@adanwen has asked me to write something on this post about The Clone Wars not being the Jedi Order’s fault. Here it is:
Jedi Order is not the responsible for The Clone Wars in the sense they weren’t the ones that manipulated the necessary people to get the war started. However, we need to remember that Palpatine didn’t create the factors that created to the war, he only escalated them (we could even argue that the war was inevitable and he only made it happen sooner than it otherwise would have).
Planets, especially from the outer Rim, felt disenfranchised and wanted better representation and aid from the Republic. That was a problem long before Palpatine was made Chancellor. Not only it was a problem, it was a problem the Jedi refused to deal with.
People didn’t begin to distrust the Jedi overnight. It was a long process that started because of the Order’s habit of removing newborns from families (and even thought it was legal and consensual, their methods were a bit shady and separating a child from their family will always leave hurt feelings) and their refusal to engage in situations where the Republic had nothing to gain. Wealthy beings and planets kept a close relationship with the Order but people who needed them the most didn’t even knew Jedi existed. Again, Palpatine didn’t create this. He realized what was happening and he used it against them.
The Jedi were not forced to join the war efforts. As it was said many times, they were the Republic’s peacekeepers. The same way many Jedi were allowed to leave the Order for disagreeing with the war, the Order itself had the choice to do the same. They were not forced to side with the Senate. They were given a choice. The Senate requested their support and they could have say yes or no.
if they had said “No”, they probably would’ve lost influence in the Senate, resources and prestige but in no way they would have been punished. They couldn’t have been arrested or executed for not wanting to fight a war. As it was made clear in AOTC, the Jedi Order was not the military branch of the Republic. War was not their duty. In fact, people should have wondered why the peacekeepers didn’t demand a cease fire. The only characters we saw trying to deescalate the war thought negotiations were Padmé, Bail & friends. If they were forced to fight in the war, why didn’t they tried to stop it? They had influence with senators, but not even once we saw them use it to try to stop the war through non-violent means. None of that is on Palpatine.
Palpatine had a say but in the end the final decision always came from the Jedi Council. Palpatine, via senate, suggested the use of the Clone Wars and the Council agreed, he suggested the deal with Jabba and the Council agree, etc. The Council was free to make its own choices, just as they did when they choose to expel Ahsoka and when they chose to send Obi-wan instead of Anakin to Utapau. Palpatine was winning because he had access to vital information and he knew his enemy better than they knew themselves but he never robbed them of their free will. Same as everybody else, the Council made their own choices.
The brilliance of Palpatine was knowing how the Jedi thought. He knew the Order was more deeply involved in politics than anyone wanted to admit it was. If offered the choice between keeping their prestige (by engaging in action that was contradictory to their belief system) or refusing to fight, Palpatine knew the Jedi would fight.
The Jedi joining the war was the wrong move not only because how it all ended because of what it allowed to happened. The Jedi, by militarizing and by using a slave army, made the war worse. If they had stand out, and said no, the public and the senate would have been forced to consider negotiations with the Separatists. If the Jedi had refused to use the Clone army, citizens would need to fight which would force the senate to consider negations with the Separatists. The only reason the war lasted that long and the all negotiations were prohibited because there was no real incentive to stop it. The only people dying were clones, jedi and the poor. As long as the civilians of the core were not being drafted and their planets remained mainly unscathed, the senate had no real reason to stop Palpatine’s moves.
By joining, the Jedi actually escalated the war. The purpose of the war was never about territory. Palpatine controlled both sides already. It was about destabilizing the Republic and destroying the Jedi. The irony is if the Jedi had done the right thing (refused the clone army, given the clones citizen status, demand negotiations with the Separatists, and refuse to work as generals) they would have avoided (or at least postponed) their own demise.
As Yoda himself said, they quickly joined the fight because in their arrogance they thought they would be the one who would save the Galaxy. The Jedi might not be directly responsible for the beginning of the war but they were responsible for everything that happening after. As generals, they were responsible for every atrocity committed, for every devastated planet, for every dead soldier or civilian, etc.
And just to be clear, holding the Jedi accountable for their role in the war doesn’t make them evil. It doesn’t mean they deserved to die like that or that it was ALL their fault. But we can’t deny their role in everything that went down. Accepting their mistakes only makes their fate more tragic and the overall story more intriguing. Instead of the usual good vs evil story, we get thrilling and much more realistic tale about politics, morality, duty and accountability.
