[Peace-discuss] Obama Invokes "Just War, " But Is the War in Afghanistan "Just"?

[Ed Mandel]

President Obama gave the wrong speech this morning. He should have graciously thanked the Nobel committee for awarding him with this honor but that he has to refuse to accept it on principle. The speech would have taken all of 2 minutes & it would have revealed him as a man with character. Instead, he invokes a "Just War" concept, that I believe in, but applying it to the current US military conflicts tests my credulity to its limit. I think this speech makes the President look foolish. 

With the year coming to an end, the one great accomplishment President Obama can be proud of was the "Beer Summit". He was able to resolve the differences between a white police officer & an African American professor. I certainly look forward to what he will accomplish next year with avid anticipation.

*********************************************** 

> Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:26:44 -0500
> From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com
> To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Obama Invokes "Just War,	" But Is the War in Afghanistan "Just"?
> 
> Obama Invokes "Just War," But Is the War in Afghanistan "Just"?
> 
> "Accepting Peace Prize, Obama Evokes 'Just War,'" notes the headline
> in the New York Times, referring to President Obama's speech accepting
> the Nobel Peace Prize. President Obama did indeed invoke the concept
> of a "just war." But tellingly, he did not try to argue that the U.S.
> war in Afghanistan meets the criteria to be judged as a "just war."
> 
> A plausible explanation for the President's failure to argue that the
> war in Afghanistan is a "just war" is that he recognizes that such an
> argument would not be convincing.
> 
> As President Obama noted in his speech, there are criteria involved in
> the "just war" concept. It isn't just a matter of proclaiming that a
> war is justified. There are tests.
> 
> This matters, because a substantial part of the U.S. and world
> population subscribes to the theory of "just war." In particular, more
> than a fifth of the U.S. population are estimated to identify as
> Catholics. The concept of "just war" - that wars can be considered
> "just" only if they meet certain criteria - is an official doctrine of
> the Catholic Church.
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/obama-invokes-just-war-bu_b_387231.html
> 
> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/10/121056/05
> 
> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/426
> 
> 
> --
> Robert Naiman
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live Hotmail is faster and more secure than ever.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/hotmail_bl1/hotmail_bl1.aspx?ocid=PID23879::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-ww:WM_IMHM_1:092009
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20091210/091e7b89/attachment.html