Why should we let the Geneva Convention get our troops killed?
Friday, November 27th, 2009
These unrealistic treaties, concocted by snobbish pacifists and ignorant non-veterans, impose a crippling responsibility on soldiers pre-occupied with fighting for their lives. Cruelly indifferent to those called upon to pay for politicians’ mistakes, the air-conditioned ethicists sheltered a privileged class of people who instead must be considered combatants. There are no civilians in a war zone; there is no right to sit it out. Either the inhabitants help kill the enemy or they are the enemy. War drafts all who are there and all laws are suspended.
In more mature times, the “atrocities” of Sherman’s March to the Sea, Dresden, etc. were considered legitimate acts of war. The reality of war justifies any action a soldier thinks might save his own life. Revenge prevents repetition of collaboration. “Civilians” must take sides or suffer the consequences.
In Vietnam, half my company died. Terrorists chop off arms; the Geneva Convention does the same before you’re captured.
No policy should put your own people at risk. We at home should be willing to pay the price of bad publicity if those over there are willing to pay for their lives for our right to be ignorant of what war really means.
The insurgent sets an IED as “civilians” watch. By not warning our men, the civilians must pay. Word will get around about what happens to passive collaborators. The least the natives can do is demand that the insurgent sets up his killing devices outside the town.
Veterans become a potential danger to the people in power; that’s the tyranny that always hides behind touchy-feely posturing like the Geneva Convention. Training a man to kill and then treating him like a loser when he comes home can have fatal consequences, as it did in the exceptional case of Timothy McVeigh. Therefore, the regime must humiliate the man while he is at war by restricting his right to fight back.
Those who are lucky enough to kill without getting killed themselves only achieve a temporary closure. They still have to patrol in a nightmare of shadow enemies protected by an inappropriate civilian status. Overwhelmed be helplessness, the veteran comes home with all the fight taken out of him.
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