In case you didn't notice, the Bush administration, properly chastised by the Supreme Court, has decided to announce that, henceforth, all detainees in the so-called War on Terror,
will be covered by the Geneva Accords.
This phenomenal piece of ass-covering, while mildly reassuring on its face, seems to me less an indication of future lawfulness than of the ongoing atmosphere of least possible legality. That is, simply, that our immature and immoral government will continue to adhere to as few laws as they can for so long as they are permitted to do so.
But, believe it, or not, that is not the purpose of this diary. Rather, I thought, perhaps, it was time, for a new set of laws governing warfare. Various persons throughout time have taken various approaches: manuals on how to win a war; treaties dictating that nations shall only war humanely...etc. etc. Hop the fence for my take.
As I said, there have been many approaches to the rules of warfare. For instance, Lao Tzu--no, sorry, wrong Chinese dude. Sun Tzu laid down a very practical guide book for winning war. For instance, this highly relevant gem comes to mind: "Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain."
The multipartite authors of the Geneva conventions, meanwhile, recognizing that the aim of war is the complete surrender of one people to the will of another, and recognizing, moreover, that this end ultimately requires the most extreme brutality, sought, paradoxically, to legislate an end to certain, specific practices considered, for whatever reason, more brutal, and more objectionable, than merely shooting holes in people, blowing them up, slicing them open, etc.
I have no interest in either of these pursuits. I regard the correct practice of war to be the self-evident one of the path of least stupidity: the most effective, wiley, and efficient brutality wins. And I regard war to be so fundamentally an exercise in brutality that the Geneva conventions are, to me, wholly pointless.
Yes, torture is bad. And yes, killing noncombatants is bad. But then, so is killing soldiers. And by the very nature of modern warfare--the collective decision to be nice to civilians, for example--we ensure the continued practice of warfare even by the most civilized of nations, such as ourselves. For the civilian populace, the supposed democratic rulers of our nation, are largely untouched by the war; and our elected overlords that much more so. What incentive do we have, truly, to avoid war? (Yes, that's a rhetorical question.)
We have isolated ourselves from the insanity of war; so now that insanity continues untrammeled.
I am a cynic. A realist. And a little bit pissed off. So when I think of the laws and/or rules of war, what comes to mind are not guidelines for how war SHOULD be waged (you can take that either analytically, as Sun Tzu, or humanistically, as the Geneva accords; it matters not, for the simplest truth is that war should NOT be waged at all)...
Instead, I find myself thinking of the underlying truths of warfare: the raw essence of that most futile of human endeavors. And the laws that I write down in my musings are neither optimistic nor humanistic nor even particularly instructive. They simply are, as the atom is, and the electron. War has properties; and the human reaction to war has properties and patterns of a predictable nature.
So these are my first, lowly attempt at capturing the natural and psychological laws of warfare between human tribes on this earth, as we circle around this sun, in this, the twenty-first century since a Jew was nailed to a cross for daring to suggest that it might be a good idea if we all learned to get a long.
The 21 Rules of War in the 21st Century
One
There is no Heaven.
Dead is dead.
Two
The majority of the population
will never admit to the first rule.
Three
The smart lie low.
Or run. Or hide.
Four
Because the smart lie low,
the foolish rise to the top:
war is an exercise in self-reinforcing stupidity.
Five
Only carrion eaters
and weapons manufacturers profit.
Most of the foolish are eventually shot.
Six
While the dead are rarely mentioned,
heroes are ubiquitous
and conspicous in their physical absence.
The Seventh rule of war,
and a corrolary to rule six,
is that the wounded are invisible.
Eight
No matter what anyone promises
children, women, and other noncombatants will die--
and they will die in staggering numbers.
Nine
All schedules to the contrary,
a war isn't over until the stupidest,
most pigheaded, xenophobic asshole says it is.
Ten
This is the saddest of all:
no one who matters ever learns anything:
there will never be any such thing as
the war to end all wars.
Eleven
All rules are made to be broken.
Especially the Geneva conventions.
Twelve
When moral soldiers refuse an immoral order,
immoral soldiers can always be found to incarcerate them.
Thirteen
The poor will always be at the front lines,
and the rich will always make the battle plans.
Fourteen
Those who oppose a war publicly
can easily be dismissed as traitors, terrorists, or communists
(depending only on the conflict in question).
Fifteen
In wartime, news agencies can be counted upon
to print propaganda
at least as frequently as news.
Sixteen
While it looks better if the UN says the war is legal,
rules fourteen and fifteen make this step wholly unnecessary.
Seventeen
Those with bad backs and weak hearts
are often the most ardent supporters of a war of aggression; being optional, the war will almost certainly provide exceptions to service for these lucky few.
Eighteen (A)
Depleted uranium does not constitute a nuclear weapon
when a superpower or victor uses it. See Fifteen for clarification.
Eighteen (B)
Torture can always be justified
by the rabidly patriotic.
Again, see Fifteen.
Nineteen
Nothing is ever accomplished by war
save the humiliation of one people by another
to the point that they are willing to come to a table
and either talk or listen for a time.
Twenty
International wars are never about oil, energy, or land
except when the sun rises in the east.
And the Twenty-First rule of war
is that despite all of the above,
there will always be women
who find soldiers sexy, reassuring, manly,
and wholly deserving of a good fuck
with something other than a bayonet.
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So there you have it: my first draft of the 21 rules of war in the 21st century.
Have at it.