John S. wrote:

“War is a crime. To pick out a single little part of war and declare it more of a crime is silly.”

This opinion seems to be a slippery slope, with a result that no war could be a good war. Is not a just war argument the appropriate beginning, at least, of a good war?

Breaking of the peace is a crime, as when any person commits a criminal act. Civil authorities are responsible for apprehending and punishing the criminal. The police are not criminals for using force to apprehend and punish the criminal and restore the peace.

In just war theory, and I hope all of our wars start that way, or in just self-defence, the aim is to restore the peace. Thus T. Aquinas places his discussion of just war within his discussion of charity. Within that just war, some actions are going to be criminal. That’s one of the reasons we have a military judicial system and international rules.

Al Qaeda learned early on to game the system re. blurring the distinctions between, say, combatants and non-combatants, making atrocities almost inevitable, even to the best-intentioned combatants. Abu Ghraib involved crimes. Haditha apparently did not. But the overall war is not a crime, since it aimed to restore the peace, enforcing international resolutions (which, it is true, the UN did not want to enforce).