Dr. Tony Beam Christian Blog and Commentary

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The War on Terror: Just War or Just a War?

  • Tony Beam Dr. Tony Beam's Weblog
  • Published Jan 16, 2006

Since 911, most people in the United States and now in other western countries have been awakened to the fact we are in a war against terrorism which threatens our very survival.  Our enemy is well organized, cunninng, resourceful, elusive, and most of all, ruthless.  They have demonnstrated time and again their willingess (even eagerness) to sacrifice their very lives for the sake of killing the enemy.  They understand all too well what makes America tick.  They know the very political system we depend on as a free nation, because it is freedom based in vulnurable to a public relations attack.  They know how to manipulate the political climate in the West by pittinng the two dominant philosophies (left and right) against each other bringing confusion and a lack of focus on the goal of winning the war.

Before we went to war in Iraq, questions were raised from a Christian Worldview perspective about whether invading Iraq would violate the West's understanding of the Just War Theory.  Since we are already in Iraq and we are obviously engaged in a desparate war against the terrorists who would destory us, there is no need to rehash the original decision to go to war.  I beleive the President's decision to go to war was correct and I believe his decision was based on the principles of the Just War Theory. 

But what about the present?  Now that we are at war in Iraq, Afghanastan, and around the world wherever we find terrorists operating can it be said that we are conducting this war according to that theory?  The CIA Drone based bombing of three buildings