The Forever War

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Overview

From the front lines of the battle against Islamic fundamentalism, a searing, unforgetable book that captures the human essence of the greatest conflict of our time. Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prize-winning New York Times correspondent, we witness the remarkable chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Filkins’s narrative moves across a vast and various landscape of amazing characters and astonishing scenes: a public amputation performed by Taliban, children frolicking in minefields, skies streaked white by the contrails of B-52’s, a night’s sleep in the rubble of Ground Zero. We venture into a torture chamber run by Saddam Hussein. We go into the homes of suicide bombers, meet Iraqi insurgents, and an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days.

Like no other book, The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today’s battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America’s wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.

Dexter Filkins

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

"Reporting of the highest quality imaginable" is how David Halberstam described the journalism of George Polk Awardwinning journalist Dexter Filkins. This New York Times foreign correspondent isn't just a superb writer; he's been there: with the Taliban in Afghanistan; in Lower Manhattan on September 11th; in Baghdad when Saddam's statue came down; and under fire in Fallujah. Filkin's narrative doesn't attempt to pin down a foreign policy or wax philosophical; he sees and listens with the alertness that the sound of nearby gunfire gives you.

Bing West

The Forever War is a splendid volume of short nonfiction pieces about two dozen incidents of war in Iraq and Afghanistan between 1998 and 2006. Dexter Filkins previously covered several of these events in news articles for the New York Times, where he is a correspondent. He has now reworked his material, sculpting each story so that it shines as a work of literature, illuminating the human cost of war…Filkins's singular skill in this book rests in showing how war shatters lives and how some people manage to survive amid fear, violence, intrigue and chaos. He does not describe the intricacies of combat or strategy; his book is not a history of the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, he shows us the oleaginous manipulations of men like Chalabi, who served for a year as Iraq's deputy prime minister; the Dark Ages cruelty of Taliban warlords; the shrink-wrapped self-importance of such high-level U.S. officials as Ambassador Paul Bremer; and the instinctive, unassuming valor of grunts like Lance Cpl. Miller. These stories are accurate but not antiseptic, detached but not uncaring. And they force the reader to reflect on how fragile civilization is and how fortunate we Americans are.
—The Washington Post

More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews

From The Critics

Mr. Filkins's stories are those of a writer willing to endure hardship, danger and anguish to paint an accurate picture of war for the American public. In Iraq the pursuit of a story can cost a journalist his or her life, a fate Mr. Filkins, a reporter for The New York Times, and others have tempted each day outside the Green Zone in Baghdad. As I read this book, I could not help but contrast his courageous, at times even foolhardy, journalism with the reportage by those restricted to the Green Zone or spoon-fed information by the Defense Department's powerful public relations machine. No doubt such commentators take some risks, but Mr. Filkins's experience is of an entirely different magnitude. His prose is as blunt as it is powerful. Iraqis, and Afghanis, have spoken for themselves, and Mr. Filkins has listened carefully.
—The New York Times

The Barnes & Noble Review

Dexter Filkins reported from Afghanistan for the Los Angeles Times and from Iraq for The New York Times. To call him a frontline reporter would be to diminish his work; for the most part he was not embedded in the U.S. Army -- dangerous as that was -- but rather embedded in both Iraq and the United States. He went out to the villages and to the countryside, talking to tribal leaders, village elders, and all the men and women (and children) he could engage. Unlike the stud scuds of the first conflict with Iraq, secure in their rear echelon hotels, and unlike the pundits and theorists, ensconced in their Washington think tanks, Filkins learned everything he has to tell us about the wars and occupations in these lands from firsthand experience -- often near-death experiences.

Filkins gives us the face of battle, jihadi and fedayeen style, as their suicide bombs and sniper rounds take their toll on the young Marines he follows. His descriptions of the wounds are graphic, as are his descriptions of the different ways Sunnis and Shiites dispatch Western hostages. And he is full of practical information: when there are no toilets, he explains how thousands of troops use cardboard boxes. He knows that suicide bombs raise white smoke, unlike artillery rounds. He tells us that Marine helicopters need to take off at night because they lack the maneuverability of their Army counterparts and would get shot down in daylight flights. He reveals that the well-known "corkscrew" maneuver to land at Baghdad airport is a poor description of landing tactics: it turns out that smart pilots head straight for the ground, then pull up at the last minute to avoid incoming fire. If you see black flags, it means insurgents are signaling that American military units have entered the neighborhood. When you enter a kebab restaurant, it helps if your escort casually puts a Browning 9mm pistol on the table. If you want to see wonderful Western paintings by Matisse, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, and others (including two by the Jewish painter Marc Chagall), you could cross the border to take in a tour of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Teheran. You'll even learn quite a bit of useful Arabic from this book: Aktuluhum! (Kill them!); Kala kala Ameriki (No, no to Americans); Ashrab min Damhum (I will drink their blood).

