2016/05/02

Rethinking the 'Just War,' Part 1 - The New York Times

Rethinking the 'Just War,' Part 1 - The New York Times
By Jeff McMahan
NYT, November 11, 2012

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.

Can war be justified? Is there such a thing as morally proper conduct in war?

With Veterans’ Day upon us and, with the Obama administration preparing to face another four years of geopolitical choices in unstable regions, The Stone is featuring recent work by Jeff McMahan, a philosopher and professor at Rutgers University, on “just war theory” — a set of ethical principles pertaining to violent conflict, whose origins can be traced back to Augustine, that still influence the politics and morality of war today. The work will be published in two parts on consecutive days — the first dealing with the background and history of the traditional just war theory, and second consisting of the author’s critique of that theory.

— The Editors

~~~

There is very little in the realm of morality that nearly everyone agrees on. Surprising divergences — as moral relativists delight in pointing out — occur among the moral beliefs in different societies. And there are, of course,  fundamental moral disagreements within individual societies as well. Within the United States people hold radically opposing views on abortion, sexual relations, the fair distribution of wealth and many other such issues. The disagreements extend from the particular to the general, for in most areas of morality there are no commonly recognized principles to which people can appeal in trying to resolve their disputes. But there is at least one contentious moral issue for which there is a widely accepted moral theory, one that has been embraced for many centuries by both religious and secular thinkers, not just in the United States, but in many societies. The issue is war and the theory is just war theory.

“Just war theory” refers both to a tradition of thought and to a doctrine that has emerged from that tradition.  There is no one canonical statement of the doctrine but there is a core set of principles that appears, with minor variations, in countless books and articles that discuss the ethics of war in general or the morality of certain wars in particular.  In recent decades, the most influential defense of the philosophical assumptions of the traditional theory has been Michael Walzer’s classic book, “Just and Unjust Wars,” which also presents his understanding of the theory’s implications for a range of issues, such as preemptive war, humanitarian intervention, terrorism, and nuclear deterrence.



The traditional just war theory, allied as it has been with the international law of armed conflict, has sustained a remarkable consensus for at least several centuries. But that consensus — for reasons I will describe shortly — has finally begun to erode. In the following two-part post, I will briefly summarize the evolution of the traditional just war theory, then make a case for why that theory can no longer stand.

The Evolution of the Theory

The origin of just war theory is usually traced to the writings of Augustine, though many of the theory’s elements became well established only much later, during its “classical” period between the early 16th  and mid-17th centuries.  The principles of just war theory were then understood to be part of a unified set of objective moral principles governing all areas of life. Like the principles concerned with truth-telling, commerce, sexual relations, and so on, just war principles were to be used in guiding and judging the acts of individuals. Later, however, as individuals became more firmly sorted into sovereign states and the regulation of warfare through treaties between states became increasingly effective, the theory began to conceive of war as an activity of states, in which individual soldiers were merely the instruments through which states acted.

 Leif Parsons

Beginning in earnest in the 17th century and continuing through the 20th, the theory of the just war evolved in conjunction with international law. While the theory initially guided the development of the law, by the 19th century and especially over the course of the 20th, the law had acquired such great practical importance that the most significant developments in normative thought about war were pioneered by legal theorists, with just war theorists trailing humbly along behind.

During the aftermath of World War II, a consensus began to emerge that a set of just war principles, which coincided closely with the law as codified in the United Nations Charter and the Geneva Conventions, provided the correct account of the morality of war.

Both just war theory and the law distinguished between the justification for the resort to war (jus ad bellum) and justified conduct in war (jus in bello). In most presentations of the theory of the just war there are six principles of jus ad bellum, each with its own label: just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, necessity or last resort, proportionality and reasonable hope of success. Jus in bello comprises three principles: discrimination, necessity or minimal force, and, again, proportionality. These principles articulate in a compressed form an understanding of the morality of war that is, in its fundamental structure, much the same as it was 300 years ago. Mainly as a result of its evolution in tandem with a body of law that has states rather than individual persons as its subjects, the theory in its present form is quite different from the classical theory from which it is descended. To distinguish it from its classical predecessor, some just war theorists refer to it as the traditional theory of the just war, though for brevity I will generally refer to it simply as “the Theory.”

The Theory’s Importance

The Theory is routinely invoked in public debates about particular wars and military policies. When both the Episcopal Church and the United States Catholic Bishops released documents in the early 1980s on the morality of nuclear deterrence, they judged the practice by reference to just war principles, which the Catholic Bishops expounded and analyzed in detail. Several years later the United Methodist Bishops published a book in which they stated that “while the Roman Catholic and Episcopal documents finally appeal to just-war arguments to support nuclear deterrence, we are persuaded that the logic of this tradition ultimately discredits nuclear deterrence as a morally tenable position,” and went on to criticize deterrence by appeal to roughly the same principles to which the Catholics and Episcopalians had appealed.

Some military professionals also take the Theory quite seriously. It is taught in the United States’ principal military academies, often by officers who themselves publish scholarly work that seeks to elucidate or apply it. (Occasionally some element of the Theory is cynically deployed, as when General Colin Powell remarked that he was pleased that the American invasion of Panama was named “Operation Just Cause,” because “even our severest critics would have to utter ‘Just Cause’ while denouncing us.”)

 Leif Parsons

Even political leaders sometimes appeal to the Theory for guidance or justification. Ten days before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Jimmy Carter argued in The New York Times that an invasion would be wrong because it would violate the just war requirements of last resort, discrimination, proportionality and legitimate authority — though he regrettably managed to misinterpret all four. When Barack Obama delivered his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he too made reference to the concept of a just war, citing the Theory’s principles of last resort, proportionality, and discrimination. More recently, one of Obama’s aides sought to explain the president’s close involvement in acts of targeted killing by suggesting that his study of the writings on just war by Augustine and Aquinas had convinced him that he had to take personal responsibility for these acts.

The Traditional Theory Under Attack

As I mentioned, the consensus on the Theory has recently begun to break down. The cracks first became visible when a few philosophers challenged some of the assumptions of Walzer’s “Just and Unjust Wars” shortly after its publication in 1977. But over the last 15 years the cracks have widened into gaping crevices. There are two reasons for this.

One is the changing character of war. Most recent wars have not been of the sort to which the Theory most readily applies — namely, wars between regular armies deployed by states. Many have instead been between the regular army of a state and “rogue” forces not under the control of any state. This description fits the major segments of the United States’ wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as the recent smaller-scale civil conflicts in Libya and Syria. And there is also, of course, the continuing conflict between states  and decentralized terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda. . These types of conflict, especially those with terrorists, are resistant to moral evaluation within the state-centric framework of the traditional theory.

 Leif Parsons

The second reason for the decline in allegiance to the Theory is largely independent of changes in the practice of war. It does, however, derive from the fact that the wars in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Yugoslavia, and the Middle East provoked a resurgence of work in just war theory by philosophers trained in the analytic tradition. When these philosophers consulted the traditional theory to evaluate these wars, they discovered problems that had somehow eluded earlier thinkers. They have subsequently sought to develop a more plausible theory of the just war.  As it turns out, this “revisionist” account, though not as yet fully worked out, is in certain respects a reversion to the classical theory that was superseded by the traditional theory several centuries ago. It returns, for example, to the idea that it is individual persons, not states, who kill and are killed in war, and that they, rather than their state, bear primary responsibility for their participation and action in war.

The revisionist approach has gained considerable support among contemporary just war theorists, but news of this shift has scarcely reached beyond the small community of academic philosophers and scholars who work on these issues. As a proponent of the revisionist approach, I believe it is important for those outside academia to be aware of the challenges to the set of beliefs that has dominated moral thought about war for many centuries and that still frames public discourse about the morality of war.

Revisionist just war theory is a school of thought, not a body of doctrine. There are many disagreements among revisionists, but they have the benefit of a long tradition of thought about the morality of war on which to build as well as a more recent tradition of rigorous, meticulous analytical thinking about moral issues that has, among other things, given them a richer range of distinctions and other analytical tools than their predecessors had access to. The result of their efforts promises to be an understanding of the just war that is not only quite different from the traditional Theory but substantially more plausible.

In part two, I will explain some of the challenges to the traditional Theory that have prompted just war theorists to take the revisionist project seriously.



Go to “Rethinking the ‘Just War,’ Part 2.”

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Rethinking the ‘Just War,’ Part 2

By Jeff McMahan

November 12, 2012

