Journalist condemns war myth "Love is the most potent enemy of war," he says....
After years of covering conflicts, reporter tells UT audience that war is addictive
By Anita Powell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
austin360.com
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Nothing about Chris Hedges' physical appearance suggests that he's been through almost 20 years of war.
At 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds, he's physically unimposing and bespectacled. He bears a perpetually thoughtful, almost worried, expression. As a longtime war correspondent for The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, Hedges, 46, saw a few lifetimes' worth of death, brutality and sorrow.
He lost his best friend and colleague to war. He watched Palestinian children being gunned down in a refugee camp in Gaza. He was taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard during the 1991 Gulf War.
And he kept going back.
"War is addictive," Hedges said. "I believe it is the most powerful narcotic invented by mankind."
Hedges' strongly anti-war stance, backed by his experience at the front lines, was the subject of his talk Friday on the University of Texas campus.
His recent book, "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," discusses his career and defends his condemnation of war, which he describes as a "poison," and "nothing like the myth I had been peddled."
His position on the current situation in Iraq is clear.
"We are going to pay for every single bomb we drop on Iraq," he said. "And frankly, we deserve it."
Hedges, once a divinity student — he never studied journalism — assumed the character of a preacher at a pulpit. His voice fell over the crowd as he spoke of his experiences and beliefs, universally condemning war and the institutions that encourage it. Hedges heavily criticized the current media coverage in Iraq, accusing the media of complicity with the government.
"The chief institutions that peddle war are the state and the press," he said. "You have this need on the part of the national press to create a mythic hero. Mythic reporting in war sells newspapers. Real reporting doesn't. The only product we have to sell is credibility, and we're damaging it right now."
Hedges recounted his experience on the fringes of the foreign press corps in the Gulf War, when he broke out of the press pool system and traveled alone through the countryside, gathering information and dodging officials. He spoke of his time in Sarajevo, where he witnessed ethnic slaughter between Serbs and Muslims.
He spoke of the disillusionment soldiers and journalists feel after war. But throughout his condemnations of war, which he likened to necrophilia, poison and narcotics, Hedges wove a thin thread of hope.
"Love is the most potent enemy of war," he said.
The packed auditorium — filled with students, professors, veterans and survivors of war — was silent throughout. Some audience members stared ahead, or into their laps. A woman in the third row, who later described herself as an anti-war activist, listened as tears slowly ran down her face.
After the speech, audience members asked questions, and some gave their own war confessions.
"The first air raids were exciting," said longtime Austin resident and World War II survivor Margaret Hofmann of her youth in wartime Germany. "It was the being-in-the-same-boat feeling. But it does not leave you. And to this day, it's influenced everything I've done in every relationship I've had."
apowell@statesman.com; 445-3851 |