Often Filkins gets into trouble. If he follows Marine units, he takes the same fire they do; he unsparingly (and perhaps unfairly) blames himself for getting a Marine killed because he and a cameraman wanted to go into a mosque to take a picture, and it led to a fatal ambush. If he goes off by himself, he is subject to the whim of anyone with a gun. Here he describes a Taliban checkpoint in Herat: "The Talibs pulled me out of the taxi and one of them raised his gun to my head so I pulled out a business card, embossed with gothic letters, Los Angeles Times, very impressive, a get-out-of-jail-free card. The Talib grasped it, looked at it, and threw it into the street." It took fast talking from Filkin's interpreter to get him out of that jam. On another occasion, in Iraq, Filkins concluded a successful interview with a Sunni sheikh and then learned from his interpreter that the sheikh "was proposing that both of us kidnap you and hold you for ransom and split the money."

Although most of the book consists of harrowing reportage, Filkins is a wonderful social analyst when he chooses to generalize, especially about postwar Iraq: "Some days I thought we had broken into a mental institution, one of the old ones, from the nineteenth century, where societies used to dump people and forget about them. It was like we had pried the doors off and found all these people clutching themselves and burying their heads in the corners and sitting in their own filth. It was useful to think of Iraq this way. It helped in your analysis. Murder and torture and sadism: it was part of Iraq. It was in people's brains." Yet there were idealistic Iraqis, and Filkins describes them: the doctors who staffed hospitals, the journalists and teachers trying to create a civil society. But he also recounts the tragedy that befell these people, as they were targeted by insurgents determined that no such society could be created.

There were tragedies aplenty for the Americans as well. Filkins recounts how a "can-do" Army lieutenant colonel (who had been a successful West Point quarterback) began his tour of duty with efforts at civil reconstruction. As the insurgency took off, his commanders insisted on higher body counts and harsher measures. The colonel tolerated tough tactics. When some of his men threw two Iraqis into a river and one of them drowned, the colonel failed to cooperate fully with military investigators, was censured, and eventually quit the military. The one enlisted man who had tried to prevent the incident was ostracized in his unit, and he, too, quit the military -- eventually robbing a bank Stateside.

Filkins ultimately found himself cut off from reporting by the deteriorating conditions. The New York Times bureau "became a fortress, a high-walled castle from another century." The street was blocked off, concrete blast walls erected, coils of razor wire strung, 40 armed guards hired, searchlights placed on the roof, a security adviser retained. The bureau kept three armored cars for transportation. To keep his sanity, Filkins jogged by the river, meeting children along the way; two of them often jogged with him, perhaps to keep their sanity as well.

"You had to accept your ignorance," Filkins tells us about analyzing events in Iraq. "It was the beginning of whatever wisdom you could hope to muster." In this extraordinary book of reportage, Filkins has given us all the wisdom he could hope to muster, and in so doing helps to reduce the ignorance of the rest of us. --Richard Pious

Richard Pious is Adolph and Effie Ochs Professor at Barnard College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University. He is the author of The President, Congress and the Constitution (1984) and The War on Terrorism and the Rule of Law (2006), among other works. He has also published articles on military tribunals, interrogation of detainees, warrantless surveillance, and war powers.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780307279446
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 6/2/2009
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 384
Sales rank: 73,308
Series: Vintage Series
Product dimensions: 5.24 (w) x 7.94 (h) x 0.78 (d)

Meet the Author

Dexter Filkins, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, has covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Before that, he worked for the Los Angeles Times, where he was chief of the paper’s New Delhi bureau, and for The Miami Herald. He has been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and a winner of a George Polk Award and two Overseas Press Club awards. Most recently, he was a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Read an Excerpt

Only This

They led the man to a spot at the middle of the field. A soccer field, grass, with mainly dirt around the center where the players spent most of the game. There was a special section for the handicapped on the far side, a section for women. The orphans were walking up and down the bleachers on my side selling candy and cigarettes.

