Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: I think the more fundamental question that we need to look at is should there be even a difference between a holy war and just war that we should be concerned about as opposed to war itself. And the more basic question of is war ever just, is war ever holy and to see how our commitment to war, the necessity of war which is based in a consciousness of fear helps us again to language and use language in ways that justify our behaviors as correct and proper as -- and behaviors of others as incorrect and improper. But the more fundamental thing that we need to look at is whether or not war itself is ever a just, proper way to resolve differences. And to work through challenges and disagreements that we may have. And I think we need to make more of a commitment to understand and see the ways that we can work together cooperatively, join hands, and to divest ourselves of our investment in the machineries and mechanisms of war and put our energies behind learning, studying, and utilizing the ways of peace.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I don´t believe that there is something like a holy war. That is a strange invention. What does it mean, holy war? This should be a war in favour of god. I am not so sure that god is wishing for wars, against whomever. This is an invention of mankind to justify aggressive wars. So, there is nothing like a holy war, I don´t believe in it. A justified war, yes, you would call that a war in self-defence. If a country defends itself against enemies, it wages a justified war. When the Nazis attacked their neighbouring countries and those countries defended themselves, they lead a justified war. This is a typical classical example. But when fundamentalists in the arabic world want to attack someone and try to justify this, they say that they are leading a holy war, i.e. they are doing this for god or in gods name, this is hypocrisy or even much worse. And sometimes there are wars, "normal" ones for nationalistic aggressive reasons, which are defined as holy wars by the politicians who started the war, for reasons of propaganda or "advertisement", in modern terms. This has nothing to do with reality. There is no such thing as a holy war.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Self-defense and humanitarian intervention redefined, war is being redefined as well. A holy war and a just war, a war, it's like everyone fights for different causes. For those fighting on the side of the holy war, it is coming from within; it is coming from their spirit, it is the Jihad. It is the apex of a religious succession of evolution and that this is it. If you’re going to die, if the end of your life is coming, you must make it just, it must be holy, it must be sacred. So even a just war it can be a holy war. Who’s defining the holy war? This question is coming from Berlin, Germany, if this is coming from someone in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq; those that are fighting for say a holy war. I suppose that those are fighting for a just war. Man, is any war just? Is any war holy? What is holy? That’s spiritual succession of life and death and if you go to die but that what which you believe is holy, for that what you believe is just. It would be better if wasn’t for war, but for that which is holy and is just. Non-violence as opposed to violence. We need to stop killing each other to see what is holy. We all have our belief story; we all have our reasons for living, and for some, war is the means of their expression. Just war? This war is just [audio ends]

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas:

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: I think we use the word war too freely. You talk about the war on terrorism which is largely a police action. When we talk about the war on drugs, when the proper response to drug problems is more about treating it as an illness. These things aren’t wars. A just war, I think there are very few just wars. A holy war, what a terrible idea. So I think we have to be careful to not use this word war so much and to realize what these things are is often not about a war, an armed conflict, it’s about other things and we’re using it just because of the strong imagery that it provides. I hope we don’t have any holy wars. And I hope we don’t go along believing that there are just wars cause there are very few.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: There is no holy war and there is no justified war! War is evil that can always be escaped if there are people good willing to solve there controversies, conflicts and problems in peaceful way. Holy war is something specially perfidy there it uses religion as a base for payoffs with those who have deferent belief of our own. Starting from Christian wars to the ethnic cleanings in Bosnia and Kosovo, its all comes down to the extermination of the people of other religion, nation or ethnic group. Justified war is also a flowerily phrase that beers justification of armed conflicts in the name (for the sake) of higher goals. But who is going to ascertain this justice in which name the war is being fought?

