Arguments Against War
When campaigning against war, we need effective arguments against it. The arguments can be made on different grounds, depending on who you are speaking to or which particular issue you are addressing. If you come across anything you think should be posted here, or you have written a short article (about 3000 words) on the subject that you would like us to consider for inclusion, please email us using the Contact Us button. (All submitted material will be subject to verification of facts and any necessary editing.)
We have divided the arguments into the following sections:
Moral
For most Western nations the commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill is supposedly part of our culture, and for most pacifists and religious people, the moral arguments against war are the starting point. But we must also make ourselves familiar with and consider the Just War theory and principles, as they are often used as an argument for certain wars. A clear simple setting out of the Just War theory is to be found in the book by Charles Guthrie and Michael Quinlan JustWar .
Economic
The amount of the worlds’ money and resources spent on war increases with each year. With financial crises, national debt and needs such as poverty, health and education to be addressed, there is a good case to be made for curtailing military activities. A good source of information on global military spending is the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Link to the SIPRI page in Briefings and Reports With researchers now making use of the Freedom of Information Act, we are learning more every day about how much of our money is going on war.
Environmental
Wherever war takes place, the cost to the environment is serious. From the extraction of raw materials and production of toxins from the manufacturing process of the armaments, the as yet unquantified carbon emissions of military activity, to poisoned water supplies, the defoliated forests of Vietnam and the land polluted by the use of depleted uranium (see CampaingAgainstDepletedUranium and their IntroductiontoDU ), the earth suffers from our addiction to war. There is also the issue of global warming and the threat of serious conflicts as people fight over water, land and resources
Humanitarian
At the beginning of the 20th Century the casualties of war were roughly 90% military and 10% civilian. Over the last 100 years the nature of war and the way it is fought has changed with modern weaponry that can be targeted from thousands of miles away, civilian casualties now make up about 95% of the total. In this century more than two people die each minute because of war. War creates refugees in their hundreds of thousands. War destroys infrastructure, power supplies, schools and hospitals. It destroys peoples’ livelihoods, their homes and their land. And the current ‘war on terror’ has seen flagrant abuses of human rights on all sides.