A couple of older men carried whips. They wore grenade launchers on their backs.

The people are coming, a voice was saying into the loudspeaker, and the voice was right, the people were streaming in and taking their seats. Not with any great enthusiasm, as far as I could tell; they were kind of shuffling in. I probably had more enthusiasm than anybody. I had a special seat; they’d put me in the grass at the edge of the field. In America, I would have been on the sidelines, at the fifty yard line with the coaches. Come sit with us, they’d said; you are our honored guest.

A white Toyota Hi-Lux drove onto the field and four men wearing green hoods climbed out of the back. There was a fifth man, a prisoner, no hood, sitting in the bed of the truck. The hooded men laid their man in the grass just off midfield, flat on his back, and crouched around him. It was hard to see. The man on his back was docile; there was no struggle at all. The voice on the loudspeaker said he was a pickpocket.

“Nothing that is being done here is against God’s law,” the voice said.

The green hoods appeared busy, and one of them stood up. He held the man’s severed right hand in the air, displaying it for the crowd. He was holding it up by its middle finger, moving in a semicircle so everyone could see. The handicapped and the women. Then he pulled his hood back, revealing his face, and he took a breath. He tossed the hand into the grass and gave a little shrug.

I couldn’t tell if the pickpocket had been given any sort of anesthesia. He wasn’t screaming. His eyes were open very wide, and as the men with the hoods lifted him back into the bed of the Hi-Lux, he stared at the stump of his hand. I took notes the whole time.

I looked back at the crowd, and it was remarkably calm, unfeeling almost, which wasn’t really surprising, after all they’d been through. A small drama with the orphans was unfolding in the stands; they were getting crazy and one of the guards was beating them with his whip.

“Get back,” he was saying, drawing the whip over his head. The orphans cowered.

I thought that was it, but as it turned out the amputation was just a warm-up. Another Toyota Hi-Lux, this one ma-roon, rumbled onto midfield carrying a group of long-haired men with guns. The long hair coming out of their white turbans. They had a blindfolded man with them. The Taliban were known for a lot of things and the Hi-Lux was one, jacked up and fast and menacing; they had conquered most of the country with them. You saw a Hi-Lux and you could be sure that something bad was going to happen soon.

“The people are coming!” the voice said again into the speaker, louder now and more excited. “The people are coming to see, with their own eyes, what sharia means.”

The men with guns led the blindfolded man from the truck and walked him to midfield and sat him down in the dirt. His head and body were wrapped in a dull gray blanket, all of a piece. Seated there in the dirt at midfield at the Kabul Sports Stadium, he didn’t look much like a man at all, more like a sack of flour. In that outfit, it was difficult even to tell which way he was facing. His name was Atiqullah, one of the Talibs said.

The man who had pulled his hood back was standing at midfield, facing the crowd. The voice on the loudspeaker introduced him as Mulvi Abdur Rahman Muzami, a judge. He was pacing back and forth, his green surgical smock still intact. The crowd was quiet.

Atiqullah had been convicted of killing another man in an irrigation dispute, the Talibs said. An argument over water. He’d beaten his victim to death with an ax, or so they said. He was eighteen.

“The Koran says the killer must be killed in order to create peace in society,” the loudspeaker said, echoing inside the stadium. “If punishment is not meted out, such crimes will become common. Anarchy and chaos will return.”

By this time a group had gathered behind me. It was the family of the murderer and the family of the victim. The two groups behind me were toing-and-froing as in a rugby game. One family spoke, leaning forward, then the other. The families were close enough to touch. Sharia law allows for the possibility of mercy: Atiqullah’s execution could be halted if the family of the victim so willed it.

Judge Muzami hovered a few feet away, watching.

“Please spare my son,” Atiqullah’s father, Abdul Modin, said. He was weeping. “Please spare my son.”

“I am not ready to do that,” the victim’s father, Ahmad Noor, said, not weeping. “I am not ready to forgive him. He killed my son. He cut his throat. I do not forgive him.”

The families were wearing olive clothes that looked like old blankets and their faces were lined and dry. The women were weeping. Everyone looked the same. I forgot who was who.

“Even if you gave me all the gold in the world,” Noor said, “I would not accept it.”

Then he turned to a young man next to him. My son will do it, he said.

