The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq by Christian Parenti, Teru Kuwayama (Photographer)

From the Publisher

An instant classic on America's catastrophic—and indefinite—occupation of Iraq.

"Ah, the freedom. Look, we have the gas-line freedom, the looting freedom, the killing freedom, the rape freedom, the hash-smoking freedom. I don't know what to do with all this freedom."—Akeel, a twenty-six-year-old Baghdad resident, on life in the new Iraq

Consistently compared with the work of Hunter S. Thompson and Michael Herr, The Freedom provides a fearless and unsanitized tour of the disastrous occupation of Iraq, in all its surreal and terrifying detail. Drawing on the best tradition of war reporting, here is a rare book that "embeds" with both sides—the U.S. military and the Iraqi resistance.

Acclaimed journalist Christian Parenti takes us on a high-speed ride along treacherous roads to the centers of the ongoing conflict in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Sadr City through the first year of the occupation. He introduces us to relatives waiting anxiously outside the holding fortress of Abu Ghraib and takes a night drive around Baghdad with the insurgents. He recounts the military's use of drugs and prostitutes, the imperial buffoonery of the Green Zone, and the religious ecstasy of the Shiites. And he allows us to witness, close-up and in riveting detail, the cataclysmic violence, rampant gangsterism, and quotidian heroism that is today's Iraq.

As predicted by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, when "historians of tomorrow start writing, they will doubtless have copies of The Freedom close at hand."

Las Vegas Mercury

He has an eye for the perfect image, a wonderful ear for dialogue, and a prose style that floats across the page.

Publishers Weekly

This collection of dispatches from in and around Baghdad emerges from Nation reporter Parenti's time embedded with U.S. soldiers as well as ventures out on his own. The book's main interest is that it provides access to people not heard from often enough: with a translator, Parenti interviews sheikhs, hospital staff, young prostitutes, aid workers and the families of civilians killed by American troops or disappeared into prisons like Abu Ghraib. The results make what's happening on the ground significantly more vivid and disturbing than most conventional news reports. Parenti also describes incompetence and corruption in reconstruction efforts, as well as killings and humiliations of Iraqi citizens that work to push young men into the ranks of the insurgency. He talks to American soldiers in the barracks and on patrol who hope that (but aren't sure if) they are doing the right thing. Over Parenti's three trips to Iraq from December 2003 to June 2004, relationships between all aspects of the U.S. military and Iraqi society become further entrenched in violence, hatred and chaos, all exacerbated by a lack of potable water and a still disabled electrical grid. It's a grim story, and it feels real. (Nov.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents