Apparently, you can't torture a prisoner of war. There's a law against it. But you can tear off people's legs, kill thousands of young boys who have yet to experience the things life has to offer, break up families, slaughter dreams, wipe out an entire nation and condemn the next generations to constant pain; and for what?
Just a few thousands of hectares of land. Because someone couldn't be satisfied with what they have. Because someone just couldn't help pulling the trigger.
War is brutal. It is the most horrific thing the human kind has invented and it is nothing but an eerie, twisted game soaked in blood.
But, there are the "War and international humanitarian laws" which regulate it, so it's actually all under control!
"Parties to a conflict and members of their armed forces do not have an unlimited choice of methods and means of warfare. It is prohibited to employ weapons or methods of warfare of a nature to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering." So you can slaughter the soldiers fighting for people who don't have blue eyes and fine hair, just not A LOT of them so that their deaths become "unnecessary".
"Captured combatants are entitled to respect for their lives, dignity, personal rights and convictions." So you can't kill a "combatant" you take as a prisoner, but it's perfectly fine to kill thousands out on the field.
Of course, it is better to have some kind of regulation over an act of almost unlimited destruction than none. Still, even the act of forming "laws for war" confirms the need for wars and accepts that it is somewhat necessary. But wait! These laws also "prevent" civilians from dying and surrendered soldiers from being killed! So they're totally useful!
They would be, if everyone obeyed the laws. When people cannot even obey the simple command of halting at the sight of a red light, you cannot expect them to "follow the rules" when they are after the head of the king who "dominates the land of their ancestors". Sure, they impose some kind of power and create pressure on the people who violate them, but they don't make war a regulated act of "quarrel". It just seems very ironic to establish laws about the most brutal act of humanity which violates uncountable moral laws. The laws are just like a fence the owner of an expensive house has installed around their property; the owners know it won't keep the burglars out, but it just makes them feel better about themselves when their houses get robbed- or when war brakes out and they retreat to their safe-houses on the skirts of the Alps with their copious amounts of cheese and pocketknives.
As you see, no matter how many frames of "law" and "rights" and "rules" you fasten around war, it does not make it a painting of poppy fields and happy children running about. The frame just keeps the blood from soaking the gallery's floor where the people in power sit and watch other people fight -and die- for them.
You are right to refer to war as "an eerie, twisted game" and to wrestle with the ironies of its parties' vocabulary. The twists of the ages have removed some of the eerie (cool word, huh?) and bloody features of war to produce what we call athletic sports, events far less consequential concerning matters of life and death, most of the time (cf. the NYTimes story of Otávio Jordão da Silva Cantanhede), but just as stimulating for its players and audiences.
ReplyDeleteYour post reminded me of two short works by Mark Twain, but especially of the shorter of the two, titled "The War Prayer." The longer is "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed." The two works were written independently in time but are remarkably complementary in theme. Find a few minutes in your needlessly stressful schedule to read them; they'll provide purposeful respite.