Art of War, Amnesty International and Civilian Casualties.
First of all, If you live in Sri Lanka or in any other third world country with some sort of hideous military conflict, which all the third world countries could not afford to avoid, but if you have not read the book “Art of War” by Sun Tzu yet, I strongly recommend you to stop all your important work, such as reading this blog or having a haircut, and read the “Art of War” by Sun Tzu right now.
Looking at war in Sri Lanka and all other endless military campaigns all over the third world, I could not stop saying to myself “Art of War” is expired. At least it is expired in third world countries like ours. By the time Art of War written, anyone who secures the land, wins the war. But the time is changed now. We cannot win a war by simply gaining the power over the land. We need to get the seal of approval from western authorities, which we normally refer by the more appealing name of “International Community”. Thinking about this whole situation make me feel like writing an additional Chapter (14) to Art of War, which could have been very bad idea if I ever did. But I scrabble few lines just for my enjoyment, such as..
So here we go with my usual blogging again.
After WWII, west gain military, financial and moral victory over rest of the world. West does not directly control us anymore, like how they used to do. But they keep the authority of approving or disapproving most important events in our life using deferent front organizations such United Nations.
It is quite a nice idea of having universal moral code when we engage in military conflict, so we can engage that in more civilize manner. That was our intention when we join UN, or at least that is what they told us. When we play football, we get FIFA to be the referee. When we engage in military campaigns, we get UN to be the referee. It was a nice simple idea.
But unfortunately things changed over the time. UN turns in to an obese woman on a wheelchair that happened to push and pull by few rich countries. Human rights and that sort of issues, outsourced in to third party organizations such as Amnesty International. Now those organizations have yellow and red cards and they get to be the referee when we play ball. That is not what we wished for. We wanted simple democratic transparent organization. But the world have funny way of treating third world countries.
Organizations like AI, are not structurally designed to be transparent or democratic institutes, UN at least still pretend to be one. Those organizations are openly funded and operated by individuals with specific interests. It is quite easy for anyone to buy out decision makers inside those organizations or appoint their own people. All you need is one or two wheelbarrow load of money. Then you get to openly buy the referee of the game. At this point, the whole ball game turns in to something ridiculous like World Wrestling Entertainment.
Been a referee is a challenging job. In the military ball game we play, referee must have good ground intelligence before making critical decisions, such as giving a yellow card. Unfortunately INGOs like Amnesty International, whom declares themselves as the umpire, do not have such capacity. They basically depend on news briefs, reporters and rumors. Occasionally they engage in short fact finding missions that they spend most of the time in star class hotels complaining about thread counts. Now at this point, we have an organization incompetent and more ridiculous than a WWE referee giving yellow cards as they wish, deciding who get to keep the lands that someone willing to die for. This situation worsens everything that we wish not.
Right now, if a good general wanted to win a war, not only he have to ignore Sun Tzu’s manual, he have to be the one who receive higher civilian casualties. If not, pretend like he receive civilian casualties by making false statements, or create civilian casualties by his own. We see this unfortunate situation quite well in Sri Lanka. We cannot blame GOSL or LTTE for this matter. They were forced by so call “international community” to score points by receiving civilian casualties in order to justify and win the war. It is not only natural they be tempted to artificially create civilian casualties, since the referee is so incompetent; it is also become a necessary tactic of war. This is not the kind of a situation we had in our mind. Sun Tzu never thought, a good general have to carry group of cinematographers when he go to battle like he is fighting for an Oscar.
But right now, presenting the opponent originates more civilian casualties by any means, one get to win the war and justify civilian casualties he makes. Nobody can avoid civilian casualties all together in a war. Not even NATO or US. But when such a terrible thing happen, it should not turn in to anybodies advantage and add a price tag to it. But people like Amnesty international and are likes, do just that. Even though how terrible it is, I like the warfare in Sun Tzu fashion. At least that way, a good general have a responsibility of protecting his own people, not scoring points by making them getting killed.
Looking at war in Sri Lanka and all other endless military campaigns all over the third world, I could not stop saying to myself “Art of War” is expired. At least it is expired in third world countries like ours. By the time Art of War written, anyone who secures the land, wins the war. But the time is changed now. We cannot win a war by simply gaining the power over the land. We need to get the seal of approval from western authorities, which we normally refer by the more appealing name of “International Community”. Thinking about this whole situation make me feel like writing an additional Chapter (14) to Art of War, which could have been very bad idea if I ever did. But I scrabble few lines just for my enjoyment, such as..
“If your men are ready to attack, if you know the ground is ready for victory, you are only half way to victory. But if your men are ready to attack, and if you enjoy the most romantic relationship with the international community, you are on the definite way to victory.”
“A good General delights the International community just like how an old man pleases his mistress.”
“Just like a good Pigeon tippler send his tamed birds and bring back more pigeons, send your tamped journalists to gain more of them. Shower them with money, gift and liquor. Organize your journalists inside the enemy territory, and use them to create controversy.”After I wrote few of those sorts of lines, I had this vivid picture in my mind, Sun Tzu coming from his grave, shaking me by my arms, asking me “How come people like you never seen a battle, get a chance to have opinion about warfare? Since when, any idiot get chance to write anything on the internet?” Since I do not know answers to such questions, I stopped scrambling any further about Art of War.
