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MikeP

"Check Six"

Currently reading

The Guns of August
Barbara W. Tuchman, Robert K. Massie
The Forever War. - Dexter Filkins 5 STARS, one of the best books on the Iraq war (and the Afghan war to a lesser extent) ever written. Featuring large cojones, smashed sterotypes, WTF, tragedy, hope…

OK, Mr. Filkins clearly has a pair of big, hairy ones considering the situations he gets himself into voluntarily or haphazardly. Jogging in Baghdad in the midst of the emerging civil war? Meeting with insurgents in Ramadi, sitting with Mahdi Army types in the middle of the siege of Najaf, into Fallujah with the Marines, showing up at car bomb sites? Dude.

Whether you oppose the war or support it, stereotypes are in danger here. For those who support(ed) the war, you can only shake your head and wonder “WTF” are we doing here at times. The beautiful field next to the river in Baghdad built at great cost is an apt metaphor for the waste, naiveté and sheer stupidity of how much of the war is carried out. Yet there are also wonderful moments where those who oppose the war will have to face how much good we did (and still do). There are regular people in Afghanistan and Iraq that view us favorably. I appreciate Mr. Filkins gives us a word picture but not a biased one. You come to your own conclusions, he doesn’t steer you.

Mr Filkins captures the tragedy of the war yet there is an undercurrent of hope that something good will come out. As the book comes to a close and the civil war is raging, he gives us a slight peek at what will turn out to be the Anbar Awakening that will coincide with the Surge in 2007. It took real guts to carry out that surge and overcome the civil war/terror campaign raging at the end of the book in 2006. Mr Filkins gives a very fair picture of the times.

If anyone told me I would not only read a book on the Iraq war by a NY Times reporter, but I would also list it as one of the greatest pieces of wartime writing ever, well I would have dismissed it out of hand. If the NY Times carries an article by Mr Filkins, I will buy that edition. If the NYT makes him the editor, I will subscribe. There is an honest, uncorrupted reporter here. I did not believe one existed in that organization anymore.