Why Are We at War?
Mailer's short polemic against the Iraq War (Random House, 2003), assembled from two 2002 interviews and a February 2003 speech — arguing that the war served a failing empire's need to bolster American (and white-male) self-regard.
Why Are We at War?, Mailer’s short paperback polemic against the Iraq War, published by Random House on 7 April 2003 (111 pp., $7.99, softcover; dedication “To Norris”). It is assembled from his anti-war journalism of September 2002–February 2003: the Dotson Rader conversation (02.9), the American Conservative interview “I Am Not for World Empire” (02.10), and the Commonwealth Club speech “Only in America” (03.20). Mailer argues that the Bush administration “needs a war ‘as a steppingstone away from our problems’” and that a “pre-fascist atmosphere” had settled on America. He extended the argument in essays such as “The White Man Unburdened” (03.21).