Is it war, then?

So, if this is really war, let's study it.

I turn to Chris Hedges, the war correspondent who laid down his sword and shield and walked away from war in 2002.  He wrote War is a force that give us meaning to tell us about it.  To ask for our forgiveness, and make sure we ask as well.

Some things he says about war:

"...war forms it's own culture.  The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug....  It is peddled by mythmakers- historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists, and the state--- all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess:  excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty.  It... infects everything around it, even humor, which becomes preoccupied with the grim perversities of smut and death.  Fundamental questions about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of our place on the planet are laid bare when we watch those around us sink to the lowest depths..... War can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living."

I recognize that addiction I feel when I join the frontlines of the scirel war.  The excitement, the heady power. I see it in others on both sides.  The battle cry of self-righteous anger.  I recognize that cry in myself.  Yes, we are at war.

"Armed movements seek divine sanction and the messianic certitude of absolute truth.  They do not need to get this from religion, as we usually think of religion, but a type of religion:  Patriotism provides the blessing.... Dissension, questioning of purpose,... war crimes carried out by those fighting on our behalf are dangerous to such beliefs.  Dissendents who challenge the goodness of our cause, who question the gods of war, who pull back the curtain to expose the lie are usually silenced or ignored."

I recognize that I am a scientific patriot at times.  But I'm trying hard not to be.  I'm trying to be the one who pulls back the curtain - And not be ignored.  Dorothy did have a whole book written about her, right?

And yet, Hedges doesn't call for an end to all war.  He says "I am not a pacifist.... The poison that war is does not free us from the ethics of responsibility.  There are times when we must take this poison - just as a person with cancer accepts chemotherapy to live.... The only antidote to ward off self-destruction and the indiscriminate use of force is humility and, ultimately, compassion.  Reinhold Niebuhr aptly reminded us that we must all act and then ask for forgiveness."

What the scirel soldiers must ask themselves is, Do we have cancer?  Are we at war within our own body politic?

The answer seems to be yes.  On that, we agree.  But do we have to be so damned smug and excited about it?  We're like plebs excitedly dreaming of counting our kills.  And if that's so, that means we haven't yet begun to fight.  We certainly haven't yet begun to ask for forgiveness.