Come and Take It

In Yellow Eyes, their second collaboration in the Legacy of the Aldenata series, John Ringo and Tom Kratman tell the story of a fight by joint American and Panamanian forces to defend the Republic of Panama and the Panama Canal from the invading Posleen, the price of defeat being the closure of one of the world's major shipping points and the subsequent starvation of North America.

From what I can ascertain, the story takes place or at least begins) a bit earlier in the Posleen invasion timeline than Watch on the Rhine, but as in Watch on the Rhine, the Posleen are not the only enemies that the novel's protagonists have to contend with. Just as the Darhel (the species in charge of the Galactic Federation) allied themselves with German Socialists and Greens to undermine the defense of Europe in Watch on the Rhine, in Yellow Eyes the Darhel do the same by paying off corrupt American and Panamanian officials. After the initial Posleen attack stalls, the Darhel work with the International Criminal Court and Panama's corrupt president to bring "war crimes" charges against several Americans and Panamanians who were instrumental in blunting the initial Posleen assault.

One of the Panamanian characters arrested is named William Boyd, who seems to be a facsimile of a real-life Panamanian politician named Guillermo "Billy" Ford. Ford served as Vice-President of Panama from 1989 to 1994 and is best remembered for having been in this classic photo:

The photo was taken as Ford (the man to the left in the bloody guayabera) and his bodyguards were attacked by thugs in the employ of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who was displeased that Ford and his presidential running-mate, Guillermo Endara, had defeated Noriega's toadies in the democratic elections a few days prior.

But back to the story - as mentioned at the end of Tuesday's entry, my reading of Yellow Eyes proved to be very timely in light of the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Boumediene v. Bush – the court ruling that detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the constitutional right to challenge their detention in civilian courts. Just as the International Criminal Court (and some Spanish judges) would presume to judge the actions of American (or other Coalition) troops by some type of vaguely-defined international law, the Supreme Court has taken the unprecedented move of granting American constitutional rights to enemy combatants, something that has never before been done, in any war or conflict involving the United States of America.

The objective of such maneuvers, of course, isn't to achieve any type of legal consistency or actual justice, but to undermine the Bush administration, its allies (like the government of John Howard, the previous conservative Australian prime minister, among others), the United States of America itself, and the very concept of national sovereignty. Unlike Vox Day, who sees some good coming from the decision, I see none.

Who are those who push such an anti-sovereignty agenda? Ringo and Kratman identify them as Transnational Progressives, or Tranzis, for short. In the afterword to Yellow Eyes, Ringo and Kratman write:

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."

And the only "criminals," according to the Tranzis, are those who impede their agenda, namely such men as the aforementioned Messrs. Bush and Howard. Hence the existence of the International Criminal Court, under whose authority many a Tranzi would like to charge Bush and/or Howard with crimes against humanity. Consider this excerpt from an article posted at the website of the Inter-Press Service news agency:

An organisation called ICCACTION -- described by its director and founder, Glenn Floyd, as "a group of people who simply were outraged at the attack on Iraq" -- submitted a detailed brief of evidence to the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, on Jun. 13.

The ICCACTION brief alleges that Howard committed war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute -- the treaty that led to the 2002 establishment of the ICC. There are currently 106 signatories, including Australia and Britain, to the Rome Statute. The U.S. is among those countries that do not recognise the ICC's jurisdiction.

Floyd told IPS that as a result of the 1991 war, Iraq was an economically and militarily ruined country.

"After the huge Desert Storm operation its army was ruined, its economy was ruined, all of its sewerage and services were busted. And then it underwent 12 years of economic sanctions," he says.

Floyd argues that the invasion was excessive as Iraq was unable to defend itself and did not have the capacity to protect its citizens. The invasion was "a vile war crime in our belief," he says.

While it remains to be seen whether Moreno-Ocampo will decide that an investigation into the grounds for the indictment of Howard is warranted, indications are that it is a possibility.

Last year, the chief prosecutor said that he could envisage Howard's cohorts - - former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and current U.S. president George W. Bush -- one-day facing charges at the ICC.

Earlier in the article, someone named Robert Marr refers to Australia's intervention in Iraq as "the worst foreign policy mistake Australia has ever made." Pardon my French, but what a fucking moron. I'm sure the thousands of Australians who died at the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I would have a different opinion.

But as for the desire of Glenn Floyd to see Bush and Howard brought before the ICC on war crimes charges, I see little chance of that ever happening. I don't know about the Aussies, but we Texans don't take too kindly to outsiders coming onto our soil and attempting to enforce their so-called laws on our citizens. Back in 1835, some Mexican dragoons tried to take a cannon away from the people of Gonzales, just east of San Antonio. Rather than submit, the people of Gonzales raised a flag with the phrase "Come and Take It" and fired on the trespassing troops. At that point, the Texas Revolution was on.

That's something that each and every Tranzi, most of whom wouldn't know a Glock from a glockenspiel, would do well to think about.

Update:

Looks like I was wrong about William Boyd. In the comments, Tom Kratman writes:

Just to keep the record straight, Bill Boyd is real and his name is Bill Boyd, or William Young Boyd. He's a Panamanian citizen from a shipping family (Boyd Steamship Company) who graduated from one of our high end private boarding schools (Phillips Andover, IIRC) in 1944, duly received his draft notice as a legal resident, and, instead of skipping the country as he could have, went into the Army and fought as an infantryman through the last 6 or 7 months of the war as a rifleman. He's also written a few books, some history and some more or less autobiographical novels. He's been cited in Panamanian papers as "the only rich man in Panama with a social conscience." His final unit in the Army, in Bavaria/Austria was the 5th Infantry Regiment the third battalion of which was also present in Panama later on and in which I served as a lieutenant. Had we known he'd been 5th Infantry in the war he'd have been guest of honor at every function we had. I used him for Yellow Eyes with permission. He also makes some appearances in a couple of books still in the pipeline, Eye of the Storm (Ringo) and The Tuloriad (me).