“In wartime nearly everyone becomes an accomplice,” writes Chris Hedges, the former divinity student and war reporter, in War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Hedges steps to war armed with unflinchingly honest reflection on his years in the Balkans, being held prisoner in Iraq, a run in with Saudi military police, and reporting in the company of zooted photographers while bullets whizzed by in Central America. Honest not just in his own role, but the role of the people he observed. Their shortcomings and their humanity. And at a time where you can say “Peace” like it means something or gives you an excuse not to think, well, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning qualifies as perhaps one of the most hopeful books on the subject, sharing ideas and experiences that will ruin the comfortable position of so many “thinkers.”  

Contextualizing war by applying the works of Shakespeare, Homer and George Orwell, Hedges chronicles his experience and observations while riding our lovely spherical object through the cosmos. Our humble home hosted the deaths of over a million soldiers and civilians in armed conflicts in 2002. With 37 countries and territories graciously hosting the grotesque celebration of death, destruction and the complete absence of humanity, we continued hacking our merry way into the new millennium, actions unchanged.   

Hedges articulates the role we all play when it comes to war. A dude I happened to be talking to at work though, he made it necessary to think it through in print.

 

War, What is It Good For? 

I was working with this truck driver who helped us offload stock (where most drivers prefer to sit and watch my narrow ass sweat). This guy Dan*, a brown dude with what sounds like a Quebecois accent, he helps every time, with a smile, cracking jokes. One day, for whatever reason, he gets me a coffee while grabbing one for him. I decided the occasion merited a cancer stick and we stepped outside. Somehow, we got to talking about what I did when not playing the martyr for a paycheque, and next thing I know he’s telling me about seeing Russian soldiers getting their chests’ carved off… while they’re still breathing. 

Dan saw some shit growing up in Afghanistan, and while he’s close to my age, the man’s lived more of a life than I might if I live another 30 years. “From the time that I basically knew my left and right hand,” he says, “that’s when the wars had started already in my country.”  

While Russia was busy experiencing the same quagmire in Afghanistan the U.S. did in Vietnam, Dan was growing up in Kabul watching rockets the Mujahideen fired into the city exact their tolls. “We heard basically, an explosion, a very loud explosion. We ran outside, we didn’t know where the rocket hit, then a few seconds later, saw basically the smoke coming from not any more than a kilometer away from my house. So we rushed down there,” Dan says. Now forget for a moment that the Mujahideen were the good guys in this scenario, forget they enjoyed the support of most Afghanis, and think about the human cost of finding justice and sovereignty for a country… 

“When we got there, debris was all over the place; and blood was all over the trees, the walls; we were picking up hands, basically all body parts from all over the yard,” he says. Of the 14 people in the house, including two newly married couples, there was one survivor. War hurts regardless of the righteousness of the cause. 

Hedges learned as much about himself and human nature as he did about the nature and history of the conflicts he covered. And he didn’t uncover anything very pleasant. After witnessing a soldier die while crying for his mami in El Salvador (a conflict he covered from 1983-1988), Hedges retreated to a bar. “I drank away the fear and excitement in a seedy bar in downtown San Salvador. Most people after such an experience would learn to stay away.” Not Hedges. “I was hooked,” he writes. 

Infinitely more accessible than books in which the writer’s more focused on impressing you with his or her arsenal of words and turns of phrase, Hedges is more interested in communicating his point, which is similar to that of a bloated Brando in Apocalypse Now: “The horror…the horror.”  

And part of that horror is finding out just what we’re made up of as humans. Confronted by soldiers who audibly released their safeties on a deserted street in Khartoum, Sudan, after an attempted coup, Hedges made a disturbing discovery. Story of the year? A conspiracy behind the coup? Nope, a heart that Mobb Deep would call shook. “I deftly, without hesitation or forethought, sidestepped behind my friend,” Hedges writes of his own instinctively selfish and non-heroic move. “Better to let any bullets pass through him first,” he writes, skewering the image of the hardened combat journalist. 

Dan, for his part, didn’t get stuck watching the war. “I walked out of the high school,” he says, and, as a sort of graduation present, “they threw me a machine gun.” Seriously.  

