I read this a few years ago but I reread some parts with America once again going to war in the Middle East. This was a very informative read from a journalist on the scene in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It is amazing how political leaders seem to make monumental decisions to go to war without looking at the history and cultures of the people. Great lessons for our politicians who seem to think we can control the developments in the middle east. Armed with pen/paper and keen judgement, Filkins offers a first hand account of his experiences in war-torn Iraq in the early invasion and subsequent occupation in 2004. Always at the front-line, and cognizant that many reporters have suffered injury or death as he wrote this book.Filkins focuses more on "what", then "why". There is more of an effort to document the consequences of Operation Iraqi Freedomthen there is to examine the rationale beyond American response. Dispassion is a huge strength to book, and opens the reader to the world from the eyes of the people living there.The early example in the book of the clash of civilizations could not be more illustrative. In a soccer field, a crowd draws for a public execution. Kalashnikov in hand, justice is delivered just as a an airliner passes thousands of feet above. As the book continuesyou see the Amerian forces and Iraqi population clash. There is a ghostly sense of an enemy for the American soliders.Insurgents naturally are indefinable from the average civilian. The American forces use deadly force more frequently to resolve ambigious situations. The body countrises in concert with the rise of anti-American sentiment.Reading the book, you get the prevailing hopelessness. The benefactors, the wealth collectors are not the Iraqi population northe American public. Bribery, kidnappings, IEDs, idealist jihadists, Iranian insurgency, death squads...and yet the country tries somehow to move on. Filkins details the fractured sense of Iraqi autonomy and the brutal repercussions that will continue. As American presence dwindled, it has become clear warlords and death squads moved in. Leaving the reader to question the decisions behind Iraqi involvement and pyrrhic victories.Only the fallen know the end of war, Filkins writes quoting a Greek philosopher. Filkins has written more about the war, andthe troubling instability that grows without the U.S. presence. We see this now in Syria and Lebannon. There is no sense of resolve, no sense of justice or democracy. There are graveyards to remind us of who has scarified. There are books like Filkins, which give us the heartfelt storiesand tragedies of the bereathed. A stirring book that gives us some semblance of meaning to it all.
Do You like book Forever War, The (Lib)(CD) (2008)?
Will make you view the Iraq war and war in general in a whole new (and very upsetting) light.
—turtwig389
