, 66, 74, 78, 245
56, 101, 149, 158–9, 216 DARPA. See Defense Advanced
taxpayers, 44, 59, 97–8, 109, Research Projects Agency
152, 191, 194 Davis, Peter, 213, 246
terrorized and tyrannized, death penalty. See capital
165, 174 punishment
classism, 142, 147, 151–2 Defense Advanced Research
Clinton, Bill, 61, 83, 124, 141, Projects Agency (DARPA),
205, 215 62, 178
coercion, 89, 106, 130, 134, 140, democracy, 1, 42, 70, 128–9,
149, 155, 160–1, 165–6, 133, 159, 166–71, 173–7,
169–71, 174, 189, 204, 179, 185, 190–1, 197,
216, 218 199, 218
Coker, George, 213 Dengler, Dieter, 129, 212
Cold War, 3, 18–20, 61, 63, 70, deontology, 48, 147, 222
84–5, 119, 123, 160, depleted uranium, 17, 58, 69, 102,
200–1, 226 114, 204
collateral damage, 2, 5, 20, 33, deterrence, nuclear, 3, 18–19, 172,
36, 48, 50, 54, 69, 75–8, 177, 200, 211
85, 87, 89–90, 92–3, 95, Diallo, Amadou, 8–9, 242
100, 103, 106, 113–14, dirty hands, the problem of, 117–18,
119–20, 123, 130, 134, 222, 228, 235
136, 145, 153, 160, 175, distinction without a difference,
182, 184, 189, 195, 201, fallacy of, 64, 95, 147, 223
206, 234 divine right of kings, 41, 193
Colombia, 60, 79–80, 104, division, fallacy of, 110, 223
208–9 domestic analogy, 12–14, 21–2,
colonialism, 66, 78, 216 72–3
commander in chief, 3, 12, 14, 19, double effect, doctrine of, 72, 76,
23, 37, 47, 100, 105, 153, 85, 96, 190, 223
174, 188, 200, 223 Dragojevi, Srdjan, 51, 246
composition, fallacy of, 15–16, 222 drug war (in Colombia), 79–80
Confederates, of U.S. Civil War, 38 drugs, 114–15, 191
Congo, 205, 214, 246 dual targets, 70, 76
252 I n de x
Ecuador, 60 Gandhi, Mahatma, 29

Egypt, 62, 178 Geneva Conventions, 105, 183
Eisenhower, Dwight, 124, 190, 192 genocide, 57, 66, 82–3, 207, 209
El Salvador, 60, 63, 83, 207 George, Terry, 209, 246
Elsanhouri, Taghreed, 78, 245 Geraghty, Tony, 145, 172, 216, 237
Elshtain, Jean Bethke, 102–3, 197, Germany, 4, 16, 40, 73, 104, 111,
206, 216, 237 119, 125, 159–60, 162, 198,
enhanced interrogation 200, 219
techniques, 183 Ghobadi, Bahman, 184, 247
Enola Gay, 154, 210 Gibney, Alex, 215, 247
Epstein, Michael, 216–17, 245 God, 1, 41–3, 45, 64, 98, 126–7,
eschatological retribution, 159–70 164, 167, 169–70, 193,
ETA. See Euskadi Ta Askatasuna 197–8, 206
ethics by authority, 169–70, 223 Goebbels, Joseph, 216
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna Goldhagen, Daniel, 211, 237
(ETA), 38, 104 Gordon, Keith, 215, 246
excessive force, 9, 13, 23, 230 green card troops, 216, 244
Green Zone, 181, 219, 246
Fallujah, Iraq, 203, 211 Greengrass, Paul, 219, 246
false analogy, fallacy of, 15, Grimsley, Mark, 148, 159, 238
205, 223 Grotius. Hugo, 15, 25, 238
false dichotomy, fallacy of, 29, ground warfare, 12, 14, 157
82, 224 guerrilla warfare, 51, 59, 105,
FARC. See Fuerzas Armadas 205, 209
Revolucionarias de Colombia Guevara, Che, 151, 205, 236
Fassbinder, Werner, 214, 245 Guggenheim, Davis, 208, 246
fatalism, 112, 187, 196, 219 Gulf War, 1991, 1, 20, 27–8, 31–2,
felony murder rule, 9, 224 34, 53, 60, 65, 68, 81–2, 87,
Ferguson, Charles, 219, 247 90, 100–1, 114, 120, 125,
Fox News Channel, 219 144, 150, 184, 207, 209–10,
France, 215–17 212, 214–15
Franco, Francisco, 73, 124, Gulf War Syndrome, 144, 212, 239
126, 209 guns, 10, 17–18, 58, 136, 147
Franks, Tommy, 90
free riders and double standards, habits of thought, 187, 199
121, 185, 224 Halliburton, 191
Frei, Christian, 208, 247 Hamas, 104
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Harman, Gilbert, 110, 188,
de Colombia (FARC), 104 206, 238
Fuller, Samuel, 128–9, 211, Hauerwas, Stanley, 192, 238
213, 245 Herman, Edward S., 174, 192, 236
Herzog, Werner, 212, 246
G-8 summit, 1999, 68 Heston, Charlton, 128, 212
Gaddafi, Muammar, 61, 80, 123–4, hibakusha, 210
126, 181, 189, 242 Higgs, Robert, 61, 174, 190–1,
Galtieri, Leopoldo, 60 235, 238
I n de x 253
“Highway of Death,” 216 humanitarian intervention, 5, 68–75,

