For six years we have wadded through backwater and gumbo learning about our war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, always bloody and confusing. It is hard to trust anyone now, yet there is clear-headed history and honest, informed experience being written. I don’t claim to have read everything but I have found three books I recommend. Even when what you learn is not comforting, if you trust the author you know you are better off than before. Both authors give ample reason to trust them.
Two of the books are history based on mind-boggling access to participants and documents. The third is a personal narrative of a reporter combining his experiences with what he learned or came to understand about all those he encountered in the war zone. These are must read and must keep books.
Dexter Filkin, The Forever War
Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq, 2003 to 2005
Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus And The American Military Adventure In Iraq, 2006-2008
In the last sentence of The Gamble, Ricks writes, “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened.” Charles Marlin
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