Chris Hedges has a new article at Salon called "The real consequences when America is at war." It is a very difficult piece to read because the truth of the war in Iraq is not only so insanely brutal and pointless, but unveils a bloody and ongoing denial of the highest American values - freedom, justice, mercy, truth, and honor.Hedges claims that while "We may not want to admit it, ... the war in Iraq is now primarily about murder."
Our troops are driven by fear and stress "to view everyone around them as the enemy. ... The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed, over time, to innocent civilians who are seen to support the insurgents.
"Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleaguered troops, merge into one entity. ... They are dismissed as less than human. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing -- the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm -- to murder -- the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you.
" ... The savagery and brutality of the occupation is tearing apart those who have been deployed to Iraq. As news reports have just informed us, 115 American soldiers committed suicide in 2007. This is a 13 percent increase in suicides over 2006.
"American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. ... The politicians still speak in abstract terms of glory, honor and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed within the confines of this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed, evil itself will vanish.
"The reality behind the myth, however is quite different. The reality and the ideal tragically clash when soldiers and Marines return home. These combat veterans are often alienated from the world around them, a world that still believes in the myth of war and the virtues of the nation. They confront the grave, existential crisis of all who go through combat and understand that we have no monopoly on virtue, that in war we become as barbaric and savage as those we oppose."
Hedges takes us to the people and places in Iraq we seldom, if ever, see. He helps us better understand those who wear the uniform of the United States, the violence they live with day and night, and the often unseen but deadly enemy which frequently takes the form of innocent Iraqi civilians.
The article is built around the following major sections:
War as betrayal.
The legions of the lost and damned
Punishing the local population
The algebra of occupation
The plaster saints of war
You will find the entire article here.
When you've finished reading this article I think you will, if an American, feel the need to scrub yourself clean. You will also ask why in the name of all that is holy and decent those men and women who deceived us about the war on terror, so they could incite their own war of terror, are not dethroned and sitting behind bars.
1 comment:
War is hell! This war is not very different than most modern wars where it is difficult to tell who the enemy is. They all look like civilians which makes it more than difficult to decide quickly if someone has a bomb, or is ready to kill you on the street. We will have more such tragedies as long as war is waged against groups and not nations. Groups do not wear uniforms and do mix with the surrounding population. We have not solved the problem of the use of civilians to hide warriors. The impulse is to shoot first and ask questions later if one feels threatened. I have no easy answers and am not sure anyone else has. The innocent will be harmed and the enemy will use such incidents as propaganda. It is tragic and some answers should be found.
Bob Poris
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