Just War Claims: Historical Theory, Abu Ghraib, and Transgressive Rhetoric

Abstract

When the September 11 terrorists were not prosecuted as international criminals but, instead, as enemies in a “war against terrorism” in a context pervaded by the rhetoric of just war and moral claims, an inevitable trajectory was drawn from September 11 to the Yemeni missile strike, the 2003 Iraqi invasion, and Abu Ghraib. This chapter argues that historical just war theory has two frameworks – one moral and theological, attached to Augustine, Aquinas, and the Thomists; and the other, characterized by Alberico Gentili’s legalistic and expedient humanism. Contemporary analysts conflated these two frameworks, allowing the moral force of one to be imputed to the acts of the other, while Gentili’s precedent for contemporary events went largely unrecognized. Prevalent discussions of just war buttressed the Bush administration’s heightened discourse of “securitization” and exceptional moral claims, resulting in a climate conducive to supporting not only the Iraqi invasion (jus ad bellum), but also systematic incursions against all political, legal, moral, and even plainly human, limits on war conduct (jus in bello), as exemplified by the Yemeni missile strike, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and Abu Ghraib prison. Driven by outmoded ideas of the “clash of civilizations” and American “exceptionalism,” the Bush administration’s rhetoric of good and evil erased the human identity of “unlawful combatants” and then applied that erasure to Iraq and Abu Ghraib, turning them into grey zones of authority, where limits on war conduct were further transgressed through rhetorical acts – CPA orders, memos, unofficial complicities, and silence. Future policy decisions regarding terrorism should avoid coupling the rhetoric of morality with political security issues. Since today’s military actions share many of the functions and objectives of domestic policing, clearer guidelines are needed to regulate status and conduct in zones of mixed authority.