Book Club Post

For today's meeting we read up to chapter 12.  At this point in the book, a lot of details about the opinions of native Iraqis are really starting to show.  The author does a great point of showing both sides of the story; he constantly moves back and forth between the Iraqi and American opinion.  One thing that is especially interesting is the idea presented by Filkins that the Iraqi mindset is like a double edged sword in that there is always the story that the Iraqi's tell to the Americans, and the life that they are living on their own and at home.  Filkins blames this on the language barrier between English and Arabic, but I think it has more to do with American ignorance.  If the idea keeps being perpetuated that we are helping the Iraqis by being there, then there will always be info passed behind our backs by the Iraqis.  It is interesting to read some of this information now that we are leaving Iraq, but the fact that we are still in Afghanistan does not really change anything at all.  As our group nears the end of the book, I'm curious to see how Filkins wraps up the story and the situation in Iraq and how the events unfolded in the current day.