Note: This paper appeared in the 6th Volume of the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis in Spring 2011.
Excerpt
There can be no Justice in war if there are not, ultimately, responsible men and women.
If you break it you own it.
Peace is not sought in order to provoke war, but war is waged in order to attain peace. Be a peacemaker, then, even by fighting, so that through your victory you might bring those whom you defeat to the advantages of peace.
War is tough stuff. It is, at the very least, the organized projection of death and mayhem by some group against another, generally for purposes of governance.4 Its justifications are myriad, running the gamut from self-defense, to humanitarian intervention, to national aggrandizement to whim and revenge. And yet, ironically, it is not the most heinous of human activities. As R. J. Rummel has noted in his discussion of democide, the murder of civilians by government agents acting authoritatively:
[I]n total, during the first eighty-eight years of this century [20th century], almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is as though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs.
About the author
Richard M. O’Meara is a retired Brigadier General (USA) and trial attorney who teaches human rights, security issues, and international law in the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University. His is also developing a program of study leading to an Associate’s Degree in Homeland Security Studies at Ocean County College, NJ. He has served as a resident fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, US Naval Academy and has taught governance and rule of law issues in such diverse locations as Cambodia, Rwanda, Chad, Philippines, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Peru, El Salvador and Iraq. He served as an EMT for the Red Cross in following the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Center.