Wave Skipper

Europeans created the FICTION of morality in warfare. The last big pulse of this began well over a century ago – early 1800s? – when European armies began to cease to bayonet the enemy wounded on the field. The so-called CHRISTIAN leaders of Europe thought that Christian nations should treat soldiers of Christian nations with MERCY (at the time this did not extend to subjugated 3rd world native populations). This arose from an earlier pulse during the Catholic Pope’s reign over European religion. Christian nobility would somewhat spare the lives of other nobility (occasionally) because of their shared religion. Prior to all this, nobility was spared on the field of battle so that they could be sold back to their family for gold.

In any event international laws developed from such concepts, but in practice such laws were used by the old and more recent super powers as a mere propaganda tool. This was because the victors NEVER prosecuted themselves after a war, only the defeated were punished by these laws. But more than that, certain powers (especially Britain) became masters at using these laws as a propaganda tool DURING the war to attempt to dehumanize (demonize) their enemies from being mere peoples who disagreed with Britain, to being people who were morally evil, spiritually corrupt, and against the laws of heaven and nature. In this way Germany in WWI was transformed from a mere nation wanting a part of the colonial 3rd world pie (that Britain hogged so much of) to becoming a nation of deviate baby eaters.

The USA has used the moral war concept to thrash the 3rd world itself. Slowly the rest of the world caught on to this and began to emotionally IGNORE these vapid accusations and some came to realize all international law and the UN were mere puppet tools used by the super powers in an attempt to dominate them.

Truth is – real war (effective war) is by definition devoid of polite rules. It is a state of MURDER. Since effective war requires the use of asymmetrical trickery, effective armies have always spent a good deal of time doing the unexpected. Obviously following prewar rules and agreements is the antithesis of using surprise and trickery.

Throughout time armies have held to their own rules of war based on what their own people considered to be honorable. Of course their enemies, coming from other peoples with differing sets of customs and beliefs, tended to view them as having no honorable ideas or customs at all. Thus, even in ancient times opposing armies would tend to view one another as uncouth barbarians or sub-humans. More recently (WWII) the Western powers viewed the Japanese ancient system of warfare as being shocking and unchristian! But of course in reality the Japanese had a very complex system and code of honorable warfare going back into history. It just wasn’t Western. Demonizing the Vietnamese NVA for not coming out of the jungles into the open to line up for the American war-machine to mow down, was not only pointless, it actually allowed the US military to justify its inability to win in Vietnam, “We’d have beaten them had they fought fair!” Even the complaint that the Communist used dupes in the American media to subvert the American war effort was not more than a silly excuse used the its military leaders. Using political propaganda on your enemy is WHAT WAR IS ALL ABOUT. Thus for the US military to console itself for its failure by saying that their enemy won the war on the American home front, but not on the battlefield, was just plain stupid. That IS the central point of war – YOU SHOULDN’T FIGHT FAIR!

But internationally imposed MORAL rules for war have had another bad side effect. They have given rise to the delusion that Kant invented of the justifiable and good war. There is no such thing as a universally justifiable war. Wars are perhaps good for this or that nation or SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (like arms suppliers), but they are not Heaven bequeathed, sent to improve mankind and raise it to a higher order. But the international rules for war serve to empower the false idea that war can be morally undertaken. Since I don’t know of any war where either side actually tried hard to follow all these rules, the upshot has generally been that these rules were used to 1. demonize the enemy, and 2. used to slow down the enemy from using all its advantages (as when Germany tried to legally stop merchants at sea in 1939, while the Brits told their skippers to secretly use their radios to call in air strikes on the U-boats), 3. to later use these moral laws to throttle and dismantle a nation that was defeated, and 4. these laws energize the victims of war to seek more intense and long lasting revenge, which in the end only lays the seeds for the NEXT WAR.

I think they also make wars more likely. If wars were always fought as dirty as possible I believe more citizens of super powers would try harder to make their nations AVOID wars.

Just my own opinions