by John Ringo
There is a legal principle, a Latin expression, “Expresio unius exclusio alterius est,” the inclusion of one is the exclusion of the other. While the law of war does not mention “illegal combatants,” it goes to some length to explain what is required to be a legal combatant. If there is such a concept as legal combatancy, and rules which must be followed to attain that status, then failure to follow those rules places one in the implicit status of illegal combatant.
Those rules are four. To be a legal combatant under the original Geneva Convention, which is quite different from the additional protocol to which the United States is not a party, one must a) wear a fixed insignia recognizable at a distance, b) carry arms openly, c) be under the command of a person or chain of command responsible for your actions (much like a privateer was under a sovereign and a pirate, again, was not), and d) conduct operations in accordance with the customs and laws of war. Failure to meet any of these conditions makes one an illegal combatant.
Note, here, that individuals do not “conduct operations.” Organizations conduct operations. This implies that one is responsible for the actions of one’s organization as well as for one’s own.
Can you hear the sound of Tranzi heads exploding over that last?
They might seem to have a point. Civil law normally doesn’t permit people to be held responsible for the actions of others, right? Wrong. Look up “conspiracy.” Once someone becomes part of a conspiracy they become responsible for everything their coconspirators do. Moreover, within the law of war’s concept of reprisal, perfect innocents may be effectively responsible for what their side does. After all, what happens when a side violates the law by using a hospital, say, for an ammunition dump? The perfectly innocent and otherwise protected wounded are blasted from this world to the next in reprisal.
Equally so, within an armed force, both by “d)”, above, and under the practical effect of the doctrine of reprisal a combatant is responsible for both his own actions and those of his organization.
It works the other way, too, by the way. Note that General Yamashita was hanged not for anything he ordered or could have prevented but for things subelements only notionally under his command did.
What does this mean for the current war? It means that every Saudi kid, inspired to go to Iraq to fight by watching some truck driver’s head sawed of on Al Jazeera, has — in civil law terms — voluntarily joined a conspiracy to fight illegally and is thus an illegal combatant and that — in law of war terms — he is an illegal combatant even if he personally follows the rules completely.
Those who would grant him legal combatant status, the Tranzis in other words, thus are trying to improve and enhance the effectiveness of those who would and do violate the law of war.
This is something you would expect from an enemy, right?
So what can we do? What would John and Tom like to see done?
Number One: Never forget that the Tranzi purpose is inimical to our own, that they are the enemy as much as Hitler was or al Qaeda is. They want us, as a distinct nation and people, to cease to exist. They want our constitution overthrown or made subordinate to their law, which amounts to the same thing. They want our military made subordinate to their judges, so that it can be undermined and made unable or unwilling to defend us. They want us to lose our wars.
Number Two: Remembering that the Tranzis are the enemy, give them no aid, no money, no support. Do not give them a foothold into the armed forces and if such foothold exists (say, in the form of an institute devoted to peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance) close it down. Audit the Tranzis’ books; they’re as corrupt as imaginable and could not well stand auditing. They tend to lie, especially to raise money. Require that their charitable activities advertise truthfully and punish them when they do not. Jail a few of the bastards. On second thought, jail a lot of the bastards. Remove their tax exempt status on the first whiff of impropriety. When the ultimate Tranzi organization, the UN, cheats the Iraqi people and hides the details of the thefts, withhold the funds otherwise due to the UN and pay it to the Iraqis instead… with no chance of ever making good to the UN any such amounts withheld and given.
Number Three: Did you know that the United States has what amounts to a conditional declaration of war in place should anyone have the gall to grab one of our soldiers to turn over to the ICC or some other Tranzi court? It’s called the American Servicemembers Protection Act and it passed unanimously in the Senate. (Sometimes your country just makes you proud.) We should look for an opportunity to exercise that law… and sometime soon. Spain might be a good place to start.
Number Four: Even when we have them on the ropes do not let up. Finish them off. Make the Tranzi organizations extinct and the parasites who live off of them spend the remainder of their days poor and hungry. Do not weep for the Tranzis.
Number Five: Don’t, don’t, DON’T give up hope. The Tranzis are not going to win. Their center of gravity, Europe, is dying to demographics. Within the United States and with our own Tranzis much the same thing is happening regionally and subculturally. The prize Tranzi projects, the UN and EU, are staggering under a burden of incompetence, ineffectuality and corruption. Moreover, say what you will about Muslim extremists, they’re still damned good at demonstrating to the world outside of Europe what happens when you let the Tranzis take over.
By the way, Tom and John intend to fight the bastards all the way.
Glossary
abuela — Spanish: grandmother.
