Discuss the below:
1. According to several probably-apocryphal accounts, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was observing troops advancing into battle from a nearby hill at the beginning of the Battle of Fredericksburg (1862), said to General James Longstreet, "It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it."
Assume for the moment that Lee actually spoke these words. In conversation with the entire breadth of your learning this semester, write a well-crafted essay: 1) Analyzing Lee's statement, both in its context and in light of what you have learned (from William James, Chris Hedges, and others) about the potentially intoxicating power of war; and 2) Applying the sentiment Lee expresses to the contemporary American context, especially with respect to what Andrew Bacevich calls the "new American militarism." In particular, say whether and how Lee's observation about the terrors of war has indeed moderated our fondness for it.
2. The jus in bello criteria (discrimination and proportionality) have in the past been called the "linchpin" of the just war tradition. As many recent commentators have suggested, the nature of modern weaponry and the modern appetite for total war has made adherence to these criteria at the very least complicated. In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, "given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war'.
In conversation with what you have learned about the Christian just war tradition, write a well-crafted essay: 1) Explaining the jus in bello criteria of discrimination and proportionality; 2) Applying those criteria to the contemporary context; and 3) Arguing whether or not a genuinely just war remains possible today. In your argument, name the particular factors that most make discrimination and proportionality difficult to achieve in prosecuting modern warfare.
3. You have learned that although the Christian just war tradition draws on pre-Christian and non-Christian sources, it has at its roots certain basic theological notions-including, for example, beliefs about the history of God's work, human nature, and the duties of Christiansto God, neighbor, and civil authority. In conversation with everything you have learned about the just war tradition, write a wellcrafted essay: 1) Naming the basic theological convictions upon which the just war tradition is based; and 2) Analyzing how those convictions are apparent in the various criteria-both jus ad bellum and jus in bello-of the just war tradition