Why is the modern western world so obsessed with the idea of a “just war”, which goes back to the medieval theology of Thomas Aquinas? In the 21st century we keep trying to re-enact some fantasy of a war that is utterly righteous, and from which we emerge with no guilt on our hands – not even the killing of a brutal dictator. Gaddafi should have gone on trial at The Hague, we wail. He should have been decorously imprisoned and politely handed over to international war crimes judges. It’s complete nonsense. We totally forget the fact that Nato planes blasted his Tripoli control centres with every chance of killing him. If a French or British raid just happened to have blown him to bits, would we be wringing our hands?
The stench of doublethink is more noxious than any vapour emerging from the meat store in Misrata. When I look at this photograph what do I see? War. War and nothing else. How many times do we need to be told that war is hell? The phrase has lost all meaning for us. Think about what hell is. Hell, in paintings by Bosch, is chaos. It is meaningless, monstrous, and lacks any place of safety or redemption. This picture of Gaddafi dead is a day in the life of hell, also known as war: a corpse photographed for souvenirs, displayed to satisfy the oppressed, in a moment of violent gratification. When Nato intervened in Libya what we see in this picture was probably the best – not the worst – outcome on offer. And we should be grimly glad of it. What fantasy makes us long for some impossibly dignified and humane end to a bloody conflict?
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