Have you been to war? Ever get anywhere near a real war? I have not, and frankly, I don’t want to, but if called, I hope I would do my duty. Kevin Sites has been to war, several of them, and together with his new employer, Yahoo News, he brings us a world-wide view of conflict in our time. Conflict, but not all armed, at least not right now. Conflict that leaves its mark on a nation, a society, a culture, a world for generations. Conflicts like Vietnam whose memory is still with us, but whose lessons we apparently did not learn as a nation.
Kevin, a veteran war correspondent with stints at CNN, NBC and others, is now Yahoo News’ first correspondent. You may remember his coverage of the Marine shooting a civilian in a Fallujah Mosque in 2004. He was with NBC at the time and the network self-censored the graphic video and it still created controversy. The issue: Is it treason to show America the atrocities of war when it is American troops committing them?
His first assignment with Yahoo was to cover every armed conflict in the world during the course of a year, focusing not just on the fighting, but on the story that is always next door in war, the collateral damage to people, society, and cultures. On top of that Kevin was essentially a one man crew, camera (Sony HDR-HC1), sound, beast of burden and everything else.
The results: a book “In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars” and a film documentary. You get a copy of the DVD with the book or you can see it chapter by chapter at the website.
It was Robert E. Lee who said: “It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.” I do not think even Lee could have envisioned the atrocities that wars of genocide and culture have imposed on humanity. In Lee’s day, atrocities occurred, but were certainly undesired aberrations. However, in the Congo the rape of women has become an instrument of war.
It is hard to believe that 60 years after WWII there are more than 20 ongoing armed conficts in the world today. They are not world-wide in venue, but the ripple effects have the potential to affect us all.
What is even harder to believe is that after more than 4 years of a mismanaged debacle in Iraq, we have a president that speaks of taking up arms against Iran and of a coming WWIII as if the decision to turn to war was just another thing to decide. War is not a decision you choose from a list of alternatives. War is the choice of last resort!
Even a 24% approval rating is too high.
Comments