The war in question is World War II. In retrospect, it seems clear that it satisfied all three of the principal conditions of "just war" theory:

1. The war's objective must be just.
   
   When the United States entered the war late in 1941, much was unknown about what the Nazis were doing to Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other minorities. What was known was that Germany had launched unprovoked invasions of several sovereign states and that Japan, its ally, had carried out a surprise attack on a U.S. military base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The discovery of the Nazi extermination camps retroactively strengthened the justification for going to war even further.
   
   
2. The war must be initiated and led by a legitimate authority.
   
   There was no problem here, as President Roosevelt joined several other democratically elected governments in declaring war against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan.
   
   
3. The harm caused by the fighting must not exceed whatever harm the war has been undertaken to redress.
   
   While there remains legitimate debate about some of the tactics used by America and her allies -- the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example, and the internment of Japanese Americans -- most people now believe that whatever abuses the allies were guilty of, the evils they ended were greater.

However, at the time, there was considerable disagreement over whether the fight against the Nazis constituted a "just war." While some Americans felt strongly that the United States should join Britain in the struggle against the Nazis, others felt equally strongly that America should leave Europe to resolve its own problems. In the end, it took a concerted effort from President Roosevelt to make the case that fighting the Nazis was not only a moral duty but a national security imperative.


Roosevelt addressing the American people
© Getty Images

Now compare two images from SIRS Decades: one is a photograph taken a few days before President Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, a document committing America and Britain to the pursuit of peace and prosperity for all nations; the other is a cartoon, drawn two years later, of the signing of the document. Now answer the following questions:

What message do you think the cartoonist was trying to convey by placing Abraham Lincoln on the ship with Roosevelt and Churchill? How would the meaning of the cartoon change, or broaden, if the caption -- "A second Emancipation Proclamation!!" -- was removed?

In what ways does the ghostly figure of Lincoln in this 1943 cartoon play a similar role to the invocation of World War II in speeches made at the start of this century by proponents of war against Iraq?