Dark Hearts and Total War

As Israel reduces Gaza to rubble, the destruction has upset modern sensibilities. It is the commentary from Israelis and their officials, however, that has also outraged a good part of the world for what feels like the wildly inappropriate joy celebrating the death of civilians. What is curious about this squeamishness is that the level of violence, and the Arab and Jewish demonization of each other, is well within the pale of any modern conflict, including U.S. wars fought by the current generation. 

Leaving aside the complicated history of desert people settling ancient feuds and, of course, the controversial modern political dynamics, is the Israeli desire to wipe their enemy from the face of earth the exceptional outrage many think it is? To be clear, I don’t condone Total War and I carry no water for Arabs or Israelis.

But Our Enemies Are Different

The argument for winning at all costs is hardly a modern idea nor is it illogical. Decades ago, Pat Buchanan asked what other outcome was possible for Arab children seeing their family and neighbors killed and their communities razed? Of course, they would grow up committed to righteous vengeance! This is the simple math of generational war and ethnic hate that endures for millennia. 

Destroying your people’s enemy can easily become the defining part of a group’s identity. Whether or not this is toxic and will siphon energy, resources, and the creative muse from solving more lasting and beneficial things for your people is irrelevant. Transcending ideological differences, having ethnic and racial foes is the primal wiring of mankind. It is the casus belli animating conflict everywhere and at all times. Scratch the surface of even the most cynical wealth and power motives and you will find far more visceral tribal reasons for why blood must be spilled, and spoils taken. 

My blood boils and my eyes darken with rage more often than I care to admit looking at home soil acts of treason, barbarity, and injustice. After years of antagonism and feeling helpless, even the most controlled and balanced temperament seethes with desire to punish and destroy even when there is no direct threat of physical harm but instead things that merely offend and insult. 

The unmet and encouraged destruction by antifa, BLM, and their adjacents who burned, looted, killed, and toppled statues of “imperialists” from Columbus to obscure statesmen whose bronze postures were apparently an intolerable micro aggression, triggered a response from homeschooling moms to mild-mannered retired Boomers who shared images of flamethrowers and woodchippers with invective to match.  

The now iconic image of Lee’s face being melted has elicited a similar response. It was a bitter but invaluable gift that will solidify another generation to reject the imperial government and those who support it. And if and when the time comes, will there be pity or restraint towards those that gleefully celebrated the destruction of our people? 

The fundamental question here is acknowledging whether coexistence with long standing foes and their irreconcilably different world views is possible. I can’t think of a single example of reconciliation when a parity of power is allowed. Instead, it is the opposite that appears to be the rule with the uncomfortable lesson being that a conquered enemy allowed to live is avoiding reality and even an act of cowardice. It would seem that if even the smallest ember remains it is only a matter of time before a future generation will rise to fight you again, their history quietly kept alive by those who remember. We do this in the South just as defeated people everywhere do likewise.  

This is the cold logic that permits the cruelty of Total War and the hard things to be done for the peace, prosperity, and continuance of your progeny and culture. 

The courtroom scene in A Few Good Men expresses this well:

“You can’t handle the truth!…I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom…My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall…You rise and sleep under the blanket of freedom that I provide and then question the manner in which I provide it.”

Mounds of Skulls and Weeping Women

From localized inter-tribal warfare in Africa to the sweeping history altering conflicts mentioned in the Bible, the deliberate intent to destroy enemy resources, infrastructure, enslave, and, of course, exterminate your enemy is not just the story of Total War but history itself. 

• From all sides during the 11th Century Crusades, countless villages and the populations of entire cities were slaughtered to utterly destroy future support and kill the infidel. 
• The entire strategy of Genghis Khan in the 13th Century was a “scorched earth” policy knowing that the best way to conquer was to ensure that the opposition cannot mount a future attack. Captured cities were terrorized into submission with the elimination of majority portions of populations leaving no one to rebel.  
• “The Terror” during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that followed were shocking and noted for not just the scope but the savagery.
• The Soviet’s extermination of the Kulaks and the brutality during the Spanish Civil War were fueled by true hatred of the “ideological enemy.”
• After capturing Atlanta, Sherman and Grant murdered, burned and sacked towns to destroy the South’s plantation economy and to demoralize the Confederates. A crippled infrastructure meant neither soldiers nor civilians could reform and fight.
• The excesses of both World Wars and, in particular, with the unconscionable firebombing of Dresden and nuking of Japan were meant to break the will of civilians by killing as many non-combatants as possible. The wholesale murder and humiliation of the German people after the war was a grim collective punishment that has been left out of history books. 
• Today, Israel has many stark policies that make sense in the context of Total War and generational and spiritual commitment to the eradication of the enemy. An example is the Hannibal Directive. Though supposedly canceled in 2017, recent events make it clear that, even if unofficially, it is still operational. The directive permits harming or even killing their own soldiers and citizens in order to kill the enemy. With the hundreds of Israeli and other hostages in Gaza, the scale of bombing and “collective punishment” of civilians would seem to confirm that collateral damage is acceptable.

Just War Delusion?

The dark aspects of the human condition have always been known. It’s when they are forgotten that evil has a chance to bloom. While Saint Augustine is credited with proposing a realistic approach to waging a Just War, there were many codes of warfare that long predated his ideas of the legitimate use of war and the understanding that moral boundaries were in everyone’s best interests. 

There are many versions of Just War doctrine, but most include:

1. A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
2. A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
3. A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. The only permissible objective of a just war is to redress injury.
4. A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
5. The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace.
6. The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.
7. The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians.

And while these moral constraints have arguably tempered war’s carnage, when existential stakes are on the line, or the possibility of the total destruction of the enemy presents itself, or simply the joy of bloodlust and punishment wins the day, we embrace darkness and let it guide. A blind eye is turned, court historians sanitize, we prefer not to know what “the men on the wall” have to do. The even darker truth is we cheer and rejoice that The Other is forever dead.  

The fighting in the Holy Land is man’s merciless nature once again on display.

The last living man at the end of time will regret nothing.