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Book Review: The Freedom Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, by Christian Parenti
Top level Dynamic Magazine Back Issues 2005 - March

Author: Shane Brinton

Publishing date: 15.03.2005 18:35

The Freedom Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, by Christian Parenti (New Press, 2004)


What is really going on in Iraq? Many young people and activists understand that the reports we are getting from the White House and the corporate media are inaccurate, at best. We are fully conscious of the fact that FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and often PBS and National Public Radio—while claiming to report the “facts� in a “fiercely independent� or “fair and balanced� manner—are actually ruthlessly representing specific class interests. We recognize that this war wasn’t really about weapons of mass destruction or freedom and liberation for the people of Iraq. It was about oil, profit, and empire.

Yet, despite a basic understanding of the reasons for the conquest, many of us (myself included) have had a difficult time grasping the true breadth of the hell that has been unleashed on the ground in America’s newest imperial outpost. The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, a new groundbreaking book from young scholar and journalist Christian Parenti, provides a much needed micro-level picture of the true nature of the conflict and the day-to-day struggles of the parties involved.

Parenti, who was in Iraq three different times—part of the time embedded with US troops, part of the time on his own—takes the reader on an adrenaline-soaked journey that ranges from the deeply depressing and bloody, to the humorous and downright bizarre.

As an embedded journalist, he lived with a group of young, stressed-out, and thoroughly confused American soldiers entrenched in an “urban counterinsurgency with all of the brutality and frustration that implies.� His narration covers different aspects of the soldiers’ lives, as he recounts going on patrols in search of the infamous and extremely deadly IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and sitting around talking with the soldiers in their cramped sweaty quarters, walls covered with flags and pictures of scantily clad women.

This part of the book is particularly good because of the authors’ clear sympathy for the working-class guys out in the field, and the way he melds it with an adamant anti-imperialist perspective. He’s not afraid to criticize the soldiers for their shortcomings and crimes. But he tries to understand them and their particular situations.

The ‘embedding’ of journalists was, for the most part, a propaganda tool. Journalists from major networks weren’t out looking for real stories. They simply stuck with US troops and regurgitated the propaganda reports of US military commanders. It was very interesting to see how Parenti (reporting for the left-wing magazine The Nation) used the embed opportunity to report from a radically different angle: to learn about the personal issues of the soldiers and to more fully understand the class nature of the situation.

When he wasn’t embedded, Parenti was with his trusty interpreter/guide Akeel, in hot pursuit of hard-to-get interviews with religious leaders and insurgents. In one uncomfortable and dangerous interview, he and Akeel end up in a car with a masked militant. In another, he finds himself in a room with a huge IED. His treatment of the insurgency is much like that of the US soldiers—he does not condone all that they do, but he tries to understand them and the factors that drive their struggle.

Also excellent is Parenti’s treatment of the Iraqi left. He met with members of both the mainline Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) and also the Trotskyist-oriented Workers Communist Party (IWCP). Particularly fascinating is his in-depth discussion with the uncompromising and articulate head of the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq and IWCP member Yanar Muhammad.

In addition to in-depth treatment of major groups and issues, he devotes quite a few words to the idiosyncrasies and conduct of other journalists, and the sizeable number of professional war chasers and wannabe journalists. It’s really amazing how many absolutely insane non-military Westerners are over there getting off on the conflict. People like Crazy Dave and the mysterious Star Wars obsessed knife-wielding ‘writer’ made me laugh out loud, and then absolutely scared the crap out of me.

The entire book is very eerie. It will make you sick to your stomach, but you need to read it. The firsthand accounts span from the things mentioned above, to the author being shot at by the American military. And a trip to Abu Ghraib. And the tragedy of the so called ‘reconstruction.’ And prostitution. And stories of entire families being gunned down—not ‘liberal propaganda’: real men, women, and children shot down by gung-ho US soldiers. And more, so much more. This book will make you sick. But… you need to read it.

Shane Brinton is a YCL member, high school student, writer, and musician. He lives in Northern California.

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