Hostis Humani Generis
A reader writes in and says:
… I would propose that it would be the declaration of a “War on Terror” that is too nebulous a label for any real enemy to be defined at the time except for Al Qaeda which was not a nation but a group of people from many nations, and open declared warfare was not possible since there was no specific state that they were loyal to.Then the fear, anger, and hatred that was felt so acutely against al Qaeda from their actions on September 11 was pushed onto Iraq and Saddam Hussein with a tenuous link that was disproved after the fact. I would agree that it is better that Saddam is gone, but it turned from a war on terror to a war on Iraq which wasn’t even declared as “War with Iraq.” Nor is it a War on Muslims. The only war we are fighting is a War on Terror, and terrorists are not any one nationality or people. You could have a terrorist living up the street from you who is no different from anyone else you’ve known on the out side. There’s the IRA, and Aum Shinrikyo in Japan that attacked the Subway in Tokyo with sarin gas.
Not all Muslims believe in the more severe punishments that we get news reports of, and neither were all Nazis evil. The Nazis were however, along with the Japanese, a clearly defined enemy. It was the same with Viet Nam. Was the enemy only the Reds or was it the citizens that were hard to distinguish from the Soldiers. It wasn’t the same type of war that the first or second world wars were, and neither is the war on terror.
And furthermore the war on terror is distracting from very clear, definable threats to the United States such as the downturn in the economy; China’s rise economically and militarily while depending on their industry; and Russia’s current trend towards policies similar to ones enacted by the Soviet Union. If we have clearly defined problems that are concentrated on as well as the more nebulous and ill-defined problems of terrorism, dissent will look as foolish as it would have in during WWII.
Let me say at the outset that the label “War on Terror” is ill-chosen, and for the reasons you give, but that our current political culture is too weak in the spine to identify the enemy as the Jihadists of Islam. We are in a religious war, of Christians and Sikhs and Hindus and Buddhists against Islam, but no one dares say as much aloud. Nonetheless, your argument is trivial: everyone who is not deliberately fooling himself knows who the enemy is: we are not fighting Irish bomb-throwers.
But let my voice my disagreement, and, I am sorry, my contempt, for some of the specific statements here:
“… open declared warfare was not possible since there was no specific state that they were loyal to…”
I am baffled by the sentence. No matter how many times I read it, it makes no sense to me.
During the Jefferson Administration, the United States declared war on the Barbary Pirates. The war is recalled in the lines of the Marine hymn “…to the shores of Tripoly.”
There is nothing in the Constitution, or the British Common Law, or the Roman Law, or Jewish Law, or even in common sense that says one is not allowed to make war on anyone who is not grouped into the particular social-political-economic configuration called a nation-state.
[Indeed, the nation-state is a recent invention of Europe, the idea that nations (linguistic groups) had a natural harmony of interests, and that therefore princedoms and multi-lingual empires should be broken up and borders redistributed to follow language and ethnic lines.]
Indeed, in American Law, there is one and only one group of people against which the military are not legally allowed to act: American civilians. The rule is called the Posse Comitatus Act, and it was violated flagrantly by the Clinton Administration during the Waco massacre. Any one else is fair game, whether they are a nation-state, a principality, an empire, a city-state, a tribe, or a gang of pirates on the high seas.
The Roman and British and American law even has a name, a legal category, for the type of enemy who commits an act of war not on behalf of a nation state: Hostis Humani Generis: enemies of all mankind. Terrorists are in the same category as Pirates: warships, and not just civilians, are allowed to open fire on them.
I have run across this sentiment voiced frequently that we are not allowed to declare war on anyone but a nation.
It is a widespread blindness: as if we met a pirate ship at sea, and, if the ship STRUCK its colors rather than raised them, that act somehow, miraculously, by fairy magic, took of the enemy out of the category of “people the military can attack” and put them into a special category of people who can attack us, but whom we cannot counter-attack. As if running across a soldier with a rifle in his hand magically made him sacrosanct if he threw off his uniform and hid behind an old lady while firing at you gave him a firmer obligation to be treated as an enemy combatant according to the usages of civilized war rather than nullified that obligation.
No; in reality what happens if you come across a ship flying no colors, you are allowed by the law of the sea to treat her as a pirate and sink her. In reality, if you come across a soldier fighting not in uniform, you are allowed by the usages of war to treat him as a spy, and hang him without trial. Some people seem to think that coming across soldiers not in uniform automatically makes the soldier a US citizen entitled to Habeas Corpus and the full panoply of Constitutional rights. This is not merely false and imprudent: it is the opposite of the truth and it is suicidal.
