War criminals are not born, they are made, or rather make themselves through the experience of having an inner motif of self-promotion directed to cultivating, and thus bringing themselves to the attention of, those possessing wealth and power. No subtlety here, no shame of wanting recognition; instead, merely an active fantasy life of grand leadership as a presumed visionary entitled to inordinate deference and respect. Merited achievement is irrelevant and beside the point, for what matters is to ride the wave of organized power, command at one’s fingertips, an institutionalized militarism inseparable from the person himself/herself. Such presence, if it is to convince others, requires serial acts of violence sanctioned by law and government: Le State, c’est moi, i.e., once one has arrived, one then becomes the titular head (titular because serving to front a hierarchical system) of an elitist framework composed of the financial, industrial, and military communities, an integrated system disconnected from, while manipulating, the people to ensure social discipline at home and market expansion, via the threat and/or use of force, abroad. This describes the criminalization of historical development and public policy, or to be exact, the context and mental-set of the war criminal, for war is a useful tool for engineering conformity, promoting deference and submission to ruling groups, and diverting attention from social problems at home, and criminal, because the Leader is obsessed with maintaining order and identifying enemies of the State, in this case, primarily the business system as the directing force of State and society alike. Expand or deliquesce, dissolve in a puddle of weakness. This requires placing advanced capitalism on a sustainable basis, militarism becoming the midwife of profitability and expansion.
