Jus in Bellum?

I spent some time this week reading Sven Lindqvist's History of Bombing, a book that details the advent of aerial bombing and the use of such bombing in wars thereafter. The author points out that there are two types of warfare:

(1) Bellum Hostile--> "Christian" warfare against similar groups

and

(2) Bellum Romanum--> War waged against "savages"

In essence, those who make war like to think that there is a way to fight Bellum Hostile with what is called Jus in Bellum (Justice in War). There is a way to fight a gentleman's fight, they contend. Lindqvist argues that this is increasingly not the case.

In order to fight an enemy we must dehumanize the enemy. When you look into your enemy's eyes and see a man who has a family, a past, and dreams of a future, you have a harder time shooting him. It is the reason that celebrations like the 1914 Christmas Truce between the opposing sides on the Western Front were instantly stopped--you can't empathize with the guy on the other end of your gun. Reduce him to a two-dimensional demon and then shoot him. Convince yourself that it is a necessary death.

So it is, and so it has been. Nations go to great lengths to create propaganda that pushes against the idea of humanity in the enemy. In WWI there were pictures of "German Huns", during the cold war you were asked "Is YOUR workplace harboring Communists?" and essentially the national narrative had to be rearranged.

When you create a savage of your enemy, none of the original rules of war apply. He's not a human being, he's not like you, so Bellum Romanum rules and savages be damned.

Really, it is the eternal paradox. It really isn't possible to fight a war without demonizing the enemy, and it really isn't possible to demonize the enemy and still fight Bellum Hostile. Therefore, we firebomb civilian locations that have no military significance. We lay waste to cities when our might have been better used elsewhere. It breaks the will of the people who are, in their own course, supporting their governments in the propaganda campaign against YOU, so it isn't like such action doesn't have an impact. Let's be clear--it has an impact on people who would likely suggest such an impact should be had on you, in turn. Thus, the German Blitz on England answered the firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg.

Then historians try to go back and place blame on the firebombers of Dresden and Hamburg for targeting civilians and not hitting more strategic military targets or more effective targets like the Auschwitz cremetoria.

I think such consideration is right. We SHOULD consider the contradictions in claiming to wage civilized war while not following through with out own call to duty.

HOWEVER: there is such a thing as necessary war. I am not an idealist who thinks that it'll ever be truly possible to hold hands and be friends with everyone. When attacked, I think it is justified to counter-attack. I think that war against Hitler was justified. I think that war against the masterminds of 9-11 is justified. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that we'll ever be able to truly follow any "rules of war". If we demonize the enemy, admittedly a tool that seems necessary for the self defense of a nation, then we also dehumanize them. If we dehumanize them then anything goes.

If that is what we think, then let us be bold and admit it. Let us say out loud we're waging a total war, or wage no war at all. Because we only undermine the concept of justice, the concept of universal human rights, the concept of honor when we claim to be honorable and then allow ourselves to make it obvious that our warfare is not. IF it is necessary that it be so--so let's just call it what it is. And let us be prepared to suffer the consequences.

Perhaps then, the only wars that civilized nations fight will be just wars--and though they won't be gentlemen's wars we'll be honest enough to admit that a gentleman's war is an oxymoron anyway.