~~~

Before presenting a critique of traditional just war theory (which I call the “Theory,” for short) I should make two points of clarification. Although the Theory is largely congruent with the international law of war, the subject of just war theory is not law but morality. If the inconsistencies and absurdities I will describe were confined to the law, they would be less troubling. Because the law is an artifact and does not purport to state truths about a reality that is independent of human invention, it can tolerate considerable disunity. But just war theory is usually understood as a set of principles that have been discovered rather than designed, and that provide an objective account of the morality of war. If just war theory is more than just a set of conventions, and if the objections I will advance here are correct, the traditional version of just war theory must be rejected.

Second, the term “war” is ambiguous. There is one sense in which a war is composed of all the acts of war by all the parties to a conflict. World War II was a war in this sense. But “war” can also refer to the belligerent action of only one side —— for example, the war that Britain fought against Germany, which was a part of World War II. My remarks will generally be concerned with wars in the second sense, for only such wars can be just or unjust. Thus, while Britain’s war against Germany was just, World War II was neither just nor unjust.



Permissible Acts, Unjust War?



I turn now to the critique of the Theory. As I noted earlier, just war theory distinguishes between the principles of jus ad bellum (resort to war) and those of jus in bello (conduct in war). According to the Theory, the latter are independent of the former, in the sense that what it is permissible for a combatant to do in war is unaffected by whether his war is just or unjust. Whatever acts are permissible for those who fight in a just war (“just combatants”) are also permissible for those (“unjust combatants”) who fight for aims that are unjust. Combatants on both sides have the same rights, permissions and liabilities — a view commonly known as the “moral equality of combatants.” According to this view, if we accept that it is permissible for just combatants to participate in warfare, we must also accept that the same is true of unjust combatants. Both just combatants and unjust combatants act impermissibly only if they violate the rules of jus in bello — that is, only if they fight in an impermissible manner.



This has one immediately paradoxical implication: namely, that if unjust combatants fight without violating the rules governing the conduct of war, all their individual acts of war are permissible; yet these individual acts together constitute a war that is unjust and therefore impermissible. But how can a series of individually permissible acts be collectively impermissible?



 Leif Parsons



To resolve this paradox, the Theory has to claim that the principles of jus ad bellum apply only to the state, or the government that represents it. Hence only the members of the government responsible for decisions about the resort to war act impermissibly when a state fights an unjust war. Suppose, for example, that the armies of Aggressia have unjustly invaded and conquered neighboring Benignia. Aggressian soldiers never once violated the principles of jus in bello. But to defeat the Benignian army, it was necessary for them to kill more than a million Benignian soldiers, most of whom were civilians when the invasion began and enlisted in the military only to defend their country from Aggressia. According to the Theory, the only people who have done anything wrong in bringing about this vast slaughter are a handful of Aggressian political leaders who spent the war in their offices and never killed anyone.

This is incompatible with what we believe about killing in other contexts. Normally, the perpetrator of an act of killing is responsible for the victim’s death to at least as high a degree as an accessory who may have paid or pressured him to do it. Yet the Theory holds that in an unjust war fought in accordance with the principles of jus in bello, only the accessories who have instigated the killing (the political leaders) are responsible for it and have therefore done wrong, while the perpetrators (the unjust combatants) bear no responsibility and have done no wrong. But how can unjust combatants act permissibly when, as the Theory concedes, their ends are unjust, their means include the intentional killing of people who have done no wrong, and their action also kills innocent bystanders as a side effect? They may, of course, be excused — that is, they may not be culpable — if they mistakenly though blamelessly believe that their war is just, or if they fight under irresistible duress. But that is quite different from acting permissibly in the objective sense, which is what the Theory claims they do.

The Theory’s assurance that unjust combatants do no wrong provided they follow the rules makes it easier for governments to initiate unjust wars. The Theory cannot offer any moral reason why a person ought not to fight in an unjust war, no matter how criminal. If a young German in 1939 had consulted the Theory for guidance about whether to join the Wehrmacht, it would have told him that it was permissible to participate in Nazi aggression provided that he obeyed the principles of jus in bello (for example, by refraining from intentionally attacking civilians).To the extent that the theory has shaped our ways of thinking about the morality of war, it has enabled soldiers to believe that it is permissible to kill people who are merely trying to defend themselves and others from unjust aggression, provided the victims are wearing uniforms and the killing is done under orders from appropriate authorities.



The Morality of Self-Defense



Traditional theorists seek to justify their extraordinary claim — that those who fight and kill in an unjust war never do wrong provided they kill in accordance with the rules — by appealing to the familiar idea that, while it is not permissible to attack people who are innocent, it can be permissible to attack and kill those who are noninnocent.  But the Theory uses these words in a special way.  Innocent means “unthreatening,” so that in war non-combatants are innocent while all combatants are noninnocent. Thus, in Walzer’s words, the right not to be attacked “is lost by those who bear arms…because they pose a danger to other people.” This is true of the just and the unjust alike. “Simply by fighting,” Walzer claims, they lose “their title to life…even though, unlike aggressor states, they have committed no crime.” According to this view, all violent action that is defensive is self-justifying, assuming it is also necessary and proportionate.

