History has shown us that there were wars in different parts of the world. These wars were fought for superiority reasons or simply to defend a society or community.
These conflicts arose from slightest reasons. While most were considered justifiable, it has been argued that war can never be justified.
Literally, war can be seen as a fight between countries or groups of people. War involves the use of weapons and these are used by organised soldiers or trained civilians to defend or fight to conquer a country or group. War is carried out with utmost force by a group or nation to enforce its rights on the other nation or group.
While war is generally considered to be evil, some scholars have argued that some wars can be just. While they are at it, they also argue that certain things must be met for such war to be a just war.
The major proponent of this view is St Augustine of Hippo. The aim of this view is to tie war to ethics such that war can be within ethics and be morally justified.
For a war to be considered just, certain criteria must be met. Two criteria were actually listed which must be present before going into a just war and they are right to go to war and right conduct in war.
For the right to go to war, the moral reasons to go into war must be valid and looked into before a war begins.
For the second, it focuses on things that must be done ethically while in war. For instance, rape cannot occur during such exercise.
So we all know that war is terrible and takes lives. The proponents of this view did not deny that fact, however, they believe that with the right conduct and morality guiding those in war, it's not the worst option to pick when considering how to defend your nation or group.
Like the saying, heavy lies the head that wears the crown. The Just War proponents believe that there is a great responsibility on the person calling the shot for war. And as such, the person knows the outcome would be undesirable considering the death that would follow such incident.
However, it may be necessary to also prevent atrocities that will befall a nation or group who did not choose the path of just war to defend their nations or groups.
While this looks good on the surface and considering the fact that ethics serves as the guiding principle in a just war, it has been rejected and criticised by many scholars.
The critics of the above claim, argue that there can never be any logical argument to justify reasons for going into war.
We know that there is always a post war effect. Whether ethical or not, certain things would be carried out in a war. Lives would definitely be taken.
How would these people feel knowing fully well that they took 'innocent' lives in their course of defending their group or nation?
What will be the result of such nation or group as to dealing with the settlement and reconstruction of individuals in a post war community?
Is there no logical reason to assume these people will also morally justified their reasons to rebel against same group or nation if they see certain things that propelled them to go for war in the first place happening in the state or group they defended?
While it looks like the proponents of this view are only trying to justify killing, i think no amount of logic or reason can justify why a group or nation should go into war.
This is why we have diplomats. Diplomacy should be adopted, compromise should be reached and other options should be considered. War, should (in practice) never be an option whether just war or unjust war.
It should be noted however that war is war. All the wars recorded in history occurred with many lives and properties loss.
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