Saturday, December 21, 2013

Prosecuting War Crimes only Prolongs War


 
When Napoleon Bonaparte was still a young General, not yet 30 years old, commanding his first Army, the Army of Northern Italy, it was almost his first Battle when he trapped the Austrian Army between his own forces and a river.   His underlings, most of them older with more actual combat experience were seemingly delighted.  Defeating Austria here would deprive them of one of their major Armies and seriously weaken them for years to come.  Advance, advance, advance!
 
But Bonaparte hesitated.  He assembled his Staff and told them that most battles are won when the men on the losing side get the feeling, the suspicion, that they are beginning to lose, and that this ‘feeling’ becomes a contagion that runs through the ranks, and then the men break and run, and then their Officers have no recourse but to immediately wave the White Flag for Truce and then to apply for conditions of surrender.   But with their backs against either Mountain, Cliff or River, then the dynamics of a Battle change in the extreme.  If there is nowhere to run, then they won’t run.  They will have to stand and fight.  And those on the other side who are pushing them where they cannot go, well, they feel the desperate resistance, of men scratching and clawing for their lives, and can’t help but sense that if they did not push quite so hard, they would not be in nearly so much danger themselves.  “After all, where is the greater motivation here”, asked Napoleon, “To fight for the mere vanity of a Victory as our men would do, or to fight for their lives as they will?  So, it is that the Army with clear room at its back is the most likely to break and run.  And THAT would be us”, Napoleon finally told them.
 
So, sobered by these second thoughts, the French plan went forward, to harass the Austrian forces while not impeding their move up river until they could get to a town with a bridge.  He allowed the Austrian Army to cross over the bridge, and while the Austrians did put up a significantly valiant fight to keep the French Army of Northern Italy from crossing over themselves in pursuit of an all-out attack, still, once the Austrians had room at their backs, they felt the inexorable pull of fallback and retreat, and with Napoleon sending riders forward, under White Flag, to assure livable terms to the Austrian Commanders, they soon stopped the rear guard actions and surrendered.   Beaten and Humiliated on the Field, still, the bulk of the Austrian Army were back eating and drinking, singing and dancing in Vienna before the month was over.   
 
What lesson does this teach us?  To win a Battle it helps in a significant way if your Enemy feels as though they have a better Future in Running then in Fighting, and that if they do Surrender, that they know they will be able to walk away, and not be executed or tossed in Prison. Soldiers and Generals surrender much more easily if they realize it is not a fate worse than death.
 
When this kind of Battlefield common sense prevailed, Wars could sometimes come to quick conclusions.
 
But then, there was the non-sense of the First World War, what they called the Great War, before there was a Second World War.  They also had called it, stupidly enough, “The War to End All Wars”.  Being so optimistically oriented they decided to invent the Concept of War Crimes (and why not, since if there were to be no more Wars, then they could make up any such silly feel-good things, and never have to worry about how they would actually apply and take effect).  The War Crimes scheme would set up a framework of consideration whereby there would be legal and illegal ways to conduct Wars and that after Wars were ended, then all actions taken during the War would be reviewed for Legality and those individuals found having committed War Crimes would be subsequently prosecuted, tried and hanged.  Now, the practical effect of that was to completely dissipate the Utility of the Idea of Surrender, that is, the concept that with the acceptance of certain terms, there would in effect be a blanket and universal Amnesty covering all combatants.  By insisting on War Crimes Prosecutions, hangings and Imprisonment, well, nobody in their Right Minds would ever surrender to That.  By insisting on War Crime Prosecutions, Wars are made endless, up to the point of the complete devastation of the vanquished Society.  Every soldier would understand that it would necessarily be a fight to the death – the choice being to die now somewhat honorably on the Battlefield, or later on the hangman’s gallows as a humiliated prisoner.   And the Politicians and Government Officials would not feel any safer – The Power Structure of the Country would pull together and fight with everything it got, until there would be absolutely nothing left.  Now, wouldn’t it be nice if we could Evolve to the Point where we could end Wars by allowing the Combatants to sue for liveble Terms and then Surrender.  It once worked.  It could work again… and does still work as I will point out later.
 