So here we go with my usual blogging again.
After WWII, west gain military, financial and moral victory over rest of the world. West does not directly control us anymore, like how they used to do. But they keep the authority of approving or disapproving most important events in our life using deferent front organizations such United Nations.
It is quite a nice idea of having universal moral code when we engage in military conflict, so we can engage that in more civilize manner. That was our intention when we join UN, or at least that is what they told us. When we play football, we get FIFA to be the referee. When we engage in military campaigns, we get UN to be the referee. It was a nice simple idea.
But unfortunately things changed over the time. UN turns in to an obese woman on a wheelchair that happened to push and pull by few rich countries. Human rights and that sort of issues, outsourced in to third party organizations such as Amnesty International. Now those organizations have yellow and red cards and they get to be the referee when we play ball. That is not what we wished for. We wanted simple democratic transparent organization. But the world have funny way of treating third world countries.
Organizations like AI, are not structurally designed to be transparent or democratic institutes, UN at least still pretend to be one. Those organizations are openly funded and operated by individuals with specific interests. It is quite easy for anyone to buy out decision makers inside those organizations or appoint their own people. All you need is one or two wheelbarrow load of money. Then you get to openly buy the referee of the game. At this point, the whole ball game turns in to something ridiculous like World Wrestling Entertainment.
Been a referee is a challenging job. In the military ball game we play, referee must have good ground intelligence before making critical decisions, such as giving a yellow card. Unfortunately INGOs like Amnesty International, whom declares themselves as the umpire, do not have such capacity. They basically depend on news briefs, reporters and rumors. Occasionally they engage in short fact finding missions that they spend most of the time in star class hotels complaining about thread counts. Now at this point, we have an organization incompetent and more ridiculous than a WWE referee giving yellow cards as they wish, deciding who get to keep the lands that someone willing to die for. This situation worsens everything that we wish not.
Right now, if a good general wanted to win a war, not only he have to ignore Sun Tzu’s manual, he have to be the one who receive higher civilian casualties. If not, pretend like he receive civilian casualties by making false statements, or create civilian casualties by his own. We see this unfortunate situation quite well in Sri Lanka. We cannot blame GOSL or LTTE for this matter. They were forced by so call “international community” to score points by receiving civilian casualties in order to justify and win the war. It is not only natural they be tempted to artificially create civilian casualties, since the referee is so incompetent; it is also become a necessary tactic of war. This is not the kind of a situation we had in our mind. Sun Tzu never thought, a good general have to carry group of cinematographers when he go to battle like he is fighting for an Oscar.
But right now, presenting the opponent originates more civilian casualties by any means, one get to win the war and justify civilian casualties he makes. Nobody can avoid civilian casualties all together in a war. Not even NATO or US. But when such a terrible thing happen, it should not turn in to anybodies advantage and add a price tag to it. But people like Amnesty international and are likes, do just that. Even though how terrible it is, I like the warfare in Sun Tzu fashion. At least that way, a good general have a responsibility of protecting his own people, not scoring points by making them getting killed.
posted by Sam at
11:07 PM
5 Comments:
I usually dont agree to what you have to say. Infact, to be honest, I think I once read one of your posts and thought 'right, another one'. And I think, I probably stopped reading posts/comments from you afterwards. However, I should say that having read this, I am thinking of reconsidering that. Good work.
P:S:
Another reason why I like the book/text is because it pretty much says what a war is. Its it not a path to heaven or whatever, its a simple matter of politics. I specially like Chapter 3 para1.
Been agreeable is not easy thing to do. Is it? I didn’t even agree with my father for at least 15 years or so, since i start schooling.. I thought he was talking utterly nonsense. :) But I didn’t had luxury of stop listening to his comments. So i know what you talking about..
Well, now once in a while I have hard time agree with myself too.
Aha! That is a good paragraph. Wish if Bush follow that when he went to Iraq.
Thanks i was looking for the online version of the book,
I enjoyed the way you were writing. It’s a matured writing style. I don’t understand big jargons but simply I hate the war in the country.
Hi Sam,
Your style of writing and your phrasing,...well yes, they are creative. Good, catchy similies. But the content is what matters. The content, the bottom line is that you dodge this war and don't discuss its validity on Sri Lankan soil. You instead grumble about the validity of "international organisations". I would suggest you discuss the validity and the ussefullness of waging a war against our own citizens that todate had killed over 100,000 people, maimed and handicapped many thousand youth,left thousands of mothers without their sons (& daughters too), left thousands of young wives without their husbands and thousands, perhaps over hundred thousand children without a father, on both side of the divide and then helped to militarise this society at the expenses of democratic life, given into a culture of impunity on everything that has to be shunned, plus a thriving trade on prostitution especially in Anuradhapura as with any war. Do we want a war like this to continue ? The international agencies, AI and the UN counts very little IF WE KNOW WHAT WE WANT THIS WAR FOR. Let's clear that issue before harping on outsiders.
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