The mood tightened. I looked back and saw the Taliban guards whipping some children who had tried to sneak into the stadium. Atiqullah was still sitting on the field, possibly oblivious. The voice crackled over the loudspeaker.

“O ye who believe!” the voice in the loudspeaker called. “Revenge is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female.

“People are entitled to revenge.”

One of the green hoods handed a Kalashnikov to the murder victim’s brother. The crowd fell silent.

Just then a jumbo jet appeared in the sky above, rumbling, forcing a pause in the ceremony. The brother stood holding his Kalashnikov. I looked up. I wondered how a jet airliner could happen by such a place, over a city such as this, wondered where it might be going. I considered for a second the momentary collision of the centuries.

The jumbo jet flew away and the echo died and the brother crouched and took aim, leveling his Kalashnikov at Atiqullah’s head.

“In revenge there is life,” the loudspeaker said.

The brother fired. Atiqullah lingered motionless for a second then collapsed in a heap under the gray blanket. I felt what I believed was a vibration from the stands. The brother stood over Atiqullah, aimed his AK-47 and fired again. The body lay still under the blanket.

“In revenge there is life,” the loudspeaker said.

The brother walked around Atiqullah, as if he were looking for signs of life. Seeing one, apparently, he crouched and fired again.

Spectators rushed onto the field just like the end of a college football game. The two men, killer and avenger, were carried away in separate Hi-Luxes, one maroon, one white. The brother stood up in the bed of the white truck as it rumbled away, surrounded by his fellows. He held his arms in the air and was smiling.

I had to move fast to talk to people before they went home. Most everyone said they approved, but no one seemed to have any enthusiasm.

“In America, you have television and movies—the cinema,” one of the Afghans told me. “Here, there is only this.”

I left the stadium and walked in a line of people through the streets. I spotted something in the corner of my eye. It was a boy, a street boy, with bright green eyes. He was standing in an alley, watching me. The boy stood for a few more seconds, his eyes following mine. Then he turned and ran.

In the late afternoons the center of Kabul had an empty, twilight feel, a quiet that promised nothing more than another day like itself. There were hardly any cars then, just some women floating silently in their head-to-toe burqas.* Old meat hung in the stalls. Buildings listed in the ruins.

One of those afternoons, a thin little shoeshine boy walked up to me. He was smiling and running his finger across his throat.

“Mother is no more,” he said, finger across the neck. “Father is finished.”

His name was Nasir and he repeated the phrase in German and French, smiling as he did. “Mutter ist nicht mehr. Vater ist fertig.” He dragged the finger across his throat again. Rockets, he said. Racketen. His pale green eyes were rimmed in black. He did not ask for money; he wanted to clean my boots. Then he was gone, scampering down the muddy street with his tiny wooden box.

Kabul was full of orphans like Nasir, woebegone children who peddled little labors and fantastic tales of grief. You’d see them in packs of fifty and sometimes even a hundred, skittering in mismatched shoes and muddy faces. They’d thunder up to you like a herd of wild horses; you could hear the padding of so many tiny feet. Sometimes I’d wonder where all the parents had gone, why they’d let their children run around like that, and then I’d catch myself. The orphans would get out of control sometimes, especially when they saw a foreigner, grabbing and shoving one another, until they were scattered by one of the men with whips. They’d come out of nowhere, the whip wielders, like they’d been waiting offstage. The kids would squeal and scatter, then circle back again, grinning. If I raised a hand, they’d flinch like strays.

If a war went on long enough the men always died, and someone had to take their place. Once I found seven boy soldiers fighting for the Northern Alliance on a hilltop in a place called Bangi. The Taliban positions were just in view, a minefield in between. The boys were wolflike, monosyllabic with no attention spans. Eyes always darting. Laughing the whole time. Dark fuzz instead of beards. They wore oddly matched apparel like high-top tennis shoes and hammer-and-sickle belts, embroidered hajj caps and Russian rifles.

I tried to corner one of the boys on the hill. His face was half wrapped in a checkered scarf that covered his mouth. Abdul Wahdood. All I could see were his eyes. I kept asking him how old he was and he kept looking over at his brother. His father had been killed a year before, he said, but they fed him here and with the money he could take care of his whole family, $30 a month. “My mother is not weeping,” Abdul said. I could see how bored he was, and his friends definitely noticed because one of them started firing his Kalashnikov over our heads. That really got them going, laughing hilariously and falling over each other. Two of them started wrestling. My photographer and I calmed them down and asked them to pose in a picture with us, and they lined up and grew very grave. After that they stood behind us in a semicircle and raised their guns, not like they were aiming at anything but more like they were saluting. Then a couple of men appeared on the hilltop bearing a kettle of rice and the boys descended on it. The Taliban came down the road a few months later. I’ve got the boys’ picture on a bookcase in my apartment.

