Show Originally Aired: 12/30/2002 CALL 1 800-423-TALK
War as Addiction (Rebroadcast)
Image from the cover of the book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" Email to friend
War is a drug, says the New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, one that he craved and consumed, one that is "peddled by myth makers....all of whom endow it with qualities it often does not possess: excitement, exoticism, power, a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty." Hedges has spent most of his adult life covering conflict, from El Salvador and Nicaragua to Gaza, Kuwait, Bosnia, and Iraq.
For the last year, he says, Americans have been seduced by the same rush, the fever and blood lust he witnessed and once felt and loved. It's strong language for a reporter, but the scenes and the sights he describes give him good standing to title his book, "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."
