Just
By Mitch Berg
Not long ago, in a discussion elsewhere, I mentioned that I have a hard time deciding who I dislike more in re the situation in the Middle East – the antisemitic right, or American liberal Christians with academic to-the-point-of-infantile interpretations of “Just War Doctrine”.
Not much I can say or do about the former.
But as to the latter?
Just War Doctrine outlines reasons that war might be morally justified. It requires a legitimate cause (like self-defense), proportionality in response (there’s your bugaboo right there), and due discretion to minimize harm to non-combatants. It also says you need a legitimate authority to declare war, a reasonable chance of success, and war as a last resort after running out of peaceful alternatives. The doctrine is an academic attempt to balance the moral complexities of armed conflict with the pursuit of peace.
I’ve seen a few of my liberal Christian friends dunk on the Israeli strikes on the Iranian nuke program and military, even though by any *rational* measure, the Israeli strikes satisfy all of these criteria.
Self defense? Iran has been bankrolling terror against the US (not to mention Israel) for over forty years. The Marine Embassy bombing? Funding and arming Hamas, Hizb’allah, the Palestinian Authority, the Houthis and other terror movements throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia? Funding all the Intifadas, paying big money to the families of suicide bombers, funding decades of rockets attacks on Israel (and others), having their fingers directly on the October 7 pogrom, and having “eradicating Israel” as a foundational goal (inclding for their nuke program)?
Too many of my liberal Christian friends seem to have gone past “Just War” doctrine and straight on to “Groundhog Day Doctrine” – forgetting all of history when they wake up every morning and starting the entire Middle East conflict over from a clean slate every morning. Israel “attacked Iran” – 40-odd years of terrorism, direct attacks, and apocalyptic ,eliminationist rhetoric be darned.
Proportionality? Forget for a moment that it’s not only an academic concept when actual self-defense is involved – “proportionality” taking to the ridiculous extreme too many history-challenged liberal Christians do, it actually makes wars worse and less “just”. Think about it: a “proportional” response to Pearl Harbor would have involved sinking Japanese ships and calling it even; in 1939, the Allies should have retaken Poland and left everything else in place; Israel should presumably send goons into rural Iran on an anti-Farsi pogrom, taking hostages and killing 1200-ish people – in all cases, leaving the *root cause* of the wars (Japanese and German expansionism, elimination antisemitism) in place.
But you’d have a hard time showing a more “proportional” response in all of military history than Israel’s attack on Iran – thus far, at least. No carpet-bombing, no “Search and Destroy” missions through villages – no conventional ground troops at all. And hardly any contact with civilians outside the nuke program at all (it’s likely 90% of the Iranian population has had no contact with the war outside whatever media reports they’re getting.
They’re not a lot different than Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens, in their own way.
June 23rd, 2025 at 7:53 am
“Proportional” doesn’t mean “damage the enemy only in direct proportion to the damage done to you”. That’s stupid.
“Proportional” in the context of war or self defense (same thing on different scales) means “Mete out only the proportion of violence needed to end the threat”.
If the threat still exists, the proportion of violence you meted out wasn’t big enough.
The basic idea is: when someone attacks you, keep shooting them until they surrender, flee or are incapacitated. Those are the options.
Nations who attack you can’t flee, so the options are “surrender” or “incapacitated”.
“Proportional” response in war means when they surrender, you stop bombing them…otherwise you keep going until they no longer have the capacity to make war upon you.
June 23rd, 2025 at 8:00 am
Total agreement. Well put.
June 23rd, 2025 at 11:19 am
I have been informed that all cultures are equally valid. When there is a clash of cultures, one must yield. Somehow, that always seems to be us. The Just War people are holding Western Civilization to a higher standard than Islam. That doesn’t seem right to me.
I don’t object to Just War analysis as such, but I question whether it applies when cultures clash. The most famous explication of Just War theory was articulated by St. Augustine. He was describing how Christians should conduct war on each other, for example, in response to the Manichean heresy. He was not describing how war should be fought against a completely different and utterly implacable culture (St. Augustine died 200 years before Mohammed was born).
Suppose I live next door to you. One day, I mention that God spoke to me; He commanded me to preach His Word that all people might become believers; and He authorized me to use any means to convert them – persuasive words, decreitful lies, slavery, rape, torture – until they end their resistance to His word and submit themselves to His will under my leadership as His prophet, beginning with our block and continuing across the state and eventually, the world. I show you the parts I’ve machined to convert my sporting rifle into a fully-automatic machine gun, the cases of ammunition stored in my garage, and the photos of your children playing in your yard, pinned on my wall.
What does Just War theory tell you to do?
June 23rd, 2025 at 11:30 am
We must remember that every POTUS up to and including Trump, has declared that they would not let Iran have nuclear weapons. Well, except for the fact that both Obama and Biden, helped fund it, after they made their declarations.
Now, I know John Fetterman is somewhat controversial and Van Jones is a pretty hard leftist, have both said Trump acted properly. Further, a former Clinton and Biden official, Jamie Metzl, even praised Trump for doing so and stated that Harris wouldn’t have “displayed the courage or fortitude to do it”.
June 23rd, 2025 at 6:56 pm
Proportional is what BiBi and his bloodthirsty clan say it is.
1200 Jews killed: 60,000 Palestinians (so far), 70% women and children. Every hospital, school, water treatment and electric plant destroyed. Not a building over 2 stories left standing…proportional? Not quite yet.
June 23rd, 2025 at 7:01 pm
Iran has been a pain in our ass since they deposed our hand picked puppet, but what have they done to us?
Hurty words and burned Chinese knock off flags.
But wait! They’re making an atom bomb! Oy Vey!
Yes, but would we be dropping bombs on the if they’d have gone the Israeli route and just stolen one from us?
June 24th, 2025 at 1:25 am
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June 24th, 2025 at 12:25 pm
Regarding the claim that Gaza fatalities are “70% women and children”, false. Even Tom ought to understand that you don’t take “statistics” at face value from Hamas. Reality is that while, yes, many civilians have been killed in Gaza, that tends to happen when Hamas puts military targets in hospitals and apartment buildings. Is Israel supposed to leave Hamas intact so that they can repeat their atrocities from 2023?
Honestly, Tom/Arthur, your “mindset” would keep Auschwitz open for business.
And “Iran never did anything to us?”. Well, apart from the Beirut Marine bombing of 1982, many Americans being killed in the 2023 attack on Israel, Houthi attacks on American shipping and U.S. ships, Iranian sponsorship of terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan…