In what can only be called a rant, Jonathan Jones lambasts what he sees as the hypocrisy, self-deception and 'stench of doublethink' in Western criticism of the manner of Muammar Gaddafi's death, the photographing of it and the putting his corpse on public display. The critical reaction to this grisly end, Jones says, shows a lack of understanding 'that through Nato we are participants in this conflict and so share its inevitable moral complexities'. A 'moment of violent gratification' for the oppressed is just part and parcel of the reality of war and it is a fantasy to long for a more dignified and humane end to it.
Jones makes use of a good, or at least valid, point to try to pass off a bad one. The valid point? In an old phrase, war is hell. It is a 'dangerous delusion that war can be a decent and worthwhile activity'. No - it is bloody, brutal and cruel. Jones alludes to the evidence from what are widely thought of as good wars in order to remind us of their share of atrocity. The insistence implicit in all this is that it is foolish to have expected of Gaddafi's captors, after they had just fought their way at great cost towards his place of refuge, that they would treat the hated tyrant as a group of human-rights workers might have been expected to.
This, however, is only half the story - the sociology of war, as one might call it. One need only recall that the critical reaction that Jones laments came not only from political actors or media outlets but also from human rights NGOs, to be reminded that, as well as a sociology, there is also a morality of war. It is contained in international conventions that codify the laws of war, and in just war doctrine, the different 'branches' of it. Would we really be better off if there weren't this morality, if wars were just fought without restraints of any kind? It is hard to believe that Jones really thinks so: that he would prefer that there be no rules against murdering prisoners, or torturing and mutilating them, or treating their dead bodies abusively; or that the deliberate bombing of civilians should be seen as an acceptable practice; in short, that in war anything goes. At times this seems to be the subtext implicit in his piece. But it is more likely that he hasn't thought the issue through and just wants to moan about Western attitudes.
In any event that war is hell is true, but that war is hell and therefore should be left to be waged without moral or legal constraints is a counsel of folly and of a slide towards something more hellish still than what we now have. Humankind needs the restraining codes despite all sociological realism about war - and indeed because of it.