Hiroshima, Japan, 47, 87–8, 91, 77–80, 84–5, 210
103, 116, 154–5, 158, 200, Hume, David, 206, 219, 239
210, 220 Hussein, Saddam, 1, 20, 27, 32,
hit list, US government, 182 36, 40, 43, 60, 62–3, 87,
hit men (contract killers), 14, 91, 104, 120, 123–6, 150,
139–40, 145 152, 155, 171, 177–8,
Hitler, Adolf, 4, 35–7, 40, 43–4, 180–1, 184, 189, 202,
73, 93, 104, 109, 111, 209, 211, 221
119, 124–6, 133, 149, Hutus, 54, 56, 60, 83
166–7, 197–9, 205–6, hypostatization, fallacy of.
209, 215–16, 218, 221, See reification, fallacy of
237, 246–7
Hively, Jack, 103, 245 ICC. See International Criminal
Hobbes, Thomas, 110 Court
Hollywood, 39, 213, 241 idealism, war, 111–13, 116,
Holocaust, 40, 93, 166, 198–9, 211, 224
201, 234 IEDs. See bombs, improvised
holy war, 41 explosive devices
homicide, 8–9, 11, 27, 37, 44, 56, ignorance, argument from, 31, 36,
62–3, 88, 94, 100, 102, 145, 162, 208
109, 114–15, 118, 126–7, immigration laws, 52, 85, 149
132, 141, 144, 149, 151–4, improvised explosive devices
160, 166, 178–9, 190, 222, (IEDs). See bombs,
229–30 improvised explosive devices
friendly fire, 64, 84, 140, 158, intention, 2, 7, 9–12, 15, 19, 21,
207, 244 25–6, 28, 36, 38–9,
involuntary manslaughter, 9, 95 41–2, 44, 61, 68–9, 72–3,
mass murder, 40, 61, 64, 80, 76–7, 82, 84–5, 89, 93,
105, 124, 126, 136, 165, 95–6, 98, 100–4, 106,
178, 201–2 110, 115, 121–2, 125,
military execution, 130, 214, 216 127, 135–6, 149, 151,
murder, 2, 4, 8–9, 22, 42, 49, 155, 159, 163–4, 182–4,
56, 59, 68, 74, 77–8, 80–1, 190, 217, 226, 231
94–5, 102, 109, 111–12, 119, right intention. See jus ad bellum
124–7, 133–4, 138, 142, International Coffee Agreement,
153, 155, 158–9, 164–6, 207
195, 198, 203–4, 209, 211, International Criminal Court
215, 217, 224, 226 (ICC), 171, 236
suicide, 19, 99, 104, 115, 142, International Humanitarian
157, 229, 236, 244 Law, 209
vigilante justice, 55–6, 63, invincible ignorance, 134, 140,
169–71 161, 224
human rights, 1, 58, 60, 69, 89, IR A. See Irish Republican Army
95, 102, 179–85, 190–1, Iran, 60–1, 117, 122
199, 208 Iran–Contra, 58, 216
254 I n de x
Iraq, 1, 4, 12, 17, 20, 23, 27, 30, 32, just war tradition, 5, 31, 34–5,
34–6, 40, 53–4, 60–2, 65, 37, 44, 47, 90, 132, 134,
81–2, 87, 90–3, 95, 100–2, 150, 166, 172, 181, 195,
114–15, 120–2, 125, 128, 223, 226
141–3, 150, 155–8, 170–6,
178, 180–1, 183–5, 189, Kabul, Afghanistan, 189
196, 201, 203, 205, 207–11, Kamola, Isaac, 207, 239
213, 215–19, 229 Kant, Immanuel, 115, 147, 207, 239
Coalition Provisional Authority, Kerry, John, 140, 213, 215, 246
181, 183 Khan, Abdul Qadeer, 178, 219
Irish Republican Army Khan, Samir, 182
(IR A), 38, 104 Khruschev, Nikita, 121
irrationality, 32, 140, 158–60 killing versus letting die, 73, 75, 85
is-ought fallacy, 116, 219, 225 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 29
is-ought problem, 206, 225 König, Erwin, 216
Israel, 37, 54, 62, 100, 120 Kosovo, 17, 34, 38, 51, 66–72, 78,
Italy, 73 80–5, 104, 181, 205, 208
Kovic, Ron, 213
Jackson, Lisa F., 214, 246 Kramer, Stanley, 204, 247
Japan, 47, 88, 91, 103, 154, 158, Kubrick, Stanley, 18, 204, 214,
160, 177, 197, 200, 218 246–7
Jarecki, Eugene, 209, 247 Kurds, 60, 177, 184, 207
Jerusalem, 206 Kurosawa, Akira, 210, 247
Jesus Christ, 1, 41, 170, 225 Kurtz, Colonel, 213
Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, 216, 247 Kuwait, 1, 27, 36, 60, 62, 87, 125,
jus ad bellum, 26, 29–30, 33, 36, 209, 212
45, 134, 173, 205, 225–7,
229–30 Lackey, Douglas, 11, 34, 180, 239
jus in bello, 26, 29, 33, 36, 45, 72, landmines, 10, 17, 58–9, 81, 102,
112–15, 134, 150, 174, 114, 184, 207, 217
225–6, 229 Laos, 212
jus post bellum, 33 last resort, 10, 21, 25, 29–35, 40,
just cause, 4, 14, 26, 29–31, 40, 44, 61, 71, 106, 135, 179, 187,
99, 121, 127, 135, 155, 176, 205, 225–6
195, 225, 228 See also jus ad bellum
See also jus ad bellum Latin America, 58, 60–1
just war paradigm. See just war Lawrence, T. E., 213, 246
theory Lebanon, 70
just war theory, 1–3, 26, 34–7, legitimate authority, 5, 28–30,
40–5, 48, 81, 84, 87, 89, 92, 37–8, 40–1, 44, 48, 124,
95, 102–3, 124, 126, 132, 132, 135, 151, 169,
134–5, 140, 148, 150, 159, 173–4, 176, 182, 194,
161, 165, 169–70, 172–3, 209, 225–6
176, 181, 183–5, 188, 190, See also jus ad bellum
192, 194–5, 199, 209, 222, lethality, 2, 64, 106, 157
225–7, 229 Letter from America, 216
I n de x 255
Levinson, Barry, 205, 247 military industry, 2–3, 17–18, 20,

