The Real Rules Of War

Another great perspective on the Rules of Engagement, Civilization, the cruelty of war and an argument for reason.

By Warren Kozak

Five years ago, a particularly gruesome image made its way to our television

screens from the war in Iraq. Four U.S. civilian contractors working in

Fallujah were ambushed and killed by al Qaeda. Their bodies were burned,

then dragged through the streets. Two of the charred bodies were hung from

the Euphrates Bridge and left dangling.

This barbaric act left an impression that our military did not forget: In a

special operation earlier this year, Navy SEALs captured the mastermind of

that attack, Ahmed Hashim Abed. But after he was taken into custody in

September, Abed claimed he was punched by his captors. He showed a fat lip

to prove it. Three of the SEALS are now awaiting a courts-martial on charges

ranging from assault to dereliction of duty and making false statements.

This incident and its twisted irony takes me back to an oddly serene setting

many years ago. When I was in college, I joined my parents on a trip to

retrace my father's wartime experience in Europe. We drove from France,

through Holland and Belgium and on to Germany-the same route he had taken

with the U.S. Army in 1944-45. At a field outside the Belgian town of

Malmedy, we got out of our rented car where my father described something I

had never heard before.

During the Battle of the Bulge, in the bleak December of 1944, the Germans

had quickly overrun the American lines. They took thousands of prisoners as

they pushed through in a last chance gamble to turn the war around. One

unit, part of the First SS Panzer Division, had captured over a hundred GIs.

They were moving fast, and they didn't care to be burdened by prisoners. So

the SS troops put the American soldiers in that field and mowed them down

with machine guns.

Around 90 Americans were killed in that barrage. The Germans then walked

through the tangle of bodies, shooting those who were still alive in the

back of the head. The few that survived were brought to where my father was

located in the nearby town of Liege where word of the massacre quickly

spread.

My father was never a talker. And in spite of the fact that we were on a

trip to look at his past, he didn't open up much, or couldn't. When I asked

him what the reaction was among the U.S. troops, he answered without

emotion: "We didn't take prisoners for two weeks." I immediately understood

what he meant, and had the sense not to press the issue any further. I just

looked out at the field, now green and peaceful on a beautiful summer day,

and realized he was looking at the same field and seeing something quite

different.

In the weeks following the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops clearly broke the

rules of the Geneva Conventions. Justified or not, they were technically

guilty of war crimes.

My guess is that the American correspondents imbedded with those troops knew

all about this and chose not to report it. So did their officers. They

understood the gravity of the war, as well as the absolute importance of its

outcome. And they understood that disclosing this information might

ultimately help the enemy. In other words, they used common sense. Was the

U.S. a lesser country because these GIs weren't arrested? Was the

Constitution jeopardized? Somehow it survived.

You don't have to dig too deep to understand that war brings out behavior in

people that they would never demonstrate in normal life. In Paul Fussell's

moving memoir, "The Boys' Crusade," the former infantryman relates a story

about the liberation of Dachau. There were about 120 SS guards who had been

captured by the Americans. Even though the Germans were being held at

gunpoint, they still had the arrogance-or epic stupidity-to continue to heap

verbal abuse and threats on the inmates. Their American guards, thoroughly

disgusted by what they had already witnessed in the camp, had seen enough

and opened fire on the SS. Some of the remaining SS guards were handed over

to the inmates who tore them limb from limb. Another war crime? No doubt.

Justified? It depends on your point of view. But before you weigh in,

realize that you didn't walk through the camp. You didn't smell it. You

didn't witness the obscene horror of the Nazis.

Rules of war are important. They are something to strive for as they

separate us from our distant ancestors. But when only one side follows these

rules, they no longer elevate us. They create a very unlevel field and more

than a little frustration. It is equally bizarre for any of us to judge

someone's behavior in war by the rules we follow in our very peaceful

universe. We sit in homes that are air-conditioned in the summer and warmed

in the winter. We have more than enough food in our bellies and we get

enough sleep. The stress in our lives won't ever match the stress of battle.

Can we honestly begin to decide if a soldier acted in compliance with rules

that work perfectly well on Main Street but not, say, in Malmedy or

Fallujah?

In his book, Mr. Fussell probably sums up the feelings of many soldiers when

he quotes a British captain, John Tonkin, who experienced a great deal of

the war. "I have always felt," Capt. Tonkin said, "that the Geneva

Convention is a dangerous piece of stupidity, because it leads people to

believe that war can be civilized. It can't."

Mr. Kozak is the author of "LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis

LeMay" (Regnery, 2009).