Jus ad Bellum and Preemptive War

A better question still may be: can you know a killer will be a killer, if you don't wait for him to become one? To be able to answer yes to that question, you must be able to predict the future with certainty, which is generally considered impossible. Every assumption of what will happen in the future is just a guess. So what makes you sure someone will become a killer?

This problem is generally solved by "laws of war", such as discussed by St Augustine, Hugo Grotius, the Geneva convention etc., in which you say that certain behaviors will be interpreted as a sign that a particular group/person WILL become a killer, and makes it considered legal to use preemptive war against that group/person.

This is NOT the same as being able to predict the future, on the contrary it's a way around the impossibility of predicting the future. However for this solution to work, it is necessary that: 1. the potential victims of preemptive wars know your entire set of rules of what will be considered a behavior that justifies war, 2. the set of rules are fair, i.e. not something like: "if you have an army larger than 1000 persons, we (insert big nation here) are allowed to invade and rape your women and burn your houses", 3. one minimum requirement for such fairness, is that the type of behavior is very likely to be followed by foul acts such as declaring unprovoked war or beginning a genocide or similar, 4. and a few other practical aspects of this type, see the writings by the philosophers and statesmen who have given thought on the subject.

you can't really apply the same standards to murder and war. The latter is usually driven by purelly politico-ecemomic issues and weights and balances. The former is usually a reaction to a situation in a moment.

Hore Tore: Appreciate the strait answer, I'd do the same, and probably feel bad about it afterwards.

was this a response to my post or the thread in general?