Infinite War

The American Way of War by Tom Engelhardt

Reviewed by Pepe Escobar

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to
- Bob Dylan, It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Tom Engelhardt is "a national treasure" - as University of Michigan professor Juan Cole aptly puts it. A treasure of a man, author, crack book editor and master of ceremonies of the essential website TomDispatch.com - a project of the Nation Institute - his latest book is composed of 29 essays originally published online from March 2004 to early 2010, and slightly revamped. What's in a title? In this case, all of it, no holds barred: America as we know it, defined and explained according to its ethos - war.

War, the Vietnam-era 1970 Motown mega-hit written by Whitfield-Strong and sung by Edwin Starr, went like this:
War ... huh ... yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing ... say it again y'all.

But if we're talking about the US industrial-military complex, war means absolutely everything. Like an extended Motown shuffle with some hard-hitting Stax breaks, and never devoid of an all too human sense of humor and pathos, Tom's book takes us for the ride. And though the landscape surveyed is all too familiar for anyone who has followed George "Dubya's" wars, it ain't pretty; and it does lead to a black hole in our collective soul.

Appropriately, this collection of essays is a tribute to Chalmers Johnson and his relentless, ongoing analysis of the US global empire of bases, in books ranging from Blowback to Nemesis. It's all here - the "war-is-peace" American newspeak so cherished by assorted Project for a New American Century neo-con, armchair warriors. But was it always like this? Not really. Right at the start, crack media-shredder machine Tom takes us through the pages of the New York Times a few days before 9/11. And - surprise! - none of the usual suspects are in town.

"Saddam Hussein didn't make it into the paper that week. Kim Jong-il was nowhere in sight. Osama bin Laden barely slipped into print - twice deep into articles - as "the accused terrorist" being hosted by the strange Taliban government. The "axis of evil", of course, did not exist, nor did the global "war on terror", and the potential enemy of the week, pushed by former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld (himself on the defensive over the military budget and arguments with his generals), was "the rising China threat".

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