The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq

(Paperback)

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Description

Last year, the most superbly equipped fighting force on the planet was led into the only type of war for which its experts deemed it unprepared: a highly politicized urban counterinsurgency. As the casualties mount, American troops discover there is no plan B, only an ad hoc set of tactics cobbled together and called a strategy. The Freedom provides a fearless and un-sanitized look at how the war is unfolding. We enter Baghdad as most journalists do - in a convoy of GMC Suburbans racing 95 miles-an-hour in tight, side-by-side formation. Once in the city, we encounter a relative of Saddam's who's scraping by while his father feeds money to the resistance; a former Fedayeen fighter who loves Limp Bizkit and Michael Bolton; the underage prostitutes who service U.S. soldiers and are hunted by religious vigilantes; the freshly minted MBAs who run the Coalition Provisional Authority's projects on privatization; the somnambulant American press corps and its fierce counterparts from al Jazeera and al Arabia. Finally, we are embedded with US troops, the unworldly working-class kids left holding the bag, forced to die for a war many of them don't support.

Reviews

"For those who desire a taste of what occupied Iraq feels and smells and tastes like for the war correspondents, soldiers and Iraqis dealing with the mess that is `free Iraq, The Freedom is essential reading." San Diego Union-Tribune

"[Parenti] has an eye for the perfect image, a wonderful ear for dialogue and a prose style that floats across the page." Las Vegas Mercury

"The Freedom, a short, fast-paced book, scenic like a good film script, is steeped in the irony and horror of war." Los Angeles Times

Author Bio

Christian Parenti is the author of The Soft Cage and Lockdown America. He is a Visiting Fellow at the CUNY Graduate School's Center for Place, Culture and Politics