Program #LIFR001. Recorded in Amherst, MA on November 9, 2004.
With no definition of victory in the war on terrorism the U.S. may be entering a long period of perpetual war. The president invokes the name of God on a regular basis. Clearly, with such power on our side, how can we lose? Al-Qaeda and the Islamists are also certain that the almighty is in their corner. Can God be hedging his bets and backing both sides? Each day brings new reports of gai0ns in Iraq. Parts of towns and cities are destroyed in order to save them. U.S. military commanders claim the enemy is Satan. Buried in the back pages was a report from The Lancet, the respected British journal, conservatively estimating that more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed, over half of them women and children.
Robert Jay Lifton taught for many years at the John Jay College of the CUNY. He is currently a lecturer in psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. His book Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima won the National Book Award. He is also the author of The Nazi Doctors. His latest book is Superpower Syndrome.