Libya, 61, 80, 100, 123, 128, 170, 57–9, 61, 80–1, 178,
178, 181, 189 191–2, 200
Litvak, Anatole, 123, 245 subcontractors, 63, 192
Loader, Jayne, 206, 210, 212, military supporter, definition of, 226
217, 245 military–industrial complex, 190, 192
Lumet, Sidney, 18, 204, 246 Mill, John Stuart, 48, 167
Luther, Martin, 167 Milosevic, Slobodan, 40, 69–70,
See also Protestant reformation 104, 124, 126, 152, 205,
207, 209, 211, 221
Maas, Peter, 51, 240 missions civilisatrices, 34, 78
MacDonald, Kevin, 204, 246 modern war, 5, 13–14, 17, 19–20,
machetes, in Rwandan genocide, 23, 28, 30–1, 45, 56, 63, 81,
207 95, 106, 113, 138, 152, 155,
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 116–19, 162, 179–80, 182, 185, 187,
124, 126, 148, 212, 222, 189, 191, 199, 204, 209, 228
228, 240 modus ponens, 226
MAD. See mutually assured modus tollens, 175, 227
destruction Mogadishu, Somalia, 83
Madrid, Spain, 101 Moore, Hal, 11
mainstream media, 3, 29, 39–40, moral personhood, 15–17, 73, 89,
48, 63, 88, 96, 101, 115, 102, 141, 148, 150–1, 192,
136, 163, 174, 192, 194, 223, 227, 230, 236
196, 205 moral responsibility, 75, 134, 160–3,
Mala Salvatrucha (MS), 63 165, 199, 223
Malick, Terrence, 130, 247 Morris, Errol, 120, 210, 215, 217,
Martin, Tony, 9 246–7
Martin, Trayvon, 203 Mozambique, 17
masculinity, 213 MS. See Mala Salvatrucha
Mattis, James, 154, 217 Munich, Germany, 215
McNamara, Robert S., 90, 120, Musharraf, Pervez, 178
161, 188, 217, 240, 246 Muslims, 43, 51, 56, 59, 83
McVeigh, Timothy, 95–6, 142 Mussolini Benito, 69, 97, 114, 116
Médecins sans frontières(Doctors mutually assured destruction
without Borders), 70 (MAD), 3, 18, 23, 160, 177,
medication of soldiers. See drugs; 200, 211
pharmaceutical companies My Lai, Vietnam, 95
Mejía, Camilo, 143
Memorial Day, 114, 127 Nacro, Fanta Régina, 53, 246
Méndez, Josué, 214, 245 Nagasaki, Japan, 47, 88, 91, 103,
mercenaries, 95, 145 154–5, 158, 200, 217, 220
metaethical paradox, 194, 226, 235 napalm, 17, 102, 113–14
metaethics, 226–7 National Guardsmen, 138
Mexico, 60 National Security Strategy of the
Milestone, Lewis, 130, 245 United States of America
Milgram, Stanley, 200, 240 (NSSUSA), 172, 228, 241
256 I n de x
nation–state, 38 NSSUSA . See National Security

