Two contextual points. First, a paradox: The nature of modern military technology on the one hand can be so destructive as to undermine traditional just war norms. However, it can be so precise as to, for the first time, allow for discrimination between military and civilian targets to a degree that has not been possible since the invention of the cannon.

Over the past twenty years. I have had the fascinating experience of lecturing to, or discussing with, military officers both here and abroad, on just war theory. I have been struck by the genuine interest and thoughtfulness of military officers in understanding just war norms and examining ways e.g. using precision weapons to integrate these norms into military strategies.

As our presentations to military officers and planners have morally challenged them, so their realities have challenged us. In particular, two dynamics of modern warfare directly undermine traditional just war norms. First, non-conventional weapons. Is the destruction they wreak, so vast and indiscriminate that they can never be used? But what if, as in Hiroshima, an argument can be made that their use will save many more lives in the long run? Further, even if their use should be prohibited, what does the possession of such weapons by enemies likely to use them say about the morality of development of and threat to use such weapons for deterrent purposes?

Second, how do you apply those just war norms ensuring the protection of non-combatants, against terrorists who target your civilians, who dress like civilians, who take refuge in civilian population centers, and against whom you can therefore not respond without hurting innocent civilians? Both the U.S. (in Iraq and Afghaistan) and Israel face those moral dilemmas daily.

Second contextual point: All three of the Abrahamic traditions share approaches to war that can be called Just War theories. All three analyze both the causes for war and means for fighting war. There are many similarities and some key differences. (One example: the Jewish tradition’s distinctive emphasis in the just means category of bal tashchit (do not waste), derived from the biblical mandate not to destroy fruit-bearing trees. In the Talmudic and Maimonidian expansion of the bal tashchit to involve most things necessary for normal life, we are taught that war should be fought in a manner so as to allow normal civilian life to resume after the war. ( This, in contrast to Rome’s salting of Carthage and the massive US defoliation programs in Vietnam.)

Against this backdrop what then of Iraq?

I strongly oppose this war. But I remain among those who think the effort to remove Saddam Hussein met “just cause” criteria. This was one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century. He held power through the massive oppression of his people, engaging is widespread systematic human rights abuses. He had sought the development of non-conventional weapons and actually used them against his own people. The chilling tapes, released in court just last week, of Saddam’s conversations with top advisors in which he callously and explicitly calls on his commanders to use chemical weapons against his own civilians in the most devastating manner possible affirms this. He attacked neighboring countries without cause. He lobbed missiles at Israeli population centers in the first Gulf War, when Israel was not a combatant. If religious ethicists believe that forceful intervention to protect innocents is a morally justified use of force, it is difficult to see how this does not meet such criteria.

But, as I began above, just because you have a right to do something does not make what you do right – or wise. Each of the Abrahamic traditions has legal ideas that require that before force be used there needs to be reasonable chances that the force will achieve the moral goals it is being used for. Further, meeting one just war norm does not justify the violation of others. Our failure to pursue all reasonable alternatives to war, to mobilize the kind of broad-based international cooperation we had in the first Gulf War, the array of faulty justifications for war offered, the woeful lack of planning for the aftermath of the traditional warfare component of the war, the disgraceful failure to protect the civilian infrastructure (bal tashchit), the abuses of prisoners, the alarming devastation wrought on civilians—yes, driven by insurgents and terrorists but then exacerbated by our responses – all these and more raise significant abuses and failures of just war standards.

The value of just war norms is that they help us test the wisdom and morality of wars. It seems clear that in Iraq, we have failed.