The right war

By Maduranga Rathnayake

(December 26, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The greatest betrayal or the General’s slip of the tongue, or whatever one calls it, it certainly directs one to this debate, current chief proponent of it being no one less-Nobel laureate B. Obama, wrong war and right war. The Obamian formula, which to some extent is reflected in the international legal regime, unfortunately, despite its “the good” genesis, cuts both ways much as it can be dangerous; classification of war into right or just and wrong itself gives a warring party the luxury of identifying itself with the right, a luxury not available in a total denouncement of war in any form.

Nevertheless, could war as defence, may be an extension of the acute self-defence, be justified?; again it, certainly, is a luxury. The Obamian formula appears to conciliate this conflict in an all easy logic with reference to the good and the bad; in that, war by the good, who decides who is good, perhaps, is best left forgotten, is right while war by the bad is wrong. This theory appears to have gained wider ground as the argument goes that non-violence simply is totally insufficient to counter the new millennium’s global terrorism; unfortunately, that argument is blind to the fact that global terrorism is more a violent global profit venture. The so-called war against terror is now fought by the so-called good against the bad, yet being part of that same global business outfit whereas the true war against terror ought to have been to dismantling it, this most lucrative enterprise.

The LTTE, utterly misdirected, unleashing most horrendous terror, made itself a potential global threat, much as it was already a regional security affair, was a menace that locally called for serious action against it. The Rajapakse regime, while basing its political will on a hard-line Sinhala-Buddhist stand, capitalised on the 9/11 global pulse against terrorism as the LTTE by its own acts had itself banned world-wide. The Tamil diaspora’s relentless pursuit in distinguishing the LTTE from global terrorism was in vain as the LTTE was already in the bad in the international equation. So, the Rajapakse regime launched a right war because it was in the good, the Obamian formula. However, the good are required to war rightly. This is where the General’s words of his own mouth, that several white flag bearers were executed by a decision of the government and not his, in addition to it being, if his words were true, utterly contemptible, and the response to it clarifies at least a couple of matters.

Firstly, it clearly shows that that the international community, at least, does not or did not disapprove the Rajapakse regime’s offensive against the LTTE so long as it was done rightly. To the international agencies, now the only issue is if there was any foul-play at the very last phase of the offensive, in other words if it was done rightly; rightly in the eyes of the international law. Secondly, it is almost an outright rejection by the international community that the then LTTE was indispensable to any solution to the ethnic issue. It must be noted that it would be far from realistic to argue that the international community was helpless before the Rajapakse regime.

On the other hand, for the government the General’s words constitute the greatest betrayal ever; and if the General’s now controversial words were untrue then how it could have been a betrayal, much less the greatest of all, rather than a mere allegation against the Rajapakses is certainly hard to fathom unless an allegation of that nature is considered by the government to be the greatest betrayal ever.

Right wars, it appears, could be very tricky, at times, to those who wage them. A right war maker, much as a wrong war maker, could be a war criminal overnight for not warring rightly. Let us sincerely hope that the General’s greatest betrayal or his slip of the tongue or whatever one calls it is not just the tip of a titanic ice-berg.