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Well, war is just that. It’s just war. War is never holy. In fact, the concept of a holy war it’s oxymoron really. But these are conflicts arising out of our deepest fears about survival and humanitarian intervention, I believe, is the only hope for the future here; intervention and prevention. These are the keys to a peaceful war and this is truly what holiness is about. Holiness comes from that same notion of wholeness. Again, when human beings are experiencing their own inner wholeness, it’s impossible for them to appreciate holiness or wholeness out in the outer world. So, basically, I would say that when people are at war within themselves based upon this lack of integration with themselves, and that’s all of us most of the time I would suggest, then unless we win the war inside of our own heads there’s no way that we’re going to make a difference out in the world. Again, as a form of last resort, you understand why war does happen and it’s in a way a collective release of stress. But my God, war is never holy.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Catherine David: I'm not sure if war , self-defense, auto-defense and the case of auto-defense are redefined in such a way. There are still real cases of auto-defense but I also think that there are not only just wars which are waged. Today the holy wars are nearly the same thing as the wars Bush waged, as those are as irrational and as pseudo- religious as the wars of Al Quaida. So we have to redefine those things or to feel a little bit responsable and to consider the implications of the words but I think that the holy war...the american war is a holy war.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: For example, in Africa where some presidents or in Asia where some presidents or everywhere in the Third World where presidents don't want to leave power, they create other groups. And in creating other groups because they want to stay in power. They call them terrorists. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to tell the just war and the holy war. But also, I think that we should look very close to those small groups to learn why they are fighting before we call them terrorism, before we call it holy war. We should be very sure and on truth and fairness and instead of again using the same method that they are using, we should begin to find another tactic ways, because you can't take out fire with fire. I think at the moment we are wasting so much resources on unnecessary and unwanted things than focusing on how to solve such a problem, because expanding and expanding and soon it will leave a lot of damage and a lot of destruction, a lot of wounds. And this just war could spread to Africa, to Asia, to everywhere and at the end it's not only based on religion or anything, but anyone who has nothing to do. And if also those people who like to control others are benefiting a lot because it's easy for them to find lonely people and gather them to their groups, fighting for nothing.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: These are relative concepts, holy war and the fair war. War is in the sense never reasonable. War leads to victory and victory doesn’t lead to peace, when it is now a so-called 'holy war' or a 'just war'. Can there be 'just war' on earth, such as the war of the American against the nationalsocialistic Germany? This is a question, which is not only philosophical but also political. As said at the beginning, one can only understand the militant arguments of their cosmic or also cosmological recondite meaning. If one notices that from the myth, from the myth history, from the religion history the superordinate cosmological metaphors, pictures, conceptions of the world, [integrated] argument come together, so that the military or political argument is actually a result of the cosmic warfare. In fact, there wouldn’t be 'just war', unless human rights were damaged. For example, it is necessary to resist in the nationalsocialistic Germany or also against the communistic dictatorship in Soviet Russia. Each concept for the right of a holy war and each believe that it is a 'just war', but these are not absolute, but relative expressions without truth content. The cosmic war, the superordinate spirit-historical, myth-historical ground of military arguments, has been known much too few so far. Nuclear energy in this sense is also something like atomic energy, like a cosmic divergence, so perhaps one can say and understand this conflict from the recondite position, from the myth-histories, which enables one to differentiate better between so-called 'just war' and 'holy war'. The 'holy war' is always a mythical dimension, but there is the question about the 'just war', against dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile or in the nationalsocialistic Germany, which is a matter of others.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Cornel West: I cannot conceive of a defensible, persuasive or a convincing conception of a holy war. The category itself is oxymoronic; that which is holy has to do with peace. Like Erasmus makes his point in his complaint of peace, his classic of 15th, 16th. On the other hand, a just war can, in fact, be defended. The attempt to overthrow the apartheid regime in South Africa could, in fact, have been the occasion for a just war. The system was that vicious. Here we are in Bebelplatz in Berlin, where 70 years ago there was a just war against a vicious, factious, anti-Semitic regime of Hitler. Even that just war was not a holy war, but it was a just war. There are very, very specific circumstances under which one can defend war. I am not a pacifist; I respect pacifists who do not believe any war can be justified. I respect them. I am just not thoroughly persuaded by their arguments. But, just wars are very few, scarce; yet I think – I do believe we can defend just war like the struggle against apartheid, like the struggle against Hitler, the struggle against the authoritarian regime in Japan in the 1940’s after Pearl Harbor attack.