Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians [Paperback]

Chris Hedges (Author), Laila Al-Arian (Author), Eugene Richards (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2009

Collateral Damage brings together testimony from the largest number of on the record, named, combat veterans who reveal the disturbing, daily reality of war and occupation in Iraq.

Through their eyes, we learn how the mechanics of war lead to the abuse and frequent killing of innocents. They describe convoys of vehicles roaring down roads, smashing into cars, and hitting Iraqi civilians. They detail raids that leave families shot dead in the mayhem. And they describe a battlefield in which troops, untrained to distinguish between combatants and civilians, are authorized to shoot whenever they feel threatened.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is one disturbing and devastating audiobook. Hedges and Al-Arian don't hold back, providing the listener with many detailed accounts of brutal death and destruction inflicted upon Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces. But what makes their work so profound and heartfelt is that most of their information comes from the U.S. military itself. Through their interviews and research, it becomes apparent that this culture of disdain and disregard for Iraqis and their possessions resides at the top and filters down through the ranks with dreadful result, thus prolonging and continuing to fuel the war. Lloyd James has a gentle but solid voice that invokes the solemnity of the larger ramifications. Listeners will be moved by the restraint and resolve in his voice as he recounts some of the more disastrous events. He weaves back and forth from the prose to the dialogue with ease and detectable transition. A Nation Books hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 21). (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Review

"A brilliant, thoughtful, timely and unsettling book.... Abounds with Hedges' harrowing and terribly moving eyewitness accounts.... Powerful and informative."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; Reprint edition (February 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568584164
• ISBN-13: 978-1568584164
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Hedges is a cultural critic and author who was a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades for The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio. He reported from Latin American, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for The New York Times coverage of global terrorism, and he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Hedges, who holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, is the author of the bestsellers American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist for his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. He is a Senior Fellow at The Nation Institute and writes an online column for the web site Truthdig. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and the University of Toronto.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poweful and insightful., June 26, 2008

By 

J. Smith "rabies1" (Hingham, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians (Hardcover)

This book divided into 4 parts, (checkpoints, raids, convoys and detentions) gives you a daily life front row seat for what it's really like in Iraq. I kept lowering the book and saying to myself "We'll never be able to make it up to them. NEVER". (Soldiers and civilians). Can you imagine being innocent and no one understands what you're saying? Not able to stop the car at a check point because the brakes don't work? Having your dog shot in front of you? Having your friends killed because they couldn't avoid a convoy? This book gives you many accounts on what it's really like over there. I highly recommend it.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must reading for every American citizen, July 22, 2008

By 

Mary F. Anderson "maryfran" (orinda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians (Hardcover)

This book deals in the ugly civilian deaths in Iraq which resulted from our invasion. The authors, who are scholars, carefully document their work. They honestly present the viewpoint of the American soldier and the Iraqi citizen. It becomes clear in the course of their treatise that while civilian deaths may be inevitable (that alone should be a powerful deterrent to invading a country!), in Iraq bad military planning and preparation and a lack of concern for the civilian population we are supposed to be serving have made the situation much, much worse. I came away feeling some empathy with the troops, fury at the military leadership, and much sadness for the Iraqis.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shows the reader mentally, emotionally and physically the pathology of war., June 23, 2008

By 

Ken "KLS" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians (Hardcover)

This book really shows how true evil masks itself behind such high sounding words as `honor,' `glory,' `dignity', `patriotism', `for god and country', 'victory', and so on; words that may have inspired a young man or woman to join the military (although many others may do so for other reasons such as economic necessity) only for many of them to later find that they have been duped and diabolically deceived by those so called `responsible' politicians who had sent them over there along with those other cowardly politicians who only pretend that they want them to come back home.

It's only too late when these young soldiers realize that they are simply the tools of a greedy power elite who only seek profit from human butchery, slaughter and misery and these people could care less about the Iraqi people or for that matter, they could care less about the American soldiers who are used as sacrificial cannon fodder to serve some sick pathological agenda to `occupy' (read: conquer and rape) another culture. In fact, it's even beyond sick as to what goes on in Iraq. It's just plain evil.

By reading the personal testimonial accounts of those soldiers who have been deeply traumatized from their experiences in Iraq, this book really gives the reader a feel for the reality of the horrors of war. The accounts given by the soldiers regarding their experiences traveling in the moving convoys is simply horrific and it's clearly a living nightmarish hell for not only the unfortunate innocent Iraqi's who are butchered from these convoys but for the American soldiers themselves who actually think that they are fighting for some greater `cause.' Any politician that can read about the things that go on over in Iraq and not be so deeply affected as to immediately put an end to this campaign of terror is simply not human.

This is an excellent book and it does what it's supposed to do, which is to bring awareness to the reader; mentally, emotionally and physically, of the pathology of war.