This account of defensive rights accords no significance to the distinction between wrongful aggressors and their victims, or between unjust and just combatants. Each has a right of defense against the other. Such a view has no plausibility outside the context of war. If a police officer, for example, is about to shoot a murderer on a rampage, the murderer has no right to kill the officer in self-defense, even if that is the only way to save himself. In this and other situations outside of war, the morality of defense is asymmetrical between wrongful aggressors and innocent victims (and third parties who attempt to defend them). While the victim has both a right against attack and a right of defense, the aggressor has neither. This asymmetrical understanding of the morality of defense is found even in the traditional doctrine of jus ad bellum, for the Theory accepts that the morality of defense among states is asymmetrical. It is only in the doctrine of jus in bello, which applies to combatants, that the morality of defense is symmetrical. The Theory thus comprises two distinct accounts of the morality of defense — an asymmetrical account for states and a symmetrical account for combatants.

Self-Defense by Civilians

According to the second, symmetrical account, all combatants are liable to defensive attack simply because they pose a threat to others. Curiously, however, they are in general liable to attack only by other combatants, not by civilians. Why? Traditional theorists might claim that civilians can attack defensively only when they are being intentionally attacked, in which case the attacking combatants are indeed liable to defensive attack by the civilians. Yet there are actually three other ways in which attacks by civilians against combatants can be defensive:

— Civilians might attack combatants to defend themselves against being harmed as an unintended effect of the combatants’ military action — that is, to prevent themselves from becoming “collateral damage.”

— Civilians might attack enemy combatants in defense of combatants on their own side.  Not all defense is self-defense.

— Civilians might attack combatants to prevent themselves from being harmed by the achievement of the adversary’s war aims, for example to defend their property or liberty, just as soldiers do when they fight in defense of territory or political independence.

The issue of self-defense by civilians against combatants has received only scant attention in the just war tradition. But since it would be highly implausible to suppose that civilians have no right of self-defense against an intentional and wrongful attack by combatants, I will assume that the Theory permits this form of defense.

It is also generally assumed that it prohibits the last of these types of defense, primarily on the ground that self-defense in these circumstances is tantamount to participation in the war without identifying oneself as a combatant, and tends to undermine respect for the distinction between combatants and noncombatants. (The second and third types have been so little discussed in the tradition that I will not consider them here.) Yet if the Theory recognizes that civilians have a right to defend themselves against soldiers who will otherwise intentionally physically harm them, consistency demands that it also recognize that they are permitted to defend themselves against soldiers who will otherwise expose them to the harms involved in defeat, such as rule by an alien regime that may steal their land and other possessions, dismantle their political institutions, and imprison or kill them if they later resist. In part because these latter harms can be long-lasting, they can be more serious than those that civilians might suffer from an intentional physical attack, provided the attack is not lethal. How could the civilians have a right of defense against a lesser harm but not against a greater harm inflicted by the same people?

 Leif Parsons

Although the Theory permits civilians to defend themselves against intentional attack by combatants, it also reduces their moral status if they do so. For if civilians attempt to defend themselves, they then pose a threat and hence satisfy the Theory’s criterion of liability to attack. Thus, by engaging in self-defense, they cease to be innocent and become legitimate targets. It does not matter that the only reason they pose a threat is that the unjust attack to which they have been subjected has forced them to try to defend themselves. If that exempted them from liability for posing a threat, it would also exempt just combatants who fight in defense only because they and their innocent compatriots have been unjustifiably attacked.

Defenders of the Theory will doubtless recoil from the conclusion that by intentionally attacking civilians, combatants can create conditions in which they may then permissibly kill those same civilians in self-defense. But that is what their view implies.

Implications of the Claim That All Combatants Are Liable to Attack

The foregoing criticisms involve an element of speculation because the Theory has never had a fully explicit and determinate view about the permissibility of defense by civilians against combatants. But it has never been vague about the claim that all combatants are liable to attack by other combatants at any time during a state of war (assuming that soldiers who are wounded, have surrendered, or are attempting to surrender have ceased to pose a threat and are thus no longer combatants). It is worth noting two implications of this claim, one repugnant, the other doubtfully coherent.

Suppose that unjust combatants are engaged in a continuing atrocity, such as a massacre of civilians. Just combatants arrive and attack them as a means of stopping the slaughter. According to the Theory, even though the unjust combatants are acting impermissibly in killing the civilians, they nevertheless act permissibly if they kill those who are trying to rescue the civilians. It is hard to believe that morality could permit that.

A further and perhaps even more damaging objection is that the Theory’s claim that all combatants are liable because they pose a threat to others seems incompatible with its further claim that combatants do no wrong when they initiate a war with a surprise attack on the unmobilized forces of another state. If the aggressing combatants act permissibly, that must be because those they attack are legitimate targets — that is, because they are liable to attack. Yet at the time they are attacked they pose no threat.

A defender of the Theory might respond that all combatants pose a threat in a state of war and that a state of war exists when the first act of war occurs. To test the plausibility of this claim, consider the position of an American sailor at Pearl Harbor immediately prior to the Japanese surprise attack. He has done nothing to lose his right not to be attacked by the Japanese. There is no state of war between the United States and Japan, so this sailor poses no threat to any Japanese. He is of course likely to try to defend himself if he is attacked, but that does not mean that he poses a threat to anyone now. If it did, that would mean that most people pose a threat to others most of the time, since most people would defend themselves if attacked. So the sailor seems not to pose a threat and thus to retain his right against attack. Yet when the Japanese crews conduct their surprise attack, they act permissibly according to the Theory, even though their attack violates the principles of jus ad bellum. For those principles apply only to their government, not to the crews.

But how can it be that the crews act permissibly if they attack this American sailor, along with many others like him, who pose no threat to them? The answer I suggested on behalf of the Theory is that the Japanese attack itself creates a state of war in which the morality of jus in bello comes into effect. A surprise attack that initiates a war thus activates the morality by which it is governed. Prior to the attack, there was no state of war so the American sailor had a right not to be attacked. But when the attack occurs, a state of war exists and he has lost his right not to be attacked by enemy combatants. How did he lose it? The only answer the Theory can give is: by being attacked.

But this cannot be right, for two obvious reasons.

First, as I noted, it is incompatible with the Theory’s criterion of liability, for the sailor posed no threat at the time when he was attacked. Second, it assumes that unjust combatants who initiate a war through a surprise attack deprive their victims of their right not to be attacked merely by attacking them. Yet a right not to be attacked that disappears when its bearer is attacked is no right at all.

Is War Governed by a Different Morality?

I remarked earlier that symmetrical accounts of the morality of defense have no plausibility outside the context of war. Defenders of the Theory seem to recognize this, for they often claim that war is so different from conditions of ordinary life that it must be governed by principles different from those that operate in other contexts. Traditional just war theorists are thus in partial agreement with political realists, who also claim that ordinary moral principles do not apply in war. The difference is that realists make the radical claim that no alternative moral principles fill the space vacated by ordinary morality, so that war is outside the scope of morality altogether, while traditional just war theorists make only the more modest claim that when war begins, the familiar asymmetrical account of defensive rights ceases to apply to combatants and is replaced by the symmetrical account found in the doctrine of jus in bello.



 Leif Parsons



The idea that conditions of war summon a different set of moral principles into effect is common but highly implausible. If it were true, the concept of war would be of the utmost practical significance. For whether a particular conflict is a war would determine which set of moral principles apply to the acts of those involved in it. A particular act of killing might be wholly permissible if the conflict in which it occurs is a war, yet be an instance of murder if the conflict falls short war. The difference between wars and conflicts that are not wars would therefore have to be sufficiently significant to explain how the same act could be permissible in the one context but murder in the other.

By what criteria, then, are wars distinguished from other conflicts? A recent op-ed piece in The New York Times by Joshua Goldstein and Steven Pinker noted that “a common definition [of war] picks out armed conflicts that cause at least 1,000 battle deaths a year.” This criterion is, however, merely a matter of scale. Combining it with the idea that different, symmetrical moral principles come into effect in a state of war yields absurd conclusions. The combined claims imply, for example, that all killings committed in a conflict that continues over many years are permissible in those years in which more than 1000 participants are killed but not during those years when fewer than 1000 are killed. Or suppose that in one year of such a conflict, only the aggressors manage to do any killing. Their first 1000 killings are all murders but any killings they do after that are permissible acts of war.

As a matter of law, a war exists whenever one state uses armed force against another, regardless of the scale or duration of the conflict. When this happens, something of considerable legal significance does occur: the law of armed conflict begins to govern belligerent relations between the states. But this is a wholly conventional phenomenon and there is no reason to suppose that what is sufficient to activate a certain body of law automatically activates a different set of moral principles as well.

The truth is that there is no univocal concept of war. There are various different criteria for distinguishing between wars and other forms of armed conflict that are invoked in different contexts and for different reasons. What is notable here is that traditional just war theorists have not advanced any criterion of their own that would make it plausible to suppose that the commencement of war suspends the moral principles that govern other forms of violent conflict and brings quite different principles into effect instead.



The Revisionist Alternative



There are many incoherencies and inconsistencies in the traditional theory of the just war of which those noted in this article are merely a sampling. But the implausibility of the traditional theory should not lead us to conclude that no plausible account of the just war can be given. Revisionist theorists have been working not just to expose the problems with the Theory but also to develop an alternative. The revisionist approach treats war as morally continuous with other forms of violent conflict and therefore rejects the idea that a different morality comes into effect in conditions of war. It asserts that the principles of jus ad bellum apply not only to governments but also to individual soldiers, who in general ought not to fight in wars that are unjust. It denies that jus in bello can be independent of jus ad bellum and therefore concludes that in general it is not possible to fight in a way that is objectively permissible in an unjust war.

As these claims imply, the revisionist account of jus in bello is based on an asymmetrical understanding of the morality of defense. While just combatants are usually justified in attacking unjust combatants, unjust combatants are seldom justified in attacking just combatants. The main exception is when just combatants are acting impermissibly, for example by pursuing their just goals by impermissible means. But the fact that most acts of war by unjust combatants are objectively impermissible does not entail that unjust combatants are blameworthy or deserving of punishment. Revisionists recognize that combatants act under duress and in conditions of factual and moral uncertainty. These mitigating conditions usually diminish their responsibility for the wrongs they do, sometimes making their action wholly excusable (though not objectively justified). Many revisionists, myself included, argue that in current conditions, it would be both unfair and counterproductive to subject soldiers to legal punishment for mere participation in an unjust war.

These revisionists therefore accept that it is necessary, at least at present, for the law of war to retain a code of jus in bello that is symmetrical between just and unjust combatants. They accept, in other words, that the law of war as it applies to combatants must at present diverge not only from morality but also from domestic criminal law, which assigns asymmetrical defensive rights to wrongful aggressors and their potential victims. The principal reasons for this are the absence of a publicly accessible and morally and legally authoritative means of distinguishing between just and unjust wars, and the absence of an impartial, supranational mechanism for enforcing an asymmetrical code. What revisionists hope is that their work can be a source of guidance in establishing new international institutions that will eventually make it possible to reform the law of armed conflict in ways that will bring it into closer congruence with the morality of war.

________________________________________



Jeff McMahan is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. He is the author of “The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life” and “Killing in War.” He has several books forthcoming, including “The Values of Lives,” a collection of essays.


전쟁권 - 위키백과

전쟁권 - 위키백과


전쟁권(Jus ad bellum)이란 한 국가의 국왕대통령총리 등 군통수권자가 국제법상 합법적으로 전쟁을 일으킬 권리이다.

"국제법의 아버지"인 17세기 네덜란드 휴고 그로티우스는 1625년 전쟁과 평화의 법을 저술, "대부분의 사람들은 방어, 자국 소유물의 탈환, 처벌 등 세가지의 경우에 전쟁권(Jus ad bellum)을 인정한다."고 주장했다.
정의로운 전쟁론의 윤리 원칙은 ‘전쟁결정시 충분조건(Jus ad bellum)’과 ‘전쟁수행조건(Jus in bello)’의 두 가지로 구분된다. '정당한 명분(jus ad bellum)', '정당한 수단(jus in bello)', '교전규칙(jus in bello)', '전쟁법(jus in bello)'이라고도 번역한다.
현재 국제법은 침략전쟁을 금지하고, 개인까지도 국제형사재판소에서 처벌하기 때문에, 자위권에 근거한 전쟁만을 합법적이라고 인정한다. 즉, 현재의 국제법상 전쟁권은 자위권을 의미한다고 볼 수 있다. 
그러나 자위권에 근거한 전쟁이 반드시 소극적인 방어전쟁만을 말하는 것은 아니고, 적극적인 침략전쟁, 보복전쟁의 경우도 모두 자위권의 조건을 만족하면, 국제법상 합법적으로 인정한다.

정의로운 전쟁론 - 위키백과

정의로운 전쟁론 - 위키백과

정의로운 전쟁론(라틴어: bellum iustum, 영어: Just War Theory)은 어떤 전쟁이 과연 정당한가에 대한 논란이다. 군사 윤리학으로, 신학자와 윤리학자, 국제 정세와 관여한 입안자들의 연구 대상이며, 논란의 대상이다. 물론 이에 대한 윤리적, 철학적, 정치적으로 공정한 답변을 꼭 찾아야만 할 것이다.

정의로운 전쟁론은 아우구스티누스의 신의 도시(Civitas Dei)의, 로마제국을 침공한 "미개한" 족속들의 반응에서 시작되었다고 보고, "평화주의와 정의로운 전쟁"간의 논쟁으로 이해할 수 있다. 이에 대한 의견은 기독교인과 윤리학자들 사이에서도 분분하다. 정치에서의 현실주의에서도 논의되고 있다.

유엔[편집]

유엔헌장 제42조에 의한 유엔 안보리의 무력사용승인에 의한 전쟁, 제51조에 의한 자위권에 의한 전쟁은 정당한 전쟁으로 국제법상 인정되고 있다. 자위권의 경우에는, 유엔 회원국이 아니더라도, 국제관습법상 자위권이 인정된다. 그 이외의 전쟁은 침략범죄가 되어 국제법 위반이며, 이에 대한 국가책임 이외에, 로마규정에 의해 개인까지 전범으로 형사처벌한다.

같이 보기[편집]

2016/05/01

예수의 정치학, 요더

예수의 정치학,
존 하워드 요더 (지은이) | 신원하 | 권연경 (옮긴이) | 2007-10-08 |
원제 The Politics of Jesus

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신약 윤리학 분야에서 중요한 책으로 평가받는 저작으로서, 정치와 관련된 문제들 그리고 이와 관련된 권력, 신분, 올바른 관계 등의 이슈들에 깊은 관심을 갖고 있었던 한 구세주에게로 우리를 인도한다. 지은이는 누가복음을 개관하면서, 예수의 삶과 사역이 제자들의 사회적 행동에 미친 본질적인 영향을 다룬다.

지은이 존 하워드 요더는 예수의 삶과 사역이 특정한 종류의 기독교 평화주의를 드러내고 있다는 사실, 그리고 ';그리스도의 십자가가 기독교가 추구하는 사회적 효율성의 모범'이 된다는 사실을 설득력 있게 논증하고 있다.

이 번역본은 1994년에 나온 개정판인데, 초판에서 제기했던 주제와 연관된 좀더 최근의 연구들에 대한 논의를 접할 수 있다. 거의 모든 장의 말미에는 지난 20여 년 간 등장한 연구를 요약하는 새로운 ‘후기’가 첨가되어 있는데, 이 글은 지은이가 초판에서 개진했던 통찰들이 여전히 유효함을 말해 주고 있다.
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약어
초판 서문
2판 서문


1장 메시아적 윤리의 가능성

2장 도래하는 하나님 나라

3장 희년의 의미

4장 하나님이 우리를 위해 싸우시리라

5장 비폭력적 저항의 가능성

6장 시산표

7장 그리스도의 제자와 예수의 길

8장 그리스도와 권세

9장 혁명적 복종

10장 모든 영혼은 복종하라: 로마서 13장과 국가의 권위

11장 믿음으로 말미암은 은혜의 칭의

12장 어린 양의 전쟁

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해설

인명 색인

성구 색인

저자 연보

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김두식 (경북대학교 법학전문대학원 교수)

: 한 기독교 평화주의자가 사는 법

김두식 (경북대학교 법학전문대학원 교수)

: 예수님은 더 높은 자리로 올라가 세상 권세를 획득함으로써 하나님 나라를 이루려 하지 않으셨다. 십자가, 제자도, 비폭력, 교회의 교회됨 등 존 요더가 제시하는 예수님의 방법은 욕심에 눈이 멀어 길을 잃은 한국 교회에 분명한 출구를 제시해 줄 것이다. [예수의 정치학]은 위험한 책이다. 이 책을 읽는 여러분의 인생이 결코 어제와 똑같을 리 없는 까닭이다. 단순한 진리의 회복을 통해 나의 인생을 바꾼 이 위험한 책이 여러분의 인생도 바꾸게 되리라 믿는다. - 김두식 교수, 경북대 법학과

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저자 : 존 하워드 요더 (John Howard Yoder)

 최근작 : <그럼에도 불구하고, 평화>,<급진적 제자도>,<비폭력 평화주의의 역사> … 총 53종 (모두보기)

 소개 : 기독교 평화주의에 대한 논의의 시각을 정립하는데 크게 기여한 메노나이트 신학자이며 기독교 윤리학계의 거장이다.

미국 메노나이트 직영신학교인 고센대학을 졸업하고 스위스 바젤대학교에서 칼 바르트의 상당한 영향 아래 박사학위를 받았다.

고센대학과 메노나이트연합성서신학교AMBS와 미국 인디애나주의 노트르담 대학교에서 교수로 재직했으며, 미국 기독교 윤리학회의 회장을 역임했다.
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역자 : 신원하
 최근작 : <죽음에 이르는 7가지 죄>,<교회가 꼭 대답해야 할 윤리 문제들>,<시대의 분별과 윤리적 선택> … 총 10종 (모두보기)

 소개 :
연세대학교 사회학과 고신대 신학대학원에서 공부하고 미국 칼빈신학교에서 기독교 윤리학과 보스톤 대학에서 사회 윤리학을 전공하여 박사학위(Ph. D.)를 받았다. 저서로는 가 있으며, <기독교 윤리와 사회정의>를 편저하였고, J. 다우마의 <개혁주의 윤리학>, 스탠리 그렌츠의 <기독교윤리의 토대와 흐름>을 번역하였다. 2009년 현재 천안에 있는 고려신학 대학원(고신대 ...
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역자 : 권연경
 최근작 : <한국교회 설교, 무엇이 문제인가?>,<세월호와 역사의 고통에 신학이 답하다>,<한국교회, 개혁의 길을 묻다> … 총 17종 (모두보기)

 소개 : 미국 풀러신학대학원 (M.Div.)
미국 예일대학교 (S.T.M.)
영국 킹스칼리지 런던 (Ph.D.)
현)숭실대학교 기독교학 교수

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기독교 사회 윤리의 이정표를 제시한 기독교 평화주의의 고전!

신약 윤리학의 분수령이 된 이 책은, 정치와 관련된 문제들 그리고 이와 관련된 권력, 신분, 올바른 관계 등의 이슈들에 깊은 관심을 갖고 있었던 한 구세주에게로 우리를 인도한다. 요더는 누가복음을 개관하면서 예수의 삶과 사역이 그의 제자들의 사회적 행동에 미친 본질적인 영향을 다루고 있는데, 그것이 특정한 종류의 기독교 평화주의를 드러내고 있다는 사실, 그리고 “그리스도의 십자가가 기독교가 추구하는 사회적 효율성의 모범”이 된다는 사실을 설득력 있게 논증하고 있다. 거의 모든 장의 말미에는 지난 20여 년 간 등장한 연구를 요약하는 새로운 ‘후기’가 첨가되어 있는데, 이들은 요더가 초판에서 개진했던 탁월한 통찰들이 여전히 옳다는 사실을 말해 준다.

[특징]

- 기독교 평화주의 윤리학의 대표작
- 성경에 근거하여 예수의 생애를 정치적으로 이해한 작품
- 2000년 “크리스채너티투데이” 20세기 가장 큰 영향을 끼친 책 10선 중 하나로 선정!

[독자대상]
- 신학생, 목회자, 신학 교수, 평화주의 운동에 관심 있는 이들
- 기독교와 정치의 관계에 관심 있는 이들


Results from the First Australian National Quaker Survey | The Australian Friend

Results from the First Australian National Quaker Survey | The Australian Friend



Feb282015


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Peter Williams – Canberra Regional Meeting

Peter WilliamsBackground
In Britain there have been a number of recent surveys on the beliefs and practices of Quakers. Ben Pink Dandelion ran the first survey in 1990 and some findings from the third survey in 2013 are available here. There have been no comparable attempts to survey Australian Quakers to better understand our shared identity and views about involvement within the Religious Society of Friends.
In July 2014, Standing Committee considered a proposal from a group of Australian Friends to conduct a national survey in Australia, largely based on the questionnaire used in Britain, but with some local modifications. Standing Committee agreed to endorse and encourage participation in the proposed survey, which was conducted from September to November 2014. A summary of the results was presented at Yearly Meeting in January 2015.
This first Australian National Quaker Survey aimed to survey all Members and Attenders of our Regional Meetings to answer several overarching questions:
  • What leads people to consider Membership of the Society?
  • What are the shared beliefs, practices and values held by Quakers in Australia?
  • How do these beliefs, practices and values compare with those found in the British surveys?
  • Are there generational differences amongst Quakers in Australia, in relation to patterns of belief and practice?
A questionnaire was created for completion online. However, recognising that not all members have Internet access, the survey was also made available in a paper-based format. Peter Williams from CRM volunteered to be the primary researcher and coordinator of the project. A survey Working Group provided oversight of the project, and advice and guidance to the survey coordinator, with the following members: Topsy Evans and Kerry O’Regan (from SANTRM) and Ronis Chapman, Christine Larkin, Erica Fisher and Geoffrey Ballard (from CRM).
An article about the survey was included in the AYM Secretary’s newsletter in August 2014, and in the first week of September, a personal invitation to complete the questionnaire was sent by email to all JYFs, YFs and adult Members and Attenders on the AYM membership list. Each Regional Meeting Clerk was also sent a notice about the survey for inclusion in local newsletters and notices. A total of 378 questionnaires were completed, giving an overall response rate of 20%, compared to the total AYM membership. With this number of responses, the percentage results should be accurate ± 5%, with a confidence level of 95%. The respondents closely matched the overall Australian membership by gender and regional meeting location.
Results
The full 146-page report of the first summary of results is now available on the members’ section of the Quaker Australia website and also here.
There has been no attempt in the first report to conduct sub-group analyses of the results by age, gender, regional meeting or beliefs; this may be undertaken at a later date. The findings confirm that there is a wide diversity of views and experience amongst Australian Friends that is not easily captured in simple summaries. In particular there is a rich source of commentary provided by Friends and presented in the 27 Appendices (over 100 pages and 51,000 words) that are worthy of much more detailed consideration.
However, if the Friends who responded to the survey are representative of the total population of Friends in Australia, a few tentative conclusions may be drawn from the results:
Demographic description
  • Most Australian Friends are aged over 50 years, highly educated and from an Anglo-Australian cultural background.
Initial experiences
  • Most Friends (85%) have a Christian upbringing, 14% have a non-religious background, and 1% come from a non-Christian upbringing
  • More than half of Friends join Quakers after the age of 40 years
  • The lack of religious dogma, the form of worship, and testimonies are the key issues that attract new members to Quakers
  • A significant proportion of Friends are Attenders. The choice to remain Attenders, rather than pursue Membership, is not primarily based on disagreements about religious beliefs; these Friends may consider application for Membership if encouraged to do so by other Friends
Quaker practice
  • Belonging to a community of like-minded people and the practice of silent worship are the main factors that keep Friends coming to Meeting
  • More than 60% of Friends say that in Meeting for Worship they are listening, meditating, being with others in the Spirit, thinking or waiting. Only 13% say they are worshipping God
  • One fifth of Friends have never spoken in Meeting
  • Only half of Friends agree that they are seeking the will of God in Meetings for Worship for Business
  • Most Friends (79%) feel their primary connection is with their local Meeting, but significant proportions also feel a strong connection with Yearly Meeting (24%) and the world family of Friends (19%)
  • Around one in five Friends do not contribute financially to their Regional meeting
Religious beliefs
  • Almost all Friends (95%) describe themselves as spiritual people to some extent
  • Most Friends call themselves Quakers but only one third call themselves Christians
  • 62% of Friends believe in God, 13% do not, and 25% are uncertain or unable to answer
  • Of those who believe in God, most describe this term as The Inward Light, Love, A Life Force or Spirit, and not a being
  • Those who do not believe in God have developed a range of alternative words to substitute when traditional religious terms are used. It may be worth exploring the impact of this on the 15% of members who identify as non-theists
  • Friends strongly accept that Quakers can be helped in their spiritual journey by hearing about the religious experience of other groups
  • Almost half (48%) of Friends always or often seek God’s guidance for important decisions
  • 31% of Friends say they pray daily or more often
  • 31% of Friends believe in life after death, but more than half (52%) have no belief in this, nor in spirits, heaven, or miracles
  • More than half of all Friends see Jesus as a spiritual or ethical teacher, and “containing that of God within as we all do”. Few view him as the Son of God (13%) or Saviour (10%)
  • More than half of Friends participate in a spiritual nurture group, or other support groups
  • The activities that Friends undertake to deepen their spiritual life include participating in a spiritual nurture group (59%), serving on Meeting committees (53%), attending Meeting for Learning in their own meeting (37%), or attending a course at Silver Wattle (32%)
  • 14% of Friends with traditional Christian/theist beliefs, and 10% of Friends with non-traditional beliefs feel uncomfortable or out of place in their Meeting
Ideas about the world
  • 48% of Friends firmly agree that breaking the law can be morally justified in certain circumstances, while 13% firmly disagree
  • A significant minority of Friends (16%) believe violence can be justified in some circumstances, and concerns about pacifism were noted by several Friends as a reason for not applying for Membership
  • Friends are much more concerned about environmental issues than the Australian population in general (94% vs 62%), with 57% of Friends rating themselves as very concerned
  • Friends are much more likely than most Australians to have taken action on environmental issues; more than 60% have signed a petition or donated money to help protect the environment in the last 12 months, versus 13% of the Australian population in general.
Next steps
The next stage in analysis of these findings will be to compare the results with those from the recent British survey, and prepare these for submission for publication in the journal Quaker Studies.
Furthermore, 191 respondents volunteered to participate in follow-up interviews. While there are no plans or resources to extend the study further now, interviews could be valuable to provide more insight into some of the views expressed by Friends in these results.
The Survey Coordinator and the Survey Working Group thank everyone who participated in the survey and we hope that all Friends will find the results useful in their personal reflections and in planning activities in regional Meetings.
1


 2 Responses to “Results from the First Australian National Quaker Survey”


  1. Hi Peter
    One question I’ve had about the survey is what respondents might have meant by “Attend Meeting for Learning in my own meeting.” The only activity that I know of, with the name Meeting for Learning, is the QLA Meeting for Learning, which has also been listed in Table 36 below. If you do eventually contact those respondents who are willing to do follow-up interviews, I’d love to get this sorted out! If only 19% have participated in the QLA Meeting for Learning, then it’s impossible for 37% to have participated within their own meeting! Thanks for any clarification.
    Table 36. Activities to deepen spiritual life (n=303)
    Survey responses
    Participate in a spiritual nurture group/mutual support group 59% Serve on Meeting committees 53% Attend Meeting for Learning in my own meeting 37% Attend course at Silver Wattle Quaker Centre 32% Follow Quaker or other websites (see Appendix 9 for details) 24% Attend courses at Quaker centres in other countries 23% Participate in a QLA Meeting for Learning retreat 19% Additional responses from 115 Friends are summarised in
    Appendix 24

  2. Dear Sue
    Thanks for your interest and comments. Perhaps the question in the survey (question 46) was not clear enough. It offered seven options for answers to the question: What else have you done to deepen your spiritual life and/or knowledge of Quaker faith and practice. Respondents could check multiple responses.
    Two of the answers were:
    * Participate in QLA Meeting for Learning retreat
    * Attend Meetings for Learning in my own meeting.
    I suspect the larger number of people who answered this second option were referring to a whole range of different educational and learning activities in their local meetings, not related to the QLA option. That is, they interpreted “Meeting for Learning” very broadly.
    There are no immediate plans to do follow up interviews, but if we do so, I’ll make sure we explore that further.

Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Facets): Walter Wink: 9780800636098: Amazon.com: Books

Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Facets): Walter Wink: 9780800636098: Amazon.com: Books

More than ever, Walter Wink believes, the Christian tradition of nonviolence is needed as an alternative to the dominant and death-dealing "powers" of our consumerist culture and fractured world. In this small book Wink offers a precis of his whole thinking about this issue, including the relation of Jesus and his message to politics and nonviolence, the history of nonviolent efforts, and how nonviolence can win the day when others don't hesitate to resort to violence or terror to achieve their aims.
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Top Customer Reviews

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A radical Jesus
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We have all been fooled! That was the feeling I had when I put down Jesus and Nonviolence. Jesus is not the weak, nonpolitical, do not rock the boat-kind of guy that they talk about in church. The Bible researcher Walter Wink shows with clarity how Jesus both gave examples and himself acted very politically to change the society he was living in. He challenged the rules and the laws of his day's powers. He acted powerfully against the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and he questioned the unlawful occupation of his land. There were others that did this before him. The difference was that they used violence to protest against the occupation. Jesus acted with loving nonviolence. He challenged the injustices but always with respect for the other. Wink goes on to show us that the ideas and methods of nonviolence are very alive also today, actually more than any time before. Only in 1989-90 there were fourteen nations that underwent nonviolent revolutions, all of them successful except China. In this thin book Wink has given me a whole new view of Christianity, has strengthened my belief in nonviolence and has given me hope for a nonviolent future. Quite an accomplishment for a 117-pages book!
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By C.J.A. on September 1, 2004

I carry a copy of this little book with me wherever I go, and I've reread it many times with great enjoyment. This is an essential introduction to the nonviolent way of Jesus for all Christians, including great commentary on relevant biblical passages and invaluable guidance for respecting the dignity of one's "opponents." It makes a super gift.
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If you are considering or committed to the way of nonviolence and searching for firm footing in the actual practice of peace and reconciliation, read this book. As always, Wink is challenging, creative, convincing, and compelling. The many stories he tells to illustrate his points are quite interesting and practical.

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A good interpretation of the Christian basis for nonviolence.
By James G. Williams on September 2, 2005

Walter Wink here gives a fine overview and simplification of his thinking on the topic of nonviolence as presented in his various scholarly studies of the New Testament topics of the principalities and powers and the Son of Man. It gives new life to turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, and love of enemies. It is especially appropriate for classes and small groups of laypeople who have only an elementary background in biblical studies.

For heartier fare on this issue that is at the heart of Christian faith and life one may turn to Wink's trilogy on The Powers. For comparable or related works I highly recommend John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus and William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and the Eucharist. One lack in this little monograph is that Wink doesn't mention the work of René Girard on desire and violence, although he has taken note of it in The Powers.
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This is a classic of Nonviolence in Christian tradition. Whereas some books on Nonviolence from a Christian perspective often stray from the mark, Walter Wink brings us back over and over again to the Nonviolent core of Jesus' message. He also shows us how that message has been watered-down and misunderstood. Wink writes with conviction, passion, and personal experience as an international proponent of Nonviolent resistance. Highly recommended!!
-Amos Smith (author of Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity's Mystic Roots)
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Awsome little book!
By R. Ross on January 13, 2008

This book was first introduced to me through a Wilmington College (Ohio) class on Quakerism and the Peace Testimony. It affirmed my beliefs that we have no right to kill other people, no matter what. Jesus was a radical, and understanding the context of his teachings help to make them clearer to our culture today. As a Christian (and now following the Quaker testimonies), I don't understand how someone who believes Jesus is Christ can kill another human being, when he states that we are to "love (respect) our enemies." This little book shows how nonviolent revolutions solve political problems in the long run, much more often than violent ones do, yet people still believe that nonviolence in passive and cowardly. This is a book that every Christian should read.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughtful and can be provocative
By Frank Coats on December 30, 2015

This is a thoughtful, can be provocative look at Jesus'teaching on non-violence. It helps answer a question that shoukd bother everyone: if Jesus was so nice and sweet why did anyone want o kill him? Walter Wink was a sharp theologian and this kindle version is excellent.

Wages of Rebellion (9781568589664): Chris Hedges: Books

Wages of Rebellion (9781568589664): Chris Hedges

Wages of Rebellion – May 12, 2015

by Chris Hedges (Author)



Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges—who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class—investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges’ message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.



Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as “sublime madness” — the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this “sublime madness.”



From South African activists who dedicated their lives to ending apartheid, to contemporary anti-fracking protests in Alberta, Canada, to whistleblowers in pursuit of transparency, Wages of Rebellion shows the cost of a life committed to speaking the truth and demanding justice. Hedges has penned an indispensable guide to rebellion.

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Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsFabulous Tapestry of Perspectives on Revolution, Rebels, & Whistle-Blowers!

