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Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Chronicles of Liquid War) Paperback – August 1, 2007

by Pepe Escobar (Author), Jason Florio (Photographer)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 9 ratings
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Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar, author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World Is Dissolving Into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), delivers an unforgettable snapshot of the people of Baghdad during the "surge." Outstanding first-hand reporting mixed with global insight; a must-read for anyone seeking to understand what's happening on the ground in Baghdad.
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  1. Print length
    124 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Nimble Books
  4. Publication date
    August 1, 2007
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.26 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0978813898
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0978813895
  8. See all details
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4 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Amazon Customer
    3.0 out of 5 stars A Two by Four up the Side of the Head
    Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2007
    Red Zone Blues is two by four up the side of the head.

    Those of us who live in the United States live in a media bubble. Too many of us accept the pap the nightly news feeds us. It takes effort to find out what is going on in the rest of the world.

    Red Zone Blues is an opportunity to see another take on what has been happening in and to Iraq. Without a stake in American politics, Pepe Escobar takes a tour of Iraq during the recent surge. His "snapshots" give us another picture. Take advantage of it.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Charles Rover
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good job!
    Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2009
    In hindsight, this is probably Pepe Escobar`s (who lives in Sao Paulo, Paris and Bangkok) most feeling bizarre book so far; the reader will join the narrator grounded on Iraqi soil during "the surge", in the capital sprinkled with city busters, a land torn apart by cruise missiles, and its senses bombarded with weapons of mass distraction. It is no less than seeing that very tragedy of post-9/11 US foreign policy through the eyes of a non-US journalist, among the ordinary Iraqi civilians. After the invasion, life must go on. But how so?

    Escobar certainly went on, he went on to becoming a well-established columnist and author of now three books, all - somewhat related - about US foreign policy, US adversaries, and "war". Escobar, who evidently published his article "Now get Osama, or else..." two weeks before 9/11, starts this one's "Preface Play the blues" with a quote full of horror and blood by Edgar Allen Poe, from his, how delightful, 'The Masque of the Red Death'. The chapter titles are no less dramatic: "Red Zone down South", "Night bus from Baghdad", "The Baghdad gulag", "We build walls, not nations", "An inflation of dead al-Qaedas", "The degree zero of culture" etc. are all drawing the reader deep into the politics of war, military, and culturally...

    I read this book like I would read a good novel; it takes the reader on a speedy journey of witty observations and incredible love for detail from a disco in Copacabana with its caipirinhas and "hordes of spectacularly curvaceous Brazilian babes and uber-transvestites" in Rio to the horrors and hells of Baghdad. So, this is all very gripping and I have no doubts to believe that Escobar is genuinely interested in revealing the truth, telling us what all the people genuinely think, thereby not pleasing his superiors, politicians, or anyone with great power really, yet he sometimes borders on risky subjectivity, every now and then. Nothing wrong with that, as I said, I understand this work as a good novel, not a history book or work of scholarship. He uses a lot of clichés, too, as in "banner of the morning: "F*** Bush, let's samba."" or "One black brother can't help it: "Make my day, Muqtada al-Sadr!", but so do al-Qaeda, the US government, and the media too.

    I've said it before, this is a colorful, exciting journalist work, with plenty of technocratic vocabulary from your International Relations course-books and, for the visionists among us, CNN broadcast, mingled with terms from philosophy (yep, Nietzsche is in it) and web 2.0 (youtube & co.). And, of course, there are a lot of place names and persons that I fear I will never remember, ever, like Aziz Abu Ammar Al Yarubiye, Muqtada al-Sadr, Ayatollah Mohammad Saidiq al-Sadr...

    During this (too short, I feel) book I kept imagine the seeker driving through Rio, Bangkok, or war-torn Baghdad, always young, always alerted; he also reminds me a bit of that back-packing character Richard in Alex Garland's 'The Beach', or even, Marlow on his assignment to return Kurtz to civilization in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', and there are indeed similarities like the frame narrative of the story (Baghdad) within a story (Rio). But, of course, the former stories are fiction, so how authentic is this Escobar's turbulent, personal Iraqi account of 'Red Zone'? I take it as it is: Sometimes, writing a book and writing a book that sells can be two different pairs of shoes: "IT DON'T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN'T GOT THAT EURASIAN SWING!"
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  • Timothy V. Gatto
    5.0 out of 5 stars RED ZONE BLUES
    Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2007
    I received a book from the publishing house Nimble Books called Red Zone Blues written by a journalist, Pepe Escobar, who has spent years in Iraq learning the nuances of the Iraqi Nation in covering the war for The Asia Times. This is a small book, and if you get it, which I highly recommend, you can finish it in a day, knowing more about Iraq than most people at the State Department.

    The story that Escobar tells is one of pure angst. The situation of the Iraqi People is worse under the American occupation than it ever was under Saddam Hussein. The unemployment rate in Iraq is at a stunning 60%, with most people in Baghdad, once the crown jewel of Islam, begging in the streets trying to feed their families. Escobar writes about the different factions in Iraq and he puts down the US notion that it is "sectarian" violence, he says it is not. Escobar tells of Sunni's supporting Shia and vice versa. He talks about the Sadr Army and Sadr City, poor but stable. He explains why the Sadr Army is "laying low" not confronting the Americans, but waiting and calling on them to leave.

    In one part of the book, Pepe Escobar takes issue with the right-wing neo-cons that have declared that Iran is giving weapons and advanced IED'S called explosive form penetrators (EFP'S). In his book Escobar states;

    "Iran of course can be very persuasive, holding up some tasty cards up its sleeve- such as hard-earned intelligence directly implicating the Saudis in training the Sunni Arab muqawama (resistance) in Iraq on explosive form penetrators (EFP'S), which the Pentagon foolishly insists come from Iran. Everyone in Iraq knows it is operatives from "axis of fear" allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt-and also Pakistan-who have provided the Sunni Arab guerillas in Iraq with technology and training on improvised explosive devices and EFP's." pg. 79.

    This is heady stuff. Forget what the American Government has told you. Read this book and form your own opinion on whether what you hear from the mainstream corporate- controlled media is the truth. This little book is worth its weight in gold as far as who is fighting, why they are fighting, and how this country is turning Iraq into yet another American killing field. If the truth is important to you, get this book.
    9 people found this helpful
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