Patterns of Justification of the United States' 'War against Terrorism' in Afghanistan

In: Psicologia politica, Heft 27, S. 105-117

Abstract

According to just war theory, military interventions have to fulfill several criteria in order to be legitimate (Haspel, 2002). These criteria correspond broadly to four processes of moral disengagement described by Bandura (1999): moral justification, denial of responsibility, minimization of negative consequences, & blame of the victim. Using data from a German Internet study with 1,536 participants, we examined whether these aspects of interpretation relate to attitude toward the Afghanistan War, whether there are specific patterns of moral disengagement, & how these patterns relate to attitudinal variables. All aspects of interpretation related to support for war. We identified various patterns of moral disengagement. However, only minimization of negative consequences & denial of responsibility were found in all patterns. 5 Tables, 17 References. Adapted from the source document.