I drove in from the east. I rode in a little taxi, on a road mostly erased, moving slowly across the craters as the Big Dipper rose over the tops of the mountains that encircled the capital on its high plateau. The cars in front of us were disappearing into the craters as we were climbing out of ours, disappearing then reappearing, swimming upward and then out, like ships riding the swells.

I passed the overturned tanks of the departed army, the red stars faded on the upside-down turrets. I passed checkpoints manned by men who searched for music. I stopped halfway and drank cherry juice from Iran and watched the river run through the walls of the Kabul gorge. There was very little electricity then, so I couldn’t see much of the city coming in, neither the people nor the landscape nor the ruined architecture, nothing much but the twinkling stars. From the car, I could make out the lighter shade of the blasted buildings, lighter gray against the darkness of everything else, the scree and the wash of the boulders and bricks, a shattered window here and there. A single turbaned man on a bicycle.

One morning I was standing amid the blown-up storefronts and the broken buildings of Jadi Maiwand, the main shopping street before it became a battlefield, and I was trying to take it in when I suddenly had the sensation one sometimes feels in the tropics, believing that a rock is moving, only to discover it is a living thing perfectly camouflaged. They were crawling out to greet me: legless men, armless boys, women in tents. Children without teeth. Hair stringy and matted.

Help us, they said.

Help us. A woman appeared. I guessed it was a woman but I couldn’t see her through her burqa. “Twelve years of schooling,” she said, and she kept repeating the phrase like some mantra, like it would get her a job.

For the first time I was talking to a woman I couldn’t see. I could trace the words as they exited the vent, watch the fabric flutter as she breathed and spoke. But no face. No mouth. “Twelve years of schooling,” she said. She had a name, Shah Khukhu, fifty, a mother of five, missing a finger and a leg. She was hiking up her burqa to show me.

*A burqua is a head-to-toe garment worn by women.

Prologue: Hells Bells 3

Pt. 1 Kabul, Afghanistan, September 1998

1 Only This 13

2 Forebodings 38

3 Jang 48

Pt. 2 Baghdad, Iraq, March 2003-

4 Land of Hope and Sorrow 71

5 I Love You, March 2003 87

6 Gone Forever 95

7 A Hand in the Air 114

8 A Disease 136

9 The Man Within 149

10 Kill Yourself 168

11 Pearland 189

12 The Vanishing World 218

13 Just Talking 239

14 The Mahdi 245

15 Proteus 254

16 The Revolution Devours Its Own 272

17 The Labyrinth 281

18 Fuck Us 296

19 The Boss 307

20 The Turning 315

21 The Departed 328

Epilogue : Laika 335

Acknowledgments 343

Notes 347

Index 355

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cannonball

Posted March 17, 2009

Must Read

Presented as a series of vignettes, this book details war from the point of view of those who must slog through it. The Forever War is not a chronological history or a who's who of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather Filkins offers tales of civilians, soldiers, and others caught in a confusing maelstrom of death and destruction. There is no attempt to make ultimate sense of the situation or to explain the logic behind the chaos.

In a broad sense, the book represents a powerful portrayal of any war, any time. However, as an account of the recent Mideast wars specifically, the book brilliantly describes the meltdown of society in Iraq and the failure of authorities to understand it--let alone contain it. Filkins' adventures as a reporter, while at times bordering on the suicidal, capture the ambivalence of many Iraqis about being liberated as well as the isolation of the liberators themselves who stay well-protected inside Bahgdad's Green Zone.

Written with great humanity, The Forever War is easy to read and hard to put down. It's an important book and a must read.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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adamgn

Posted November 19, 2008

more from this reviewer

Simply amazing.

I bought this after listening to Filkins' interview on NPR. I was immediately blown away from beginning to end. I gave it low ratings for "Topical Conversation" because I've found this to be the only book I've read in a long, long time that I don't know how to talk about. It's so powerful and moving that abbreviated descriptions can't explain it.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Kay_Fair

Posted September 21, 2009

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Not What I Expected...