nations, 1, 7, 10, 15–18, 20, 22, Strategy of the United States
32, 44, 54–9, 61–71, of America
74–5, 78–81, 84, 88, 90, Nuremberg Trials, 134
92, 94, 96, 100, 103,
105–7, 110–11, 113, Obama, Barack, 25, 48, 53, 61–2,
120–2, 125, 127, 139, 80, 122–4, 173, 175, 178,
148, 150, 158, 161–2, 181, 205, 234, 241
171–6, 178–9, 183, 185, obedience, 133, 137, 142, 149, 153,
191, 194, 197–202, 203, 214, 216
207–9, 211, 214, 218, offensive defense, 172, 175–6
223–4, 226, 229 oil, 120, 125, 143, 148, 209–10,
NATO (National Atlantic Treaty 212
Organization), 51, 67–72, Oklahoma City, 95, 100
78, 81, 84–5, 100, 181, Olds, Ian, 203, 247
205, 208 Ophuls, Marcel, 215, 246
natural catastrophes/disasters, organized crime, 111, 139
74–5, 85 original sin, doctrine of, 195
Nazi Germany, 4, 16, 37, 56, Orwell, George, 40, 201, 241
104, 109, 113, 119–20, Ottawa Treaty, 59
123, 133–4, 141, 161–2, ought implies can, 76, 78, 160
177, 197–200, 206, 209,
215–16, 218 paciﬁ sm, 31, 33, 85, 110–13,
necessary condition, 29, 221, 227 187, 190, 193, 196, 224,
negative rights, 180 228, 234
negotiation, 21, 32, 164, 179, 187 Pakistan, 61, 178
Nicaragua, 83 Palestinian Liberation Organization
Niccol, Andrew, 209, 245 (PLO), 104
Nichols, Mike, 209, 245 Palestinians, 37, 54, 100
Niger, 171 Panama, 60, 83
Nixon, Richard, 109.211 patriotism, 65, 153, 213
nobility, 5, 13, 98, 114, 119, 128, Patton, George S., 127, 212–13,
166, 193–4, 198 247
“noble” lies, 116, 168, 174 Pearl Harbor, 1941 attack on, 11,
noncombatant immunity, 20, 72, 47, 88, 158
76, 90–1, 106, 152–3, 170, Pentagon, 12, 69, 87, 96–7, 99,
179, 225, 228 101, 141, 144, 156, 190,
noncombatants versus 208, 218
innocents, 48, 57, 97, Pentagon Papers, 115, 144, 212
105–6, 165, 228 Peru, 60, 214
noncontradiction, law of, 27, 169 Pétain, Philippe, 124, 142
noninterventionism, 67, 72, 77, 85 Petersen, Wolfgang, 137, 245
Noriega, Manuel, 60 Pfetsch, Frank, 37, 207, 241
normative ethics, 111, 222–3, 230 pharmaceutical companies, 191–2
North, Oliver, 58, 241 Phillips, Robert, 31, 35–6, 76,
North Korea, 61, 122 111–13, 125, 241
I n de x 257
philosopher-kings, 168 Protestant Reformation, 1, 42, 133,

