污斑英雄 : Flawed Hero之二

我買Flawed Hero的時候, 放在書架旁邊的Crossing The Line還有很多本未售出, 很明顯的滯銷, 該店網上資料顯示只入了30本。當這兩位記者追尋戰爭罪行的真相而著書立說, 總被人指責是為了搶錢。出書賺大錢肯定是奇葩, 難怪Masters慨歎:

Getting difficult stories published takes a while. Investigative journalism is resource-intensive and subject to eternal budgetary pressure. For a freelance investigative journalist like me, the deal is a miserly one. We get the conventional dollar-a-word rate, irrespective of the time and effort applied. And anyone who knows anything about the Australian publishing market knows there are no great fortunes to be made in books. (p. 73)

也不只是澳洲喇, 出書有幾多人賺到錢呢? 很多人出書都只為了滿足自己的虛榮, 到頭來向朋友討人情硬銷或者床下底再放不下了就硬塞給人。驀然回首, 作者也覺得點冒失, 犯不着承擔嚴重法律後果的風險:

Looking back, getting into a fight with Australias's most decorated soldier and a billionaire might not seem to have been our smartest move. (p.51)

追尋真相, 一般人未必有能力抵擋得住壓力的。這次幸運地對手並不是一個政權, 有些地方根本不用誹謗的訴訟來收拾你, 你忽然就在人間消失了, 不知去了仙間抑或陰間, 或者中毒身亡, 或者酒店墮樓, 或者泳池溺斃, 幸運一點就身陷囹圄, 坐完班房起碼剩下半條人命。McKensie和Masters第一回合的官司贏了, 澳洲這誹謗案之都, 傳媒十居其九都敗訴的, 勝訴出於偶然, 而且是once in a blue moon 。我只花一餐午膳的錢就可以買一本來看, 何樂而不為?

作者形容多次被委派往阿富汗服役的特種兵的心態, 像波蘭裔作家Joseph Conrad筆下的Heart of Darkness, 描述深入剛果的探索, 文明與野蠻混沌難分, 墮入心靈深處的深淵。

......"Further into the Afghanistan mission, after multiple deployments, soldiers began to refer to some of their members having gone "Up the Congo", into the moral wilderness of novelist Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness," I wrote. (p.99)

40多年前讀Heart of Darkness, 讀得很混沌, 20多歲才學英文的Conrad, 文字艱澀, 花時間查了很多字典外, 理解力又不足, 十分迷罔。

跨越道德及法律界線的流氓特種兵, 主要是幹了3種壞事。第一是「血祭」(Blooding/Initiation), 像黑社會歃血為盟, 新丁(rookie)被命令行刑式的槍殺戰俘, 作為加入部隊的儀式, 無形中使他們成為共犯(accomplice), 他們日後就不會倒戈指證了。像黑社會大佬召喚嘍囉去「擘友」, 以示忠誠。第二種是「栽贜」(The Throw Down), 手法是把殺了的平民算作塔利班, 丢把撿來的敵軍槍枝或通訊器在他們身上作為證據, 跟港式「砌生豬肉」的道理一樣。第三種是行刑 (The Executions) 罔顧日內瓦條約對處理戰俘的規定, 行私刑殺戰俘或平民。Fog of war這些藉口是用來fog your eyes and brain的。

今天到此為止。