The Freedom: Shadows And Hallucinations In Occupied Iraq [Hardcover]

Christian Parenti (Author), Teru Kuwayama (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2004

In the tradition of Kapuscinski and Didion, an apocalyptic, firsthand view of the war in Iraq.

"Ah, the freedom. Look, we have the gas-line freedom, the looting freedom, the killing freedom, the rape freedom, the hash-smoking freedom. I don't know what to do with all this freedom. " —Akeel, a twenty-six-year-old Baghdad resident on life in the new Iraq

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 unsanitized 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; 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 U.S. troops, the unworldly, working-class kids left holding the bag, forced to die for a war many of them don't support.

Editorial Reviews

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.
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Review

Brilliantly vivid... -- Andrew Cockburn, The Nation

He has an eye for the perfect image, a wonderful ear for dialogue, and a prose style that floats across the page. -- Las Vegas Mercury, 28 October 2004

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 211 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (November 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565849485
• ISBN-13: 978-1565849488
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,052,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christian Parenti is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow, contributing editor at The Nation and a visiting professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY. His most recent book is "Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence" (Nation Books, July 2011). As a journalist, he has reported extensively from Afghanistan, Iraq and various parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and his articles have appeared in Fortune, The Washington Post, The New York Times, London Review of Books, Mother Jones and Playboy. He has a PhD in sociology from the London School of Economics, has held fellowships from OSI, RBF and the Ford Foundation; and has won numerous awards, including the 2009 Lange-Tailor Prize and Best Magazine Writing of 2008 from the Society for Professional Journalists. His three previous books, are: "The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq"; "The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America from Slavery to the War on Terror" and "Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Welcome to Hell.", December 4, 2004

By 

anomie - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Freedom: Shadows And Hallucinations In Occupied Iraq (Hardcover)

"The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq" is the cumulative result of journalist Christian Parenti's three trips to Iraq. He examines the occupation through the eyes of all involved parties--from the soldiers and marines who serve there to the Iraqis whose country has fallen into complete chaos. Parenti takes us to the land where "the freedom" lays waste a country, and it's here, Parenti argues that we see "the Conradian end of the river where empire's lawless opportunities mix with personal madness to form a potent political and psychedelic cocktail."

In a sympathetic fashion, Parenti interviews several members of 3rd Battalion of the 124th Infantry--National Guardsmen from North Florida. When not on patrol, the guardsmen live in cramped quarters where the men suffer from water rationing, chronic boredom, and ever-delayed, morale-crushing departure dates.

With his faithful and colourful translator, Akeel, Parenti makes several dangerous sorties into Iraq--beyond the fortified Green Zone ("a clean air-conditioned oasis") and talks to Iraqis who are willing to tell their stories. Some are victims of checkpoint incidents; others survive after their families are wiped out in incidents hurriedly covered up and termed 'mistakes'. And some Iraqis make the trip to Abu Gharib to see their incarcerated family members.

Parenti also details the carpet-bagging atmosphere in Iraq--the ridiculous so-called 'reconstruction' that has escalated into a free-for-all. "The idea of American imperial beneficence and competence" in action is an opportunity to loot millions in reconstruction money. "Iraqi reconstruction is a racket", says Parenti as he describes the projects which, according to reconstruction companies, are underway, when in reality, the country is in ruins, and billions are 'missing'. "One 'repaired' school, for example was overflowing with raw sewage." Parenti interviews many Iraqis who hated Saddam, but are dismayed, distraught, and angry at America's dismantling of their economic and civil structure. Billions earmarked for Iraq has ended up in the pockets of contractors--one of whom--Halliburton--Parenti speculates would be facing bankruptcy without all those overly generous contracts from the U.S government. In a system smacking of nepotism, the book details the fact that many companies banned from gaining government contracts (for past fraud) are now happily engaged in the great Iraqi reconstruction rip-off--and this great rip-off had left Iraqis without electricity, water, and extremely angry. Gangs roam the streets raping girls--kidnappings and murders are daily events. Ironically, there's even a juicy quote from Dick Cheney made in 1991 predicting the anarchy that would follow the removal of Saddam.

Parenti lived in Iraq--and not in a protected, guarded area. This book is not a compilation of regurgitated approved PR reports--this is a record of a country's disintegration, and the details are simply mind-boggling. The author's powerful, brilliantly descriptive writing captures the chaos, the pathos, and the human tragedy of the war in Iraq. Thank you, Mr. Parenti for going beyond the milquetoast journalism of the masses--your book challenges us to "unplug from the Matrix" and judge for ourselves--displacedhuman

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting, Sad and Horrific, November 22, 2004

By 

a reader from SF - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Freedom: Shadows And Hallucinations In Occupied Iraq (Hardcover)

This book has been compared to Michael Herr's Dispatches and I think that's deserved. This is a crazy, creepy, scary, tragic and sometimes really funny story about the US occupation of Iraq. The author traveled around the Sunni Triangle over the first year and a half of the occupation. Unlike many books on Iraq that either cover US troops or just the civilian perspective, this guy embedded with US troops, saw some combat, met the resistance, hung with normal Iraqis and has some weird insights on the journalists and civilian occupiers. It's all combined into a vividly real and surreal portrait of the disaster that is unfolding in Iraq. He also works a lot of information about Iraq and Iraqis. I particularity like that the author, though harsh on American policy is sympathetic to the troops stuck with the job of carrying out the policy. It's a quick read, worth checking out.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Genuine, September 23, 2005

By 

Matthew Bacik - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Freedom: Shadows And Hallucinations In Occupied Iraq (Hardcover)

This book is a genuine depiction of my experiences in Al Fallujah. Mr. Parenti was one of few journalists to truly imbed himself with my platoon; often displaying more regard for his craft than his personal safety. I recommend "The Freedom" to the serious reader seeking a true depiction of our struggle to simultaneously fulfill the roles of warrior and statesman.