Such indifference to the Iraqi viewpoint has characterized many of the books to have emerged from the war, from Evan Wright’s Generation Kill to Martha Raddatz’s The Long Road Home to Tom Ricks’s The Gamble. As these books show, American journalists share the imperial world view common to most Americans—a view that, through their own writing, they have helped to reinforce.
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I agree. It would be nice to hear the 'other " story a bit more. But probably the point of the book was to show the American view only. To show the Iraqi point of view at the same time might undermine the American perspective and create a more complicated book full of contradictions. And then how can an occupying force really understand the occupied's point of view? And can you really report it without projecting your own Americanism or anti Americanism?
#1 Posted by sailor girl, CJR on Wed 14 Oct 2009 at 11:41 PM
With all due respect, I think Michael is dumping too much of his own intellectual baggage on the book. As the previous commenter said, this is a book about the 2-16 and their experiences, and not about the complexities of the social/cultural situation found in their area of operations.
It's a tricky thing to critique a book for not being what you want it to be, rather than for what it is. The fact is, the 2-16 never had a good handle who the people outside the gate of its FOB were, as we see all too clearly in the book's final pages. In a very real way, Finkel uses this ignorance to add tension to the narrative, drawing a line between the known and the unknown.
Perhaps Mr. Massing could make a trip to Iraq himself to perform such an in-depth cultural study of the lives of Iraqis. It would certainly be a much safer study to undertake today than it was during the time the 2-16 spent in-country. I'm also curious to know how he thinks Mr. Finkel could have done so at a time when the FOB was under constant attack, and patrols were hit almost every time they left the gate.
The book is about the experiences of the 2-16 as an isolated, embattled, and yes, confused and somewhat ignorant unit in the midst of a city they didn't understand. It wasn't a book abut how the Iraqis felt about the war. That book has yet to be written, and there is no reason to have expected Finkel to write it.
#2 Posted by Paul McLeary, CJR on Tue 20 Oct 2009 at 03:43 PM
I have a project about "Iraq's Missing Billions" , its about how Iraqs money is channeled to America through under the table companies , Can you support my project with sources? What is the solution? And why is america still in debt.
Resveratrol
#3 Posted by Resveratrol, CJR on Wed 21 Oct 2009 at 02:50 AM
Paul McLeary raises some good points, but I don't think they hold up in the end. First, the book was about the experiences of the 2-16 because the author chose that as his topic. Why is it that so many American writers choose to focus so narrowly on American soldiers? That's precisely the problem I'm trying to get at. As to speaking with Iraqis, yes, security is clearly a problem, but I assume there were plenty of Iraqis working on the base he spent eight months on. They're not a representative sample, of course, but they could provide a local perspective. Finkel does include the experiences of two interpreters living on the base, and their perspective greatly enriches the book. I wish he had included more such interactions.
As it happens, I was in Iraq in the spring of 2008, staying at a news bureau in Baghdad, and though the security situation was very bad and made it extremely hard to get out, I found a lot of Iraqis congregating at the bureau, and just speaking with them was enlightening. One must get outside the bubble. It's hard to do, but it seems to me that, in the course of eight months on a base, one could find ways to do so without taking unnecessary risks--without, I assume, even leaving the base, as Finkel did with the two terps. And I'm not calling for an "in-depth cultural study" (sarcasm not appreciated), just a good-faith effort to find how the actions of American troops affect, and are perceived by, the population they're trying to protect.
#4 Posted by Michael Massing, CJR on Wed 21 Oct 2009 at 09:00 AM