Kafein brings up a good point when he was replying to Panos, and I would strengthen his argument in bringing up the fallacious condition of current and past political justifications for war.
Just war, according to Saint Augustine, is the ability for man to exert force over another in the name of God. All other things aside, that's a pretty enormous claim, premised on the idea that the Bible is true and our interpretation of it is as well. Set aside any sort of religious qualms for the sake of argument and let's take a look at the problems. If we ask ourselves whether just war satisfies Kant's categorical imperative the answer is no. Kant's categorical imperative asks for too much; that the laws and rules that govern one individual is true for another, universally, and that if one were to repeat this action hitherto forever that it mustn't threaten the survival of our species. Obvious if I were to murder someone that doesn't satisfy this, even in the form of retribution, which is not Divine (according to theologians). Therefore if everyone in the world were to participate in war we could not ensure the safety of our species. But if we say, 'well we must stop these madmen from ruining the world!', I would reply to what ends will this be sufficient? Has it ever? In the literal sense wars still happen, the old rule of an eye for eye still applies, and our sons are still sent on behalf of our tribes. What normally happens in this circumstance is you will get someone who uses 'the most utility for the most people' or something to that effect to justify themselves in war, that the most good for the most people is what we're really after, but like Leshma pointed out, when has that ever actually been the case in war? When has war ever benefited the soldiers or the poor? If utilitarianism was truly the only social end, we'd live in an anarcho-socialist system, but that won't happen as long as people remain shortsighted to the overall outcome of government which is to always maintain enough power to intervene in the condition of all vs. all (Bertie Russell gave a wonderful explanation of this in "Power"). Once they understand that then government could exist as only infrastructure to a pacifist world.
I'm not a Christian but I've read the Bible. Remember all of those miraculous acts of Jesus? Who did they benefit? In most cases (the ones I remember), they were for lepers, for the hungry, for the wicked and lost souls who wander the Earth without a helping hand. The sad fact about socialism, especially in Eastern Europe and Russia, is this: "Socialism" is the synthesis of the highest achievement of all previous historical epochs; from tribal societies it takes barbarism, from antiquity it takes slavery, from feudalism it takes relations of domination, from capitalism it takes exploitation, and from socialism it takes the name (this is sarcasm, see the quotation marks, and thanks Zizek). So I will conclude that there MAY be just war, there MAY be truth to utilitarianism, but have those highlighted pieces of ideology ever actually served their proposed groups? I argue not (imperfect reason). War, thus far, has always been murder. And for anyone to celebrate the legacy of the USSR is a shame.
