War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
Page 18
3. Browning, Christopher, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), Ch. 18.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 85.
6. Morante, Elsa, History: A Novel (La Storia), (New York: Aventura/Vintage Books, 1984).
7. Auden, W. H., Selected Poems (London: Faber & Faber, 1981), p. 80.
8. Proust, Marcel, quoted in Alain De Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (London: Picador,1997), p. 197.
9. Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction, p. 189.
10. Ka’Tzetnik 135633, House of Dolls (London: Muller, Blond & White, 1986).
11. Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction, p. 193.
12. Ibid.
13. Gray, J. Glenn, The Warriors (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), pp. 61–62.
14. Kapušciński, Ryszard, Another Day of Life (London: Picador, 1988), p. 56.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., p. 57.
17. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1979), Ch. 9.
18. Canetti, Elias, Crowds and Power (New York: Viking Press, 1962), p. 187.
19. Andric, Ivo, The Bridge on the Drina (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. 15.
20. Gray, The Warriors, p. 90.
21. Ibid.
22. Levi, Primo, Survival in Auschwitz (Se questo è un uomo) (New York: Collier, 1961).
CHAPTER 5
THE HIJACKING AND RECOVERY OF MEMORY
1. Kundera, Milan, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (New York: HarperPerennial, 1996), p. 4.
2. Dorfman, Ariel, Widows (New York: Aventura, 1983).
3. Feitlowitz, Marguerite, The Lexicon of Terror (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
4. Grossman, Vasily, Life and Fate (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 82.
CHAPTER 6
THE CAUSE
1. Canetti, Elias, Crowds and Power (New York: Viking, 1962), p. 138.
2. Herr, Michael, Dispatches (New York: Vintage International, 1991), p. 215.
3. For an expansive portrait of Morel and the Congo, see Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
4. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, discussed by Omer Bartov in his book, Murder in Our Midst (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 72.
CHAPTER 7
EROS AND THANATOS
1. Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 82.
2. Loyd, Anthony, My War Gone By, I Miss It So (London: Doubleday, 1999), p. 136.
3. Grossman, Dave, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996), pp. 43–44.
4. Gray, J. Glenn, The Warriors (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), p. 21.
5. Ha’aretz English Edition, May 4, 2001, p. B3.
6. Sudetic, Chuck, Blood and Vengeance (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), pp. xxxii–xxxiii.
7. Djilas, Milovan, Wartime (New York: Harvest Books, 1977), p. 280.
8. Fitzgerald, Robert, In the Rose of Time: Poems 1931–1956 (New York: New Directions Books, 1956), p. 148.
9. Frankl, Viktor, Man’s Search for Meaning (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 48.
10. Vistica, Gregory L., “What happened in Thanh Phong,” The New York Times Magazine, April 29, 2001, p. 51.
11. Farney, Dennis, The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2001.
12. Manchester, William, Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War (London: Dell, 1980), pp. 17–18.
13. Gray, The Warriors, p. 207.
14. Pyle, Ernie, Ernies’ War–the Best of Ernie Pyle’s World War II Dispatches (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p. 419.
15. Shakespeare, William, Macbeth (Boston: Riverside Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin, 1974), Act IV, sc. ii.
16. Cicero, Pro Archia, 2.3. 14–16, quoted in Bernard Knox, The Oldest Dead White European Males (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), p. 83.
17. Goold, George, Catullus (London: Duckworth, 1983).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IT HAS BEEN NEARLY TWENTY YEARS SINCE I GRADUATED from Harvard Divinity School and left Cambridge to cover the war in El Salvador. This book is not only the result of my work in various war zones, but is a product of the education I received, especially in English literature and Christian theology, at Colgate University and Harvard University. I owe much of what I am to great professors—Coleman Brown, Margaret Maurer, Krister Stendhal, G. Blakemore Evans, W. Jackson Bate, Robert Coles, and Robert Pinsky. They taught me how to read and write and most importantly how to think critically. I have carried their wisdom, their love of books, and their moral probity with me. I have tried to live a life by the standards they set.
Peter Osnos, the publisher of PublicAffairs, conceived of the book idea and pushed me to make it work. He then went on to publish it. He turned me over to his executive editor, Paul Golob, whose talent and good humor carried me through. It is a much better book for Paul’s willingness to read and reread with such care and intelligence. David Patterson at PublicAffairs ironed out all the kinks and made the logistics work. Lisa Bankoff of International Creative Management shepherded me through the world of book publishing with grace and wisdom.