AID — Artificial Intelligence Device.
alcalde — Spanish: mayor.
Aldenata — Galactic Tranzis, largely disappeared from the Galactic scene in sheer funk and shame at the damage they had, despite all the best intentions, wrought.
armada — Spanish: Armed Force.
AZIPOD — An electronic drive which replaces propellers and rudders with steerable propellers.
boma blade — A monomolecular sword carried by all Posleen except Kenstain.
brow — Gangplank of a warship.
Carcel Modelo — Model Prison. It was anything but.
Casco Viejo — “The Old Helmet”; the historic district of Panama City where Palacio de las Garzas, the presidential palace, is located.
Chocoes — Indians of the Darien. Very fierce.
chumbo — In Panamanian Spanish a term, not a particularly nice one, for blacks. In Colombia it means a male reproductive organ. Perhaps at one time the two uses were related.
CIC — Combat Information Center, the command post of a warship.
Class V — Ammunition.
cosslain — Superior normal Posleen. Fills the functions of both noncommissioned officers and technicians.
Cuna — AKA San Blas. Indians that inhabit the islands off Panama’s Caribbean coast (“Island Cuna”) of the rivers that feed the Caribbean (“River Cuna”). Culturally similar peoples can be found as far north as Mexico.
Darhel — “The Elves.” Galactic lawyers, businessmen and bureaucrats who control the Galactic Federation created by the Aldenata in the dim mists of antiquity.
det cord — Detonating cord; basically an explosive rope, a useful means of using one explosion to set off another.
edas — Posleen: debt.
El Moro — A brothel in Colon.
escudo — Spanish: shield.
eson’antai — Posleen: son.
eson’sara — Posleen: junior officer, protege.
FAP — Fuerza Aeria de Panama, Panamanian Air Force.
GalPlas — Galactic Plastic.
HVM — Hypervelocity Missile, a Posleen guided kinetic energy weapon capable of piercing all but the strongest armor plate.
iglesia — Spanish: church.
Kenstain — Kessentai who have given up war. Some become Rememberers, a sort of Posleen clergy. Rememberers command great respect.
Kessentai — God King, Philosopher. The Posleen with generally humanoid levels of intelligence.
manjack — American invention using a mix of E
arth technology and GalTech. The manjack is a semi-autonomous machine gun assembly that analyzes its arc of fire and engages anything entering it.
MarCam — Marine Camouflage, a uniquely pixilated pattern that incorporates a miniature version of the Marine Corps’ Eagle, Globe and Anchor for the express purpose of keeping the Army from using it.
mil — A measure of angle, 1/6400 of circle.
oolt’ondai — Posleen pack leader.
orna’adar — The Posleen Ragnarok, which occurs when population pressure forces the clans on a world to war for space, which war invariably devolves into total planetary destruction and the migration of the survivors to new worlds.
Palacio de las Garzas — “Palace of the Herons”; Panama’s White House.
pork chop — Ship’s supply officer.
Po’oslena’ar — Posleen. “The People of the ships.”
rabiblanco — “White ass.” A bird with a white rear and, by extension, a Panamanian of highly European ancestry.
Rio Pact — A mutual defense treaty between the United States and most of the Latin states. Though the Latins entered into it in good faith, as it became apparent over time that the United States intended to make few demands on them and still provide much military support, they have grown rather complacent about the arrangement. In fairness, one might note that most of them were soon embroiled in their own communist inspired civil wars, which most of them won. Thus, they did help defend Western civilization and the major ally, the United States.
sancocho — Soup, typically in the Province of Chiriqui.
SD-44 — An auxiliary-propelled, Russian designed and built, quick firing, 85mm artillery piece.
tenar — Posleen God Kings’ flying sleds.
thermobaric — Fuel Air Explosive, or FAE.
Tranzis — Human beings, arguably, who long to see the highest human civilizations cast down. Hypocrites who think they do good for others and in doing good do pretty well for themselves. Look at any Third World hellhole and brush away the corpses. There, at the center, grown fat by feasting on the rotten meat of human suffering, generally dazzled by the sudden light, you will find a host of lily white, maggotlike Tranzis.
Notes
1
O Fortune,
just as the moon
Stands constantly changing,
always increasing
or decreasing;
Detestable life
now difficult
and then easy
Deceptive sharp mind;
poverty
power
it melts them like ice.
Fate — monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
stand malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game,
my bare back
I bring to your villainy.
Fate, in health
and in virtue,
is now against me,
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating string;
since through Fate
strikes down the strong,
everyone weep with me!
(<< back)
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Document creation date: 25.09.2010
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