War ... where theology meets politics

Dan Smith, who in the 1980s was a prominent activist in the movement for nuclear disarmament, has just published a blog post which analyses Barack Obama's intellectual debt to the just war theory, in the U.S. president's acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.Smith notes

The Just War tradition is prevalent to a degree many people do not notice and it is perhaps surprisingly durable. Any time you think of a specific action in a war as unjustified, any time you name something as an atrocity, or criticise forces for causing civilian casualties, or for treating prisoners inhumanely, you are – knowingly or not - drawing on the Just War tradition. It is, therefore, one of the intellectual and moral currents that shape the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement and humanitarianism in general as well as the ideas underlying International Humanitarian Law, which used to be known as the Laws of War. Likewise if you criticise war or an act of war as aggressive, or lacking in proper authority, or as aimed at securing power and wealth rather than defending a territory and its people, you are – knowingly or not - drawing on the Just War tradition. It is, therefore, one of the intellectual and moral currents that shaped the United Nations and the legal idea that a war of self-defence is justified but a war of aggression is a crime against humanity. In fact, Just War so imbues our thinking on what is right and wrong in war that much of what it’s about has the status of commonsense.And while the Just War tradition as such is very much a Christian tradition, similar distinctions have long been influential in Islam.

Smith then applies the so-called "just war" criteria (listed in his blog post) to the US war in Afghanistan, and then comes to the conclusion that, "I seem to be arguing that while the US and allied war effort was morally valid at the outset and in principle, the practice of warfare as it has unfolded has raised disturbing questions".

Smith's post, however, is not the only attempt to link Obama's speech to theological antecedents.As well as the just war tradition, a number of commentators have also pointed out Obama’s intellectual debt to the theological and ethical legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr:

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/obamas-peace-prize-speech-prompts-debate-on-ethics-of-war/?cHash=8ae03e7576

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/opinion/15brooks.html?_r=1