Chest-Thumping Bloodlust and the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

Barbarians inside the gates.

Well let’s keep swinging, then. What “we” in the “West” have is a civilization built on a clearly defined set of laws and ethics that were forged in Christian Europe. It’s the basis of international law, the very idea of “war crimes.” Why America court-martials its soldiers when they kill civilians. Why it has to outsource IDF-style point blank murder of civilians to private companies, most famously Blackwater. 

In the West, we don’t kill captives, at least not legally. We have a robust discussion of whether the Sec of War, Party Pete Hegseth, should be removed over double tap strikes in international waters off South America. The avoidance of civilian targets and, plausibly, sincere attempts to carry out war between professional armies is clearly visible even in the Russia-Ukraine business. Say what you like, but both leaders, there, are constantly running in terror of legal repercussions for their conduct of the war.

Putin’s designation of this Russia vs. Ukraine war as a “Special Military Operation” is not because it sounds nifty. It’s because he answers to a system of laws and lawmakers that not only have power but have the prestige of upholding civilizational values.

PMC Wagner was a workaround, a way to escape the rules of war. 

There used to be a good deal of discussion in the literature of colonialism about what separates the European from the “Savage Races.” Sure, some was racist myth, but much had to do with codes of ethics and honor, adherence to law, and the fair and swift administration of justice.

What American and Israeli forces do now, today, knows no law.

They sow the wind and are totally bewildered by subsequent whirlwinds. Wanton missile strikes with piles of dead innocents in Iran, Doha, Syria, Lebanon. Is this sanctioned by law? Does anyone care? There is not even a flimsy half-hearted attempt to create a legal justification. There is only chest-thumping bloodlust in Tel Aviv and Washington.

The War in Gaza is not a war. Hamas is not an army. What state has killed more legal residents within its own borders than Israel in the last 100 years?

Pol Pot and Stalin ain’t good company if you’re claiming the moral high ground.

And that’s the issue here. You cannot kill like the Israelis are killing and then also claim the moral high ground. You get to win, sure, but that’s not all you get. You get generations of orphans who want nothing but revenge. The blood is still on your hands, just as much as it’s on the hands of ISIS, because when we abandon our very own rule of law and start shooting children on the street, we debase our entire civilization to the barbaric eye-for-an-eye brutality of the horrific Bondi Massacre.

We do it to ourselves.

We debase ourselves when we justify the murder of a child. A dead innocent is a dead innocent is a dead innocent. That’s real and to ignore it will rot the soul of a man very quickly. If we can’t level our eyes to that responsibility, then this fragile civilization we have will evaporate and we can all look forward to death stalking our children in school and online and in their dreams. 

Dearest Monty, you mistake wealth, technology and power as the values of our civilization but you’re wrong. It is equality. It is even-handed righteousness. It is due process and it is a clear-eyed ability to condemn murder whenever you see it and wherever you see it.

Again, whenever and wherever.

This is all we have. 

The barbarians are inside the gates already. 

They are any and all who can turn a blind eye to the murder of innocent children.