I have a debate topic "Is the war in Iraq a morally just war?"?

Go to the politics section- some of the blood thirsty war mongers there have no qualms about justifying it.

Wow. Okay, that's not even fair. If it were me, I would take the angle that Bush genuinely believed that the Iraqis possessed WMDs, and were mere minutes away from launching them against the US, and so invaded a sovereign and non-hostile nation as a mistaken pre-emptive first-strike.

There's really no way to defend the Iraq war as morally just, but you may be able to defend it as a morally-guided mistake; the road to hell being paved with good intentions, and all. You'll lose your debate, because the real reason the US invaded Iraq was for the oil. But it's probably the best your teacher can expect.

When we went in, it was morally just based on the information we had. The majority of the American people thought so. The information was in error, not the judgement itself based on it (according to people). By error in data I mean both about WMD & consequences of taking out this gvnt for the Iran/Iraq balance, & the internal Iraq balance, etc..

Once there is it morally just to finish the job of nation building since we'd taken out the government. It would be immoral to leave (once again, we've done this elsewhere) & leave the Iraqi people at the mercy of the first despot to regain control. There in lies the morality of our current actions.

An added tinge of morality is that there really is a fundamentalist element that is a danger to the rest of the world & to muslims as well. Anything we can do to reduce that danger is morally good. However, the catch there is whether our actions have been effectively doing that.

One key element of the homework assignment would be to explore that morally just is a complex, moving target that depends heavily on perceptions of facts & consequences...not a fixed item.

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I think people are in logical error when they mix up the results of the war with the morality judgement of whether it was just. Also, many "moral" things have negative results.

That's tough. Especially since I don't think that the war can be justified in any way.

In my opinion, although it's admittedly a dirty trick, you should do what the right-wing pundits did and try to make it all about Saddam Hussein. It's easy to point out what terrible things Hussein did, and try to justify the war on the basis that it was about overthrowing Hussein. Just don't point out that most of Hussein's worst atrocities (like the gassing of the Kurds) were done with US assistance and approval (we sold Iraq the chemical weapons used to gas the Kurds, and then we subsidized their agricultural losses with money and goods when the gassing destroyed farmland as well). So don't mention any of that. Just stick to the script - Hussein was a monster (which is true) and had to be stopped.

I think that's your best bet.

Some of the most stated reasons for the war are that:

We are taking the fight to the terrorists instead of fighting them on U.S. soil.

A democratic country in that region is an important part of the 'war on terror'.

The original reason for the war was morally and Constitutionally just.

If the President feels that any country poses a threat to the National Security of the U.S., it is his duty and obligation to eliminate the threat.

(When we did not find any WMD's, we should have left, immediately.)

Good Luck, I don't envy your task at defending the war. :)

If almost 1 million people killed in the name of Jesus ...cause had the support of Christians is not morally....then I dont know what is moral

The Land letter was a letter sent to U.S. President George W. Bush by five evangelical Christian leaders on October 3, 2002, outlining their theological support for a just war pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. The letter was written by Richard D. Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. It was co-signed by:

* Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries

* Bill Bright, chairman of Campus Crusade for Christ

* James Kennedy, president of Coral Ridge Ministries, and

* Carl D. Herbster, president of the American Association of Christian Schools

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_letter

i would suggest examining the United Nations web site - and the criteria they set out which justify the invasion of a soveriegn nation. there are a number of 'laws' which a country has to adhere to, to avoid external intervention..... iraq broke not just one, but all four laws as prescribed by the UN. Sure, lots of bad has happened, which is immoral, since the invasion - but the same people that debate the invasion of Iraq also cried for their leaders to go to Darfur - where fewer of these UN criteria had been broken.....oil is involved obviously - which muddies the whole situation, but there is a strong UN sancationed opinion for the invasion, despite the techniques employed. by the invaders - check the UN site for a more detailed account of the four principles and you'll see that it calls on other nations to actually intervene in such cases - so by being a member of the UN, there is a responsibility to react (i'm not saying I agree with it necessarily)

I disagree with the first person to answer, I don't think that promoting Christianity is "morally just".

I also don't really think that the war in Iraq was just in any way, morally or otherwise.

because millions of people here in the US rely on defense contractors and sub-contractors in order to earn enough to feed their families. Also, defense-industry executives, lobbyists, thinktank analysts, political aides, consultants and others have to work and feed their families as well. Since there is a long tradition in many socireites and nations to rationalize war in the name of morality and the national good, it becomes imperative for employees (i.e. elected officials) of this military-industrial complex to manufacture a war in order to keep all these people working.

that's the best I can do for you - tweaking the definition of "moral" is the only way to justify the war.

It is impossible to call a war that has resulted in 100,000 to 1,000,000 deaths, most of whom were innocent civilians, "morally just" (let alone the 3,000,000 displaced refugees).

Judging from the statistics, this war was obviously morally wrong and cannot be justified under any circumstances. Period.

Unless your class is full of morons, you don't have much chance of convincing people that the Iraq war is in any way moral.

Of course, like the moron above and many other American idiots, if you harp on about how evil you think Sadam was and don't mention the fact that there are many other evil dictators in the world but they're in countries without any valuable natural resources, you should get full marks. But you'll be lying to yourself.