Named one of the "10 best books of 2008" by the New York Times and brandishing a National Book Critics Circle Award, The Forever War by journalist Dexter Filkins has been leering at me from my Need-To-Read list for quite some time. "Consider the source," I warned myself as I first cracked it open; bracing myself for the far, far, far left wing swing I expected from a book written by a former reporter for both the L.A. and New York Times. "Be patient," my inner voice also advised, as I anticipated a long two-week trek of forcing myself through a dry and emotionless propaganda spew, chapter by painful chapter.

Forty eight hours later, I was done. And I was so very, very wrong. There, I said it.

The book begins with Mr. Filkins recounting some of his more colorful experiences in Afghanistan prior to the American military intervention. A barbaric judicial ritual, mangled bodies, and an emotionally, economically, and spiritually exhausted nation are the main take-aways. But then, without pause, explanation, or even the outline of a travel itinerary, Mr. Filkins is suddenly in Iraq. I can't be sure that he wrote this transition-less transition for the purpose of creating the impression it left readers (like me) with, but I hope so. It was a "wow, how did we end up here?" sort of a moment... much like the war itself. The United States was supposedly trucking right along in Afghanistan when, poof! Iraq, here we come! It was just that quick, and just that inevitable. (complete review at whatrefuge.blogspot)

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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wcorrig1

Posted October 17, 2011

excellent

A good take on what actually is going on in Iraq and Afgahnistan. The book tell why we should not be throwing our $$ in this quagmire and the way it has cost us some of our best young men.

These brave young and very naive soldiers are just pawns for old politicians.

We are being used for our money and we should have learned by now you cannot buy friendship and loyalty. After Vietnam , it seems nothing has changed. Very sobering account of the war and the people.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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TheReadingWriter

Posted March 17, 2010

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He offers depth and perspective

This heartbreaking and graphic daily war diary by a news reporter is a necessary complement to other books on the overarching politics of the war. The tragedy and terror of war comes through clearly. For our fighting men and women, and the people of Iraq, we get a better look at their lives. Filkins was embedded with our soldiers during the first attempt to "take back" Fallujah. The horror, the fear, the bravery, the pointlessness...all of it appears here. For those who will not turn their faces away, this is what he, and our soldiers, saw. Filkins admits he was irrevocably changed after this-you may be, too.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted April 28, 2009

I am a Vietnam War era adult and a non veteran. I have a hard time reading Vietnam books and stayed away from Iraq books because I could not think of any good reason to read one. I heard Dexter Filkins interviewed on NPR and became interested.

Dexter Filkins tells it as he saw and experienced it. He is hard on our government officials when needed and describes the anguish and terror of what it is to be an soldier in Iraq. He observes what went on in Iraq with some humor, some incredulity as well as some heart felt respect for the impossible job that our soldiers are asked to do. I seriously hope that Filkins is talking through his experiences with someone who can listen because he has all the issues that a combat soldier has.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted February 27, 2009

I Also Recommend:

Outstanding. Superb. Brilliant.

Dexter Filkins really solidifies himself as the top war correspondent of our generation with his gripping first hand accounts of what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are really like. His drive and dedication to brave death again and again are remarkable as he brings the stories of men and women from both sides of this "Forever War" that is gripping the Middle East. This is an unprecedented account of the wars in the Middle East and will undoubtedly be a part of the foundation of numerous books to come in regards to what has occurred in the Middle East since 1998. This is a superb book and extremely eye opening. I would recommend anyone looking for insight to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or just a good book in general to read "The Forever War", it will not disappoint. It is as gripping as it is eye opening. It will both sober you and delight you. Terrific book, highly recommend it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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ger1959

Posted February 22, 2009

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I Also Recommend:

War Through the Eyes of a Fearless Reporter

I urge anyone who wants to know about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but who have never served to read "The Forever War." Author Dexter Filkins. Dexter is a fearless throwback to the war corresspondents of the past who embedded on the front lines and captured a perspective rarely seen by anyone but combatants. The insights he provides based on his experiences in both combat zones are utterly harrowing and uniquely inspiring and candid. I have read almost all of the narratives written about Iraq and Afghanistan and by far, this is one of the best. Dexter's amazing ability to convey his experiences to written words is only surpassed by his unflinching willingness to go into harm's way to achieve the insights. He is the real deal and so is this book!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Wil-Garrett

Posted December 18, 2008

I Also Recommend:

Great Writing!

