Total Destruction Of The Tamil Tigers: The Rare Victory Of Sri Lanka’s Long War
Prof. Charles Sarvan
Paul Moorcraft, ‘Total Destruction of the Tamil Tigers: The Rare Victory of Sri Lanka’s Long War, UK, 2012.
The author, a visiting professor of Journalism at Cardiff, has written several books on recent wars. This work (hereafter, TDTT) is short but contains a wealth of information and detail. Moorcraft has read on Sri Lanka, visited sites, and conducted interviews including with army commanders, thePermanent Secretary (Defence), the President, Kumaran Pathmanathan(“K.P.”), Colonel Karuna and others.
“To see beauty in victory is to rejoice in the killing of others” (The ‘Art of War’by Sun-tzu, BCE 380-316). Altering words from Gray’s ‘Elegy’ (1751), one should not “wade through slaughter” to power and domination, shutting the gates of compassion on humanity. But TDTT is “not a moral tract” (page xviii) and, therefore, it cannot be reproached for not dealing with issues such as ethics and human-rights. For example, when he says the government acted “correctly” (page 165) he means it in military and political (not in ethical or humane) terms. Objectively and dispassionately, Moorcraft records that the government and its army functioned like a steamroller (page 168) flattening everything before it. TDTT, therefore, is a Machiavellian work. “Machiavellian” is used here not pejoratively but neutrally. ‘The Prince’ (circa 1515) focuses on how power can be secured and retained: When and how should one be cruel? In politics, it is better to be feared than loved, and so on. (Cf. Kautilya’s ‘The Arthashastra’ written over 1500 years ago.)
