Cry Havoc:  Taking Off The Gloves

Kim du Toit
April 10, 2002
2:34 PM CDT

It’s time we cleared the air about all this “code of conduct” and “rules of war” nonsense.

For many years back when I still lived there, the South African Army was engaged in counter-insurgency warfare (read: anti-terrorist activity) in both South Africa itself, and in Southwest Africa (now Namibia).

The people we were fighting were an amalgam of SWAPO (South West African People’s Organization--the current neo-Marxist ruling junta) and the African National Congress (ANC--the sainted Nelson Mandela’s likewise Marxist organization).

Their modus operandi was quite simple: infiltrate the country from over the border, then start a campaign of terror against the local population. This campaign of terror took several forms, but the main ones were: the planting of landmines in the roads (mostly dirt roads, so not difficult); planting of bombs in population centers (supermarkets, shopping malls etc, but NOT military installations); and terrorizing of the local population (killing individuals or random groups of suspected “sympathizers” in towns and villages).

As you can see from this, these “freedom fighters” operated under no rules of engagement--they fired RPG-7 rockets at hospitals, civilian airliners, and buses. They executed (okay, murdered) not only local leaders, but in many cases their entire families as well. They stayed well away from our Army installations, of course, because the Army could and did fight back.

The SA Army’s modus operandi was simple: intercept and ambush these “flying columns”. On a few occasions, some of our patrols were in turn ambushed. The SWAPO/ANC took prisoners, then tortured and killed them, in public, in a village that they needed to frighten into submission. One of our patrols once found the body of one of our kids, who had been tied to a tree and, after having had his fingers, toes and genitals cut off, burned alive. He was twenty years old, and left a wife and a newborn baby son at home.

After this, the units based in this sector took no prisoners either. They killed without mercy, took ears as souvenirs, tied terrorist corpses to the backs of trucks and dragged them through the bush till only a bloody piece of frayed rope was left, and the only reason any one of the bastards was spared was so that he could go back to his Commie buddies and warn them what would happen if they ventured across the river. In other words, the Army used counter-terror tactics against terrorists.

Did this cause an escalation of the conflict, and the “terms of engagement” to change? No. It caused the number of incursions to drop precipitously in that sector. But I don’t want to talk about this any more, because it’s old news, and last year’s terrorists are now Nobel prize-winners.

Let’s talk about the here and now, and what all this means to us.

As Americans, we are basically a decent, generous people. Unfortunately, there are times when we have to suspend our values, because our enemies will not only interpret this as a sign of weakness and pusillanimity, but will also turn those values against us. Terrorists spared in this conflict will inevitably be used as bargaining or blackmail chips, and when released will go back to waging war against us. The concept of personal honor, of “parole”, is without meaning to them.

One of the problems we face with terrorists is that they will use any weapon against us, no matter how abhorrent it may appear to civilized people. Thus we see 8- and 10-year-old kids used as shields in anti-Israeli riots, behind which the terrorist marksmen calmly select their targets among Israeli soldiers. All people are enlisted to further their war aims--women will carry plastique hidden in their vaginas, teenagers are used as suicide bombers, families will hide firearms inside baby strollers, ambulances will be used to carry weapons. Nothing is sacred.

In the face of this unspeakable behavior, I find the oh-so civilized discussion of “rules of engagement” and “conduct of war” to be the silly chatter of old women at a picnic. When you deal with people who have so little regard for civilized behavior, it is irrational to place Marquis of Queensberry restrictions on those people who will have to climb into the trenches and engage in hand-to-hand combat with these loathsome fanatics.

And I am similarly unmoved by people who argue that if we stoop to their methods, we become no better than they. This kind of relativist apologetic is not only misplaced, it is dangerous.

My own grandfather, a veteran of WWI trench warfare, told me that in the trenches of Delville Wood the soldiers used anything that came to hand--shovels, bayonets, pieces of wood, and shot the enemy anywhere they could--in the stomach, the chest, the head, the legs, the genitals, whatever. They fought like animals--and if they caught a German soldier with one of the “sawtooth” bayonets, they would use the bayonet on him first, before shooting him out of hand.

Yet, when the war was over, my grandfather and his comrades went back to their lives as ordinary human beings. I never once heard this gentle man raise his voice in anger, and all his friends were just the same--simple, quiet and honorable men, who went about their business, raised families and worked hard (my grandad was a miner). Every single man in his regiment, once back in Civvy Street, went on to live normal lives--in other words, once they left the Land of the Savages, they became once again civilized.

Did it change them? Does it change us? Of course. War changes everybody. We deal with it, and get on with our lives--it is an inescapable part of the human condition. To assume that we will be irretrievably corrupted is to deny the resilience of the human spirit, and to deny the fact that we are civilized at all.

But here’s something we need to realize: unlike our opponents, civilization is not a veneer over Western society, it has become ingrained into our collective psyche. When we put it aside, we do it out of free will--and we can assume it again quite readily once the crisis has passed. Don’t believe all that stuff about post-traumatic stress syndrome--it affects everybody, but the vast majority of men can deal with it, especially well-trained volunteer troops (as opposed to draftees). Yes, there will be nightmares--which is all the more reason to finish this quickly, so that fewer can be exposed to the horror.

The suspension of civilized behavior has to be allowed when dealing with uncivilized people. It is not something to be feared--in fact, it’s the only way to achieve victory against savage people.

It’s no good to climb into a ring with boxing gloves, insist on fighting under the Queensberry rules, then watch helplessly as your opponent brings a flamethrower into the ring. It’s worse than unrealistic, it’s childish, and it’s time we realized that this is a very grownup conflict.

It is time we bombed the Arab “street”, and reduced it into fragments. It is time we targeted Iraq’s chemical-weapons factories, and leveled them. It is time we stopped expecting these unspeakable bastards to behave like civilized human beings, because the fact of the matter is simply that they are not.

Every time a mullah speaks of Jews using Arab blood to make pastries, we should assassinate him.

Every time Saddam Hussein sends money to the family of a suicide bomber, we should bomb his palace.

Every time an Arab leader makes a statement that says one thing in English, and its polar opposite in Arabic, we should bomb his residence.

The “Arab CNN”, Al Jazeera, should be bombed and all its facilities destroyed, because they are not some impartial medium, they are a propaganda organ.

We should not wait for the next atrocity to befall Americans, either here in the United States or overseas--we should target and kill those who are planning that atrocity, and when they cynically use their wives and children as human shields, we should not hesitate to kill them too.

It is time we realized, truly realized, that to these people, restraint is seen as weakness.

It is time to cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. Otherwise, this in truth will be a war without end.