“Just War Theory in 2025” September 7, 2025 Dr. Roger Ray
In 1971 I rode my gold colored Huffy, three speed, sting ray bike to the Plaza Theater just off the square in Glasgow, KY to see the movie, The Legend of Billy Jack. It was a poorly done movie, but it had a big impact on me. It was the Nixon years, at the height of the war in Vietnam, and this movie ticked all the right buttons for me. It was anti-war and it introduced me to the concept of pacifism and, as a young man, it was helpful that it did so with a lot of exciting karate fights because, pacifists usually end up needing to be defended by someone who isn’t a pacifist.
As an adult pastor, I have been decidedly opposed to war. I have often said that I would like to be a pacifist, but I recognize that our heavily armed world often requires a show of strength to avoid constant invasions and genocides. Still, I can remember saying in many sermons over the past 45 years that I am so anti-war that I am already against the next war, wherever it will be.
We don’t know who first said it but there is a very old proverb that says, “The first casualty in any war is the truth.” From the time of wars with swords and spears all of the way up to our nuclear age, governments have used wars to distract and unite their population. Sometimes they steal land or resources in a war but that is not usually what causes it. The value of a war is often just a way to distract a population from their suffering or some political controversy and to unite them around a common enemy…. Often an absurd caricature of an enemy, built on lies and propaganda.
In late August, my charming wife, Sunan, was finally able to move from Bangkok to our home in Florida. This has been a great source of joy for both of us and, honestly some relief to get her away from Thai television. You see, we have spent months together in Thailand, but when I have been back in the USA, we talk morning and night on the phone. She has been unemployed for the past few months, living in a house with three of her brothers in a rural province where watching TV was a primary form of entertainment. The state controlled news in Thailand contains only what the King wants it to contain and that is always praise for the king’s generosity to various charities . . . . and I am no longer allowed to ask where the king gets all of that money that he gives away . . . and no small amount of thrilling news about how bad the government of Cambodia is.
There has been a dispute over the ownership of two ancient temples on the boarder of Thailand and Cambodia for a century. Sometimes, when one side or the other needs a propaganda distraction, it becomes a regional shooting war. Both temples are Hindu, neither are in use. I won’t butcher the pronunciation of their names, but the larger one’s name translates to “In Honor of the Great Chicken.” Both were built by the ancient Khmer Empire which is arguably a bit more Cambodian than it is Thai. The international court in the Hague ruled 60 years ago that the temples belonged to Cambodia. . . a decision which does not get reported on Thai TV.
All that they say on Thai TV is that Cambodia shot first. . . I have heard this so much from my sweet, 90 lbs, 57 year old wife that I have been afraid that she was going to join the commandos and go fight the Cambodian army. I shouldn’t make light of this, and I absolutely should not tell Sunan that she is being manipulated by the king’s propaganda . . . saying that once appears to have been quite sufficient.
It isn’t like the USA hasn’t done this several times. Most of us can remember that when a security fumble in Lebanon resulted in the bombing deaths of more than 200 American service men, Reagan almost immediately ordered the invasion of the tiny Caribbean Island of Grenada, which Reagan said was being overrun by godless communists. In a classic “wag the dog move,” the invasion was ordered so quickly that our Marines didn’t have the time to find the right island. They invaded the wrong island, had to run back to their ships, and get a better navigator.
This wasn’t about saving a few dozen American medical students on the island from godless communists, it was about saving Reagan from NBC, CBS, and ABC news anchors. And so it goes. Governments use war to distract and unite their subjects.
While I cannot rationally claim to be opposed to all wars, I still hold fast to the belief that virtually all real wars are the result of failed diplomacy. We cannot maintain peace by just refusing to fight but we can usually avoid a fight if we manage foreign affairs in a way that resolves legitimate problems without bloodshed. Some problems are easy to see coming and are preventable, but no one has a crystal ball.
Most of us watched the build up of Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine as a political bluff on Putin’s part. Even President Zelenski apparently believed that they would not invade. In fact, other than Joe Biden, I can’t remember anyone saying that it was really going to happen, but it happened and now I believe that it would be a tragic mistake to allow Putin to gain land or power out of this illegal war. The western world has supported Ukraine enough to keep it from falling but not enough to actually defeat Russia in what is becoming a war of attrition.
Folks, if I had my way, I would admit Ukraine to NATO today and pull together a united NATO army and push the Russian army back to Moscow and then demilitarize Russia because, clearly, Russia cannot be trusted. But then, I only listen to pro-Ukrainian news and Russians only listen to Kremlin propaganda. Evidently, Donald Trump mostly listens to Kremlin propaganda because he has often said that Ukraine started the war, by somehow manipulating the Russian armies into invading.
Regardless of the degree to which Trump is a Russian asset, this is a real war with serious consequences. I am pacifist adjacent, but I believe that the world needs to pull Russia’s nuclear teeth, ground their Airforce, sink their navy, and disarm their army because nothing less will make the world safe. That may show how little I really know about international diplomacy, but we did it to Iraq and Iraq didn’t really do anything to deserve it. Russia is not a civilized player on the world stage.
This is not a comprehensive philosophy of Just War and, I still like St. Augustine’s take on this matter as well. But I offer these three points:
The primary tests of a just war have to do with having an obtainable goal that will result in fewer deaths than might reasonably lost if military action is not taken, and there needs to be a way to end the war that results in lasting peace.
When Germany was defeated in World War II, we left them enough of a military to defend their borders but made certain that they could not menace their neighbors again. 70 years later, we often ask Germany to spend more on their defense, but it took a few generations for us to get to a point where we trusted Germany to play with matches again. I would love for Russia, Iran, and even North Korea to join the world of grown up, trustworthy nations but they are not there right now. Typically, the profit motive makes nations behave better than religion or military threat but places like North Korea have proven that they can endure a lot of poverty while never feeling compelled to play by sane international standards.
I say all of this to work my way around to talking about the war between Israel and, well, the people of Gaza and other local neighborhoods that harbor enemies who feel justified in their not infrequent missile attacks.
Like every other liberal in the world, I am horrified by the suffering in Gaza, the starvation, the violence, and the endless military strikes by Israel in the past 2 years. I am sympathetic with the call for a two state solution, giving Palestinians a peaceful path towards a meaningful existence which includes, prosperity, education, productivity, and a prospect of a happy life. It is not difficult to hate Bebe Netanyahu. Many political commentators in the USA just flatly say that he keeps up the war in Gaza, as well as strikes in Iran, Syria, and the West Bank, just in order to stay in office and stay out of prison. Maybe that is true, but take Netanyahu out of the picture and what do you have left?
How do the Palestinians and the Israelis get to an end of hostilities that produces lasting peace? Again, the first casualty in any war is the truth. The Israeli media does not show pictures of starving babies in Gaza. They do not report on the deaths, the homelessness, the shifting of the population from one place to another in an endless and exhausting attempt at rooting out all Hamas militants. Sure, Israel isn’t like countries like Russia or Thailand where the news is filtered. They have access to outside news sources but it shouldn’t surprise you that most Israelis don’t access those news sources.
Americans have the information superhighway on our cell phones all of the time but still, the majority of traffic on the internet is pornography and cat videos. Religion is no longer the opiate of the people. Now it is Tic Tok.
In Israel, they don’t see the horrors in the lives of the Palestinians, they hear about their hostages who have yet to be returned to them. Do you remember how the War in Gaza started? In the fall of 2023, there had been a cease fire in place when Hamas attacked, killing 1200 Israelis and taking 251 hostages. 378 of those killed were ironically attending the Supernova peace concert. These were mostly young peace advocates who wanted to establish peace between Israel and her neighbors. Many of the young women were raped and sexually tortured. Most of the rape victims were killed in the process of the rape. One woman had nails driven into her pelvis. Another had a knife shoved into her vagina.
The attack was brutal and senseless. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are about equally divided between those who supported the attack and those who opposed it. However, many of the hostages taken on that horrible day have been housed in the homes of Palestinians and of the hostages rescued in these past 2 years, none were rescued because Gaza residents helped them or turned them over. The western media would have us to believe that there is a clear bright line between Hamas and the Palestinian residents of Gaza but reality is much more murky than that.
