The Observer

Issue date: 11/20/09 Section: Opinion

Leaders want to conduct war, and members of disparate political factions want to kill one another. The irony of the situation is that, by imposing restrictions and saying that certain conduct of war is immoral, we implicitly say that other war conduct is permissible, or even moral. We construct boundaries within which we may satiate our sick natural desire to kill, but we are hesitant to remove those boundaries because we fear the destruction that we are capable of and will inevitably bring about.

I invite you, the reader, to hesitate next time before you use the word humanity. Think about the rape of Manchuria. Think about the soldier who puts the head of his dead enemy on a pike and displays it. At the same time, think about the soldier who risks his own life to save an orphan during wartime. Think about the soldiers who will risk their safety to retrieve the bodies of their fallen compatriots. Who is really showing their humanity, and how should we construct policy based on our definition of humanity?

General Sherman saw this interesting dynamic of establishing boundaries for war. He responded by advocating that we should lift all restrictions and make war so disgustingly sick that we begin to fear ourselves and stop conducting it. What if such a policy were enacted in the modern world?

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