Why isn't war obsolete?

I am digging more deeply into the issues that underlie the news and analyses of the news on blogs, i.e., the “fresh hell”* I read each morning.

In order to learn more about what’s going on in the Middle East, I’ve read Robert Fisk’s 1000+ page Great War for Civilisation -The Conquest of the Middle East and Pity the Nation - The Abduction of Lebanon, Richard Ben Cramer’s How Israel Lost- The Four Questions, and most recently Trita Parsi’s Treacherous Alliance - The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.

Joe Conason’s It Can Happen Here - Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush has helped me understand the slow and steady erosion of the underpinnings of our democracy.

Currently I’m interested in why human beings continue to engage in or support war. In my October 1st post I asked Why isn't war obsolete? I think this is coming up for me because I’m spending a lot of time with my twin grandchildren. I see their chubby little legs and feel their soft, silken skin and can’t imagine them growing up and heading off to war to either have their legs blown off or to die.

In order to understand the why war has endured throughout human history, I’m rereading Chris Hedge’s War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. I’ve dog-eared half the pages to return to again and again.

Hedge’s describes the enduring attraction of war: “Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent.” War gives our lives meaning because we have become disillusioned with “…a sterile, futile, empty present.”

My question: Why are our lives shallow, vapid, sterile, futile and empty if we don’t have a war to fill the void? I’m so full of purpose with my family, my work as a mediator, and my passion for this country that these adjectives don’t describe my life. Yet I sense that meaningless exists for many, many people. My next question: If lives lack meaning unless there’s a war to be fought or launched, what can I or what can we do about this underlying condition?

* As I read the news and my favorite blogs, I say to myself, "What fresh hell is this?" attributed to Dorothy Parker

Chris Hedges - A pessi-realist

Reading what Chris Hedges writes is not easy. That’s why I decided to describe him as a “pessi-realist,” not knowing whether or not such a word existed. A Google search reveals that I’m not the first person to use that description. It applies to Hedges because he writes about issues we’d rather not think about, avoiding a patina of optimism to beguile us into thinking that things aren’t quite as bad as they really are.

Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years.

Hedges was part of The New York Times team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.

My introduction to Hedges was in 2003, when I read his book, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. I try to read everything he writes. Since I know he writes for Truthdig, I frequently check this link to find his most recent articles.

Here are two that I consider must-reads:

1. America in the Time of Empire posted November 26th;

2. Chris Hedges' Civil Disobedience, posted November 21st.

Hedges aptly expresses how I feel in both these articles. Rather than excerpt from them, I hope you’ll take time to read both of them and join me as a Chris Hedges fan.

(photo of Chris Hedges – Truthdig)

A thought while babywalking - Why isn't war obsolete?

I’m back home from spending a couple of days helping care for my youngest grandchildren, who are now 8 months old. I don’t “babysit,” I “babywalk,” spending hours pushing their jogger-stroller up and down their 2 ½ mile, hilly, bumpy dirt driveway.

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’s documentary on World War II. Last night I saw Part Five, which included a description of a US soldier taking gold teeth out of a Japanese solder’s mouth before he was dead, slashing his cheeks to get at them.

Because war appears to dehumanize almost everyone including the good guys, I wonder why it isn’t obsolete.

I pondered on this question while pushing the stroller with two beautiful babies up and down the dirt driveway. I don’t want any of my grandchildren to become cannon fodder. I thought of Chris Hedges’s book, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.

From the back cover of Hedges’s book: By
“[d]rawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those in the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting human desires.”

I plan to reread Hedges’s book because I don’t know why war isn’t obsolete.