This paper critically assesses three claims on behalf of the Iraq war made by the Bush administration and by various defenders of the war. Then it steps back from the specifics of these three rationales to ask whether they are in fact of the same sort.

In the second of our two articles focusing on the war in Iraq, Richard Ryder looks at a range of possible justifications, and finds them all wanting.

To develop my arguments about this revision of the logistics ofdisappearance, I will turn to several recent Iraq War films, look at thedifferent types of screens they present and investigate their aestheticdimensions and ethical implications. Among the multiple screens present inthese films, the video war diaries made by the soldiers at the front are mostsalient. These diaries will be an important focus of my analysis of acontemporary logistics of perception, which, following the implication ofWeb 2.0 applications, I will call (...) the logistics of perception 2.0. (shrink)

The Iran–Iraq war, which took place from 1980 to 1988, was one of the longest and bloodiest conventional wars in the history of the last century. The war was also the largest mobilization of the Iranian population and was achieved primarily by producing and promoting a culture of martyrdom based on religious themes found in Shi'i Islam. It was the war that created and consolidated what we know today as the Islamic republic of Iran. For years there have been (...) two popular public discourses in post-war Iran: the secular discourse, which is to evade, to ignore, to escape to the Caspian; and then the state's discourse, of the strong, mourning women and the heroic martyrs. It is the group of women who exist betwixt the dominant discourses of the secular versus the religious and the idea of womanhood versus motherhood that I am interested in exploring here by looking at the most recent work of a secular female filmmaker, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad. (shrink)

Research in the discipline of international relations finds that the great democratic powers are less likely to pursue revisionist policies. This investigation challenges this argument by showing that the United States' decision to oust Saddam Hussein's regime in March 2003 was consistent with a modified version of John Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism, which finds that great powers' motivation is global hegemony. This article is divided into three sections. The first section considers the value of Mearsheimer's theory and reworks it (...) by adding domestic variables to explain why states abandon defensive strategies for offensive ones. The second section shows how pre-9/11 American foreign policy strategy was, for the most part, status quo oriented, and section three explains why and how the Bush administration introduced a revisionist foreign policy strategy after the 9/11 attacks. This investigation concludes by showing how the 2003 Iraq War is the first step in the United States' quest for global hegemony. (shrink)

This study examined more than 2,500 war images from U.S. television news, newspapers, news magazines, and online news sites during the first five weeks of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and found that only 10% showed injury or death. The paper analyzes which media platforms were most willing to show casualties and offers insights on when journalists should use gruesome war images or keep them secret.

This article examines 50 films produced and released between the years 2001 and 2012 that are concerned with the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using Jacques Ellul’s theories set out in his book Propaganda, the article argues that while the films have failed at the box office, they were intended to function as integration propaganda. The article proposes six different tropes or common frames for understanding how the films avoid dealing with problems raised by the wars. Why the (...) films failed, and what functioned as integration propaganda instead, is the subject for a second article titled “Eyeless in America, the Sequel.”. (shrink)

This article builds on conclusions drawn in the article “Eyeless in America,” by the same author and considers how 50 American films about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan intended to function as what Jacques Ellul called “integration propaganda,” fared. This article considers and rejects a number of theories about why most feature war films failed between 2002 and 2012 and proposes what war films might look like in the near future.

An account of the author's experience in Iraq, presents photographs and commentary that convey the terror and exhilaration of photojournalism in an age of embedded reporting.

With the end of the Cold War the world approached the prospect of realizing what one might call the ‘Kantian moment’ in international relations. Auspiciously, 1995 marked both the 50th anniversary of the establishment of UN Charter, in which human rights guarantees prominently figured, as well as the 200th anniversary of Kant’s celebrated text on ‘Perpetual Peace.’ During the era of the EastWest political stalemate, the idea of effective world governance remained a chimera, as both political camps willfully exploited international (...) governmental organizations (IGOs), such as the UN and UNESCO, for the self-serving ends of Realpolitik. Human rights claims were brazenly politicized. The Soviets lambasted American racism and the inadequacy of social rights. The USA and its allies, conversely, pilloried their opponent’s failure to minimally respect basic, first-generation civil and political liberties. (Published: 26 May 2010) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2010, pp. 143-153. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i2.5213. (shrink)

This essay examines media images of women in recent conflicts in the Middle East. From the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to protests in Iran, women have become the public face of violence, carried out and suffered. Women’s bodies are figured as sexual and violent, a potent combination that stirs public imagination and feeds into stereotypes of women as femme fatales or “bombshells.”.

