The US has not fought a single just war since WWII.

Sadly the opposition seems to have swallowed a little too much U.S. propaganda to be able to perceive even the most basic facts about the motives and achievements of the United States' "War on Terror". As you all know, the main method adopted in this war has been to combat Islamic Terrorism by invading Islamic states. I will not go into the effectiveness of this rather bizarre method but rather, I will stick to explaining how this particular war fails on ALL 3 of the criteria. First of all, my opponent defends American military actions in the war on terror on the grounds that they are punishing the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. You may see some ambiguity in the justification given, but the main idea here is that the US is correcting an act of aggression (to do so, it is performing an act of aggression itself, but never mind that). It is a nice idea, but it's not what the Bush government actually did. Lets look at how what they actually did differs from my opponent's ideals. Luckily, this isn't very hard as evidence for violation of this criterion shows up in the very first action taken in the war on terror: the bombing of Afghanistan. On October 7th, 2001, when the bombing began, President Bush warned Afghans that it would continue until they handed over people that the US suspected of terrorism. You might say that the term "suspected" here seems a bit dubious in defense of an attack which included serious damage inflicted on civilian populations. But at least we had the right country, right? Sorry, we didn't. Eight months later, FBI head Robert S. Mueller III told editors at The Washington Post that after perhaps the most intense manhunt in history, "We think the masterminds of (9/11 attacks) were in Afghanistan, high in the al-Qaida leadership. Plotters and others — the principals — came together in Germany and perhaps elsewhere." So it was Germany all along. We now know that the individuals actually responsible for 9/11 were centered mostly in Germany and The United Arab Emirates (rather than just providing a bit of hate-filled, anti-American propaganda, as certain Afghans did). So, the just cause was never served (we didn't bomb Germany or the UAE), and this also means we lose our right intention. From here, we could start looking at the various retrospective causes which were cooked up, but they are certainly not for this debate. Our other option is to go somewhere along the lines of "at least we tried", and say, as my opponent alluded to in his provision of a Right intention, that it's OK to fight a war, provided you say your attempting to do some good. Why don't you remember that the next time terrorists fly a plane into an office block and say that they were "attempting to correct the wrong that came from"....say....Hiroshima. Before I get to the subject of the "Last Resort" justification, I think I need to do some clarification. I will attempt to explain what I meant when I said "Some though not all of US activity in WWII can be called just". Since I did say SOME, to keep things simple let us ignore all actions taken against Japan, and focus on what can easily be justified. When Germany invaded countries in WWII, it was, for the most part, to replace peaceful regimes with Nazism. The occupations that ensued, under the leadership of Adolph Hitler, involved massive human rights abuses, like the Holocaust. This unlawful occupation and the accompanied genocide were still going on when France asked us to intervene. A requested intervention to put a stop to crimes of this sort is probably the best justification for US military action there has ever been. The issues surrounding the rest of WWII, including US bombing of civilian populations, are very complicated, and it was for this reason that I phrased the title the way I did: the arguments on the just/unjust sides are simply too vast to approach here. So what's the difference between the War on Terror and these particular parts of WWII? Well, US military action against the Nazis clearly meets both the first two criteria (and I hope you'll agree, the third), whereas I have already shown that the opponent's first two justifications of the War on Terror fall far short of justifying what the US actually did. I hope you can now see the difference between defending certain actions in a war and calling an entire war just. As it is, my opponent actually is trying to call an entire war just. To this end, as he rightly noticed, the 3rd criterion is where one REALLY runs into problems. In the War on Terror especially, the aggressors have avoided diplomacy like the plague. My opponent justifies this on the grounds that you can't negotiate with terrorists. However, most terrorists can be dealt with by peacefully eroding their support base, and this case was no exception before the US started to widen the terrorists' support base by casting themselves as "the enemy" in the eyes of many young Muslims. Look at any poll among Muslims about the causes of terrorism for evidence of this (the two favorites are Guantanamo Bay and the western presence in the Middle East) . This link provides an insight into the diplomatic means available in 2003 for removing Saddam - by removing the sanctions which casted The US as the enemy in the eyes of normal Iraqis: http://www.antiwar.com... So it might well have been possible to remove Saddam simply by retracting the sanctions which silenced any pro-American opposition, and allowed him to portray himself as the only person standing in the way of American oppression. How then can you possibly justify this entire wing of the War? In conclusion, my opponent chose a very difficult war to defend, and failed to justify it under my simple criteria. As the actions of the Bush government in this war violate these criteria so much, I suggest he find a different war.