Article: Confronting the "Moral Bankruptcy" of Iraq War's Liberal Supporters

Hedges is the author of Death of the Liberal Class, The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress, and War is the Force that Gives Life Meaning. His 2012 best seller, written with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, is Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.

An early critic of the Iraq War, Hedges delivered a 2003 commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, in which he said: "We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security."

The New York Times, for which he then worked, criticized his statements and issued him a formal reprimand for "public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper's impartiality."

After receiving the reprimand, Hedges left the paper. He is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City. At the Times, he worked for nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans.

Paul Craig Roberts includes Hedges in his list of "rebels" who speak the truth to power by exposing as false, elements of the prevailing public narrative. Roberts describes his list as "offensive" to defenders of the establishment's status quo.

While Edward Said, unfortunately, is no longer with us, Chris Hedges continues his "offensive" fight against the "might makes right" ideology that led to the Iraq War. One of his recent media appearances is available in a nine-minute video interview from the Real News Network.

The interview was prompted by Hedges' decision to withdraw from a PEN speaking engagement and then resign from PEN, an international writers organization that "works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship." He explains his decision here and in the video interview below.