The Forever War

by Saul Bloodworth

Yesterday, I attended a book presentation; the author was Dexter Filkins, a distinguished journalist from The New York Times. The title of the book was The Forever War. The book is, of course, about the war in Iraq and the occupation, and Filkins was rather glum. The surge did work, he said, even more, paying every member of the Sunni resistance $300 a month works. However, as soon as the U.S. would pull out, chaos would erupt, and a bloodbath would occur.

Well, I'm sure he knows Iraq better than I do (even though he admitted not to speak Arabic, then again, New York Times' reporters are not that great in speaking foreign languages). Anyway, he seemed well informed and he had spent a lot of time there. The striking thing, however, was not that he did not see a way out, he also saw nobody at fault. He said something along the lines of: "We did not want this war, you did not want this war, what can we do?"

Huh? This is not George W. Bush's war. Bush had an approval rating of 90 percent when he started his little Blitzkrieg against the Middle East, and he had an approval rating of more than 60 percent when the U.S. army attacked Iraq. The New York Times endorsed that war. So, now, everybody is a victim? Did they all follow orders?