physicians, 63, 73 167, 193–4
Pinochet, Augusto, 73, 104, 124, prudence, 17, 99, 215
126, 209 PTSD. See post-traumatic stress
Plan Colombia, 80, 241 disorder
Plato, 116, 168, 241 public declaration, 22, 29, 225, 229
PLO. See Palestinian Liberation See also jus ad bellum
Organization
Pol Pot, 126 Qatar, 62
police versus military forces, Quan, Kong, 122
21, 204
political leaders, 1, 3–5, 7, 14–16, Rafferty, Kevin and Pierce, 206,
20, 29, 34, 36, 38–42, 45, 210, 212, 217, 245
58–9, 67, 69, 89, 90, 105, rape, 57, 131, 141, 214, 246
107, 112, 115–16, 119–20, Reagan, Ronald, 123
126, 129, 137, 139, 148, Realpolitik, 68, 228–9
154, 160–4, 166–7, 169–70, reasonable prospect for success, 26,
174–5, 179, 184, 191, 193, 29–32, 40, 225, 229
200, 221 See also jus ad bellum
Pontecorvo, Gillo, 97, 246 red herring, 143, 229
Popper, Karl, 168, 242 reductio ad absurdum, 172, 229
positive rights, 180 reification, fallacy of, 198–229
postcolonial period, 40, 53, 66, 75, relativism, moral, 21, 110, 112,
119, 209 115, 148, 194, 204–5, 219,
post-traumatic stress disorder 226–7, 230, 235
(PTSD), 157 Renaissance period, 25–6, 117
potable water crisis, 74–5, 85, Reserve Officer Training Corps,
191, 208 (ROTC), 204
Powell, Colin, 90 Resnais, Alain, 161, 247
POWs. See prisoners of war revolution in military affairs
Predator drones, 53, 65, 122, 131, (RMA), 162
173, 182–3, 193, 201, 235 rhetoric, 2, 4, 7, 13, 20, 27, 29–31,
preemption, 175, 228, 235 33–4, 36–7, 42, 44–5,
premeditation, 9–10, 18, 23, 102, 48–51, 61, 64, 68, 73, 90,
169, 230 102, 104, 109, 112–13,
The Prince, 117, 212 115–16, 123–6, 137, 148–9,
principle of utility, 48 152–4, 158–60, 163–4, 166,
prisoners of war, 26, 47, 88, 129, 168, 174, 185, 189, 193–5,
134, 141, 143, 158, 183, 229 198–200, 205, 218
private contractors, 95 Rice, Condoleezza, 34, 167, 217
propaganda, 34, 44, 51, 104, 123, Riefenstahl, Leni, 206, 218,
133, 160, 167, 174, 189, 245, 247
206, 211, 214, 218 right intention. See jus ad bellum
proportionality, 10, 29–31, 40, 72, right to life, 15–16, 22, 180, 223
76, 89, 181, 225, 229, 234 RMA. See revolution in military
See also jus ad bellum; jus in bello affairs
258 I n de x
Robbins, Tim, 210–11, 245 Somalia, 23, 41, 70, 83

Rodr íguez, Guillermo, 60 Sophists, 118, 238
Rogers, Clifford J., 148, 159, 238 sovereignty, 15, 36, 56, 67–8, 70–2
Rosenberg, Ethel and Julius, Soviet Union (USSR), 18, 20, 61,
176–8, 218 63, 79, 84, 160, 200, 211
ROTC. See Reserve Officer Spain, 73, 134, 156, 171
Training Corps Spielberg, Steven, 216, 247
Rumsfeld, Donald, 35, 97, 123 Stalin, Joseph, 123, 126
Russia, 59, 120, 123, 208, 216–17, Stone, Oliver, 140, 213, 215,
219, 245 245, 247
Rwanda, 54, 56–7, 66, 74, 82–3, straw man pacifist, 190
207, 209, 239, 246 Suá rez, Banzar, 60
Suá rez, Francisco, 25, 45
Sabbag, Randa Chahal, 70, 245 submarines, 137–8
sanctions, economic, 20, 60, 185 Sudan, 38, 61, 78
Sarajevo, 51 Suez Canal, 156
Saudi Arabia, 62, 239 sufficient condition, 221, 225, 230
Scarry, Elaine, 11, 128, 211, 242 suicide. See homicide, suicide
School of the Americas Sunnis, 62, 209
(SOA), 60, 207 supererogation, 71–2, 78
Schroeder, Barbet, 204, 246 suspects, 8, 21, 48, 53, 62–3, 94,
Scott, Garrett, 203, 247 122, 173, 182–3
scorched earth practices, 120 Swofford, Anthony, 214
secrecy, 99, 177–8 Syria, 178
Sekulich, Daniel, 217, 245
self-defense, 5, 7–21, 23, 25, 27, Tabarrok, Alex, 207
29–30, 47, 50, 55, 67, 70, Taliban, 32, 91, 98, 101, 175, 181,
76, 82, 92, 94, 133, 147, 188, 210
153, 156, 169, 172, 175, Tanovic, Danis, 58, 247
190, 195, 203, 222–3, terrorism, 5, 53–5, 62, 84, 93,
228, 230 99–100, 103, 107, 170–1,
self-mutilation, by soldiers to 201, 230
evade service, 217 Third Reich, 55, 110, 115, 152,
September 11, 2001, 11, 19–20, 32, 180. See Nazi Germany
54, 93, 97–8, 100–2, 140, Thou shalt not kill, 1, 222
152, 162, 175, 218, 241 Tibbets, Paul, 91, 154, 210
Serbs, 51, 56, 59–60, 69, 83–4, Tillman, Paul, 140, 244
205, 207–8 Thompson, Tommy, 121
Sharif, Nawaz, 178 Torrijos, Omar, 60
Sheehan, Cindy, 213 torture, 129, 141, 183, 215,
Shiites, 62, 209 227, 229
shock and awe, 93, 210–11 Treat like cases alike, 121, 185
slavery, 151, 195–6, 222 Truman, Harry, 43, 47, 61, 88,
snipers, 138, 145, 216 116, 124, 158, 200, 206,
SOA. See School of the Americas 212, 217
Solomon, Norman, 192, 243 Tucker, Robert, 28, 243
I n de x 259
Turner, Thomas, 7, 203 training, 151, 157, 190, 195

