Opinion: London Has Fallen, Just War Justification

Gayatri Adi

Thursday afternoon, lounging on the couch, I was flicking through the channels on television (TV) trying to find something decent to watch. I come across a movie titled “London had Fallen,” with familiar South Asian music playing in the background. Surprised to be hearing this on a prime time New Zealand (NZ) TV channel, I stopped to see what the movie was about.

A few minutes in, I was staring at the screen wide-eyed and by the end of the movie, I was in a crying fit thinking about the injustice of everything I’ve seen. I felt wronged and hurt, knowing very well that it was a fictional movie. Now don’t get me being emotional as a sign of it being an Oscar-winning movie. It was nowhere close to that.

The movie opens to a Pakistani wedding of the daughter of an arms dealer Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul), who is the mastermind behind several terrorist attacks and is the 6th most wanted person in the world. He is dubbed by the United States (U.S) Vice President Allan Turnbull (Morgan Freeman) as a man “who has murdered more people than the plague.” A huge overstatement. The black death had killed over 100,000 million people in 14th century Europe. I wondered what a person had to do to end up in the top 5 most wanted.

Besides the point, the US government tracked the location of Barkawi and conducted a drone strike on the compound, with 200+ wedding guests, in hopes to kill Barkawi and his family. Two years later, the sudden death of the then United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister James Wilson had the world leaders gathering in London for his funeral. Conveniently, Barkawi in the two years was able to recruit half of the London police and plan an attack in vengeance. Taking out all world leaders who were attending the funeral were murdered on/at London’s most famous monuments (Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge), except the US President of course.

The whole movie follows the US President and his ‘I-am-indestructible’ bodyguard Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) trying to find safe passage. At the end of the movie, Banning was able to defeat and kill the perpetrators and the US government sent out another drone strike to end Barkawi who was hiding in a heavily populated urban location in Syria.

This movie had me so riled up because of the injustice. The US government was allowed to drone strike killing hundreds of innocent people to get Barkawi, an arms dealer - without remorse and any consequence over the number of casualties. But, for a fact, we know that the US does the same as Barkawi - selling arms to unstable regions, which they have made a profit of approximately 12 billion in 2017. The US deals and makes a profit out of weapons sales to unstable/conflict-stricken states, so what is the difference between the state and Barkawai? What gives the US the legitimacy, authority and right to attack, killing hundreds of people but not Barkawi?

Just War theory legitimises US’s attack on Barkawi. It is largely a Christian philosophy which is a guide to the right way for states to act in potential conflict situations. It is a set of guidelines and principles for states to follow to help them reconcile with the question “is a war just in this situation?” Individuals can use this theory to help guide them. There are two parts to the theory, Jus ad Bellum, which are the conditions under which the use of military force is justifiable. Then there is Jus in Bello which informs us about how to conduct war in an ethical manner.

Below is a table that assesses if either of the attacks by US and Barkawi were justifiable under the Just War Theory.

As mentioned before, the theory says that war can only be waged by states with legitimate authority. Under this just war thinking, Barkawi was wrong to attack under vengeance in the first place. The US is considered a legitimate state with an established government, while Barkawi is not. The US had relatively more of ‘just’ argument to wage the drone strike against Barkawi under the just war justification.

I would have to disagree with this conclusion using the just war theory. I believe that being the ‘leaders’ of the first world, US had more of a responsibility towards protecting civilians lives. The initial and secondary drone strike is not justifiable, I don’t think it would ever be justifiable as the US has the power and military expertise to attack Barkawi through different means. All the innocent lives that were lost through the drone strike could have been saved. It is also very hypocritical that the US is considered as ‘the good guys’ even after murdering so many innocent people through drone strikes and Barkawi not.

The reason why the just war theory fails is because it does not consider the developments of new technologies like drone and robotics. It was a Christian thought that was built on Augustine (354-430) and Thomas Aquinas’ (1225-1274) philosophical thinking, at a time where war was fought face-to-face between two states/groups of people with equal opportunity to have casualties and losses.