We need a new Geneva Convention

We need an entirely new, updated Geneva Convention.

The current Geneva convention prohibits a variety of inhumane methods used in warfare, as if the entire concept of war was not inhumane in itself.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that we can do away with war, since so many people on this hapless planet simply love it -- else why would there so many brutal conflicts taking place at any given time?

War is, after all, a dandy technique for eliminating surplus young males, and for spreading genetic material through rape. It's also a keen way to pick up slave labor and real estate, not to mention natural resources such as oil. And let's not forget the tidy profits made by arms manufacturers and suppliers of military equipment.

Old alpha males enjoy wars, particularly because they never physically take part in them. They let other people's kids do the fighting and dying, while they themselves reap the material benefits.

Over the millennia, the death-dealing capability of weapons of war has increased exponentially. Early humans undoubtedly started out with nothing more than their own fists, feet and teeth. These weapons gave them no particular advantage over similarly able-bodied opponents, though they were effective at subduing weaker humans and animals. The risk was that their own fists or feet could sustain damage in the fight.

Eventually they discovered that sticks and rocks could inflict greater injuries on others, while protecting their own fists and feet. And then, as their appetite for inflicting harm on fellow humans increased, they developed knives, slingshots, spears, darts, ropes, boomerangs, bolos and other killing technologies that reduced injury to the users.

As metals were discovered, they were forged into spear tips and arrow heads and swords. The bow and arrow provided a way to kill humans from far enough away that the victims could not strike back with fist or stick or spear.

Horses and chariots made it possible to travel farther to kill other humans and get away faster. Armor-piercing longbows drastically upped the ante in warfare, and then came those marvelous guns that at first felled others singly, and ultimately, en masse with automation. Gunpowder led to the development of explosives and cannons that destroyed buildings as well as people. You didn't need to be an active war participant to have your house and family smashed to bits by cannons fired from far away.

Mustard gas and other chemical weapons made it possible to wipe out whole combat units without wasting a single bullet. Their use in World War 1 so horrified the saner people on the planet that they were banned under the Geneva Convention. But the people who love and profit from wars were quick to adapt and employ other new technologies for killing men, women and children.

Wilbur and Orville Wright's discovery eventually made it possible for humans to take to the air and rain down vast quantities of death on entire cities, whether the residents were active war participants or not. And then, with the discovery of atomic weapons, it became possible to obliterate millions of humans with a single bomb. What fun for the old alpha males! How they must have danced in glee when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wiped out.

Since that time, humans have developed even more efficient techniques of mass murder. The neutron bomb kills living beings, while leaving beautiful architecture intact for the conquerors to enjoy. Lasers burn holes in people. Mass stun weapons and devices that make the blood boil within the human body are other fine examples of advances in people-killing. There are so many nuclear warheads stashed here and there around the globe that they can kill all 6 billion of us several times over. Soon we may have death rays capable of wiping out half the planet from space. The old men can hardly wait!

But just what if all weapons were banned? I mean every single device that injures or kills humans. No lasers, no atomic weapons, no 9 mm semiautomatics, no slingshots, no machine-guns, no knives, no chemical poisons, no stun guns.

Nothing but fists and feet and teeth, the weapons humans were born with. Not even brass knuckles or sticks. You could throw a punch at your opponent, but things being more nearly fair, your opponent will have an equal opportunity to hit or kick back. Naturally, the advocates of warfare will send young men and perhaps women to study karate and other martial arts. But once everybody's trained to chop and kick efficiently, the playing field will be more nearly level.

Just imagine it. Mass fistfights between countries. Military surgeons would need to specialize in treated broken noses and black eyes and barked knuckles instead of mangled limbs destroyed by IEDs. The war profiteers would go broke -- although Halliburton would still be able to pick up a few bucks selling spoiled food to military commissaries.

Maybe, just maybe, the old alpha males who so love their wars would then have to put up their dukes and do some of the fighting themselves, instead of delegating it to others.