I had lately broadened my self-imposed ban on political books for the rest of 2008 to include books on the Iraq War, simply because I couldn't take reading them any more.
So, of course, the next week my copy of Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians, by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, came in. It's a short book, comprised of stories and interviews with US military personnel, in which the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians is made clear in horrifying detail. This is how it opens:
"Troops, when they battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza, or Vietnam, are placed in 'atrocity-producing situations.' Being surrounded by a hostile population makes simple acts such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke dangerous. The fear and stress pushes troops to view everyone around them as the enemy.* The hostility is compounded when the real enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy, and hard to find. The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed over time to innocent civilians, who are seen to support the insurgents. Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleagured troops, merge into one entity. These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate. The are dismissed as less than human. It is a short pscyhological leap but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing--the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm--to murder. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing."
There's not much I can add to that. Read this book if you can stand it. I can't. I literally can't even READ about it anymore. Can you imagine what it must be like to LIVE there?
*This is what I liked about this book. It is about Iraqi casualties, but it also recognizes how wrong it is to put American soldiers in this situation. The message of the book is clear: war hurts everybody.