ABSTRACT
In antiquity the authors find both bellicist and pacifist traditions of war. The Greeks and Romans both justified and extolled war. A theory of just war emerged from the pens of the two great scholars of the first millennium of the Christian era: Augustine and Aquinas. From US General Colin Powell's initial threat of megawar to the final blitzkrieg of fleeing vehicles on the Basra road, we probably killed far more soldiers and civilians than was necessary. Iraq claimed that unhindered passage into the Gulf was at stake and sovereignty over the islands of Bubiyan and Warba was disputed. It must be acknowledged that from the outset the Allies sought to limit civilian destruction and thus in part honored just war conventions. Further analysis of the propriety of this war, viewed against the canons of just war theory, will punctuate the examination of the theological and secular sources for the just war.
