Monday, January 6, 2003

That the Houre of Parlies is dangerous from Essays After Montaigne 'That those who run for the masterie may well employ all their strength to make speed, but it is not lawfull for them to lay hands on their adversaries, to stay him, or to crosse legges, to make him trip or fall.' And more generously answered Alexander the Great, at what time Polypercon perswaded him to use the benefit of the advantage which the darknesse of the night afforded him, to charge Darius. 'No, no,' said hee, 'it fits not mee to hunt after night-stolne victories;'... I had rather repent me of my fortune, than be ashamed of my victorie. If everyone involved is indeed better served by war conducted within the bounds of some code of conduct, how is such a code to be re-established after it has fallen into disuse? In the current context of rampant distrust and hatred, there is no way that such a code could ever be mutually agreed upon among combatants. It must be imposed unilaterally, and the U.S., as the most powerful combatant in any conflict, must be the nation to impose it. We must conduct our wars with honor and without deceit, achieve victory, and feel no shame in those victories. So many of the conflicts in which we are now engaged are the result of our past deceit. Iraq's power was established in part through the support that we offered them to avoid confronting Iran in a forthright war ourselves. Al Qaeda has arisen from among the militant Islamists that we covertly supported in their war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Aside from being the nation in the best position to re-establish the definitions of honor and deceit in war, we are also among the nations with the most to lose through the erosion of civilization. It is in our best interests to conduct our wars admirably. Failure to do so will see us engaged in conflicts in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and God knows where else in the next generation. 8:04:19 AM     What do you think? ()

Whether the Captaine of a Place Besieged ought to sallie forth to Parlie from Essays After Montaigne To deceive may serve for the instant but hee only is judged to be overcome, that knowes he was not vanquished by craft or deceit, nor by fortune or chance, but by meere valour, betweene troupe and troupe, in an overt and just warre. I am easily perswaded to yeeld to other mens words and faith, but hardly would I doe it, when I should give other men cause to imagine, that I had rather done it through despare and want of courage, than of a free and voluntary choise, and confidence in his honestie and well-meaning. The notion that there is honor or deceit to be found in war has come to sound hopelessly quaint. We've come to believe that war is hell and that all is fair in its prosecution. But as quaint as the ideas of honor and deceit may be, I believe that they could still serve us well. If we are to have wars, we must have declared wars that are fought between uniformed armies and that can be decisively won. Even the losers of such wars are better served--witness the condition of Germany and Japan as opposed to the condition of Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, or Afghanistan. We are rightfully horrified by terrorist attacks, but the objection must be that the attacks are not undertaken by identifiable nations in the pursuit of comprehensible goals. The objection cannot be that such attacks are directed at civilians, as attacks by the U.S. during war have regularly been directed at civilians, from the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm sure that I sound silly even trying to draw these distinctions. I know that anyone my age who grew up watching afternoon reruns of Hogan's Heroes no doubt chuckled at Hogan's apparent naivete whenever he invoked the Geneva Convention in disputes over his and his fellow prisoners' treatment. Why would an army in the midst of attempting to take over Europe by force and systematically exterminate millions of civilians be concerned about such things? But if we must have wars (and it appears that we must), we're all better served if there's a code of conduct governing those wars. I would even go so far as to argue that honoring and protecting such a code may even be worth risking the other aspirations for which we fight. The more primitive a culture, the more likely that the culture will have strict customs governing the conduct of war. Such customs allow otherwise intractable disputes to be resolved decisively while still allowing for the survival of the culture through, for example, the taking of prisoners and the protection of women and chidren. Over time, the distinction between winning a given war and ensuring the survival of the culture became blurred, and the definition of war and its acceptable prosecution became broader. Note that part of the rhetoric around any modern war includes claims that defeat will mean the end of a given culture or even of civilization itself. In that context, winning regardless of the means or the costs comes to seem reasonable--a course of action that really could lead to the end of civilization itself. 8:00:44 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:33:25 AM.

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