Great writing and imagery. Filkins writes as though he's talking directly to you and takes you right into the action. It's a can't-put-it-down book.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Major_Hooligan

Posted March 14, 2011

Fascinating look at Afghanistan and Iraq -- but ends prematurely.

This is a really engrossing read about Filkins' first-hand experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, both pre-war and during the war. Most of the book focuses on his experiences in Iraq. Filkins gives an alternate perspective on the conflict, one not seen in the media or other official or historical works; Filkins' reporting is at the human, individual level. He describes some very surreal scenes including some very intense ones such as the occastions where he is nearly kidnapped, or is forced to watch "infidel-death porn" with some militant Islamists.

Unfortunately, Filkins leaves Iraq and ends his story before the story is over: he laments the lack of security and the ensuing chaos as Iraq descends into sectarian violence. But he leaves before the surge is implemented, and thus can't provide his perceptions on its effectiveness, nor on how Iraq has changed since. Filkins was there, and left there, when the situation reached its nadir. Since then the situation has possibly stabilized, or possibly just gone quiet until the Americans leave. Witness the March 2011 "Day of Rage" protests: the odd spectacle of Iraqis taking to the streets; not for violence, but to (relatively) peacefully protest inadequate government services.

I would have loved to read Filkins' assessment of post-Surge Iraq. But we are left wanting. Still, this book is important to understanding the chaos from the personal level.
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Anonymous

Posted February 24, 2010

Great reading for Left wingers

I purchased this book not knowing the author. Had a lot of good reviews on the back page but until I got home I didn't realize all the reviews were from far left newspapers and magazines.
Very well written but the anti military (U.S. Military of course) comments throughout the book made this just another anti U.S. statement by a far left writer , who as usual, thinks he has all the answers to our world problems.
I was wondering through the whole book if he was aiding the enemy during his stay in Iraq. They seems to have a lot of trust in him.

0 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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margeNY

Posted November 15, 2009

horrors of war

If ever you need a reason why the Iraq war is not one for us to feel good or in anyway proud of, here it is in Dexter Filkins book. His absorbing account tells of the violence, horrors and human tangle of motives that we have unleashed.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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RSRS

Posted August 1, 2009

Descriptive, but not analytical

This book played to rave reviews and I was eager to read it. The descriptions are vivid and horrifying, but I expected more analysis, which was simply not there. Read it for a graphic view of the war in Iraq, then, but don't expect the author's views on what went wrong and how we could attempt to fix it. By comparison, I got more from Robin Wright's "Dreams and Shadows," than from Dexter Filkins' "Forever War." But I'm a political junky,and am always more interested in policy implications than in battles.
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sail25

Posted July 25, 2009

A must read book

Anyone one who wants to understand what is being faced in Afghanistan and Iraq should make this book required reading.
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Anonymous

Posted July 22, 2009

I Also Recommend:

Would You Like To Know The Truth About Our Problems In Iraq and Afghanistan?

This book is a fast moving, easy read. History's greatest military commander, Alexander could not hold the region, the British held on only a short time, and the Soviets fled in disgrace after barbaric assaults on the tribal peoples of Afghanistan. How well will we fare, and how permanent is the damage we have caused in Iraq? Dexter Filkins, a journalist with extensive personal coverage of both Afghanistan and Iraq lays out the details candidly in this must read book.
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Anonymous

Posted June 15, 2009

AMAZING BOOK!

I LOVED THIS BOOK. COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.
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Basil

Posted May 9, 2009

A Masterful Account

War for Dexter Filkins is up close and personal as you read his journalistic experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. And so, The Forever War is consistently memorable and gripping, the greatest of the Gulf Wars reporting feats in my estimation. Take, for example, this early incident on a Baghdad road.

"It was April 10, 2003. Twilight. The Regime had collapsed the day before...
'Saddam was here, and I kissed him,' an Iraqi man said, stepping out of the throng. He spoke in a gravelly voice and his eyes were rimmed with blood...
The Iraqis looked on warily, keeping their distance. I sensed their hostility and kept the car's motor running after I'd stepped into the street...
The Iraqis looked at me and I looked at them...and a voice rose from the crowd: 'Do you see what your country has done!' I was already diving into the car, and the crowd was already throwing cans and rocks as I sped away."
Random street crowds soon became dedicated insurgents, and Filkins found himself with a Marine detachment in Falluja, charged with pacifying the city.
"Miller was his back: he'd come out head first. His face was opened in a large V, split like meat, fish maybe, with the two sides jiggling.
'Please tell me he's not dead,' Ash said. 'Please tell me.'
'He's dead,' I said."

