by John Ringo
"Turn to your right," she added, "back toward the stern."
Boyd asked, "What was back here?"
"It was supposed to be storage, bunkerage." Sally answered. "But here also is that power source. Behind that door."
In the dim light Boyd made out several Posleen skeletons. He counted the number of skulls. Five of them. Unlike the humans, something in the makeup of the aliens' bones had prevented them from dissolving into the ocean's water. The skeletons made the old man shudder but he pressed on nonetheless.
Boyd looked through the small view port in the watertight door. It was light enough inside to see that there was no leakage. He put both hands on the wheel and began to twist. The door's locking mechanism resisted at first, than gave way only slowly and reluctantly, and with an agonized whining. Boyd stepped back and allowed the door to swing open.
Inside was a bare room, oddly shaped and with one wall sloping. The room was bare except for a conical glowing object—the power source, he guessed—and a pearlescent coffinlike box about four feet by four feet by maybe ten. The box had an almost square projection on one side, with a glassy plate on its sloping top.
"What is that thing?" he asked Sally's avatar.
Sally didn't answer directly. Instead she instructed, "Place your hand on that plate."
Boyd did and was rewarded by a whooshing sound as the center of the coffin split and the two sides lifted up and peeled back. He jumped back in surprise, heart pounding.
When he had recovered and stepped forward again to look into the coffin he saw something very like a fog, though it was a fog that would have put to shame London's foggiest night. Boyd heard a distinctive click, as of a power switch being pressed. He sensed a stirring in there, hidden by the fog. Awful feelings, a sort of essence of well-done vampire movie feelings, assailed him. He reached over to place his hand over the plate in the hope that it would close the coffin again.
"Wait," Sally said, this time making it an order and not a request. "There is no danger."
The stirring inside the coffin grew as the fog began, ever so slightly, to dissipate, running down slowly over the sides of the box and gathering on the deck. Something was plainly moving down there.
Boyd nearly jumped out of his skin as a clawed foot appeared out of the fog, and stretched. The claws were followed by a head. The head was furry and tiny, with outsized, pointed ears.
Morgen the kitty inquisitively asked, "Meow?"
Afterword
Both John and Tom have served in the Republic of Panama, John for some weeks while attending the Jungle School at Fort Sherman, Tom for four and a half years with Fourth Battalion, Tenth Infantry (as a sergeant) and Third Battalion, Fifth Infantry (as a lieutenant). Tom says, "If the place where you were happiest in life is home, then my home is Fort William D. Davis, Panama Canal Zone, with the 4th of the 10th Infantry, from 1977 to 1978."
It's a magic place, Panama, and we highly encourage our readers, or anyone, to visit it. (Did we play some games with the terrain in support of the story? You betcha. But Panama is still a great, wonderful and very beautiful place.)
Can they fight, though? Is the portrayal of the defense in the book realistic? After all, the United States took them down in a bit over twenty-four hours back in 1989. How good could they be?
And that is an interesting question. In 1989, in Operation Just Cause, the United States launched a sudden and surprise attack on the then existing Panama Defense Forces and did crush those forces in about a day, picking off holdouts over the next three to four days. This would not appear to be a great recommendation.
That is, it doesn't appear to be until you look at the particulars. We hit them in the night, where we have an overwhelming technological advantage. We hit them with little or no tactical warning. We hit them with greater, and in places overwhelming, numbers and overwhelming firepower, even though the use of that firepower was somewhat restrained. Further, we hit them with complete air supremacy and used that air supremacy to deliver, over and above the rather large forces we had in Panama already, three of the best trained, most lethal infantry battalions in the world, the three battalions of the 75th Infantry (Ranger) (Airborne). More forces followed on, later, as well.
The wonder is not that we took them down in a day, but that they were able to hang on that long. Indeed, if there's any wonder in the story it's that, even when abandoned by some (one remarkably loathsome and cowardly wretch, in particular . . . West Point . . . Class of 1980) of their U.S. trained officers, the others held on and fought.
The wonder is that at their Comandancia, parts of a couple of Panamanian infantry companies fought against hopeless odds, nearly to the last man. There were only five prisoners taken there, and all of those were wounded. The rest, true to their duty, died in place. Moreover, they drove us out of the compound more than once before they were finally subdued. There were more Texan prisoners taken at the Alamo.
The wonder is that, despite all those disadvantages, the PDF managed to inflict about three casualties on us for every four they took.
Did we mention that some young Panamanian kids with almost no time in uniform kicked the bejesus out of a U.S. Navy SEAL team?
So, yes, they're a tough and a brave people, well within the western military tradition, and—properly armed and trained—they can fight.
Of course, the western military tradition, outside of the U.S. and UK, isn't what it used to be. Oh, the formations are still there, some of them. The weapons are, if anything, better than ever. Even the men—and women, too, of course—still have much of what made the West great inside them.