In what circumstances is it legitimate to use force? How should force be used? These are two of the most crucial questions confronting world politics today. The Just War tradition provides a set of criteria which political leaders and soldiers use to defend and rationalize war. This book explores the evolution of thinking about just wars and examines its role in shaping contemporary judgements about the use of force, from grand strategic issues of whether states have a right to pre-emptive (...) self-defence, to the minutiae of targeting. Bellamy maps the evolution of the Just War tradition, demonstrating how it arose from a myriad of sub-traditions, including scholasticism, the holy war tradition, chivalry, natural law, positive law, Erasmus and Kant's reformism, and realism from Machiavelli to Morgenthau. He then applies this tradition to a range of contemporary normative dilemmas related to terrorism, pre-emption, aerial bombardment and humanitarian intervention. (shrink)

: The U.S. government is trying to secure continuing American military and economic supremacy on a global scale over the long term. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is part of this imperial project, which is now being pursued under the mantle of the war on terrorism. This essay examines these developments in the context of U.S. military spending and foreign policy since the end of the cold war, and it argues that there is reason to be concerned (...) about the continuing viability of democratic government in the United States. (shrink)

Ever since Eve tempted Adam with her apple, women have been regarded as a corrupting and destructive force. The very idea that women can be used as interrogation tools, as evidenced in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, plays on age-old fears of women as sexually threatening weapons, and therefore the literal explosion of women onto the war scene should come as no surprise. From the female soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib to Palestinian women suicide bombers, women and their bodies (...) have become powerful weapons in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In _Women as Weapons of War_, Kelly Oliver reveals how the media and the administration frequently use metaphors of weaponry to describe women and female sexuality and forge a deliberate link between notions of vulnerability and images of violence. Focusing specifically on the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oliver analyzes contemporary discourse surrounding women, sex, and gender and the use of women to justify America's decision to go to war. For example, the administration's call to liberate "women of cover," suggesting a woman's right to _bare_ arms is a sign of freedom and progress. Oliver also considers what forms of cultural meaning, or lack of meaning, could cause both the guiltlessness demonstrated by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the profound commitment to death made by suicide bombers. She examines the pleasure taken in violence and the passion for death exhibited by these women and what kind of contexts created them. In conclusion, Oliver diagnoses our cultural fascination with sex, violence, and death and its relationship with live news coverage and embedded reporting, which naturalizes horrific events and stymies critical reflection. This process, she argues, further compromises the borders between fantasy and reality, fueling a kind of paranoid patriotism that results in extreme forms of violence. (shrink)

abstract This paper begins by accepting, for argument's sake, a number of the central criticisms raised regarding the US led war in Iraq. In the remainder of the paper, it is argued that even if these criticisms are assumed to be true, the resort to war was still morally justified, both prospectively and retrospectively. The argument is made within the context of the just war tradition. It is argued that the resort to war met the conditions of sufficient just (...) cause, last resort and proportionality, and that any failings in regards to legitimate authority and right intention do not undermine the morality of that resort. More specifically, the case is made that: humanitarian considerations provided a sufficient just cause, questions of international law do not undermine the moral legitimacy of the US led coalition, and that concerns about the intentions of the US, even if valid, would not impact on moral judgements about the act of resorting to war. In arguing for the last point, it is determined that the right intention condition should not be included among the set of conditions that form the basis of the just war tradition. (shrink)

