A "Just" War

In the first reading of Chris Hedges' War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, I was struck by what I saw as a contradiction; on page 16 Hedges writes that "We in the industrial world bear the responsibility for the world's genocides because we had the power to intervene and did not." (Hedges 8). It seems that he is calling for what most people would consider a "just" war, a war that is done with humanitarian interests in mind, to help save the innocents from the thugs who are intent on slaughtering human beings. I would love to help stop the genocide in Darfur or have been able to stop the Rawanda massacres, but if Hedges is going to focus on how our society needs "humility" in our actions, I am sure he must then recognize the limits of our strength (Hedges 17). Our operations in Iraq, when looking through the neoconservative view of the Bush administration, should be justified because, in general terms, what could be a greater goal than to "liberate" a group of people from a tyrant who oppressed and gassed the citizens of his country. Our resources are pooled at this moment within Iraq and though we have bases all over the world, if we are to maintain our position as hegemon within a world that is globalizing and developing, it becomes an imperative to have our security protected abroad rather than on home soil. Thus, though a noble goal to go and intervene, I believe that it is important to continue to emphasize the necessity for armed interventions, but the global community, who seems so concerned about the humanitarian issues that are occuring throughout the world cannot expect to criticize the United States for being unable to carry out worthy armed interventions because we are in Iraq. It is easy, worthy I think, to criticize the planning done before the invasion, but the rest of the world needs to step it up in our place if they are going to justified in their criticism of the United States inability to act.

Hedges, Chris. War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.