Inside Fallujah

So I do believe I am the only one reading this book which and after reading part of it I almost wish I had picked the Baghdad diaries. Inside Fallujah is about a news crew that manages to get inside Fallujah and cover the American attack on the city. I will admit I was sadly misinformed about the role the mercenaries played in the Iraq War and the events that led up to the attack on Fallujah. The image of Iraqis burning and mutilating dead American bodies is disturbing. Equally disturbing is the image of American mercenaries harassing Iraqi civilians. The blatant disrespect of Iraqi custom that is depicted in this book is appalling. The resentment and anger on the part of the people in Fallujah seems justified. This part of the book is well thought out and not bothersome to me. What I am not impressed with is the author's, Ahmed Mansour, blatantly telling me what the Bush administration was feeling and thinking. I am not sure anyone can say with any level of certainty what the Bush Administration was feeling or thinking. I am angry and ashamed that our President behaved without consequence in such an undiplomatic and morally compromising manner. If one would like to postulate possible feelings or motivations on the part of the president that I would find acceptable but to tell the reader exactly how he was thinking and why is irritating to me.

The subject of mercenaries is also one that bothers me about this book. Mansour is willing to say that the American troops were a combination of both good and bad people. However, the mercenaries are assumed and argued to be ruthless and inhumane without exception. Perhaps this is the experience if the author and the people he interviewed. I do not believe that this sweeping generalization can be made. The mercenaries may have committed more atrocities than the American soldiers and in the name of money; but I would not universally categorize them as inhumane and ruthless.

The tone of this book is really what bothers me most. I feel the author strongly believes what he is writing and consequently I feel as though I am being manipulated to agree with his point. I am hoping that as the book continues this tone will lessen become more a story of the media crew's experience and less this person's editorial.