Yellow Eyes-ARC

by John Ringo

  Reprisals work; courts and statutes do not. The law of war, because of the nature of war, must be self enforcing, through reprisals. Nothing else can work and any attempt to do away with reprisal is an indirect attack on and undermining of the law of war.

  But then, the law of war and mitigating its horrors are not really what the Tranzis are about. Undermining national sovereignty? Replacing sovereign nations with themselves? That's what they're about.

  The Tranzis aren't about eliminating war's horrors? Oh, John, Oh, Tom . . . say it isn't so.

  (Interject dual sigh at the vast iniquity of mankind here.)

  It's so.

  Recall that we mentioned that Tranzism is the successor philosophy to Marxist-Leninism. It should come as no great surprise, then, that one of the key pieces of Tranzi legislation on the law of war should have been sponsored and forced into existence by . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . THE SOVIET UNION.

  This key piece of Tranzi legislating on the law of war was Additional Protocol I to Geneva Convention IV. The protocol itself was shoved through by the Soviets at a time when it looked like Peoples Revolutionary War (guerilla war . . . communist insurgency) would continue to be a powerful weapon to advance the cause of communism. The United States has never ratified it and, pray God, it never shall. The Russians, who forced it through, have never paid it the slightest attention, as witnessed by their conduct in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and, more recently, in Chechnya.

  The protocol is interesting for three reasons: what it purports to do, what it actually does, and for the admittedly slick way in which it tries to do it.

  The slickness is in the way the protocol is structured. It begins with a pious preamble, typically enough. That isn't the slick part. What is clever is that it repeats much of what was already in Geneva Convention IV (GC IV), which is concerned with the protection of civilians caught up in war (as is the protocol), and then interweaves some very new things. The new things include major advantages, given gratis, to guerillas and especially communist guerillas, a broad ban on the use of what it calls "mercenaries," one rather unreasonable restriction on the use of food as a weapon, and a subtle way of saying "It's okay to push the Zionist beasts into the sea."

  Then, when a nation refuses to ratify the additional protocol for any of the at least five really good reasons not to do so, it stands accused of anything from being in favor of mass rape to forced medical experiments a la Josef Mengele. Never mind that all that is prohibited by the original GC IV and that the additional protocol adds nothing of importance. "You refuse to ratify the additional protocol? You Nazi bastards!"

  Are these guys slick or what?

  As to what the protocol is supposed to do, protect civilians, one has to wonder. It is part of the traditional law of war that, in case of a siege, a city may have its food cut off and civilians attempting to escape may be fired upon, even killed, to drive them back to eat up the food. This is cruel to be sure, an "extreme measure" as the U.S. Army's manual on the subject admits. Cruel or not, this was upheld in the late '40s in the case of United States v. Ritter von Leeb and is still—up to a point—good law, outside of Tranzidom. Geneva Convention IV ameliorated this harsh rule, and reasonably so, by requiring that some evacuations for particular reasons (maternity, infancy, infirmity, for example) be allowed.

  The protocol, however, does not allow food to be cut off or civilians to be driven back into a besieged town to eat up whatever food is there. Naturally, one cannot permit food to enter without at the same time feeding the garrison, which will ensure for itself that it eats first. Therefore, the besieger has a choice, sit there forever—which is generally impractical—or take the place by assault. Now imagine what will happen to the civilians if the town is stormed, when every room receives its donation of grenade and bullet. And this is supposed to protect them? Starvation, at least, while unpleasant, offered a good chance for a besieged town to fall after a few lean days without the massacre intendant on an assault.

  What then is the purpose of the additional protocol? It is to disadvantage the West, to reduce its military power, thus to reduce its sovereignty. Since being forced into existence by the Soviets the protocol has had no other purpose.

  The law of war nowhere mentions the phrase "illegal combatants." Tranzis will tell you that, therefore, there is no such thing. This is false.

  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 t
o 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 Earth 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

  "Palace of the Herons";

  las Garzas

  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.

  About the authors

  John Ringo is author of the New York Times best-selling Posleen War series, which so far includes A Hymn Before Battle and six sequels, the technothriller series starting with Ghost, a dark fantasy Princess of Wands, and several other novels for Baen. Previous collaborations include novels in the Posleen War series and four novels in the bestselling Prince Roger series with David Weber. A veteran of the 82nd Airborne, Ringo brings first-hand knowledge of military operations to his fiction. He has done stints as an op-ed writer for the New York Post and a guest commentator for Fox News. With his younger years spent in the military, cave diving, rock-climbing, rappelling, spear-fishing, and sailing, the author is now happy to let other people risk their necks. He prefers to read, and of course write, science fiction, and hang out in cigar bars.

  Tom Kratman in 1974 at age seventeen, became a political refugee and defector from the PRM (People's
Republic of Massachusetts) by virtue of joining the Regular Army. He stayed a Regular Army infantryman most of his adult life, returning to Massachusetts as an unofficial dissident while attending Boston College after his first hitch. Tom is currently an attorney practicing in southwest Virginia. Baen published his first novel, A State of Disobedience and his previous collaboration with John Ringo in the Posleen War sequence, Watch on the Rhine.

  THE END

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