The Human Face Of the War on Terrorism

The Human Face Of the War on Terrorism The Forever War. Dexter Filkins. Alfred A. Knopf 384 pages; black-and-white photographs, index; $25.

Many books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have focused on the mistakes made in planning and prosecuting the conflicts. Volumes like The Assassin's Gate, Fiasco and Imperial t Life in the Emerald City depict the ineptitude, ignorance and arrogance behind American policy in these countries. But all of these books, in one way or another, leave out the people most affected by the larger movement of public policy - the Afghanis, Iraqis and soldiers themselves.

Dexter Filkins, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, sets out to correct this in The Forever War. He has spent more time than most chronicling the Middle East, and this book, a collection of his reporting that spans nearly a decade, shows what happens when someone truly "lives" this area over a long period of time. Filkins can tell us things no one else can, and his focus on individuals is profoundly disturbing.

Filkins begins with his coverage of a Marine rifle company in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, an experience in which one marine is killed while escorting him and a photographer to a mosque. He then jumps back to Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1998, where he witnesses the rise of the Taliban (chaos, public executions), and then to New York on 9/11 (chaos, grief) and back to Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion. There, he illustrates the complexity of the conflict - the shifting sides, the tribal and personal connections that trump politics - the messinese of which, frankly,...