What President Obama Doesn't Know About Guantanamo Book

This curt bit of advice, from the Russian writer (and wife of the poet, Osip Mandelstam) Nadezdha Mandelstam, is one that Martha Gellhorn quotes at the conclusion of the chapter titled "Rule by Terror" in the section titled Wars in Central America (p. 321). It was sage advice (under the then-present circumstances) in Ms. Mandelstam's time; it was sage advice in Ms. Gellhorn's time. It remains sage advice in our time.

On pp. 151-152, Ms. Gellhorn writes "On the night of New Year's Day, I thought of a wonderful New Year's resolution for the men who run the world: get to know the people who only live in it."

This was something she wrote on the first day of January, 1945, which was over 68 years ago. Things haven't changed much since then ' as Ms. Gellhorn predicted they wouldn't in her coverage of conflicts from the Spanish Civil War up to and through the Reagan's interventions in both El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Before I ran across Ms. Mandelstam's suggestion, I originally thought of titling my review "Read this book at your own risk!" ' or "Read this book and weep."

Why? Because I suspect you'll feel a similar shame while reading it. Shame as an American, certainly. But also shame as a human being. The history of our species is not a pretty one. And The Face of War begins only with the Spanish Civil War!

Martha Gellhorn is no knee-jerk liberal. She's a solid, unflinching liberal ' by conviction. And her conviction is the result of first-person observation, investigation and inquiry. In other words, not of hearsay or conjecture.

At the end of May, I read and reviewed Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. In my opinion, that book could sit side by side with this one on the same shelf of woe. Both women are profoundly competent journalists. Both are the kind of journalist we need more of ' unflinching, compassionate and, above all (for those who'd heed their prophetic words), intelligent.

I'll risk making the same recommendation I made with The Shock Doctrine. Buy this book and read it cover to cover! As with Ms. Klein's book, we're talking history; but we're also talking (almost) current events. And although Martha Gellhorn is now dead, I feel certain that if she were still alive, she'd be observing, investigating, inquiring and writing about similar atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq. After all, was George W. Bush's "shock and awe" qualitatively different from the Nazi doctrine of Schrecklichkeit ("frightfulness")?

Since I assume this review will be read ' if at all ' by Americans, I'll conclude it with a quote from p. 281 that speaks to us most directly: "(i)t is not easy to be the citizen of a Superpower, nor is it getting easier. I would feel isolated with my shame if I were not sure that I belong, among millions of Americans, to a perennial minority of the nation (: t)he obstinate bleeding hearts who will never agree that might makes right and (who) know that if the end justifies the means, the end is worthless."

R. I. P. at last, Ms. Gellhorn. You've earned it.

RRB
07/05/13
Brooklyn, NY