Tutsis, 54, 56, 59, 82–3 See also lethality
tyranny, 128, 166, 168, 170, veterans, treatment of, 73, 157,
174, 198 161, 215
Tzu, Sun, 115 women in, 131
USSR. See Soviet Union
Uganda, 21, 73 utilitarianism, 48, 72, 206–7,
United Arab Emirates, 62 230–1
United Nations Uwilingiyimana, Agathe, 83
casques bleues, 59
convention banning napalm, 113 Vargas Llosa, Mario, 210, 243
Security Council, 32, 68, 171–2, Velasco Alvarado, Juan, 60
207–8 Venezuela, 214
weapons inspections, 171 Verhoeven, Michael, 215, 246
United States Veterans’ Day, 127
administration, 91, 171–2, 211 Vietnam War, 3, 20, 23, 40–1, 65,
Civil War, 38, 214 67, 79, 83, 90, 95, 100, 114,
congress, 173, 176, 200, 218, 226 129–30, 140–2, 144, 151–2,
Department of Defense (DoD), 155, 157, 162, 174, 188,
114, 125, 144, 157, 188, 196, 200, 211–15, 217
190, 213 vigilante justice, 55, 169–71
See also Pentagon Viola, Roberto, 60
empowerment of enemies, 20, 60, violence breeds violence, 51, 54, 66,
125, 177–8 188, 201
exceptionalism, 59, 113, 121, 182 Vitoria, Francisco de, 134
hegemony, 53–4 von Clausewitz, Carl, 3, 243
H. J. Resolution 114, 176
superpower, 20, 30, 79, 122, 200 Waco, Texas, 21
War Department (pre–DoD), Wallace, Randall, 203, 247
103, 123, 144, 245 Walzer, Michael, 15–16, 28, 31–2,
Universal Declaration of Human 34–6, 48–9, 67–8, 81–2,
Rights (1948), 95, 179–85, 101, 148, 150, 171, 181,
243 197, 206
Article 5, 183 war
Article 7, 180, 182 crimes, 75, 95–6, 112, 161, 178,
Article 11, 183 185, 211
Article 17, 183 definition of, 231
US military on drugs. See Colombia
assassination policy, 48, 53, 63, opponent, definition of, 231
182–3 orphans, 183–4
interventions. See Afghanistan; profiteers, 191–2, 200
Iraq; Kosovo; Latin America; romantics, 3, 130, 193
Somalia; Vietnam; World Washington, DC, 156, 219
War I; World War II waterboarding, 183
marketers, 13, 80, 138, 144, weapons exports, 3, 20, 58, 80,
154, 198 178, 184, 201, 209
260 I n de x
weapons of mass destruction World War I, 113, 130, 142, 150,

