The Rules of War

by Brian Matthew Kessler

Wars, unjust as they may be, are inevitable, but since we must have such catastrophic situations, we should develop rules on how a country show conduct its actions. The first of such rules would be along the lines of neither the party of the first part, nor the party of the second part, may physically endanger any member of the opposing party. This rule would eliminate all attacks, save those of a psychological nature. In short, a big war would seem like nothing more than an elaborate "crack fight" on a elementary school playground, with attacks being negligibly more harmful than saying "Your mother wears combat boots", "Here's a nickel... I forgot to give it to your mother last night" or half a billion other such immature and whimsical comments you can easily expect to find spilling from the mouth of an eight year old child.

While this would be safer than a physical assault, in the event that anyone took the insults seriously, the overall moral of the country would sink. Therefore, a second rule may be that no truth may be reflected in any attack. In other words, if the person being attacked was illegitimate, you would not be allowed to call him a bastard. When there is no truth in an attack, it is much easier to laugh off. If everyone is laughing, that means that nobody is being depressed and if everyone is in a good mood, the general moral of the country is greater.

In order to keep the war from getting either too dull or childish, you may wish to add rules such as all attacks must have at least seven words and no abusive language, but rules like that are not really necessary since the respective governments of the conflicting forces would probably censure their own attacks in order to keep face in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Despite the absurdity of all the rules suggested in this passage, this is how I truly feel we should deal with international problems. If the governments of the world are not mature enough to talk over their problems until they reach a solution, they should deal with it in a manner as immature as they wish to behave without endangering any lives.