Unfortunately, the West itself has largely fallen under the control of civilization Dr. Kevorkians. Some call them "Tranzis."
"Tranzi" is short for "Transnational Progressive" or "Transnational Progressivism." For a more complete account of their program, look up John O'Sullivan's Gulliver's Travails or some of what Stephen den Beste has written on the subject. You might, dear reader, also look at John Fonte's The Ideological War within the West. Lastly, for purposes of this little essay, look up Lee Harris' The Intellectual Origins of America Bashing. These should give you a good grounding in Tranzism: its motives, goals and operating techniques. All can be found on line.
For now, suffice to say that Tranzism is the successor ideology to failed and discredited Marxist-Leninism. Many of the most prominent Tranzis are, in fact, "former" members of various communist parties, especially European communist parties. These have taken the failure of the Soviet Union personally and hard, and, brother, are they bitter about it.
Nonetheless, our purpose here is not to write up "Tranzism 101." It is to illustrate the Tranzi approach to the laws of war.
That's right, boys and girls. Pull up a chair. Grab a stool. Cop a squat. Light 'em if you've got 'em. (If not, bum 'em off Ringo; Kratman's fresh out.)
It's lecture time.
One of the difficult things about analyzing Tranzis and their works is that they are not a conspiracy. What they are is a consensus. Don't be contemptuous; civilization is nothing more than a consensus. So is barbarism. Moreover, the Tranzis are a fairly cohesive consensus, especially on certain ultimate core issues. Nonetheless, if you are looking for absolute logical consistency on the part of Tranzis you will search in vain.
On the other hand, at the highest level, the ultimate Tranzi goal, there is complete agreement. They want an end to national sovereignty and they want global governance by an unelected, self-chosen "elite." Much of what they say and do will make no sense, even in Tranzi terms, unless that is borne in mind.
Below that ultimate level one cannot expect tactical logical consistency. Things are neither good nor bad, true nor false, except insofar as they support the ultimate Tranzi goal.
For example, if one were to ask a Tranzi, and especially a female and feminist Tranzi, about the propriety of men having any say over a woman's right to an abortion the Tranzi would probably be scandalized. After all, men don't even have babies. Th
ey know nothing about the subject from the inside, so to speak. Why should they have any say?
Nonetheless, that same Tranzi, if asked whether international lawyers and judges, and humanitarian activist nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, should have the final say in the laws of war, would certainly approve. This is true despite the fact that the next lawyer, judge or NGO that understands as much about war as a man understands about childbirth will likely be the first.
Why do we say they know nothing about the subject? By their works shall you know them.
The International Criminal Court is, after the UN and European Union, the next most significant Tranzi project (Kyoto being dead on arrival) and arguably the most significant with regard to the laws of war. A majority, if a bare one, of the world's sovereign states have signed onto it while about half have ratified it.
The ICC claims jurisdiction over all the crimes mentioned in its founding statute, irrespective of who committed them, where they were committed, or whether the "crimes" are actually criminal under the traditional and customary law of war. This is called "universal jurisdiction."
Universal jurisdiction, as a concept, has a number of flaws. Among these are that it has zero valid legal precedence behind it.
Zero precedence? Tranzis will cite at least two precedents. One of these is the jurisdiction exercised from times immemorial by any sovereign power over pirates at sea, when any were caught. The other is Nuremberg. These are flawed. In the case of Nuremberg, the jurisdiction exercised was not "universal" but national jurisdiction of the coalition of the victors over a Germany whose sovereignty had been temporarily extinguished by crushing defeat in war.
The piracy precedent as applied to modern notions of universal jurisdiction doesn't stand close scrutiny any better. The Tranzis claim that universal jurisdiction was exercised over piracy because piracy was, in its conduct and effect, so ghastly. This is wrong on both counts. In the first place, pirates were not necessarily subject to universal jurisdiction except insofar as they were caught where national jurisdiction did not run; typically at sea, in other words. Moreover, alongside piracy there existed privateering. In their conduct the two were often enough indistinguishable. In other words, however "ghastly" privateering may have been—and the former residents of Portobello and Panama City could have told one it could be ghastly, indeed—it was still not subject to universal jurisdiction. No matter that piracy was no worse than privateering, it was so subject. The difference was that sovereign powers, nation-states in other words, exercised sovereign jurisdiction over privateers, were responsible for their actions, and punished them at need, while they did not and could not with pirates. It was the lack of sovereign jurisdiction, both as to their persons and as to the locus of their crimes, that left pirates open to universal jurisdiction and not any supposed "ghastliness" of those crimes.
Along with the lack of valid legal precedence, the ICC and universal jurisdiction suffer other flaws. Recall, dear reader, the lack of Tranzi logical consistency on the questions posed above about abortion and the laws of war.
