In ideal liberal theory, citizens themselves are the source of all governmental actions in one form or another. This is a unifying principle of what makes a liberal theory a liberal theory, at least for the contractarians. The conclusion then that citizens within liberal societies are not covered under the [Neutrality-innocence justification] follows in a fairly straight-forward fashion. If a government decides to go to war, that decision only comes about as a result of the citizens authorizing the government to do so. The citizenry’s role in the war is as the originator of the action towards war. This might happen electorally or it might happen by consenting to a societal structure that allows wars to be waged. Regardless of which one happens to be the case, the citizens are necessarily participating in the process of waging war. Thus, the citizens are not innocent of the decision to pursue war, for it is they who are authorizing the decision; and, the citizens are not neutral towards the war effort because it is their actions (consent) that causes the war to occur. Because the citizens are non-neutral and non-innocent, the [Neutrality-innocence justification] cannot apply.
You’re either a subject of your government with no say and therefore not a legitimate target, or a citizen with say and therefore a legitimate target.
An interesting argument.
A terrorist blowing themselves up in the middle of a crowd of anti-war demonstrators would be perfectly justified according to this theory, which is your first clue that it is not also a good argument.
If killin antiwar protesters is forbidden, what about killing civilian pro-war activists? What about conscripts?
Since when do such movements limit themselves to civilian pro-war activists?
As far as I can tell, “a terrorist movement which only selectively attacks political operatives that are against their national separatism” (or similar) is something that largely just doesn’t happen.
I think it would be a lot smarter and likely to succeed than what tends to actually happen. It provides a very clear Exit path, draws in far fewer in opposition (since those of opposed ideologies are at much less personal risk), spends scarce public resentment resources over targets that disproportionately help the opposition, etc.
From what little I know, that might fit the IRA?
Anyhow, whenever I see this argument, I never see it in a more nuanced form suggesting that the force of violence be directed over the actual movers of political power towards war.
Instead, it’s usually “and therefore 9/11 was justified.” The problem with this is that the same reason meddling over there created the conditions for bringing about 9/11, launching 9/11 creates the conditions for the Iraq War. That’s just how people are - and in many ways it makes sense for them to be that way. From a practical perspective, all this viewpoint does is increase, rather than decrease, war.