Dan couldn’t hack it, however. Regardless of his physical strength, his daily in-school martial arts, weapons and munitions training, he couldn’t do it. “I fought about six months or so and I had to take off…I just couldn’t handle it anymore; innocent people were being shot…and it wasn’t just worth it.” Suffice it to say, Dan kept his head behind sandbags. He wasn’t looking to give up his life for any cause. He escaped to Pakistan in a bus, hiding in a metal box beneath a seat for the duration of a bumpy 10-hour ride.  

“A soldier who is able to see the humanity of the enemy makes a troubled and ineffective killer,” Hedges writes. War asks us to do the impossible: become inhuman. You might be able to do the robot, but can you be the robot? 

 

War Hangover 

For a society, for an individual, recovery takes time. 

Between conversations at work and on the phone, Dan managed a detached manner—sharing without sharing. He admits though, that he’s known for his temper, having a short fuse. I’m guessing it’s forgivable given the reality of what he’s seen. 

“When I left the country,” Dan says, describing the time he spent in Pakistan, “for six or seven years I had nightmares.” 

War caught up with Hedges, too. Waiting for a flight out of El Salvador, Hedges encountered a little friction with the attendant at the airport check-in. “I beat him to the floor as his bewildered colleagues locked themselves in the room behind the counter. Blood streamed down his face and mine,” he writes. “I refused to wipe the dried stains off my cheeks on the flight to Madrid, and I carry a scar on my face from where he thrust his pen into my cheek. War’s sickness had become mine.” War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is sharing to break out of war’s seductive grasp.

 

War and the Rational Mind 

We think of war in far too simplistic terms, framing the debate in hawks/doves metaphors and stupid remarks like “smash the state,” like getting whoever the villain de jour is (Hussein, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, Bush, Chrétien) will cure the world of its ills. Hedges believes we buy into myths and it’s safe to say they, at best, make us look like morons and put us in precariously illogical intellectual predicaments. 

For some, colonialism excuses the acts of genocide that occurred in Rwanda (damn Belgians), and the shiestiness of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe. For others, being victims of conquest somehow excuses the hatred and self-pity of many Palestinians, while the Holocaust might excuse Israel’s actions as a state. Nobody needs to be accountable—it’s somebody else’s fault. Essentially, like the movie Monster, the oppressed can do no wrong, and it’s our fault. It’s radically reprehensible modes of thinking produced by extreme and not-marginal-enough thought that eliminate the possibility of positive change. It’s not just us who buy into myths about ourselves and others, though. Myth, Hedges writes, “is a refuge for all, for lower classes as well as privileged elite. None of us is immune.” Yes, even valid victims spin webs of myth. 

Myth can lead us into bed with some odd partners, like Eazy-E finding an appendage between the object of his affection’s legs. And we’ll find that appendage every time we buy a myth. 

Which brings us back to Dan. Listening to his story, I was honoured, flattered even, that he’d share it with me. When he shared his hope for peace in Afghanistan, I wanted to hug him. Then he shared his belief that Iraqis need a dictator, which is an underlining sentiment seemingly shared by many who’re currently celebrating every setback faced by America as the imperialists seek to rebuild the country they bombed and build a democracy (those sick and stupid fucks). This, of course, is the line of logic that would reason that it’s better for the powerful to hang innocents, kill opponents and dissenters, introduce lies as the new truth, and maintain iron-fisted order, rather than having civilians hanging innocents.  

Aside from that questionable logic, should we forget Dan’s ignorance because he’s suffered? And what of the fact he’s a nice guy who works hard, provides for his family, and gets along with the people around him spreading L-O-V-E by smiling, what does that mean? Shouldn’t he be bombing motherfuckers ’cause the infidels left him with no choice? 

It’s volition and it’s humanity. And to entertain the notion that certain myth-based opinions and brutal actions do not count does us all a disservice. We go beyond honouring another’s suffering when we allow them to make the most ignorant and abhorrent of statements as though they’re, at worst, fact, or, at best, the excusable ramblings of a victim. 

Dan isn’t alone. History is full of examples of people who’ve bought the myth, bought the lies of one conflicting side or another, lies that prey upon their kinder, gentler sensibilities. And yes, because war affects us, too, even here in the lovely pages of Pound. 

We can be upset by the killing of civilians, upset by the idea of war, and upset knowing our countries rock horribly inconsistent (or arguably very consistent) foreign policies. We can even be critical of governments. Can, actually, is too weak a word—we should be upset and critical. To not be upset is to be less than human. Where we go with it, like the unsettling truth of Hedges’ book, is another thing altogether. 

