Note: The following correspondence constitutes not the most comprehensive record of the defeated belligerents of a civil war, but the sole extent of the record that legal standards permit. To better maintain postwar historical integrity, these memos by one of the leaders of the insurgency are available strictly for research purposes. The names of the correspondents have been replaced with obfuscating monikers. Publicizing the monikers, the actual names, let alone the contents between them is punishable by a fine of $10,000 or a prison term of six months.
To [Gen. X],
Trust is a precious commodity even in the best of times. I don’t think I need to remind you of the delicate dance you and I must undertake in order to make the best use of that commodity. Even though the purpose of this letter is to do exactly that.
From you I would like the following assurances: your competency, your integrity, and your cohesion. There are advantages in aligning with institutional units who are just a little out of sorts with the wider society. The heat of their intransigence is more or less made up for with experience, resolve, and confidence. Moreover, they bring a certain moral fortitude, especially desirable in fluid situations, where being reliable is preferable to being good.
We haven’t been especially blessed with that kind of assistance. I go to you and your “underdog” force knowing the full range of complications you introduce to every virtue I just mentioned. It’s not clear, from our position, as to how many of your adherents are pure of heart, let alone combat-capable. It is not in our best interest, strategically or existentially, to be subverted.
In exchange for taking our concerns seriously, I offer this: that I mean what I say, that our goals are what I say they are, and that those stated goals have more overlap than not with your own. Furthermore, if I have you shot and your forces liquidated in like manner, it will be because you pissed me off subsequent from this and not the inevitable outcome of some pre-existing rivalry or paranoia or onset strategic advantage.
I look forward to your response confirming the fairness of these terms.
[Tiberius]
To [Brutus],
Not having a military background but having been cornered into a situation where military actions predominate, I cannot comment reliably as to whether this tactic or that maneuver is born of sound judgment. I defer to the strategists making those judgments. If there are risks inherent in that deference, so it is with all deference. But so far as my limited intuition informs me, I see no need for anxiety as yet.
I can only describe my relationship with the people actually fighting for us as being codependent. I, nominally and in reality, am above them, must direct them, and am basically responsible for every horrible thing they see, do, or endure. But our interests are the same; our morale cannot be easily separated. Is it the same for you?
One day when I was doing nothing in particular at one of our outposts, a volunteer approached me with a very unsoldierly humility. I thought he was asking me where the bathrooms were, but in actual fact it was I he was looking for. “We would do anything for you and Brutus,” he said without my prompting. “Who is ‘we’ in this situation?” I asked. “The soldiers,” he said. “Oh yeah,” I said. “That’s cool.” Then we shared a deplorably extended silence. So I asked “Do you want like a specific thing?” He affirmed. I thought for a moment, and said “Now that you bring it up, it would be great if you could so discipline yourselves that you become a tight-knit unit capable of implementing our military decisions to such an extent that they appear in reality as they do in our minds rather than becoming some high-romantic death cult.” He resumed his soldier’s comportment with a smile and a salute. “Yes, sir!” he exclaimed, and went off presumably to do exactly what I told him to do.
This whole war business isn’t so hard sometimes. Not every day, but sometimes.
To the Contingency Council,
Given that you eminent follows are still a contingent body and not yet an exalted one, we haven’t the luxury where certain actions being committed to official record is advisable. Or so it seems to my rough judgment. But occasions such as this one are of such sensitivity that an exception must be made. I hope it will be a sparingly used one until better times arrive.
Your intermediary has supplied us with all the relevant materials pertaining to the activities of [Mr. Q] and the extent to which they have inconvenienced and even imperiled our cause. Added to what I have understood previous to these unfortunate events about [Mr. Q], his appalling personality and his cornucopia of suspect motives, your recommendation of his dispatch by irreversible means will get no objection from this office. And as this office is ostensibly the final threshold for permissions on anything, you may go ahead with your plans as convenience allows.
No need to follow up hereafter. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.
To [Brutus],
To the matter of contraband: I think it is prudent to guide ourselves with the general policy that sharing is caring. But we should also not be so delusional as to hold that as resolute. Spoils are to be distributed or withheld at the discretion of the victor. The only restriction, and I think it is a reasonable one, is any transferal of spoils back to the defeated parties. The basic tenets of Christian charity may frown upon so callous a position. I can only acknowledge the frowning tenets. Such generosity in these circumstances puts our already pretty tenuous legitimacy at risk, and as such is a treasonable offense. Though given the desperate need for supplies and the rarely quenchable desire for comfort on our side, such a temptation would have to be the result either of unbending piety or lunacy, hard to distinguish at times, I know. Such people are easily dealt with and will be few in number. It’s a rare delight to be so certain of something these days.
Amend as needed and pass on to the relevant parties.
