From Publishers Weekly
This collection of dispatches from in and around Baghdad emerges from Nation reporter Parenti's time embedded with U.S. soldiers as well as ventures out on his own. The book's main interest is that it provides access to people not heard from often enough: with a translator, Parenti interviews sheikhs, hospital staff, young prostitutes, aid workers and the families of civilians killed by American troops or disappeared into prisons like Abu Ghraib. The results make what's happening on the ground significantly more vivid and disturbing than most conventional news reports. Parenti also describes incompetence and corruption in reconstruction efforts, as well as killings and humiliations of Iraqi citizens that work to push young men into the ranks of the insurgency. He talks to American soldiers in the barracks and on patrol who hope that (but aren't sure if) they are doing the right thing. Over Parenti's three trips to Iraq from December 2003 to June 2004, relationships between all aspects of the U.S. military and Iraqi society become further entrenched in violence, hatred and chaos, all exacerbated by a lack of potable water and a still disabled electrical grid. It's a grim story, and it feels real. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Las Vegas Mercury, 28 October 2004
He has an eye for the perfect image, a wonderful ear for dialogue, and a prose style that floats across the page.
The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq FROM THE PUBLISHER
"It finally happened. They did it. After weighing the odds in Iraq, the best minds of the U.S. establishment put all their chips on black, spun the roulette wheel of history, and watched in horror as their number came up bright arterial red. Now the best-trained and best-equipped military on the planet finds itself fighting the only type of war for which it was unprepared: a highly politicized, media-saturated, urban counterinsurgency. As casualties mount and the chaos of occupation drags on, American troops in Iraq discover there is no plan B." The Freedom provides a fearless and unsanitized tour of this disaster in all its surreal and terrifying detail. Drawing on the best tradition of war reporting, here is a book that "embeds" with both sides - the U.S. military and the Iraqi resistance.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
This collection of dispatches from in and around Baghdad emerges from Nation reporter Parenti's time embedded with U.S. soldiers as well as ventures out on his own. The book's main interest is that it provides access to people not heard from often enough: with a translator, Parenti interviews sheikhs, hospital staff, young prostitutes, aid workers and the families of civilians killed by American troops or disappeared into prisons like Abu Ghraib. The results make what's happening on the ground significantly more vivid and disturbing than most conventional news reports. Parenti also describes incompetence and corruption in reconstruction efforts, as well as killings and humiliations of Iraqi citizens that work to push young men into the ranks of the insurgency. He talks to American soldiers in the barracks and on patrol who hope that (but aren't sure if) they are doing the right thing. Over Parenti's three trips to Iraq from December 2003 to June 2004, relationships between all aspects of the U.S. military and Iraqi society become further entrenched in violence, hatred and chaos, all exacerbated by a lack of potable water and a still disabled electrical grid. It's a grim story, and it feels real. (Nov.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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