By Mary Bull on June 1, 2015

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

With his usual brilliance and wonderful ability to draw parallels in literature and philosophy, Hedges educates his readers on the historical prerequisites for revolution and signs of degenerating power structures--shot through with inspiring stories, historical details, and quotes that stir blood and imagination. As usual, he understands the power structure that civil society, especially activists, are up against now, and describes it in compelling, expressive detail. His conclusions seem a bit muddled in the last 50 pages, which mayhave been written in haste, with the result that "divine madness" loses its exact meaning and edge.... Hence 4 out of the usual 5 stars.



This review, Might be regarded as cooperation with the power elite, as Amazon wants it to sell more books. But like Hedges, whose act of publishing could also be regarded as capitulation, I give it to encourage people to read the book and to challenge radical evil, the Corporate State.

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5.0 out of 5 starsA total must read for all citizens of the planet!

By Lady of the Foothills on June 2, 2015

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

This is a book everyone should read. I would have loved to have had this book as required reading in college. Lots of history, well documented. I always look for a good Index and bibliography. This book has all that and more. This is a book to be read not only by citizens of the US but the rest of the world as well. Chris Hedges is a highly respected author who researches his books thoroughly. Wages of Rebellion is no exception to that rule. The introduction alone will take your breath away. I'm buying more copies to send to friends and family. Congratulations to Hedges for an excellent book!

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4.0 out of 5 starsOne of America's most creative thinkers.

By Future Watch Writer on May 13, 2015

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Chris Hedges is one of the most creative minds in America today. I don't always agree with him. I think he is too negative about the Democratic Party. However, he is right on target in seeing America and the world on a road to disaster if things don't change. I've read most of his books and his columns in Truthdig. The full force of Hedges scorn is directed at the U.S. liberal establishment. He even wrote a book about the "liberal class". Today, we are told that "everybody" in the Democratic Party "must support" Hillary Clinton, the favorite candidate of Wall Street and a leading cheer leader for going to war in Iraq. As Secretary of State Hillary was the leading advocate for America's disastrous military inventions in Libya and Syria. If the Democrats really do nominate Hillary, then Hedges may be right.



Chris Hedges is an experienced journalist who was worked in key trouble spots overseas. Unlike Washington D.C.'s war mongering foreign policy "experts", he actually speaks foreign languages and understands foreign nations.



Buy this book. You may not like a lot of what you read. But this is a creative mind. Hillary is now talking up restarting a new Cold War with Russia. Her key foreign policy advisor, Mr. Kagan, is a close ally of right wing neo conservatives. Iraq cost us $3 trillion and one million dead Iraqi citizens. Hillary's policies have already killed 300,000 in Syria.



America needs more honest people like Hedges. Hopefully, his ideas can save the Democratic Party and the world from Hillary and other war mongers and plutocrats. I would also strongly recommend that people follow his column on Truthdig to keep up on current events.



I would suggest for further reading a book Hedges frequently quotes from, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. This shows how our civil liberties are being reduced by a ruling elite. Also check out Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield by one of America's best investigative journalists about what American foreign policy is up to overseas. These books have a similar theme to Hedges work, the increasingly ruthless policies of the people at the top in a failing system.

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5.0 out of 5 starsUtterly Brilliant with One Proposed Flaw and Some Minor Oversights

By Robert David STEELE Vivas HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER on May 10, 2015

Format: Hardcover

EDIT of 11 Aug 2015: Oath Keepers matters and this book by Chris Hedges is a testimonial to the importance of what Oath Keepers represents. Oath Keepers' basic mission: to remind every serving and prior member of every US law enforcement and military and civil service element that they have sworn an Oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I personally believe that Oath Keepers has made a difference and elevated our consciousness on this point.



I am a huge fan of Chris Hedges and consider Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle one of his most interesting works, a real complement to David Korten's The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.



This book can be seen as a logical follow on to The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, among other works.



This is a five star book with one major point: revolutions don't succeed from mass power, they succeed when mass power is no longer confronted by the armed power of the state because the individual soldiers and police stop defending the status quo. Since I myself have studied revolution extensively, and < Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today > is easily found online, I am both impressed by the author's blend of journo-scholarship, and a tad disappointed that he missed some key bits.



There is in my view one proposed flaw in the author's thinking, his call for mobilizing us to force the elites into panic. That is in my humble opinion as a life-long student of revolution, the worst possible thing we could strive for. While the author is an extraordinary gifted intellect, and he may be calling for this precisely to put Oath Keepers and others "on the spot" so they will "turn" against the elite and for We the People, I believe his leadership on this point needs to be adjusted. I briefed Occupy NYC on Electoral Reform (the 6 minute YouTube is still popular) and went on the develop -- after running briefly for President precisely to attract inputs from across the country -- the BigBatUSA.org concept for retiring the two-party tyranny (see Theresa Amato's superb Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny and have since published an eight point plan for achieving OpenPower -- Electoral Reform in 2015 -- in time to elect an Independent ticket and a coaltion cabinet in 2016. That, in my view, is where the author and MoveOn and Facebook and Tom Steyer and others need to end up.



The elite need an exit strategy - Truth & Reconciliation is the way to go. If dynamic personalities such as Chris Hedges and Tom Steyer could combine forces, there is no question in my mind but that we could get Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Angus King to introduce the Electoral Reform Act of 2015 to Congress; we could Occupy the front lawns and home officers of every Senator and Representative over the summer recess, and we could achieve a non-violent revolution by November 2015 in time for November 2016.



As Sun Tzu puts it so well, the acme of skill is to defeat the enemy without fighting. In my view, the author has offered us a brilliant analysis of the past and a flawed prescription for the future, one that will cost us blood, treasure, and spirit and fail to produce the restoration of integrity to our electoral process, government, economy, and society that we are capable of achieving without violence.



I have posted an online essay and blurbs with links to over 100 core book reviews here at Amazon on the topic of Democracy Lost [and how to get it back.] It is easily found at Tiny URL forward slash Steele-Reform. Five more books here within my ten book limit:



Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America

Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism

Extreme Democracy

Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

The Big Disconnect: Why the Internet Hasn't Transformed Politics (Yet)



Best wishes to all,

Robert David STEELE Vivas

Open Power: Electoral Reform Act of 2015 - Open Source Activist Tool-Kit

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2016/04/30

*Episode 8: Just War Theory and The Americanization of Armistice Day | Oklatopia

*Episode 8: Just War Theory and The Americanization of Armistice Day | Oklatopia
November 10 by oklatopia




“We perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices.” 


Lukus and Hunter observe Veterans Day by recalling its origins as Armistice Day, 
intended as “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace,” 
and by outlining the essentials of Just War Theory with the help 
of the Catholic Catechism. 

Emphasizing the importance of just means as well as just ends, 
the guys discuss the legal, moral, and social consequences of war, 
and the sticky implications for Christians in the military. 
They consider the ramifications of only remembering war’s military victims 
while neglecting the goal of peace.
--