Hedges observed equally foolish displays in intellectual/academic circles during his time reporting. “Many were rarely content with simply denouncing American foreign policy in places like Central America or the Middle East—a stance for which I have some sympathy—but had to embrace opposition forces with stunning credulity.” Which is, of course, where too many passionate yet none too thoughtful individuals come into the equation sharing their hybrid views.  

Pound’s been on the wrong side in the past. My man Chris Pearce wrote, in our generally humourous review haikus: “So, what would you do / If the Bush government was / Behind 9-1-1?” in a review of Paris’ Sonic Jihad, echoing the line of reasoning coming from radical clerics in the Middle East and morons everywhere. This though, was a step back (implementing the “If”) from an earlier review haiku in which he let his discontent and detestation of Bush’s doctrine be known: “They almost burnt Bush / Too bad about the White House / Maybe next attempt.” Now, Chris isn’t a stupid man. He’s not an ignorant man—he’s my respected friend and colleague, bright and sensitive and human.  

We’re over here, comfortably detached and supposedly rational, above the Hawks, though we speak with the same forked tongue. It’s anger and the sense of injustice looking for an outlet, looking for an answer in a situation in which there will never be a simple solution. It’s inexcusable to paint supposed martyrs as victims who’ve had their hand forced by the infidel in a manner becoming the story of the underdog in a Disney fable, then celebrate it, despite our ardent conviction for peace.

 

War and the Rational Mind 

We think of war in far too simplistic terms, framing the debate in hawks/doves metaphors and stupid remarks like “smash the state,” like getting whoever the villain de jour is (Hussein, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, Bush, Chrétien) will cure the world of its ills. Hedges believes we buy into myths and it’s safe to say they, at best, make us look like morons and put us in precariously illogical intellectual predicaments. 

For some, colonialism excuses the acts of genocide that occurred in Rwanda (damn Belgians), and the shiestiness of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe. For others, being victims of conquest somehow excuses the hatred and self-pity of many Palestinians, while the Holocaust might excuse Israel’s actions as a state. Nobody needs to be accountable—it’s somebody else’s fault. Essentially, like the movie Monster, the oppressed can do no wrong, and it’s our fault. It’s radically reprehensible modes of thinking produced by extreme and not-marginal-enough thought that eliminate the possibility of positive change. It’s not just us who buy into myths about ourselves and others, though. Myth, Hedges writes, “is a refuge for all, for lower classes as well as privileged elite. None of us is immune.” Yes, even valid victims spin webs of myth. 

Myth can lead us into bed with some odd partners, like Eazy-E finding an appendage between the object of his affection’s legs. And we’ll find that appendage every time we buy a myth. 

Which brings us back to Dan. Listening to his story, I was honoured, flattered even, that he’d share it with me. When he shared his hope for peace in Afghanistan, I wanted to hug him. Then he shared his belief that Iraqis need a dictator, which is an underlining sentiment seemingly shared by many who’re currently celebrating every setback faced by America as the imperialists seek to rebuild the country they bombed and build a democracy (those sick and stupid fucks). This, of course, is the line of logic that would reason that it’s better for the powerful to hang innocents, kill opponents and dissenters, introduce lies as the new truth, and maintain iron-fisted order, rather than having civilians hanging innocents.  

Aside from that questionable logic, should we forget Dan’s ignorance because he’s suffered? And what of the fact he’s a nice guy who works hard, provides for his family, and gets along with the people around him spreading L-O-V-E by smiling, what does that mean? Shouldn’t he be bombing motherfuckers ’cause the infidels left him with no choice? 

It’s volition and it’s humanity. And to entertain the notion that certain myth-based opinions and brutal actions do not count does us all a disservice. We go beyond honouring another’s suffering when we allow them to make the most ignorant and abhorrent of statements as though they’re, at worst, fact, or, at best, the excusable ramblings of a victim. 

Dan isn’t alone. History is full of examples of people who’ve bought the myth, bought the lies of one conflicting side or another, lies that prey upon their kinder, gentler sensibilities. And yes, because war affects us, too, even here in the lovely pages of Pound. 

We can be upset by the killing of civilians, upset by the idea of war, and upset knowing our countries rock horribly inconsistent (or arguably very consistent) foreign policies. We can even be critical of governments. Can, actually, is too weak a word—we should be upset and critical. To not be upset is to be less than human. Where we go with it, like the unsettling truth of Hedges’ book, is another thing altogether. 