Anti-imperialism is yet another Tranzi tactical cause. But what is imperialism beyond one or several states or people using force or color of law to make rules for another or other state or people? And what is the ICC, using all the staggering moral and military power of . . . oh . . . Fiji . . . France . . . West Fuckistan . . . but the attempt at enforcing rules made by one group of states upon others? It's imperialism, in other words.
Of course, imperialism in the service of a higher cause—the raising of unelected, self-styled, global elites to power, for example—
is praiseworthy, in Tranzi terms.
Nothing deterred, the Tranzis claim that Tranzi courts, to include notionally national Tranzi courts like those of Spain, have universal jurisdiction. Why?
Tranzis hate national sovereignty. It cramps their style. It interferes with their program. It's aesthetically unappealing.
Their goal is the destruction of national sovereignty. The right of a people to democratically make their own laws, to govern themselves, is anathema to Tranzi goals and dreams. When they say "global governance," boys and girls, they mean it. They really intend that unelected bureaucrats and judges, and self-selected elites ought be able to tell you what to do, how to live, what to pay in taxes, what rights you are not entitled to.
Sovereignty stands in the way. The ultimate expression of sovereignty is a nation's and people's armed forces. No army; no ability to defend one's own laws and way of life; no sovereignty.
But how to do away with sovereign control of national armed forces? It's a toughie. They've got all these guns and shit, while the poor Tranzis have none.
"Aha! We know," say the Tranzis. "We can control a nation's armed forces if we can punish the soldiers and especially the officers and a nation refuses to stand up and defend them. No nation which permits a foreign court to exercise jurisdiction over its military can any longer be said to own that military. Instead, that military will be owned by the courts able to punish the leaders. Onward, into the future, comrades!"
Let them punish your soldiers and the soldiers can no longer be counted upon to defend the nation. Nor would you deserve being defended by your soldiers. Let them punish the soldiers and there is no principled distinction to prevent them punishing the President, the Legislature, even the Supreme Court. For who would defend the President, Legislature and courts once the same have let down their soldiers? Let them punish your soldiers and you deserve what you get . . . and to lose what you will lose.
It would be one thing if the ICC were something more than a misguided exercise in legalistic Tranzi mutual masturbation; if it could, in other words, be effective in limiting the horrors of war.
It cannot be effective. Ever.
This is because of the very nature of war itself. There is nothing a court can do that, in terms of punishment that deters, even begins to approach the horror men inflict on each other in war, routinely, in the course of normal and legal operations. There is nothing any court can do that can even hope to catch the interest of tired men, hungry men, men fighting for victory and their lives. No sensible court would even try.
There is some conduct which cannot be deterred. When life is at stake, the law recognizes no "no trespassing" signs. When the choice is between picking pockets at a mass hanging of pickpockets, and risking the noose, or facing slow starvation . . . well . . . at least the rope is fairly quick.
Similarly, when the choice on the battlefield is life or death, what power has some uncertain court distant in both time and space to deter anything? The simple answer is; it has none. What trivial power has the law with its trivial possible punishments to deter conduct that might save soldiers' lives, their comrades' and their country's in the here and now?
* * *
Yet we can see that, however imperfectly, the customary law of war has often worked—even without any such body as the ICC and without Spain's recent disgusting, illegal, morally putrescent attempt at exercising sovereignty over American soldiers. It has worked imperfectly, to be sure. Yet it has worked often enough . . . indeed, within western war it has worked more often than not.
Where the laws of war have worked to mitigate the horror and protect innocent life they have, by and large, done so when the combatants were of the same culture, shared the same values, and had what we might like to think of as a basic decency.
That's rarely been quite enough. It needed a little something else, some other reason to follow the rules.
The other reason was the threat and fear of reprisals.
Tranzis hate reprisals, which are war crimes in themselves but war crimes which become legal in order to punish an enemy who violates the law of war, deter him from violating it, and remove the advantages which accrue from such violations. The Tranzis don't hate reprisals merely because they're ugly, cause suffering of innocents, etc., though they hate them for those reasons, too. No, Tranzis hate reprisals because reprisals work to enforc
e the laws of war and their own silly courts fail.
Reprisals work? You're kidding us, right?
Wrong. Why wasn't poisonous gas used in the Second World War? The threat of reprisal. What happened when, in 1944, the Germans threatened to execute some numbers of French resistance fighters and the French Resistance, which was holding many German prisoners, answered, "We will kill one for one"? The French prisoners held by the Germans were left unharmed. Why didn't the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War execute the white officers of black regiments as they had passed a law to do? Because the Union credibly threatened to hang a white Southern officer for every man of theirs so mistreated. Why didn't the United States or South Vietnam execute, generally, Viet Cong guerillas who had gravely violated the laws of war in the course of the insurgency there? Because the North Vietnamese had prisoners against whom they would have reprised had we or the South Vietnamese done so.
