When Meaning Well Is Not Quite Enough

Thursday, 13 February 2003

(Part 3 of "Gummo Trotsky on Just War Theory". See also: Part 1, Part 2.)

The general thrust of the requirement for right intention is that we go to war for the sake of justice itself rather than national self-interest. This immediately invites a narrow reading of the criterion which excludes any justification which is "tainted" by considerations of national interest: this is often the implicit basis of the "It's all about oil" argument. To consider the issue of right intention in such a narrow way ignores the possibility that the national interest may coincide with the cause of justice without compromising it. It also makes the unrealistic assumption that ethical action is impossible without absolute purity of ethical intent. The challenge is to recognise, given that most human actions proceed from a variety of motivations, whether the ethical intent is the dominant consideration. In the political debate around war on Iraq a lot of effort has been put into rallying support for the war on the basis that, in the long run, it will liberate the Iraqi people which is an ethical purpose. However, if the dominant intent is something else, this argument in favour of war deserves to be rejected until its proponents can come up with a credible case that this is our major goal and that we can achieve it without an unacceptable level of "collateral damage", assuming that there is such a thing as an acceptable level of "collateral damage" and that this can be defined.

The issue is further complicated by the existence of motivations which do taint right intention: in the case of war these include hatred, blood-thirst, the desire for revenge or the goal of instilling fear in one's enemies. These are all, recognisably the taints of terrorism and anyone who advocates war on any of these grounds is, quite simply, a terrorist. In saying this I am transgressing against the normal code of civility which would require that I use such weasel words as "no better than" or "no different to" and so on but there is little point in attempting to make this assertion palatable to those who may think themselves, or their favourite politicians, on the wrong end of it: to advocate the use of atrocity and fear as rightful means for achieving political goals is to advocate terrorism. It should be possible to state this position without every reader leaping to the conclusion that I am accusing George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard et al of being terrorists but no doubt there is someone out there who will make this intuitive leap.

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