My editors at The New York Times, Jon Landman, Ann Cronin, Christine Kay, and Bill Goss are not only immensely talented but blessed with infinite patience. Moreover, they stand up for the reporters who work for them. I want to thank colleagues and editors at The New York Times over the years, including Bernie Gwertzman, whose decency and equanimity made him truly loved, Andy Rosenthal, Bill Keller, Chris Wren, Ethan Bronner, Eric Eckholm, Helen Verongos, Marie Courtney, Cynthia Latimer-Ortiz, Kathy Rose, Steve Weisman, Tom Feyer, Eric Schmitt, Steve Kinzer, Jeanne Moore, Ed Marks, Chris Drew, and Susan Sachs. The editors at Harper’s magazine, in particular John R. MacArthur, Lewis H. Lapham, and Ben Metcalf, keep alive the marriage between great writing and great thought and somehow make my pieces sing. I would also like to thank the editors I work with at Foreign Affairs, especially James F. Hoge Jr. and Celia Whitaker, along with Fareed Zakaria, now with Newsweek. Also, my colleagues at New York University, especially William and Judy Serrin, Carol Sternhell, Michael and Beth Norman and Cathleen Dullahan, all keep alive great journalism traditions. Eva Sanchez, Puja Vaswani, and Caroline Bingham worked tirelessly as researchers. They, and the staff at the New York University library, were vital. My NYU library privileges are among my most precious possessions.
Coleman Brown, Peter Meineck, Kim Parham, Jack Wheeler, who lent his considerable intellect as well as his experience as a professional soldier, Linda McNell, and Claudia Wassmann worked on the manuscript and made many important changes and corrections. They gave it greater clarity and depth. I owe a huge debt to the colleagues I worked with over the years—especially Lajla Veselica and Wade Goddard in Croatia and Ivana Sekularac in Serbia; these three kept me balanced and were able, when I most needed it, to make me laugh at myself. Boba Lizdek in Sarajevo and now Paris, Shukrije Gashi, my translator in Kosovo who was later killed by the Serbs, Alija Dedajic, whose wits saved both our lives during the war in Bosnia more than once, Jadranka Milanović, the late Miladin Zivotić, and Serif Turgut were priceless companions. Tom Gjelten and Neal Conan at National Public Radio, Kanan Makiya, Tony Horwitz and Geraldine Brooks, Jim Landers, Michael Ignatieff, Iliriana Bajo, Ivo Banac, Malika Berak—who introduced me to two of my favorite writers, Marcel Proust and Louis-Ferdinand Céline—Rina Castelnuovo, Omar Othman, Gamal Mohei al-Din, Michael Georgy, Carlos Ramos, Emma Daley, Chuck Sudetic, Max Marcus, Kit Roane, Hani Sabra, Edward Said, and Alan Chin all contributed to my understanding and became close friends. Kurt Schork and Miguel Gil Morano, two brave and fine war correspondents, who were killed in May 2000 in an ambush in Sierra Leone, will remain with me always. I want to also thank Michael and Yora Kisch, Douglas and Ellen Davidson, Robert Kaplan, Sören and Charlotte Liborius, Alina Margolis, Daniel Reed, Walter and Ann Pincus, Ward Pincus and Iobel Andemicael, Christine Hauser, Ravi Sidhu, David and Yael Amir, Patricia Diermeier, Elise Colette, and the great and very funny political cartoonist Joe Sacco.
I spent the academic year 1998–1999 at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow thanks to generosity of Joe Lelyveld and The New York Times. During the year I developed a close friendship with the curator, Bill Kovach, an inspirational man and one of the finest journalists I have ever known. Bill, along with Julie Felt, Chris Marquis, Mary and Lawrence Walsh, Kathy Coleman, Richard Thomas, Frank and Margo Lindsey, Zeph Stewart, James and Sheba Freedman, Lily Galily, and
Susan Reed, made that year one of the richest of my life.
I owe more than I can repay to Josyane Séchaud, who endured the long absences, the danger, and frequent uncertainty from El Salvador to Kosovo, with Swiss stoicism and unwavering understanding and support. My mother, Teddy Hedges, a professor of English, imparted to me a love of books and writing. She was the first one to publish my work, in a booklet she typed and bound when I was a child. My aunt and uncle, Miriam and Ellsworth Blair, make our retreats to Maine possible and somehow put up with my wildnesss. But my greatest thanks go to Thomas and Noëlle, who remind me every day that my chief role, and the one I value most, is as a father. I hope they never do what I did.
INDEX
Achilles, 12, 29, 159
Adamović, Marko, 129
Adams, James Luther, 147
Aeneas, 168
The Aeneid (Virgil), 168, 182, 184
Afghanistan, 105
casualties of war in, 13
language of war and, 8
myth of war and, 22, 23
Afghans, 9
Africa, 10
African National Congress, 144
Ahangaron, Kazem, 177, 178
Ahmedspahić, Jasna, 113
Al-Adan Hospital, 145
al-Amal Hospital, 97
Alfonsin, Raul, 135
Algeria, 2, 133
casualties of war in, 13
killing of children in, 94
willingness to kill and, 88
All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque), 87
al-Sabah, Saud Nasir, 145
Amazons, 159
America. See United States
American Council of Trustees and Alumni, 72
Amin, Jamal Aziz, 138–39
Ammouna, Fahdi Abu, 97
Andrić, Ivo, 64, 112, 122
Angola
casualties of war in, 13
civil war in, 24–25, 101–102
Ann, Lady, 168
Another Day of Life (Kapušciński), 101
Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare), 90, 168
Aphrodite, 100
apocalypse, redemption through, 85
Arab-Israeli war (1973), 164