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: Holy war or just war or any name you can give it, this is still war. In this concept we indigenous peoples don’t like it. We denounce war. What is wrong with our global leaders is the fact that they justify their action as self defense or human intervention in the name of war, but for us indigenous peoples those are still wars and justifying it to let people accept the existence of it is not the values or cultures that we should promote in this world. And so, we would like again to call global leaders not to justify their actions by saying, “It’s a self defense or it’s a human intervention,” but to stop war, stop killing, save life, save Mother Earth, stop the promotion of war in any places, in any corner, in any atmosphere in this world. War is not the answer or the solution of any problem. -- Trash the war. Trash the war. It’s bad.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: For me, there is no holy war and no just war. I don’t believe that any war can be holy and I don’t believe that any war can be just. Both are expressions of some deep injustice. So, I don’t believe in just war as a self-defense. I don’t believe in holy war as a self-defense. I don’t believe in just war as a humanitarian intervention either. I can’t see that any war that we experienced in recent years could not have been avoided. So, for me it’s very simple to define, the difference between humanitarian intervention and holy or just war. They have nothing in common.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: Humanitarian intervention. The mere word of it says it all. Humanitarianism, help for things that human beings want. Humanitarian aid from the viewpoint of the people instead of humanitarian aid from the viewpoint of the other side of the one who needs, there I do not agree with. Humanitarian aid must always refer to the one who is in need so it has to be clearly identified what kind of humanitarian aid is given and to whom. Self-defense, it’s like I stated in some answers before: we have to defend our cultures, our land, our territory, our natural products, defend from looters, from those who want to take away our autonomy. The world has been created for all of us, so I believe that humanitarian aid is right. But it shouldn’t be a humanitarian aid which looks after the interests of neo-colonists. This at least is my opinion. We should have a really neutral field to identify humanitarianism, the United Nations should define this humanitarian aid better and define what this aid is going to be for the peoples.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: I think you have four different terms in this question, which makes it valid. I don't think that one necessarily has to do with the other. So, I will just take one of those terms, which is humanitarian intervention. Many people, including so-called liberals in the United States, supported the war in Iraq as an act of humanitarian intervention. And I think it’s worth remembering that it was not a humanitarian intervention, that it was true that Saddam Hussein had done many horrendous things, but most of the horrendous things he had done, he did when he was an ally of the United States and as a bulwark against the Shia fundamentalism in Iran. As a dictator, one could say that Saddam in the 90s was a lot less worse than many others and it’s also worth remembering that Saddam Hussein´s Iraq was a secular state where women probably had greater rights than any other nation in the Arab world. So, it was clearly not a case of humanitarian intervention to prevent further mass murder, because all of those things had occurred at least ten or fifteen years before. So, I think there was a general lie about the war in Iraq, one particularly promoted by liberals in the wake of our intervention in Bosnia and our absolutely scandalous lack of intervention in Rwanda. The terms of self-defense, self-defense of course is a ludicrous argument when it comes to Iraq or Afghanistan for that matter. Iraq was in no way threatening the United States at all.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: The question about how do we tell the difference between holy war and just war is a bit strange to me because I’m not sure there is anything such as any just war. War implies a conflict between peoples. It implies large numbers of people on one side and large numbers of people on the other side, or at least whole societies at some level of organization. And I don’t think that war can ever be justified. I’m an evolution biologist, I look at other species. There are no other species in which the level of aggression of groups against each other happens that does in our own species. We have heard in recent years about chimpanzee wars and we hear about dolphin pods attacking each other, but they are usually involve far less killing even under the extreme circumstances of other species. When we take the chimp’s territories away, when we force them into smaller places, when we force them into places that aren’t their natural habitats and stuff we increase the level of violence. And perhaps many of the wars among humans have happened because we have relocated people, dislocated people, drawn artificial political boundaries among people that tend to increase hostilities. And there’s also the old divide and conquer methodology comes stemming back to I don’t know how many thousands of years whereby dividing people, by pitting them against each other you can cause conflict. I’m beginning to even question the model of democracy with adversarial politics among two parties. I see in my own country now for instance that the Republicans have defined the issue for our upcoming election this fall as between will we stay the course in Iraq or will we be wimps and come home? And when the party in power can manipulate the electoral debate so that you exclude debates about welfare, healthcare, education, jobs, things that really matter to a society, it’s a kind of way of artificially dividing us rather than letting us focus on the issues that might bring us together. So--

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: War is never holy and is never just. These are just excuses for war. There are better ways to exercise self-defense and better ways to intervene in the humanitarian interest than killing people. War itself needs to be considered a crime against humanity and it should be outlawed.

by Ervin Laszlo