Reflections on the Legitimacy of War essays

Reflections on the Legitimacy of War essays In Rawls' writing on war, it is evident that he only sees war as "just" if it is a war of self-defense. The military works together to protect each other as a whole, and they try their hardest to keep the peace even with their own enemies. The civilian population is never responsible for the war. The elite class is the only one to declare a war and have control over all things regarding the war, such as manufacturing ammunition. The civilians of a non-democracy have no control or say over the elite and are therefore trapped in the war, not by choice. Civilians are victims, and should not be held responsible. The only time a civilian should be shot is if he or she is a soldier fighting against your own soldiers. Soldiers often are considered victims also because they did not choose to be in war and killing others. Rawls maintains it is imperative to treat everyone with respect, upholding his or her human rights. Rawls claims one should not go into war with the intention to kill anyon e and should only kill if one is saving the lives of many more. Rawls says it is justifiable to wipe out a great number of innocent civilians only if the intention of the military is to aim at the enemy's military base. If the military was to just come in and invade the enemy and harm solely civilian lives, it would be entirely unacceptable. Truman was justified in bombing Hiroshima because he thought that by doing so, he was saving a mass amount of American lives. For this, he sacrificed the lives of Japanese civilians. The lives of the US military were deemed more important than that of the Japanese civilians. This is thought acceptable, but it would have been more acceptable to try to negotiate between the two nations first. At this time, human rights for other nations were not chief concerns politically or militarily in comparison to the rights of Americans. During wartime, it is never understandable to kill mass amounts of innocent citizens. ...