(WMD), 3, 18–19, 30, 47, 216–17
93, 113, 121, 155, 162, 171, World War II, 17, 68, 123,
200, 210, 212, 236 128–30, 137, 144,
Webel, Charles, 187, 233, 236, 243 159–61, 190, 197,
Weigel, George, 31–2, 35, 243 213–14, 216, 219
white phosphorous, 102, 114, 211
Wikileaks, 177–8, 218 Yamamoto, Imperial Admiral, of
Williams, Travis, 147, 216 Japan, 47
Wingo, Ajume, 208, 212, 244 yellow cake, 171
Wiseman, Robert, 214, 245 Yemen, 173, 182, 240
wishful thinking, 22, 105, 198
WMD. See weapons of mass Zaitsev, Vassili, 216
destruction Zinn, Howard, 16, 208, 244
World Trade Center, 92, 97, 100–1 Zwick, Edward, 207, 245

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War and Delusion

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PERSPECTIVES ON WAR ,

Terror, Terrorism, and the Human Condition

L aur ie Cal houn

1. War (Philosophy) 2. Just war doctrine. I. Title.

T hroughout human history, groups of people have committed mass

refused to shoulder any responsibility for their part in the slaughter.

is often permissible and sometimes obligatory. According to a fairly

The permissibility of self-defense implies the permissibility of war. Just

I can’t really blame these people for not wanting us to be here . . .

T he recourse to military force violates the proscription within civil

an acceptable justification for injuring and sometimes even killing

within a wing of the Pentagon itself. The perpetrators also succeeded

There is evidently a difference between an individual defending his

In modern warfare, the commander in chief does not typically

the world to neutralize a perceived danger in an action similar to

The assumption that war is a form of self-defense leads directly to

Aggression is a singular and undifferentiated crime because, in all its

unjustly acquired property belongs to the families (descendants) of

least of all that of innocent bystanders? Guns may be produced for

or a simple mistake could effect the end of human civilization. In fact,

The military is an institution ostensibly appointed to defend the

them that war serves, in effect, as a surrogate court. According to

A public declaration of war conveys to the population of the offend-

Christopher’s use of the court metaphor overlooks the radical distinc-

The rights to life of individual people do not imply analogous rights

defense appears in the expressions national defense and self-defense,

The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified

T he notion that war, the intentional use of homicidal force by

There have been disagreements over details, but according to most

Since the seventeenth century, theorists have generally agreed that in

● only proportional means to sound military objectives may be deployed,

As would be expected of a paradigm whose primary features have sur-

individual acts of killing only some of which are instances of literal

That both sides to every conflict offer “just war” characterizations of

to support a mission already underway, whatever the reasons initially

Modern just war doctrines share the fate of their predecessors in

If, in contrast to the permissive readings of just war theorists, no

(T) If the war is just, then the cause is just.

Just war theory specifies a set of ostensibly distinct requirements for

Far from posing real constraints, the requirements of reasonable

None of the individual requirements of jus ad bellum proves upon

the economic policies of which can with only minor modifications

It is a mistake to suppose that “last” necessarily designates the final

In Phillips’s view, we are to know that we have reached war as a last

George Weigel concurs:

In the just war tradition, “last resort” is not an arithmetic concept.

The last resort condition has been interpreted in terms of necessity

Contrary to the view of some opponents of the Gulf War, Article

It seems reasonable to suppose that an attempt at negotiation is mor-

their positions of power in virtue of their practical rationality, so it

The frank admission by contemporary defenders of just war theory

The complex hermeneutics of just war theorists in interpreting last

The triumph of just war theory is clear enough; it is amazing how

What is missing from Walzer’s discussion is an argument—or any rea-

clearly chosen among a variety of pacific alternatives favored by most

to criticize wars, while claiming at the metalevel that the theory is

According to just war theory, only a legitimate authority may wage

a person should have been born in the United States as opposed to

enemy guerilla soldiers. In the process of carrying out their orders,

Given the intractable epistemological and exegetical problems with

We cannot give up what makes life worth living. It is worthwhile

It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that