How’s that? Had all the reasonable alternatives been exhausted? Hell, no - Saddam was engaging in good faith, *had just let 3,000 Americans in Iraq go home without demanding any quid pro quo. *This was less than a month before we started bombing - a bombing which started after Bush the Elder had abruptly moved the goalposts on Saddam, from negotiations starting by January 15 to complete withdrawal by that date.
And did I mention that when asked about the release of the Americans, the ‘good’ Bush basically said, ‘one less obstacle in the way of attacking them’?
No, Desert Storm was NOT a ‘just war.’ I think people have forgotten just how things played out in the weeks before the bombing began.
Getting back to the American Revolution, from the colonists’ side I think it clearly fails 1 and 4 of the Roman Catholic standards for a just war. (1) The damage inflicted by Britain on the Colonies was not grave, and it was too soon to tell whether it was lasting. And (4) the lives lost as a result of the Revolution were easily a greater evil than taxation without representation.
Sorry, my fellow Americans, but our nation was founded in an unjust war.