Bush administration foreign policy has exhibited a marked unilateralism and militarism in which US military power is used to advance US interests and geopolitical hegemony. The policy was first evident in the Afghanistan intervention following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and informed the 2003 war against Iraq. In From 9/11 to Terror War (Kellner 2003) I sketched out the genesis and origins of Bush administration foreign policy and its application in Afghanistan and the build-up to the Iraq (...) war. In this study, I will update and develop my critique of the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes and its application in the 2003 Iraq invasion, concluding with a critique of unilateralism and militarism, and defense of multilateral and global solutions to problems such as terrorism, so-called “weapons of mass destruction,” and “rogue regimes.”. (shrink)

Using Hannah Arendt's theory as a template, this essay analyzes American foreign policy decisions that led to the Iraq war. Obviously, Arendt would find the misinformation concerning "links" between Iraq and al-Qaeda to be problematic, as well as the unjustified allegation of weapons of mass destruction. In addition, the Bush administration sought to justify the war in roughly two other ways: the liberation of the people of Iraq from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the need to (...) stabilize the region by providing a model for democracy in the Middle East. One may wonder whether Arendt would support the administration's actions for these other reasons, as Arendt was worried about the emergence of nuclear weapons and certainly was against dictatorships in favor of governments that support the public freedom of the people. However, I argue that Arendt's overall political theory would not support the war and may, in fact, give us reasons to believe that it will not produce a fully functioning democracy in Iraq. In conclusion, I will contrast the Bush administration's method to the Arab Spring, which Arendt would more fully support, if the outcome focuses on writing and adopting Constitutions that secure freedom for the people involved. (shrink)

This new book, published in the United Kingdom under the first title above and in the United States and Canada under the second, consists in argument about what makes for right or wrong in general, and then argument about right or wrong with respect to Palestine, 9/11, the Iraq War, 7/7, and what is to come. Hence, with respect to the latter connected things, it also makes judgements as to shares of moral responsibility. Six of its 29 sections appear (...) below. The first two are 'Our Questions' and 'A Division of Labour, Philosophy's Part'. The next one is one of three in the book on judging right and wrong by democracy. The fourth is one of several in the book about understanding, judging, and inciting terrorism. The last two sections are about the Iraq War. To locate this thinking in the context of the book as a whole, which justifies Zionism but not neo-Zionism, have a look at the table of contents at the end. There is also a German translation of the first half of the book. Have a look too if you want at a review of the book by Tam Dalyell, lately M.P. for Linlithgow and Father of the House of Commons, and a review by Steve Poole, author of Unthink, and at Italian and Belgian interviews on the subject. There is also a video of a 40-minute television programme made from the book. (shrink)

Given the basic tenets of just war theory and those of United States law regard- ing compensatory justice, it is argued that the U.S. invasion of Iraq from 2003-present is morally unjust and that the U.S. owes substantial reparations to Iraq.

The new western way of war from Vietnam in Iraq -- Theories of the new western way of war -- The global surveillance mode of warfare -- Rules of risk-transfer war -- Iraq: risk economy of a war -- A way of war in crisis.

The present study examined how the pre-war debate of the US decision to invade Iraq (in March 2003) was discursively constructed in the US/British mainstream newspaper opinion/editorial (op/ed) argumentation. Drawing on theoretical insights from critical discourse analysis and argumentation theory, I problematised the fallacious discussion used in the pro-war op/eds to build up a ‘moral/legal case’ for war on Iraq based on adversarial (rather than dialogical) argumentation. The proponents of war deployed ‘instrumental rationality’ (ends-justify-means reasoning), ‘ethical necessity’ (Bush’s (...) ‘Preemption Doctrine’) and ‘humanitarian virtue’ (the bombing of Iraq to ‘save’ Iraqis from Saddam’s pestilent tyranny) to justify the pending invasion of Iraq. Their arguments intertextually resonated with Bush administration’s ‘war on terror’ rhetoric in a way that created a form of indexical association through ‘recontextualisation’. The type of arguments marshalled by the pro-war op/ed commentators uncritically bolstered the set of US official ‘truth claims’ and ‘presuppositions’. (shrink)

This paper examines the recent actions by the United States in Iraq in the light of just war principles, and sets forth a program for holding accountable those most responsible for war crimes in Iraq.

