Leaders frame wars as moral causes to legitimate material self-interest

Evidence

Given the death and destruction wrought by war, policy makers and their advisors have to find moral justification for a war for their own well-being, to enlist public support for it, and to enable soldiers to do the fighting. Military actions, whether successful or not, usually are launched with a tenacious belief in the rightness of the cause. In the case of Iraq, opponents of the Bush administration’s policies argued that the underlying reason for overthrowing Saddam was to gain some measure of control over the country’s huge oil industry. The resulting increased leverage could be used to obtain highly profitable oil leases for Western companies, influence oil prices, and help stabilize global oil supplies needed to power the West’s high-energy-dependent economies and lifestyles. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2323

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: how moral justification frameworks in foreign policy function as Bandura-style moral engagement devices that let publics support resource-driven wars.
• XREF: connects to: Warmaking elites sell wars by claiming weapons are precise and humane — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1121