Good Luck and Good Hunting By C.J. Maloney
(2010-06-29 at 21:54:02 )

Good Luck and Good Hunting by C.J. Maloney

You gotta remember to put one in his brain. Your first shot puts him down,
then you put one in his brain. Then he is dead. Then we go home.

-The gangster Tic Tac from Millers Crossing

It is not often that I disagree with what passes my eye when reading
libertarian websites. At this point I have guzzled the Kool-Aid and bask
happily in the progressive sunshine, relaxed and red-eyed. So when I
recently came across a libertarian-slanted review of Elaine Scarrys Rule
of Law, Misrule of Men that seconded that books condemnation of W and
Obamas policy of targeting enemy leaders for assassination, I was
surprised to find myself muttering to the walls as I processed it. I
usually only do that when reading Paul Krugman.

I am not one to take on anybody over the subject of international law -
I am no expert - but I reserve the right to say that something disturbs
the moral sense, and to follow the laws of -Civilized- war that prohibits
the assassination of the enemys political leadership is unjust and
irrational. On this count I am with W, Obama, and all the other
bloodthirsty lunatics who have ruled America for the past half-century.

While I disagree with their insatiable urge to meddle, bomb, and
assassinate on a global scale, I am arguing my belief that their position
on assassination is just, rational, and should be the primary tool of
any nation at war.

While the legally trained mind may point to the -Rules Of War- as reason
to not mark your enemys political class for assassination, recall that it
is only natural that every countrys political class - who write the laws
of international behavior among themselves - have taken the prohibition
against attacking civilians (long a part of civilized mans concept of the
proper course in war) and pulled that protective blanket off the working
masses and instead wrapped it about themselves. It is here that we see
the worlds political classes have developed a class conscience; on this
matter it is not the workers of the world who have united, but the
politicians.

It is the politician who rules, who is the wellspring behind war, always
and everywhere. Bernard De Jouvenel once pointed out -The business of the
ruling class is war. But then, war is the business of no other class-
(De Jouvenel, 158) and he was spot on. Who else but the politician orders
armies raised, atomic bombs dropped, and builds forward operating bases
with guard towers at hundred yard intervals? Why this ridiculous
prohibition on targeting them, while all the while they are ordering air
armadas to firebomb entire cities of men, women, and children into ashes
and dust? Why can they not feel wars consequences, too?

Yet today, international law cleaves humanity into two classes - granting
wartime protection to those who do not deserve it while removing it from
the innocents who do.

Granted, -History never lacks instances to show us of vast masses of men
submitting to a yoke which is hateful to them, and lending unanimous and
willing aid to keep in being a power which they detest." (De Jouvenel, 87)

Sadly, you can slaughter uncountable multitudes of Joe Six Pack and the
bloodied survivors will simply re-link arms, sing a patriotic Ode to
their master, then human wave attack your machine gun nests again and
again. People are funny like that. The road to victory, if taken
exclusively through fighting them, will be extra bloody and far longer.
Civilians are, to be blunt, a waste of ammunition (white phosphorus
shells do not come cheap), so shooting them should be avoided at all
hazards.

On the other hand the political class are not only legitimate targets but
also the primary one to go after, too, as they have the most to lose
(an entire country under their thumb), do not wish to risk it, and (most
importantly) determine when their side will submit.

The 1986 US bombing of Libyan dictator Gaddafis family compound proved
far more effective and humane than carpet-bombing Tripoli would have been,
methinks. The former made Gaddafi and his surviving family members into
what they are today, another -Ally- in the War of Terror; the latter
would have steeled his resolve and made him a hero in his subjects eyes.
To adopt such a policy as used against Gaddafi would make war far more
humane and leave Joe Six Pack out of it to the maximum extent possible.
Yet, current international law has this absurd prohibition forbidding
attack against an entire segment of your enemys population, and its most
important segment, no less - its head.

Think how the frequency of war might decrease if every politician knew
that should his country become involved in one he would flinch every time
he started his car each morning. Every politician the world over most
certainly has taken that into consideration, and here we find what likely
is the primary reason for this Kafkaesque ban. The 1976 Congressional
Church Committee (tasked with investigating rumors of wide-spread use of
assassination by Americas politicians - which it found plenty of) stated
in its conclusions -Assassination should be rejected as a tool of
American foreign policy- as it may -Incite retaliatory attempts on the
lives of U.S. officials.- (Note the same worry does not exist in our
Congressmen for the troops in the field who, if captured by insurgents,
might very well find themselves water-boarded in retaliation for their
political leaders policy of torture.)

That same 1976 Congressional investigation revealed widespread -Peacetime
efforts by U.S. intelligence agency officials to cause the deaths of
foreign heads of states considered detrimental to the interests of the
United States- and now, with the timeless, inexorable nature inherent in
mans addiction to power, that policy has been extended to include
American citizens. This targeting of civilians is a throwback to
barbarism and replicates a sordid policy widely practiced during Americas
Civil War. It was given clearest example by the Union Armys 1864 March
to the Sea.

The Union commander General W.T. Sherman had remarked that he would make
the Southern people - civilians - feel the heavy hand of war, that he
would -Make Georgia howl,- and he made good on his promise. Yet, what did
his brutal March advance, other than the military? The deaths of
countless innocents and the destruction of good feeling that workers
North, South, and everywhere should harbor for each other.

And to prove that God has a sense of humor, in the year prior to this
blatant campaign against unarmed civilians the very same US Army had
adopted The Leiber Code that proclaimed, -Civilized nations look with
horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as
relapses into barbarism.-

It would have been more just (and more to the purpose) had Shermans Army
ignored the Leiber Code, left all the Southern civilians alone, and
concentrated its efforts on the Souths political elite. For Shermans Army
to have captured or shot dead every Southern politician they could lay
their hands on, confiscated or burned all their stately homes - all of
their property in fact - the war would likely have ended far sooner.

Instead, Sherman deployed his artillery about Atlanta and ordered them to
fire at will so -Every house in the town should be battered by our
artillery.- (Sherman, 576)

Ludwig Von Mises once praised the dawn when -Belligerents began to
respect certain limits which in a struggle against men should not be
transcended- as an advance of civilization. (Mises, 169) Indeed it was,
but today we have taken a decided step backward in this respect, and the
limits of what now is permissible in war are clearly upside down and need
to be put right side up.

In the event of war the most rational, moral, and effective means to
bring it to a quick and successful end is to target for assassination,
smart bomb, or drone attack every member of the enemy nations political
class, to make them feel the harsh hand of war, and to leave the working
masses out of it unless absolutely necessary.

So keeping a steady eye on the enemy countrys politicians, from the mayor
of their smallest hamlet to the very pinnacle of their political pyramid,
it does good for a civilized nation at war to blow the bugle, let loose
the dogs, and declare it hunting season - on the fox, not the squirrel.

Sources Cited

* Sherman, William T. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman. (Library of
America, NY, NY, 1990)
* De Jouvenel, Bertrand. On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth.
(Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, IN, 1993)
* Mises, Ludwig Von. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. (Fox &
Wilkes, San Francisco, CA, 1996)

June 17, 2010

CJ Maloney lives and works in New York City. He blogs for Liberty & Power
on the History News Network website and the DailyKos. His first book (on
Arthurdale, West Virginia during the New Deal) is to be released by John
Wiley and Sons in February 2011.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.