Murder or Killing

I would just like to clarify that I'm not an advocate for Jain-like pacifism in that I will defend myself and others if there is a threat. What I am talking about in this thread is the justifications of killing others in more murky circumstances, like war. I will be discussing cases for war if you will.

What drives war? For a people, even properly conditioned by society, to go to war is no easy matter. (There is a problem with that last statement that I think requires more than just changing the sentence. To refer to actors in war as a people is to assume that the government is the people, but that is currently not the case, mostly, in my country, the US. Actions of states cannot be held as the collective will of the people by definition.) The interrelation between the people and the state is where the murkiness comes from in the question of justified killing in war.

If there is a clear threat, like WW2, then yes, going to war is a good idea, but that does not answer many questions. For answers, we must debate the fringe and controversial. Take the war on terror for instance, there is a perceived imminent threat by some, but not by others. Signing up for the military would mean agreeing to kill those who may only be fighting because there are soldiers signing up to fight them. Only a fool would walk into such a quagmire without thinking it through every possible angle, yet that is what is done through the indoctrination that occurs in families and other social groups. Anyway, even if some are fighting the americans (or other nation's soldiers) just because they hate them, does that justify the killing of the others who just think that they are defending their homes?

I suppose that this rant won't reach the appropriate eyes here but I wanted to see this site's opinion.

Red Aegis wrote:Take the war on terror for instance, there is a perceived imminent threat by some, but not by others. Signing up for the military would mean agreeing to kill those who may only be fighting because there are soldiers signing up to fight them. Only a fool would walk into such a quagmire without thinking it through every possible angle, yet that is what is done through the indoctrination that occurs in families and other social groups. Anyway, even if some are fighting the americans (or other nation's soldiers) just because they hate them, does that justify the killing of the others who just think that they are defending their homes?

The issue of what constitutes a just war is very complex. Nevertheless, the requisite conditions for a just war, in my opinion, are as follows: (1) The political establishment is a functioning democracy, wherein undistorted information is accessible to the citizenry and elected officials are held accountable by their constituents; (2) the nation is responding to a declaration of war from another entity; and (3) no able-bodied, adult citizen is immune from military service. However, I must stress that this is only an opinion. As with all matters pertaining to ethics, there exists no method to decisively validate our moral convictions since there isn't an objective standard by which to measure them. Even something as universally regarded as awful as murder is cannot really be condemned on anything more than a subjective basis.