Jan 10, 2009 4:37:05 PM cite

When anything gets redefined it is not the thing that gets redefined it is our definition of it that is changed. This is done to justify an future aggressive act. The only self defense is an unprovoked act of aggression and that hardly happens statically speaking. The humanitarian intervention is a misnomer, I out of the kindness of my heart I will kill your enemies happens only if there is something in it for me. A holy war like the Christian crusades is warring in the name of god, not that God gave his permission mind you. War is sometimes considered just to put down a person like Hitler but one need be careful such a tyrant is guilty of something first.

by Thai sean

Sep 11, 2006 2:22:44 AM cite

Hello Sandra. The phrase 'Holy War' is a contradiction in terms, there is no such thing. Any group or Nation that wages war in the name of Religion, has preverted and corrupted that Religion beyond recognition. The only 'Just War' is a response to an attack by another group or nation. This can include an attack on an ally that you have agreed to defend.

by thedoc

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: Holy war does not need to be justice, because it gets its legality from laws, people or from God and religion. Justice war has to depend on human law, United Nation and justice, however, we still do not exactly understand what justice war means and I think it is difficult that such a war exists. Even the defensive war can be changed into barbaric and aggressive war. As long as war used violence, it will not be easy to control. The humanitarian intervention is an important issue and that what happened in my country "Lebanon" where the United Nation intervention was really very necessary, because my country suffers from weakness and there is power which is stronger than the government itself. We can notice this phenomenon in the 3rd world where it is easy for a company, a family or a tribe to be stronger than the whole society, so in this case the humanitarian intervention would be justice.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Just war. I don’t know if we are talking about just war or only war. I think that their is neither holy nor just war. The only holy thing that exists for me is life itself. War is an aspect of human nature that has to do with insanity, with the capacity of the human beings to enter into some cycles of insanity or collective madness. It is obviously possible to talk about selfdense and humanitarian intervention in order to prevent bloody death of people in extreme situations. But for me there do not exist just or holy wars. War is always diabolic, tragical, sad and it is always synonym of disease.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Sandra, there is no difference, they’re both wars. There is no difference. 'Holy wars' or 'just wars' or wars against terrorism, wars of liberation, it’s just war. Very often they pretext for aggression rather than defense. It is part of the vocabulary which we’ve brought with us, part of the way in which we’ve evolved as a species, that we developed the rational for the necessity, the ultimate form of institutionalized aggression. Where we agree as a collective to willfully destroy the other. We really need to redefine and rethink. War is a completely aggressive and outdated idea. There’s no necessity for it. It’s just evolved out of our inability as a civilization or as a species to negotiate our differences.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Sandra, there is and there should not be any holy war nor just war. No such things should be amongst us and you know that. So Sandra, you will now be responsible for eliminating those within us. How can anyone take the right to create a war? Isn’t it enough that we have wars at home between mother and father and the siblings? Isn’t it enough that we have wars in our schools, in our institutions, let alone having killing machine going on around us? We cannot. There is no such things has just war nor as a holy war. The only, if there was anything, is that when the nation is endangering others then you and I we have the responsibility to eliminate that. That means the security forces have to come and remove that danger, not killing anyone but eliminating the problem by removing those people who are causing the wars to happen. It does not matter what kind of name they’re using, just or holy. It does not matter. Sandra, it has never mattered. They are the kind of war we hold, it has never been right. So let’s eliminate those wars and live in peace together. Imagine that you and me being able to travel to all corners of the world without ever fearing of anyone. What a concept of imagination. Sandra, it is possible to live that. So let’s do it.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: I think all of these terms have been used in ways that are problematic. The term humanitarian intervention is really perhaps the most questionable of the terms. The previous question raised questions about self-defense and made a very important point about how self-defense and terrorism are used in such hypocritical ways in contemporary discussions of politics. But the question of humanitarian intervention is one that really also needs to be a question, because humanitarian intervention has become the way increasingly that war is justified, that war is defended. But, it has historical roots. The reality is that wars are rarely fought for their stated reasons or almost never fought for the stated reasons, and the politicians have always dressed up their justifications for war in terms of liberation, in terms of humanitarian names, in terms of freeing people from tyranny and oppression and advancing human rights. But, there is a new discourse of human rights, which is justifying imperialism today. And in the context of the past two decades, we’ve seen an expansion of a discourse that seeks to justify war on the basis of human rights. And the highest examples of that really came under the administration of Bill Clinton, a liberal, who saw a means of re-legitimizing the role of the United States as a global superpower in the context of the collapse of the cold war framework. George Bush laid the groundwork for the expansion of US power, the role of the United States as an imperial power, with the collapse of the justification of combating Soviet imperialism, which was the justification used for the interventions in the Cold War era for the most part, although even those of course were described in humanitarian terms. But then, ultimately, it was Clinton who used the doctrine of humanitarian intervention and gave a legacy, which then Bush could exploit.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: There is no question of holy war and just war. There should be no war. [inaudible] self defense or humanitarian intervention. There should be no war; no holy war, no just war.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 12:20:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: First of all, we have to question the war itself. If we talk about self-defense, we actually have to redefine our security. If we look at the latest -- since 9/11, the things that have happened around the world, we know that there has been nothing done to actually promote security. The actions of Bush administration have made each one of us in this world more insecure. So, there is no such thing as a holy war or a just war. What we do know is that countries are just at war, and it is as simple as that. War which is about violence, which is about aggression, which is about taking lives of people, which is about colonizing, which is about stealing resources of other countries, there is nothing holy about it, there is nothing just about it, and so this whole myth about self-defense or about humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian intervention would require not actually going to war. It would require a congress, would require our parliaments to basically intervene as should have happened in the case of Lebanon. Governments around the world should have rallied, immediately asked for a ceasefire, but no in the name of self-defense a month was allowed to go by, more than thousand people were allowed to be killed while millions of people were displaced in the name of self-defense. There is no defense when you make ourselves vulnerable. We make ourselves more insecure and that’s what needs to happen.

by Anuradha Mittal