Yesterday I passed by a billboard which held Winston Churchill’s image and quote, “Never, never, never give up.� The image shows Churchill holding up what today is generally considered the ‘peace sign’. However, the gesture actually has its roots as a victory sign; during Worrld War II, the V was inscribed on walls by rebels and prisoners “as a symbol of freedom from occupying forces� (Designboom). It then became popularized through people such as Churchill in showing their commitment to World War II.

These images and symbols illustrate the complex interactions and paradoxes between peace and war; as being tightly bundled against one another, inseparable. Peace, which is supposed to be non-aggressive, can be seen as a victory (V-sign) over oppression and aggression. Ironically, through much of our history, political peace has only been achievable through additional campaigns of aggression.

The billboard to me, at its root, is merely another drum beat for the justification of the current invasion of Iraq. It speaks the same message that comes out of the mouths of the United States administration. (George “We must persevere� Bush; Dick “seek domination of the entire Middle East� Cheney; Donald “We know they have weapons of mass destruction� Rumsfeld; and the rest). It is also fitting that Churchill, as the colonial secretary after WWII, was responsible for the creation of the republic of Iraq (Guardian). This means that never giving up applies to Churchill’s vision of Iraq as a country, and that we have a responsibility to maintain what we began. The irony of war is that the same messages are spoken on both sides. As our billboard shouts for us to “Never Give Up,’ Iraqis recently demonstrated in support of Saddam Hussein, chanting, "We will never give up on Iraq or Saddam. Saddam is the pride of my country..." (Democracynow).

These incongruent similarities seem extremely prevalent in any discussion on war. Both sides exclaim that they are justified in their aggression against the other. But how can both be justified in the slaughter, terror, and violence toward their ‘enemy?’ Some scholars declare that only one side of the war could be just (Class reading, 150). Others say that any aggression could be seen as just if it were in accordance with specific international law. To me, it seems that ‘just war theories’ are trying to argue their points from disagreeing sets of axioms that are the central cores of their theories. Identifying these moral seeds is important. I can’t go into all of them, for brevity’s sake, but here is an attempted development of a just war theory.

First, we must assume that existing (living) is something which should be strived for. We could call that ‘good.’ Second, we must assume that civilizations protect human beings lives, and are beneficial on the whole to existence, so their continuance is desired. This assumption is strongly supported by the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who illustrates the hell of living in the ‘state of nature’ without communities. He feels that a clear ‘might makes right’ rule of law is undesirable and that we must engage in a sacrifice of our freedoms for the protection that a governing body can provide.

Throughout civilization, the problem that many governing bodies have found themselves in is this: to continue the civilization in the most sustainable manner, they had to engage in what we call imperialism. Imperialism is the conquest of other countries and the expansion of an empire of control. Now the theory runs into conflict because two civilizations run into each other when they both adhere to a just-war policy in concordance to their own continuance. Since neither wishes to simply allow the other its own expansionist pursuits, it means war, aggression, and death, which is what Civilization was contracted in the first place to prevent.
This ‘problem of other countries’ makes any just war theory hard to maintain. If the whole world adheres to the rules, the mantras, the rhetoric, the idealism of Winston Churchill, the world could find itself soon desolate. The ‘just-war’ theories would have crumbled; the paradox would be expressed. Since not all countries can “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law,� it fails Kant’s categorical imperatives. This demonstrates that they are narcissistic theories that can only be argued from positions of higher power, because only those in that position benefit.

It is time to stop justifying murder.


Works Cited

Class Reading. Can War Be Morally Justified. No author mentioned.
Democracy Now, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/12/1346201
Designboom, http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/peace.html
Guardian.com, http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,6121,1360457,00.html