Of the 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, almost all of them were taught from early childhood that God wants them to kill Jews. Palestinians have, over the past three generations, become aid dependent. Nearly half of the population is unemployed, living solely on foreign aid. Many who are employed are employed by charities sent to offer aid to the poor of the Gaza Strip.
What would it man to establish an independent state of Palestine if there are no jobs, no economy, no prospect of a self-supporting state? From an Israeli perspective, they see a vicious game of propaganda being played in which Hamas brutally attacks Israel. Israel retaliates. Gazans cry “foul” and beg for public attention and international aid. They then use that aid to arm themselves for the next time they will attack Israel. Is it any wonder that they are not crazy about just opening the borders to aid trucks. Where does this end? How does it end?
I have said repeatedly through the years that the Western world was wrong to take Palestinian land to create a Jewish homeland at the end of World War II. It was a horrible decision and it set up conditions for a constant state of war between Israel and her neighbors. What virtually every Palestinian wants more than anything in the world is for the Jews to go away. The phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” means that they want to drive the Jews out of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
It was wrong for European settlers to move Native Americans off of the Eastern seaboard but we can’t just push residents of New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia into the Atlantic and give the land back to them. It was wrong for Americans to take Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and California from Mexico at the point of a rifle, but can we just give the southwest back to Mexico now? OK, I’d be willing to give them Texas but we’re keeping Colorado.
We gave certain Native tribes large tracks of land to be reserved for them to preserve their culture but you can bet that if the Standing Rock Sioux started firing missiles into neighboring cities, I don’t think Americans would stand for it. If the Cherokee in Oklahoma went into Tulsa and murdered over a thousand people and took 251 hostages that they would then rape, starve, torture, and keep in underground tunnels for a couple of years, things wouldn’t be going as well as they are in Oklahoma.
An Israeli officer in Jerusalem told me about 40 years ago, if the Palestinians would lay down their arms, they would be living in peace by nightfall. If the Israelis laid down their arms, they would all be dead by nightfall. That is hyperbole but it is closer to the truth than most of my liberal friends are currently willing to acknowledge.
Of course Palestinians deserve a homeland, but they don’t get to push the Jews into the sea to get that sliver of real estate. I am, in principle, in favor of a two state solution but the created Palestinian state has to sincerely and honestly accept Israel’s right to exist, and in spite of 80 years of rhetoric, we are nowhere near the point of saying that the population of Gaza is capable of doing that.
Reporters in the west keep calling on Israel to stop the fighting. There is a simple way to do that, immediately: release the hostages who are, to this day, being raped, starved, tortured, and held in unlit tunnels in Gaza. If you can’t understand why Israel is not willing to end the war in Gaza while these hostages are still being held and tortured, then maybe you are not using your empathy skills very well. Egypt or Jordan could take in these Palestinians but they don’t want to. Do they like keeping a couple of million unemployed angry Arabs on Israel’s doorstep?
If we use our influence to force a ceasefire in Gaza, open the borders to as much aid as donor nations want to send, how long will it be before the next October 7th? What would prevent it? I’m all for peace between Israel and her neighbors and I am well aware that there have been plenty of Zionist offenses on Israel’s side as well. But where is a workable peace?
How do you convince Israel to just lay down their defenses and live beside a neighbor whose dream it has been since childhood to carry out a genocide against the Jews? Sure, the 2020 Abraham Accords offered a framework for peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan but what about Palestine and Syria? Arab nations will not sign an accord while Israel is fighting in Gaza and Israel isn’t going to sleep next to a militarized Gaza.
I want the war in Gaza to end as much as anyone, but I want it to end in a way that doesn’t just set Israel up for another invasion. The answer to that dilemma, to the best of my knowledge, is not currently under discussion in western media or Middle Eastern media. We have to learn to speak a common language of peace, because hate speech is keeping us in an absurdly vicious cycle of violence.
There are no simple answers here but that shouldn’t keep us from looking for a complex answer that has a chance of working.