Dear [Gen. X],
I feel like what I’m about to write should already be apparent, but as a matter emphasis I will just say that the unit alternately known as the “Janitors” or the “Garbagemen” is not sanctioned by this office or anyone else under our command. They are an undisciplined, self-contained splinter group, easily distinguished from our better troops by their tactical crudity and total disregard for civil/military boundaries. Which is to say, the very thing that I was concerned about in our earlier correspondence.
Though I don’t personally know of any specific instances, these are the types of pirates who will turn a town of 1,500 into a vacant lot of 20 in search of one target who is not a priority to anyone, whose exact crime shifts with the wind, and who left the area a week earlier anyway. They are basically enemies, and it is encouraged, rather strongly, that you set aside whatever you’re doing now to neutralize them by all necessary means.
It also goes without saying that this mini-campaign is best waged with as little exposure as possible. The press, such as it exists here, are compulsive in reporting instances of our apparent brutality, however spurious. As they tell it, [Brutus] and I are artists of cruelty, conjuring new war crimes daily as if they were ornate regal portraiture. I say let us lose a few more battles before we make that judgment! But I digress.
I am not ignorant of how the things we must specifically sign off on in order to function one day longer may turn the stomachs of most polite people. [Brutus] for his part has been nonchalant about this present clown show, but together I think we conduct our punishments of disruptive elements with as much care and liberality as circumstances permit, even as they don’t permit all that much. To be a nice liberal is a luxury until further notice.
There’s an undeniable attraction to reigning in Hell. If you can’t or won’t overcome your limitations, you can at least lend them a certain funereal dignity. I guess I’m one of those people. Though I hadn’t considered how easily sovereignty gets reduced to servitude. Hell enforces its own rules inflexibly.
You are advised.
To [Brutus],
I don’t think it is wise to burden the record with talk of killing. Not because I am deluded to the unpleasantness of our present reality. Until we get our shit together, death is our sole export and import. But I want to keep our options open. If euphemism makes us more dishonest, honesty puts us in a chokehold.
To take one example: the public taste for any kind of “conscription” is as low as you’d expect. And it is rather self-defeating to our core principles to forcibly move a young and healthy portion of our population closer to our only commodity good than they otherwise would be just to square some administrative circle. But call it a “social creation” initiative and see how their attitude shifts. No one likes to be a drone for the egotistical, often violent whims of some governmental behemoth. They want to participate, to lay a foundation that’s theirs. Even if that foundation is laid over their neighbors and even their siblings, and with sharpened sticks instead of shovels.
It seriously amazes me how anyone could enjoy killing. A killer must have a demon’s constitution to be able to withstand the strain of his psychological and physical faculties, to say nothing of the waste of resources and energy. That, or a reasonable human must be brutalized into that state. It is a losing game for us. Are we a “nation” of monsters or did we make them monsters to make our nation, and to make brave patriots of our enemies?
In that spirit I propose an additional policy that there are more abominable outcomes than death. Rather than kill the other side I should like to condemn it to ostracism, isolation, invisibility. By year’s end I hope to have a fully functioning “pit of despair” (admittedly a placeholder euphemism for quick reference) if not sooner. You may ask what it is: it’s whatever we need it to be short of a skull factory.
I mean, if despair reaches capacity, we may discuss options in more honest, choking terms. Fine; we’re all grownups here.
All necessary departments and units will be informed when I have the information. Your input is valued.
To [Gen. X],
Since assuming this power-sharing arrangement over a regime that, on a good day, maybe an eighth of the entire civilized world deems legitimate, and which the surrounding universe renders utterly inconsequential besides, I’ve found that an overwhelming swath of the human race craves punishment. Maybe I’m naive; but I thought that our collective ability to behave in pursuit of a shared cause would cover the expense of that pursuit better than it has. And if I had gone into this knowing that most of my time would be given over to penalizing miscreants, I would have at least given myself more time to think through my life choices. But here we are.
Clearly we have a desertion problem, a problem we have tried to solve by shooting deserters we manage to track down. This has proven an incredible waste of resources, given that this seems rather to embolden more troops to desert. Better, I guess, to get a bullet from the devil you know rather than the devil from whom you’ve been uncoupled.
But what stop-gaps can we implement if any? I have two we can put into action on a trial basis.
(1) A desertion problem is a morale problem at its core. A program to boost morale seems feasible in this light, provided it meets the following criteria: it is cheap, quick to assemble, neither overly didactic or overly vulgar. I haven’t actually inquired as to how many propaganda consultants we have on hand, but for the time being you’re free to improvise. Consider all backgrounds and viewpoints.
(2) Let the deserters desert. Let their bodies flee but keep their souls and their names close. Curse them and shame them to those who stay and might want to leave. Treat them as if they willingly infected themselves with leprosy. As of now, desertion is no longer a crime punishable by death, but an antisocial disease for which there is no cure but shunning.