Just war theory requires that a nation at war respect proportionality both before it goes to war, jus ad bellum, and in the way it fights a war, jus in bello. To respect proportionality is to know or estimate on good evidence that the whole war and the tactics used in the war will not generate more evil and harm and costs than they will generate good and help and benefits. This paper argues that the 2003–2004 U.S. war on (...) class='Hi'>Iraq fails on both counts. It considers, in regard to jus ad bellum, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on the Iraqi military and civilians, the American military, and American and non-Iraqi civilians. It considers, under jus in bello, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on Iraqi civilians. On the proportionality standards for a just war, this war is a miserable failure. (shrink)

The private sector is vital to building and sustaining peace. These efforts are often recognized as “Business for Peace” or “Peace through Commerce.” Academic research on Business for Peace is almost twenty years old and tends to be theoretical. This paper is the first to present qualitative findings on businesses operating in an active violent conflict such as the case of Iraq. Companies in Iraq operate under the constant threat of violence and yet many still try to enhance (...) peace through operations. We interviewed more than 40 participants who were business owners, managers, government officials, and international policymakers who were active in the Iraqi theater. We discuss our findings that relate to the perception of company activities as peace enhancing into four categories: capacity building, rule of law, social cohesion, and local engagement. Our findings support the existing business and peace categories of rule of law and social cohesion. Our findings also suggest that current theory may be missing capacity building and local engagement as important business activities to promote peace. We conclude by noting the limitations of the paper and the need for more qualitative research. (shrink)

The 2003 Iraq war was a major global media event constructed very differently by varying broadcasting networks in different parts of the world. While the U.S. networks framed the event as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (the Pentagon concept) or "War in Iraq," the Canadian CBC used the logo "War on Iraq," and various Arab networks presented it as an "invasion" and "occupation." In this study, I provide critique of the U.S. broadcasting network construction of the war that I (...) interpret as providing a conduit for Bush administration and Pentagon propaganda. (shrink)

Augustinian Just War Theory and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: Confessions, Contentions and the Lust for Power,edited by Craig J. N. de Paulo, Senior Editor, et al. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2011. Details: A work concerning Augustine’s influence on Christian just war theory and the rhetoric of just war theorists from two symposia in addition to an Augustinian critique of the wars. Preface by Most Rev. Sean Cardinal O’ Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Boston. Foreword by Roland (...) J. Teske, S.J. Chapter One is a brief history of Augustine’s influence on the theory. Chapter Two includes a transcript of a symposium on the topic that includes the following distinguished contributors: Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., John D. Caputo, Most Rev. Edwin Cardinal O’Brien, Ambassador Thomas Melady, Col. Jack Jacobs, Dr. Joseph Hagan. Chapter Three includes a transcript of a colloquium on the topic that includes the following distinguished scholars and contributors: Joseph Margolis, Frederick Van Fleteren, Brian Kane, et al. (Advance Praise by James J. O’Donnell and Arthur Waldron.). (shrink)

The conflict in Iraq has been portrayed as “ethnic” civil war, a radically different conflict from “ideological” wars such as Vietnam. We argue that such an assessment is misleading, as is its theoretical foundation, which we call the “ethnic war model.” Neither Iraq nor Vietnam conforms to the ethnic war model's predictions. The sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni militias is not simply the outcome of sectarian cleavages in Iraqi society, but to an important extent, a legacy of (...) U.S. occupation. On the other hand, although Vietnam was a society riven by ethnic cleavages, the Vietnam War also fails to conform to the ethnic war model. We show that there is no necessary overlap between ethnic conflict and ethnic war. Some ethnic conflicts evolve into ethnic wars, and others develop dynamics virtually indistinguishable from those of ideological civil wars. We suggest that the state's role is essential in transforming conflicts into either ethnic or irregular wars. We conclude with an analysis of the current situation and future prospects in Iraq. (shrink)