Filkins's accounts sear in the mind like no other journalist in this brutal conflict. He has grip aplenty. That's why his work is eminently worthy of our attention.
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artfromdenver

Posted April 10, 2009

more from this reviewer

The Forever War

The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins, is the kind of book about war that makes you understand why a nation should go to war only as a last resort, and then only with a clear purpose in mind. The events portrayed in this book reflect wars fought without direction or purpose. The battle scenes described in the book appear to be as chaotic as our involvement in these wars. This chaos has not been captured by newspaper and television reports. Perhaps, no other anecdote from the book demonstrates this suspension of reality than a platoon leader who in the face of a crisis could think only of marching his troops back and forth, back and forth.
The personal stories in this book of the American soldiers, the journalists, and the Afghan and Iraqi combatants and civilians humanize tragedies that would not be comprehensible otherwise. It was extremely moving, for example, to hear about Bravo Company, which lost a quarter of its men in the first few days of the battle for Falluja. Statistics, so many soldiers dead in a month, do not compare to hearing about one marine's hopes and dreams and then learning of his death by a sniper's bullet days after talking to the author. What does one make of the Governor of Ramadi, Mamoon Rashid, trying to conduct business as usual amongst a city in ruins? Is this determination in the face of staggering difficulties or madness?
Two perceptions about Iraq and Afghanistan stand out in my mind when I think of all of the insights presented by the author. The first perception is that Americans are not welcome in either country. We have destroyed both countries to save them. We kill innocent civilians because bombs go astray, or soldiers mow down whoever they can find, because they cannot find the shadowy insurgents who are shooting and killing their buddies. We built a park along the Tigris River, instead of focusing on fixing the infrastructure of Iraq that we destroyed. Within a year, the trees in the park have been cut down for firewood, the grass is dead for lack of water, and the Americans have strung razor wire across the park's pathways to cut down on suicide bombings. So, the Iraqis say what we want to hear, take our money, and then curse us and pray to Allah for our deaths behind our backs. We have stumbled so badly that the enmity can be understood.
A second insight concerns one woman's graphic perception of Iraq under Saddam compared to her country in its present state. Under Saddam, you were safe as long as you stayed outside of the circle that represented Saddam's influence. Under America's occupation, so many murderous factions have arisen, that life is now represented by many small contiguous and overlapping circles of danger. The average Iraqi cannot be certain where it is safe to stand.
I reached the end of the book suffering like the author from the weariness and insanity of a war that has lasted far too long and accomplished nothing of lasting consequence. The book is aptly named. It takes its place among the growing library of essential books about the war in Iraq, including The Assassins' Gate by George Packer, How America Lost Iraq by Aaron Glantz, and The Deserter's Tale by Joshua Key.
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sbrita

Posted February 23, 2009

Absolutely Fantastic

I don't think I've ever picked up a book and learned so much without feeling being preached to or lectured. Filkins does a superb job of simply explaining what is going on in Iraq (and the middle east) by clearly depicting what he experienced. If you really want to understand the complexity of the situation in Iraq - get this book - probably one of the best books I've read in 10 years!!! I'm glad the person in the store recommended it. I couldn't put it down. It is a fairly substantial read, but well worth it. Horrifying, illuminating and intellectual without trying too hard. Its no wonder this guy has won the NPP.
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squire4

Posted February 18, 2009

more from this reviewer

Superb!

If you have to read ONE book about the Iraq war -- this is it!
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Must Read

Simply amazing.

Not What I Expected...

excellent

He offers depth and perspective

I am a Vietnam War era adult and a non veteran. I have a hard time reading Vietnam books and stayed away from Iraq books because I could not think of any good reason to read one. I heard Dexter Filkins interviewed on NPR and became interested.

Outstanding. Superb. Brilliant.

War Through the Eyes of a Fearless Reporter

Great Writing!

Fascinating look at Afghanistan and Iraq -- but ends prematurely.

Great reading for Left wingers

horrors of war

Descriptive, but not analytical

A must read book

Would You Like To Know The Truth About Our Problems In Iraq and Afghanistan?

AMAZING BOOK!

A Masterful Account

The Forever War

Absolutely Fantastic

Superb!