Dear [Councilor J],
At the outset of my tenure, I admit that I feared chaos. With some experience I’ve managed to make peace with it. I don’t enjoy it, and take every step within my power to reverse it. But I find no novelty in it. No excitement. It’s not so much that chaos reigns as chaos is our live-in life partner.
That’s not the ideal answer to your question “What’s with all the torture?” But what more is there to say? Do I condone torture? No, of course not. No one, so far as I’m able to gather, has seriously proposed it. What isn’t proposed isn’t pursued.
And sure, you’ve heard “allegations.” You believe they are “serious” and “with substance,” and if unattended to they put our “moral high-ground position” in a precarious state. You think?
Look, we are not at peace. The wailing won’t stop by asking it nicely. It is entirely possible that someone’s remedy to stop the wailing is to drown it out with screaming. I’m not saying I won’t, when time permits, make inquiries into the matter and consider what actions can be taken to make bad things less numerous than they are.
In exchange I’d like you to appreciate the irony of this situation. Fixating on ethical minutiae constricts our prospects of victory, prolongs the very thing you want to stop, and drags us closer to the cloudy mystifications of human rights lawyers and other types who wield good intentions like a hacksaw.
To the Contingency Council Congress,
Thanks for keeping us informed of the progress of your most contentious debates. Though asking the executive for guidance feels highly irregular given that you, collectively, are the advisory body for [Brutus] and me. These being irregular times, and not having the Provisional Charter within reach just now, I guess we can indulge one another.
The Cultural Revision Act (CRA) has all the markers of the dynamic thinking on which the duumvirate places high value. It is a nice reprieve from the more constrictive expediency policies we tend to implement. Having said that, I can’t altogether give my support as the Act stands.
Your Act makes provisions to restrict both the flow of information and the freedom of expression. I’m not going to strike it entirely, but some clarity would be nice. Censorship is a means. It is either defensive or offensive. You appear to impose both interchangeably. We may restrict information that puts our survival at risk. We may safeguard our citizens from subversive ideas. These are massive logistical undertakings on their own, and nearly impossible together.
As I see it, the best way to combat malicious information is through deflective information. Confusion often works better than concealment. People are fine to work with confusion in equal to proportion as they are insulted when things are kept from them. As to postbellum offensive censorship, I’m not generally enthused by moral hygiene, but if you can be more precise about your desired ends, the means will articulate themselves. It’s like writing. Without an actual idea you get fuck-all.
I hope these general principles will be kept in mind as you work on the Act. I’d be lying if I said I know all—or any—of your minds well. But for my sanity I’m going to go ahead and assume they are capable to the task at hand, infused in equal parts intellectual rigor and national fellow-feeling that can be passed down to our beleaguered citizenry. Carry on, etc.
Dear [Congressman J],
I can’t think of a more awkward moment than going over to your legislature to consult on policy matters, and maybe to just shoot the breeze after a long day, only to find the appointed meeting hall totally empty. Not just empty but deserted, by all appearances, in haste—overnight.
Yet more awkward than even that is finding out through secondary channels (online forums) that your new place of meeting is “undisclosed” yet (allegedly) in quite close proximity to a contested border.
You and your colleagues are, of course, free to meet where you think appropriate. Such is the nature of our situation. You can do a lot of things when you exist as a courtesy. Your status is in your name, after all. But courtesy should be met with courtesy, should it not? Some advanced notice would have been appreciated. If you did not find some decision from our office congenial to your own prerogatives, you could have just said something. I couldn’t make any promises of a satisfactory resolution, but it is rather a bad show of faith, and a little embarrassing, when your entire lawmaking body decides to ghost.
I take this to mean that the integrity of the Provisional Charter is now void, and that legislative power will be consolidated into my office. Good. I’m glad. Have fun in deliberating in a Motel 6.
To [Gen. X],
So we have a hiccup of sorts.
Rather than be dissolved, as we’d hoped to impose upon them, our eminent tribunal, the Contingency Congress, has instead unequivocally defected across the border. In terms of administrative procedure this has no effect. In fact where it has any might constitute improvement. The problem lies in their gesture, which I find difficult to ignore.
I don’t know if the enemy will welcome them any more warmly than we have. They possess no unique intelligence for them to use, and who will give them jobs and protection for simple cowardice? Even so, that policy of shunning low-level military deserters does not extend to their high-level civil counterparts. Self-preservation of such theatricality should be met with retaliation of equally operatic scope.
I should think that the “Garbagemen” we’ve had in isolation might be eager for some room to move. I see no objection to leaving the gate unlocked with a helpful pathway to our former friends. Not ideal of course but perfectly within the realm of practically. Our judicial system is not in good working order at the moment, and I’ve lost patience anyway. All the better because it’s probably the first decision in some time that pleases [Brutus] as much as it does me.