“….pushed onto Iraq and Saddam Hussein with a tenuous link that was disproved after the fact…”
Oh, brother. We had several reasons for going to war. We have an official Act of Congress that states the reasons for the war: the October 10th, 2002 “House Joint Resolution Authorizing Use of Force Against Iraq”, http://www.usembassy.it/file2002_10/alia/a2101002.htm
An examination of the document shows that the reasons given were accurate. In my judgment, they were also sufficient. Instead of repeating every point, please read my earlier post entitled, “I cannot believe we are still having this discussion.” http://johncwright.livejournal.com/129753.html?nc=32
I am normally patient enough to repeat an argument for someone who has not heard it before: but I hope you will forgive me if I simply post a link, because I have nothing to add to what was formerly said.
“Not all Muslims believe in the more severe punishments that we get news reports of, and neither were all Nazis evil.”
A person does not need to be “evil” in order to justify opening fire on him; he merely needs to be in the uniform of the enemy, aiding and abetting him. This is also merely a false dichotomy. We are at war with the Jihadists and their supporters and sponsors, not with all Islam: All the Western political leaders have repeated that point to the point of nausea.
“And furthermore the war on terror is distracting from very clear, definable threats to the United States such as the downturn in the economy…”
Words fail me. I would like the readers to dwell on this sentence for a time, and to compare the threat to life and limb posed by the housing market speculator’s bubble as opposed to, say, the Madrid bombings or the Gulf War.
” … China’s rise economically and militarily while depending on their industry; and Russia’s current trend towards policies similar to ones enacted by the Soviet Union…”
Amen and no argument from me, brother. War with China and with the Russians is a distinct and terrifying possibility: I am tempted to call it inevitable. China is particularly canny, and has been playing a winning game for the last two decades. Only the complete political otherworldliness of the terror-masters and their goals makes them unable to link with Russia or China as a natural ally against the West.
“If we have clearly defined problems that are concentrated on as well as the more nebulous and ill-defined problems of terrorism, dissent will look as foolish as it would have in during WWII.”
Please forgive me for being rude, but your mind is filled with utter rubbish. Wake up and start thinking. Think hard and clear, as if your life, and as if my life, depended on it: because it does. Look at the facts. Put aside emotion and sentiment, and concentrate with your full attention on the facts of the current war.
The enemy has chosen a method of attack designed to prevent a massive counterattack; it is known as asymmetrical warfare. These are tactical means chosen to achieve a political goal by means of force, or, in other words, war. The means in this particular case are entirely psychological warfare tactics: random attacks on civilian targets of no military value given leverage by media exploitation to create fear and terror and to break the coalition will to resist. The strategic goals of the enemy have been clearly stated in their public announcements: reduction of Western military power and political prestige in the Middle East, the erection of a Caliphate based on Sharia principles, beginning with forcing the West to defer to Islamic Law wherever Mohammedans are situate, Holy War against the infidels, and the recovery of territory historically part of Dar-al-Islam. They don’t intend conquest per se: they intent to weaken our resolve, and to gain what can be gained by intimidation. They don’t want land. They want prestige. They want Islamic men to be legally allowed to beat their wives and honor-kill their daughters without interference, if even all three both live in England. Are we clear?
The means chosen include to fight not in uniform, hiding among civilian populations, so that any retaliation involves unacceptable (to us) levels of collateral civilian damage. The means chosen involve using a distributed rather than a concentrated command structure, so that the death of one or two individuals does not prevent further attacks. Since the attacks are random terror-acts against civilian targets in any case, no overall command is needed: copycat terror-acts are just as useful as acts performed by the party. Terror is also used against neutral or fence-sitting civilians to draw them by fear into obedience. The means chosen involve support from state actors (like Saddam) who promote, support, train and house the terrorists, but at a sufficient remove to create doubt as to who is paying them and why.
Hence, by the very nature of asymmetrical warfare, the only way to fight the terror-masters is to deprive them of civilian cover; the only way to deprive them of civilian cover is to plant a democracy, so that the mass of people has a vested interest in the defeat of the terrorists hiding in their midst. The only way to make it not in the best interests of the terrorists to fight not in uniform is the Bush Doctrine, that is, to treat any nation that tolerates terrorists in their midst, or who pays, or even merely encourages terrorists, as a enemy herself.
The only option other than the Bush Doctrine is genocide.
THEREFORE, in order to avoid massive retaliation by a superior power, the terror-masters are required to fight not in uniform, to use irregular and civilians are soldiers, and to strike their colors. Like a spy and like a saboteur, the threat from a terrorist is designed to be what you so stupidly call nebulous and ill-defined. The only thing that is nebulous here is that the enemy is in hiding, like a sniper.
The problem is precisely defined: the enemy has specific goals and has selected a method of warfare precisely, nay, indeed, perfectly suited to achieve them. The enemy strengths cuts against all the psychological weakness of the West.
Asymmetric warfare is a method of war that involves civilian casualties and involves war-practices the civilized West finds barbaric and distasteful. The only way to fight the terrorists is to cut their support from nation-states that promote terrorism. It is not sufficient merely to prosecute the specific men or the specific organization who committed the act. Anyone of the enemy party is of the enemy.
Dissent looks foolish now, and wicked, and suicidal, at least to me.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