Hedges observed equally foolish displays in intellectual/academic circles during his time reporting. “Many were rarely content with simply denouncing American foreign policy in places like Central America or the Middle East—a stance for which I have some sympathy—but had to embrace opposition forces with stunning credulity.” Which is, of course, where too many passionate yet none too thoughtful individuals come into the equation sharing their hybrid views.  

Pound’s been on the wrong side in the past. My man Chris Pearce wrote, in our generally humourous review haikus: “So, what would you do / If the Bush government was / Behind 9-1-1?” in a review of Paris’ Sonic Jihad, echoing the line of reasoning coming from radical clerics in the Middle East and morons everywhere. This though, was a step back (implementing the “If”) from an earlier review haiku in which he let his discontent and detestation of Bush’s doctrine be known: “They almost burnt Bush / Too bad about the White House / Maybe next attempt.” Now, Chris isn’t a stupid man. He’s not an ignorant man—he’s my respected friend and colleague, bright and sensitive and human.  

We’re over here, comfortably detached and supposedly rational, above the Hawks, though we speak with the same forked tongue. It’s anger and the sense of injustice looking for an outlet, looking for an answer in a situation in which there will never be a simple solution. It’s inexcusable to paint supposed martyrs as victims who’ve had their hand forced by the infidel in a manner becoming the story of the underdog in a Disney fable, then celebrate it, despite our ardent conviction for peace.

 

Love is the Message 

Dan despises war—as anyone who’s experienced it and is of sound mind would—despite the fact he believes that after America’s invasion and the loss of life it entailed, a better Afghanistan could develop in a generation’s time. “Of course, war is never right. I never recommend anybody to fight or have a war over anything. I don’t think anything personally is worth that much to sacrifice anybody’s life over. It’s all about politics,” he says, echoing Chuck D’s words. “We’re basically chess pieces and politicians are basically playing chess with us.” 

Hedges writes: “The historian Will Durant calculated that there have only been twenty-nine years in all of human history during which a war was not underway somewhere.” Whether we climbed out of a primordial soup or stumbled out of Eden, we’ve been making doves cry from time.    

This almost absolute absence of peace doesn’t mean war is never necessary. “The poison that is war does not free us from the ethics of responsibility,” Hedges writes. “There are times when we must take this poison—just as a person with cancer accepts chemotherapy to live. We can not succumb to despair.”  

The solution, the grand and forgivably corny answer that Hedges presents is this: Love.

In the same way Dan’s father nursed him back to stability with love and understanding while they waited in Pakistan to be sponsored to Canada, in the same spirit Dan and his brother picked anonymous limbs and chunks of bodies from trees for their neighbour, Love, Hedges believes, is the only answer. 

Writing of what he saw in the Balkans, Hedges observed some positives in the midst of the carnage and absurdity: people who care for each other regardless of nationality. “By accepting that they could only affect a few lives they also accepted their small place in the universe. This daily lesson in humility protected them. They were saved not by what they could accomplish but by faith.” Love, Hedges writes, not ideals of “race, nationalism, class and gender,” is worth striving for. 

Faith. Belief in that which is unseen. War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a meditative work that challenges. While Love is crazy risky, its potential benefits are better than the discovery we make when we strip the myth of its pantalones. “And however much beyond reason,” Hedges writes, “there is always a feeling that love is not powerless or impotent as we had believed a few seconds before. Love alone fuses happiness and meaning. Love alone can fight the impulse that lures us towards self-destruction.” 

Of all the jockeying perspectives, Love’s worth a second look. Hedges book, of course, is worthy of your attention, though sadly, what Love means in practice, really, is left to the imagination. 

So here’s part of said second look: It’s tough to imagine Love as the guiding principle behind any nation’s foreign or domestic policy, past, present or in the future. The Bible calls Love ‘patient, kind, without envy, never boasting, without pride, polite, selfless, forgiving, rejoicing in truth, ever protecting/trusting/hoping/winning.’ Essentially, It says, Love is a sure bet. That’s all well and good in regards to say, debt relief, equitable trading practices, and the like—hey, even in regards to the War on Drugs—but as an immediate antidote to terrorism, it’s a sucker’s bet.  

*Name changed to protect identity  

 

Sources: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, Chris Hedges, Anchor Books, 2002; Armed Conflict Report 2003, Project Ploughshares, www.ploughshares.ca

copyright Jeremy Relph

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