Image by Phạm Nhật.
Perhaps theologian Walter Wink can help us understand Pete Hegseth, America’s self-declared “secretary of war” and spokesman, for God’s sake . . . for God. At a recent prayer service at the Department of Defense, for instance, Hegseth, after calling the Iranians “barbaric savages” who deserve no mercy, called on the citizens of his country to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Love thy neighbor, folks! Earlier he had boasted that the American bombing campaign had “unleashedtwice the firepower in its first five days as the initial ‘shock and awe’ bombing phase of the Iraq War in 2003.” You might recall, of course, that this campaign included the devastation of a school in Minab, which killed – murdered – around 170 people, including over 100 children. God bless America.
Wink, in his book The Powers That Be, discusses what he calls “the myth of redemptive violence” – the belief that violence saves us. Indeed, “It doesn’t seem to be mythic in the least,” he writes. “Violence simply appears to be in the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god.”
And when we use it, that’s God with an uppercase G. Just ask Hegseth. All of which leaves me emotionally shredded, as I think about the country, the world, the future. How can it be that the hell of war is so fully a part of the American identity, preparation for which consumes half the national budget every year? How can it be that the waging of war – the consequences of war – so easily morph into an abstraction, at least over here where the bombs aren’t falling, and most discussions of it (not counting the fervor of the anti-war protesters) focus on strategic and political rather than moral issues? Just check out the media.
Here, for instance, are some fragments of a recent article in The Atlantic, which, while it was hardly gung-ho about the Iran war, oozed, you might say, an abstract neutrality about it – and about all the wars we have to be ready to wage in the future. Worry number one the article addressed concerned how many American weapons were being used up. Vice President Vance:
“has also expressed his concerns about the availability of certain missile systems in discussions with President Trump, several people familiar with the situation told us. The consequences of a dramatic drawdown in munitions reserves are potentially dire: U.S. forces would need to draw from these same stockpiles to defend Taiwan against China, South Korea against North Korea, and Europe against Russia.”
The unquestioned assumption is that war is inevitable – ho hum. No larger questioning occurs, no mention of the looming environmental disaster these coming wars will inflict on the planet. Just an academic shrug. A few paragraphs later:
“Pentagon leaders’ positive portrayals present an incomplete picture at best, people familiar with intelligence assessments told us. According to those internal estimates, Iran retains two-thirds of its air force, the bulk of its missile-launching capability, and most of its small, fast boats, which can lay mines and harass traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. At least in terms of resuming stalled maritime commerce, ‘those are the real threat,’ one person told us.”
The world being presented to the reader seems like a video game. At least that’s the case in this article, which detaches war from any mention of blood and destruction, any mention of schoolchildren lying dead beneath collapsed infrastructure as loved ones dig for their bodies. I’m not saying strategic data doesn’t belong in war reporting, just that if it’s not part of the larger context of the moral realities of war, it turns hell into nothing more than an abstraction. This is the role the mainstream media has long claimed for itself.
But some people are affected by the war, we learn: “The vice president was skeptical about the merits of attacking Iran before the war started; Trump has acknowledged that Vance was ‘maybe less enthusiastic’ about a conflict that has proved deeply unpopular among American voters. But the vice president has multiple factors to balance: his desire to work smoothly with other senior officials, his track record of opposing ‘forever wars,’ and his prospects should he mount a presidential run in 2028.
“Vance and Hegseth both have a major stake in the war’s outcome. . . . Several people close to Trump believe Vance now sees his political future as tied to what happens in Iran.”
Unlike dead schoolchildren, harm to Vance’s political future can’t be written off as collateral damage, apparently.
And the myth of redemptive violence marches on.
