Just War or Liquidation?In response to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Western political leaders have stated that their nations seek to “degrade and destroy” ISIL. Traditional just war theory, with its origins in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, enumerated several conditions for warfare before, during, and after military hostilities, positing the notion of a conflict between kingdoms or nation-states that would eventually end with a resolution among the parties in conflict. However, the contemporary secular notion of just war may have eroded this earlier tradition and puts into question the operation of just war principles when…