I saw on the News that while they are trying to set up negotiations between the Government of Syria and all of the bands Terrorists, Anarchists and Opportunists that started the War, that some silly U.N. Commissioner came out and announced that there would be numerous indictments for War Crimes against the President of Syria and those up, down and throughout the Chain of Command.  Okay, now think for a second.  What good would a negotiated peace be to any Syrian Official, now that they have been explicitly told that once hostilities cease, then they will all be arrested, tried and hanged.   That silly U.N. announcement was in effect a Declaration of Total and Unending War.   And once damned for War Crimes,  as the Syrian Administration is now, well, “in for a penny, in for a pound… might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb”.  It simply makes common sense now to use any weapon at their disposal.  They are already considered guilty (and when in the History of War Crimes has anybody ever been acquitted?), so refraining now will get them nothing, but hitting with a harder punch might get their Country back.   As long as they don’t surrender, the U.N. War Crimes arrests can’t go forward, and there is hope.   Well, hope in War is the enemy of Peace, just as much as a hopeless Peace would be.    
 
And even without U.N. Announcements, everyone in the World can see what is going on… what the going Trend is.   Iraq was devastated by a War, and then, disarmed, its leadership was gathered up, shot and hanged, and the middle and lower levels of Officialdom, Police and Army were dismissed, and placed in the status of an official Persecution that would hamper their ability to get business licenses, own property,  live their lives, etc.  There would be a Democracy, oh yes, except that the Political Party, of all those who had fought for it, as it was their sworn duty to fight, and of all those who had governed and administered Iraq for the last quarter century, well, that Political Party would be outlawed  and dissolved – disenfranchising  that major segment of the Population who had surrendered and laid down their arms in Good Faith that they would be treated equitably.  The lesson there?   Well, we can all see now that they would think that they should have fought harder and dirtier, if such capabilities had been at their disposal… even using their Mass Weapons of Destruction if they had any.  Not only should they have fought the Americans with such more zeal, but after-sight would show them that they should have also done their best to clear the board of their internal enemies who did their best to betray the Country over to the Americans and who would subsequently take the Victory from the hands of the Americans and cash it in for themselves by leading all of the prosecutions and persecutions against all those who had been Loyal to their Country.   In short, their lesson would be that they were far too laid back, and it might have ended for them better, or more honorably as they would see it, had they fought harder, more ruthlessly, and more illegally – more totally.  This probably isn’t the best lesson we can be teaching the Roque Regimes of the World.
 
We saw it again in Libya.  If the Regime’s men only knew how they would be treated after Surrender, maybe they would have put up a stronger fight.   And it is difficult to wonder what the West learned about Libya, because there can’t be a single coherent person on earth that would not trade the Libya of After for the Libya of Before.   Pushing for the total destabilization of Libya that had been one of the primary pillars of strength on the African Continent, well, it caused a Geo-Political Earthquake that still hasn’t stopped shaking.   
 
So, anyway, all of these annoying Countries that the West does not care for and would wish to topple over with ‘Regime Change’, well by now they all know that their ‘Backs are against the River’, and there will be no equitable or even livable Terms for Peace.   Our Modern Structure of War Crimes and their Prosecution will end up giving us the most Extreme and Endless Wars.  It is ironic, but because of War Crimes, now Belligerents are forced by the most desperate necessity… fighting for their Lives… to use the most Terrible Weapons at their disposal to keep ahead of arrest and execution.   That’s progress for you, and what they have come to call “unintended consequences” – but so easy to anticipate by anybody with the least bit of experience, or even just reading… and a dash of discernment.
 
And I am not alone here.  Look at South Africa and Northern Ireland.  The only way those conflicts were finally resolved was that there were explicit guarantees issued that there would be full Amnesties issued and absolutely no vindictive pursuit of War Crimes Charges issued later to Cloud the clear blue skies of vb        Peace.   It tells us something when the only way peace can be achieved is when we purposely decide to ignore the idea of War Crimes.
 
Besides, think of the most important point.   If you know that a neighboring people of a different tribe, culture, religion or race has over-crowded its own land and feels the itch for more, and has launched an invasion into your country and obviously plans to kill you and all of your people to take the land and settle it for themselves, well, could you possibly imagine anything that would be ‘criminal’ in stopping them.   How could there possibly be any excess in fighting for your own or national survival?  In such a context the idea of War Crimes simply looks silly and effete.  
 
And then, afterward, what of those who do commit the most atrocious ‘War Crimes’… can we just let them get away with it?   Well, do the Monsters of War necessarily survive into the Peace, or do their desperate actions done in the time of War lose their meaning and coherency in Times of Peace?  Really, in Peacetime are these people still monsters?  Do they represent a continuing threat?  Perhaps the Monster of War ends when the War does, and then the Man of Peace takes over from there.  We can’t ignore the possibility that there is something Life Affirming in Peace, and that, given a New World, people can make themselves anew. And then, perhaps it is the eternally resentful and vindictive, the War Crimes Investigators and Prosecutors, who become the monsters, scraping back up the stink of War and stomping down the green shoots of Peace.      
 

No comments: