Historical View of Starvation and Genocide as a Weapon of War

Historical View of Starvation and Genocide of as a Weapon of War

Is starvation of women and children the only solution to the ISIS terror campaign?  The answer to that question may very well be, “Yes.”

The problem with war is that unless one side has overwhelming superiority in waging war and can obliterate its enemy by forcing decisive engagement, with the understanding that once decisive victory is achieved in a battle for which unconditional surrender must be given, the follow-on operation must be so cruel by victorious forces that further resistance can not be countenanced by the defeated foe.

While this pronouncement may sound inhumane, the only other way is to continue to fight a long-term battle of attrition which occupying forces are want to prosecute due to the effects on the occupying army, the costs to the nation that supports that army, and the ever-escalating resistance to the army of occupation by a nation of people whose resentment for occupation allows an enemy the again organize and motivate a resistance to wage a war of attrition that will cause even greater civilian deaths due to an advanced military using more powerful weapons to keep the invading forces losses low so as not to lose the political support or will of the people to prosecute that war until victory is achieved or the political situation becomes one which favors the victor sufficiently. 

Lincoln did not destroy the South’s ability to wage war so much as he destroyed their will to make war.  While the South could have easily retreated during any Civil War engagement, they knew that whatever they lost stood to face complete annihilation.  This annihilation was realized in General Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan” and “Sherman’s March to the Sea”.  

During Sherman’s operation, which by any modern standard would have been a war crime punishable by death, he did not engage in Nazi-like extermination.  His plan was to let the lack of food and winter weather kill Southern woman and children by the tens of thousands by burning all food stores, crops, and homes so that woman, children and even babies would die from starvation and exposure to the elements.

While this fact is glossed over as the American political establishment does not like to expose its complete willingness to carry out and glorify genocidal war against even its own people, and it certainly wants Lincoln to remain a saint that lends religious fervor to the glorification of the centralized state, the fact is that it was the intention of Lincoln to kill as many women and children as necessary to force the surrender of Confederate forces.

The British used poison gas against the Kurds and also became the first nation to use concentration camps for the purpose of starving Dutch Afrikaner women and children to force the surrender of a force it was unable to beat in the field.  After the British killed tens of thousands of women and children, it finally acheived the defeat of the South African Dutch.  Does this time in history allow invading armies to engage in genocidal extermination?  If not, it may be best that the U.S. leave Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow.

The problem with modern warfare is that mass communication does not lend to itself to hide the cruelties and crimes committed by an invading or occupying army, expecially when committed against civilians.  While the U.S. media does not show what is happening to the American people, these crimes are not able to be hidden from the entire world and will not be hidden at all from the people who are subject to the realities of such cruelty. 

In Iraq, when there is no army and an organized military gets reduced to an unorganized resistance, whether the U.S. wants to admit it or not, the civilian population becomes the target.  In the case of Israel’s Operation Cast lead, when Hezbollah began defeating the Israeli military, there was a complete shift by the IDF to completely target civilians, apartment buildings and infrastructure thereby engaging in the massacre of civilians.

The result of Operation Cast lead has caused Hezbollah to obtain advanced Russian S300 surface-to-air missiles that can hit Israeli planes while they are still deep in Israeli territory.  The massacre of civilians by the Israeli Air Force has led to Hezbollah being able to claim that it had prevented further massacre by Israeli ground forces.  This is not an idle boast either when one considers the previous Israeli massacres of unarmed Palestinian women and children at Sabra, Shatila and Jenin refugee camps. 

In the U.S.’s war against ISIS the question then becomes one of how many civilians the U.S. has the moral right to kill in order to be able to defeat ISIS.  The current data shows that for all the bombs dropped on ISIS this war could go on for decades.  One of the main reasons the war will continue in perpetuity is that for every militant the U.S. kills

In one month the U.S. killed 1390 civilians and wounded another 2,630 civilians so as to be able to kill 380 militants.  That exceeds a 10-to-1 ration of civilians killed or injured for every ISIS fighter killed.  It therefore seems extremely likely that the U.S. will be fighting and ever-growing military force for decades.

It is estimated that there are 50,000 fighters under ISIS command and control whose leadership earns over $3,000,000 dollars per day selling Iraqi oil on the black market.  How is it that ISIS can be selling oil when the U.S, knows exactly from where the oil is coming?  How was it the U.S. was able to keep Saddam’s regime under check by supervising an oil-for-food program but now can’t prevent ISIS from becoming a self-sustaining terrorist state?

With modern communications that can show and document genocidal extermination, has military might reached its limit of utility for serving as a political tool.  Has violence as a method of politics “by other means” reached a point of diminishing returns?  Could it be that even while the U.S. continues its bombing campaign against ISIS, it is now realizing it is creating more enemies than it can hope to kill through air strikes?  If this is the case, maybe it is time to stop the war against ISIS which will kill even more civilians while doing nothing more than ensuring the eventual defeat of the U.S. by a unified enemy with a surplus of new recruits led by a cadre of experienced fighters all holding a deep hatred for the U.S.

As a horrible peace after WWI led to WWII, it now seems for every action taken by the U.S. in Iraq since Desert Storm in 1990, that the end result will prove to be an even greater disaster than if the U.S. were to have never invaded and ceased its interventions.   The neocons should take note of what over two decades of war and bombings and several trillion dollars in military expenditures have wrought.   Other than make people like Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi very rich, the only things our meddling has accomplished was creating a situation that is directly at odds with our strategic interests.

Killing everyone is not a feasible option for the U.S. as it teeters on the verge of defeat.  There is a monster that the U.S. has created.  There is no doubt that the illegal invasion by Bush was a supreme crime of the type for which the Nuremberg tribunals and the U.N. spoke with regard to Nazi war crimes and illegal invasions.  The Geneva Convention also lays the blame for all the attendant evils clearly upon the nations who conduct illegal invasions.  It is clear that ISIS is one of the attendant evils that resulted from the U.S.’s illegal bombings, invasions and occupation.  ISIS is an evil the U.S. will have to fight and eventually have to live with. 

It has been said that fighting for peace is akin to fornicating for virginity.  The U.S. invasion and occupation was based on absurdities and lies.  We bought into the neocons’ false ideology.  We can not win so long as we keep lying to ourselves and even believing those lies.  Colin Powell said with regard to Iraq, “If we break it, we buy it.”  While Bush printed out literally thousands of tons of hundred dollar bills, U.S. spending not only accomplished nothing, it also served as the means by which ISIS was provided with its funding and weapons.

How long will this nonsense continue?  My bet is it will not be as long as the politicians want to continue the fighting.  It is said that those things that can’t go on forever usually don’t.  It is clear that U.S. interventions, especially if it is of the variety the U.S. is now engaged in, will lead to collapse.  During Operation Iraqi Freedom a tribal ender told U.S. forces they ought to leave before the resistance makes them leave.  It seems he had a better understanding of the situation than the State Department, Department of Defense or the White House.