Thoughts on war: Chris Hedges on the mechanisms of (mis)leading man into war (Published on 25/08/2025)
From the early 1980s until October 2000, American journalist and author Christopher Lynn Hedges reported for various media outlets from crisis and war zones. Starting in 2002, he published several thought-provoking monographs in which he drew on his experiences to present his views on war and its mechanisms, among other topics.
In his book “The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress” from 2010, he states the following (p. 226):
“War always involves betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics, and of troops by politicians. This bitter knowledge of betrayal is seeping into the ranks of the American military. It is bringing us a new wave of enraged and disenfranchised veterans who will never again trust the country that sent them to war.
We make our heroes out of clay. We laud their gallant deeds. We give them uniforms with colored ribbons for the acts of violence they committed or endured. They are our false repositories of glory and honor, of power, of self-righteousness, of patriotism and self-worship, all that we want to believe about ourselves. They are our plaster saints, the icons we cheer to defend us and make us and our nation great. They are the props of our demented civic religion, our love of power and force, our belief in our right as a chosen nation to wield this force against the weak. This is our nation’s idolatry of itself.“
He goes on (p. 278):
“Young soldiers (…) do not plan or organize the war. They do not seek to justify it or explain its causes. They are taught to believe. The symbols of the nation and religion are interwoven. The will of God becomes the will of the nation. This trust is forever shattered for many in war. Soldiers in combat see the myth used to send them to war implode. They see that war is not clean or neat or noble, but venal and frightening. They see into war’s essence, which is death.
In war, society’s institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many veterans never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god. They nurse a self-destructive anger and resentment, understandable and justified, but also crippling. Ask a combat veteran struggling to piece his or her life together about God and watch the raw vitriol and pain pour out. They have seen into the corrupt heart of America, into the emptiness of its most sacred institutions, into our staggering hypocrisy, and those of us who refuse to heed their words become complicit in the evil they denounce.”
Do these considerations, which are primarily directed at the US military, not apply equally to every other belligerent state? Does Chris Hedges not expose fundamental mechanisms by which people all over the world are persuaded to go to war against other people and expose themselves and others to death and destruction? What does it say when political leaders, as recently happened in Germany, let young people dance on the graves of war victims?
(Head picture: US Military Cemetery Henri Chapelle/Belgium,
October 2018)
If you wish to support my work, you can do so here. Many thanks!