The Forever War Post 2

The second part of The Forever War represents the major focus of Filkins’s novel—the war in Iraq. The exploration of the war in Iraq is described in bleaker terms than the hopeful tone of the exploration of the Afghanistan war. Filkins begins Part Two by describing the state of the democracy that the Americans attempted to erect in Iraq. Every day the democracy was getting weaker. People continually approached Filkins asking him to find their son, husband, or daughter who had been taken by the insurgents. The insurgents, those extremists fighting to get the Americans out of Iraq and take control, gained more power ever day. Hope for democracy, embodied in candidates for Iraq’s new national assembly, was continually crushed. Wijdan Al-Khuzai was a strong woman candidate who truly wanted to make a difference in the new Iraq. She was shot before the elections had even begun. However, despite daily struggles for their lives, many Iraq people had hope for democracy in the beginning. 7,471 other candidates signed up to run for 275 seats in the new parliament. Some even campaigned openly in an environment of severe mistrust and violence. Thousands of the candidates, editors, judges, and police officers hoping to make a difference were subsequently killed by the insurgents. As Filkins writes, “[The insurgents] could spot a fine mind or a tender heart wherever it might be, chase it down and kill it dead. The heart of a nation. The precision was astounding” (82). As fast as hope was born, the insurgents managed to kill it.

Despite the hope that the Iraq people initially had in democracy, they did not have any hope in the Americans. One of the most striking aspects of Filkins’s exploration of the Iraq was the anger and resentment with which the Iraq people viewed the American soldiers. Whereas the Afghanistan people had praised the Americans as saviors of their country and of democracy, the Iraq people were merely bewildered and confused as to the American’s actions. A lot of the Iraq people, while condemning the violence of his regime, supported Saddam Hussein. They blamed the chaos into which the country fell on America’s seemingly unjustified attack on Saddam Hussein. When the American soldiers attempted to help the Iraq people, the Iraq people saw only an ulterior motive (whether it was a quest for oil or world domination). After Saddam Hussein was deposed, the insurgents began to form various groups. All of these insurgent groups wanted the Americans out of Iraq; some of them wanted complete power over the country. The insurgents rose up against the American soldiers, leading to countless casualties and acts of violence every single day.

As a reporter, Filkins was somewhat detached from the American soldiers but still experienced his own struggles. While he was in danger daily, his struggles pertained more to the language barrier between Americans and the Iraq people. Filkins views this language barrier as one of the reasons the situation in Iraq deteriorated so quickly. The ordinary American soldier and the average Iraq civilian could not communicate with one another, leading to unnecessary deaths and obstacles. For example, at one American checkpoint the soldiers were ordered to search every car and shoot everyone in a car that continued past the checkpoint without stopping (it could possibly be a suicide bomber). When one truck full of children barreled past the checkpoint, the soldiers followed orders. When Filkins arrived they were shaken but not upset. “We yelled at them to stop,” one soldier explained, “everybody knows the word stop. It’s universal” (116). This ignorance was the cause of many deaths. American soldiers and Iraq citizens did not understand a common language, and could, therefore, not grasp the culture or personality of either population either.