Jack de la Parra Blog Post 4

 In our recent readings and discussions regarding the concept of global justice, I found the September 2019 bombing in Syria (against ISIS) to be an interesting point of dispute. This situation relates to the discussion of just war versus unjust war. I would argue that the U.S. frequently acts against "Just War". In a sense, more often than not in our history, we have seen the U.S. take much more severe retaliations to offenses against our homeland or our troops abroad.


Referencing back to the idea of the September 2019 bombing, in tandem with other retaliations in history, such as the dropping of atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima have shown to be drastically increased levels of destruction in reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. These completely destroyed the cities, taking numerous casualties in the process, whereas Pearl Harbor was more concentrated on a military base.


Relating to the concept of Anticipatory war, the United States have engaged in pre-emption more often than prevention in my opinion. For example, in the cold war, we have seen the buildup of arms against Russia in order to "prevent" attack, but in reality this just furthered tensions amongst the United States and other Communist Countries in the late 20th century. 


When it comes to civilian casualties, we have also been culprits of not being as careful as possible in regards to protecting the lives of those inhabiting the countries that we are at war or in conflict. According to the article in our powerpoint, we can see that the United States was extremely secretive and attempted to coverup their actions. This just contrinues to show how even if a country may argue that war is justified, the actions do not match their words. 


What can you do when attacked? This question is hard to put into perspective. Larger, more dominant world powers may not take a serious attack lightly, and feel as though they need to demonstrate their strength by "one-upping" another country. However, equal and opposite action may be the most realistic option. It can just be very hard to mandate this type of behavior for each countries' leaders. 


I would also argue that the invasion of Iraq, and the start of a very long war ( and continuation of conflict in the Middle East) may not entirely have been justified by the attacks on September 11th. While this was a revolutionary event in our country's history, the consequences of having thousands of troops continuously deployed in the area for over 20 years. The events of one day determined an entire generation of civil unrest.


Readdressing the concept of what is appropriate and proportional when attacked, the idea of signature strikes does not entirely invoke fairness in terms of the idea of global justice. Despite the concept that "all is fair in love and war" there are many limitations to this. Attacks on military bases are not always as accurate as intended and can destroy cities already crippled by civil war and unrest. 

Comments

  1. pols170 claire doyle blogDecember 6, 2021 at 7:36 PM

    It is so hard to decide what is an appropriate form of attack when involved in wars. I like how you finished your blog post with the quote "all is fair in love and war". This was really a good way to wrap up your response and previous sentence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jack de la ParraDecember 8, 2021 at 1:31 PM

      Thanks, despite it being a cliche, the meaning has definitely changed over time. All is fair in love and war stems from a quote in a poem by John Dyly in 1572. Therefore, what was considered "all" back then was much less than what is "all" now considering we now have the power to wipe out entire countries at the push of a button. Also, with laws being in effect in order to punish people for war crimes, we can truly see this not to be true.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Claire Doyle - Blog Post 1

     The study of international relations is based primarily on a sexist and racist foundation. According to the work of Du Bois, “Of the Culture of White Folk” and Ann J. Tickner’s “Morganthau’s Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformation,” the analysis of international politics is based solely on the views of white men. Throughout Du Bois’s work, he critiqued that the study of international politics existed before sociology, political theory, law, and colonial development. Tickner critiqued the work of Hans Morganthau and his Six Principles of Political Realism, which Tickner argued were “a partial description of international politics because it is based on assumptions about human nature that are partial and privilege masculinity” (Tickner, 431). Regardless of what one studies, the basis of that historical foundation is most definitely based on the views of a white male. Whether it is the study of science and using Einstein’s studies, US History, the Foundi...
Read more

Blog post 3- Harrison Gold

  Harrison Gold POLS170 Blog 3 Economic Funding Under COVID-19 The Covid world we are living into today has created tremendous hardship, in many forms.  In addition to the unthinkable death toll associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, there is the devastating impact that the coronavirus has had on the economy – both in the US and abroad.  However,, some of this impact has been mitigated by our governments efforts. Because of the deadly and contagious nature of the Covid-19 and its variants, the last two years have created changes in our lives that were previously unthinkable – which includes the devastating economic toll resulting from Covid’s impact on the global economy.  For the sake of this blog, I will initially lay out the economic impact of the coronavirus, followed by the measures with which the US government has enacted to keep our economy in check and to avoid a complete collapse.  Many other countries has taken comparable measures w...
Read more

Blog Post 3

 In my third blog post, I wanted to discuss global economy, and specifically, Strange's article that discussed the difference between Japan's financial power compared to the United State's (keep in mind that this article was written in 1990). Strange's core argument is that the reasoning behind the disparity between the financial powers of Japan compared to the united states comes down to the fact that Japan's power was "relational", while the United State's was structural. Essentially, the international use of the Yen along with the "percentages of Japanese trade invoiced in Yen" (269). Strange argues that these two indicators fell short on the international playing field, as the use of the Yen made up very small percentages in international trade. The United States, on the other hand, dominated in terms of the use of the dollar, and even had exchange rate protections for imports and exports.  The point of my discussion, however, is to discu...
Read more