The Forever War – Justin McAtee

Book Review >>> Justin McAtee The Forever War

Filkins, Dexter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. 384 pp.

The Forever War, from New York Times foreign correspondent Dexter Filkins, is an intimate examination of human resilience, told from ground-level by a man who sought to understand the traumas of a culture not his own. Told with the honesty and emotive power of a high-zoom lens, the book reads like a series of snapshots taken from a painfully perceptive pair of eyes. Filkins spent nine years embedded in Afghanistan and Iraq, living amongst the voices which fill his account. Their stories come alive in writing that is heartfelt and viscerally unflinching. But The Forever War is much more than a collection of second-hand accounts; Filkins truly surrenders himself to the cultural and emotional landscapes that he seeks to understand, and the reader can feel the burden in his voice. His writing is as much autobiographical as it is journalistic, and this fusion of the self with the subject is what makes The Forever War a remarkable book. It transcends the traditional “big picture” concerns of journalism and instead becomes a catalogue of human details. The wide-angled, historical narrative—that which is most conventionally journalistic—while certainly not the distinguishing quality of the book, is still a central component in Filkins’ message. Like any journalist, he strives to inform the public of a conflict that is usually discussed in broad, generalized terms. And while he occasionally speaks in these terms, elucidating, from time to time, the historical and political motions behind the events, his primary mode of informing is not to mimic the work of other reporters. Filkins’ work is unique because he is concerned primarily with showing us the conflict from the ground level, in full detail and for an extended stay. The book proceeds with alarming immediacy and closeness. He leads us through the streets of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, years before the American invasion, taking us into derelict soccer stadiums where captive viewers are forced to watch public executions. After a brief return home to Ground Zero 9/11, we return to a new war and are guided from safe-house to bunker to mountain battlefield, meeting leaders and lieutenants from every side of the conflict. We learn of the country’s destitute and chaotic past, how from amongst the competing warlords the Taliban rose to offer stability and order (along with tyranny and fear) and why, therefore, some Afghans were willing to accept a united country even if it meant a unification under terror. We learn how in Iraq, like Afghanistan, brutal sectarian conflicts gave rise to a single, authoritarian stability. For many unstable years, sheiks had rallied militias against each other, grappling for control. Out of this maelstrom arose Saddam Hussein, a national hero for many Sunnis and whose 2003 ousting caused a widespread resentment toward Americans, even from the majority who disliked Saddam anyway. The problem for Iraqis was that the toppling

of the dictator not only brought the collateral damage of full-scale war, but sparked a new rise in the old sectarian violence, with competing warlords rising again to challenge each other, as well as the Americans, for power. “During Saddam’s time,” relates one Iraqi woman, “all you had to do was stay away…That was not pleasant, but not so hard. But now it is different. From everywhere you can be killed…” (326). Most of the Iraqis whom Filkins encounters share this outlook; virtually all are in fear of the various insurgencies and most both resent and tolerate the American presence, hopeful about a democratic future but angry that it be delivered by tanks and humvees rolling through the streets. Many greet the American presence with the same sense of resourcefulness that has kept them alive through years of previous strife. People like Ahmed Chalabi are used by Filkins as examples of the cunning skill with which so many Iraqis have adapted to hardship, learning to twist unpleasant situations to their advantage. During the American occupation, many Iraqis embrace visions of democracy and appease Americans by smiling to the camera and providing soldiers with tip-offs about insurgents, while at the same time, they also secretly cooperate with the same insurgents in hopes that the invaders and the warlords will eventually wear each other out while the Iraqi people liberate themselves. Filkins becomes deeply intertwined in these webs of deception as he communicates with officials of the American occupation, the fledgling Iraqi government, and several go-betweens who also seem to be tied to the insurgency. Many levels of intrigue result, which Filkins sees as a testament to the spirit of survival raging strong in the soul of the Iraqi people, who have been forced constantly to adapt to new fears and new wars. He also spends much of the book’s nine years living side-by-side with soldiers, be they the grizzled veterans of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance or the dough-faced American boys patrolling the streets of Fallujah. Filkins must earn their respect and survive the same harrowing perils, enduring many explosive and heart-pounding brushes with death. Meanwhile, the reader becomes acquainted with the men and women of these battlefields, where they came from, why they fight, and how they continue to exist in a world where, like much of Iraq and Afghanistan, war must be raged each day against the despair of perpetual violence. Time and time again, throughout the chronicle of his nine years embedded in various parts of what he calls a “land of hope and sorrow”, Filkins proves his legitimacy as a reporter and a humanitarian. His voice is one that offers the rest of the world some form of true enlightenment on an ongoing conflict which assaults us with headlines, but which is hardly ever investigated with such empathic detail and dedication. For anyone who wishes to examine the post-9/11 conflicts in the Middle East from a personal and immediate perspective (particularly regarding the controversial American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan), The Forever War is a must-read.