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Why you don't kill leaders
May. 18th, 2003 01:37 amTonight we discussed current events before gaming, and the conversation turned to other wars. "Why did we drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead of Tokyo?" was asked. I mentioned that they were actual strategic targets, with factories and munitions, then said 'Besides, the Emperor was in Tokyo, and we needed him to surrender."
Now, I don't know if it was actually true that the Emperor was in Tokyo, but it got me to thinking. You want to have the leaders surrender. Whether they were good leaders or bad, loved or feared or hated, when they stand up there and sign the treaty to stop the war, it means the war has stopped and you're supposed to stop thinking of the other guy as an enemy now, but as a former enemy that you now have to live with.
(The relationship can be betrayed on either side, of course. But the formalism is what I'm talking about. Closure -- and by this I mean closure primarily for the country that lost.)
Saddam has not signed over his country; he hasn't sued for peace or been captured or any of the things a sovereign is supposed to have done to him when a nation is beaten. There's no closure.
And that's particularly important when the natural inclination of the people there is to hate us. Nobody is there to say 'stop fighting'. Oh, while the tanks and guns are pointed at you, you smile and wave -- you've had lots of practice smiling and waving at tanks and guns pointed at you -- but you plot, and wait, and hate. And you don't stop fighting. Ever.
Now, I don't know if it was actually true that the Emperor was in Tokyo, but it got me to thinking. You want to have the leaders surrender. Whether they were good leaders or bad, loved or feared or hated, when they stand up there and sign the treaty to stop the war, it means the war has stopped and you're supposed to stop thinking of the other guy as an enemy now, but as a former enemy that you now have to live with.
(The relationship can be betrayed on either side, of course. But the formalism is what I'm talking about. Closure -- and by this I mean closure primarily for the country that lost.)
Saddam has not signed over his country; he hasn't sued for peace or been captured or any of the things a sovereign is supposed to have done to him when a nation is beaten. There's no closure.
And that's particularly important when the natural inclination of the people there is to hate us. Nobody is there to say 'stop fighting'. Oh, while the tanks and guns are pointed at you, you smile and wave -- you've had lots of practice smiling and waving at tanks and guns pointed at you -- but you plot, and wait, and hate. And you don't stop fighting. Ever.
