Hedges on the Realities and Myths of the Iraq War
Recommended reading for amateur occupiers, from Antiwar.com’s Chris Hedges: War: Realities and myths.
We are losing the war in Iraq. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are pitiless to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens’ expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront the lies and hubris told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, if we do not remove from power our flag-waving, cross-bearing versions of the Taliban, we will not so much defeat dictators such as Saddam Hussein as become them.
June 13th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
I haven’t had any respect for Hedges as a person or a journalist since he made that anti-war rant in the guise of a College Commencement speech about a year ago. It was arrogance in a high form, to have such little respect for the occasion and the audience, that he would deliver such a political, highly-charged speech, without a single sentence acknowledging the event of that day. And yes, I would have thought it was just as inappropriate if the speaker had made a “Why This War Is Justified” speech from beginning to end.
What does this have to do with the current posting? Not much, I guess, but he still irritates me.