Charlie Rose

Genevieve  11/22/2008 03:16 PM Report

More about Dexter Filkins' thoughts about prospects for peace in the Middle East here:

http://genevievelong.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/local-author-explores-prospects-for-peace-in-iraq/

My review of his amazing, amazing book here:

http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/arts-entertainment/iraq-war-dexter-filkins-5355.html

Genevieve Long

Freelance Journalist

New York, NY

Cindy Warner  10/15/2008 02:22 PM Report

Read The Forever War by Dexter Filkins. He's about my age and a lifelong runner, he ran even in Iraq and Afghanistan to save his sanity . . . after Filkins' appearances in San Francisco the SF Library has fifty two holds on The Forever War.

Nevertheless I bought the book based on my faith in the integrity of PBS journalists and the groups he spoke to such as the World Affairs Council. I hope you ask him back as things change in the Middle East so much . . . as I learned from Filkins.

I have worked at PBS in New Orleans on live public affairs shows. WLAE TV; plus I interned at KQED long ago, in the old building.

Here are my impressions of the book and some other links to Filkins.

www.DexterFilkins.net.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/07/DDOK139KFL.DTL

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec08/filkins_10-01.html

An hour long radio talk with callers asking him things live in San Francisco.

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R809241000

This is an hour long appearance at the Google office, he shows some nice photos that are not necessarily in the book.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fa-oXcft0RY&feature=user

This is himself articulating.

http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=1610

Finished first reading of The Forever War just now after picking it up in San Francisco on my bike Thursday night. Took leap of faith and paid the $25 based on the integrity of the groups and media you have been talking to as well as that of the NY Times. You get what you pay for. So, Dexter, Shukran jazeelan.

I feel that I have read the diary of a friend, who spoke to me as a peer and gave me some credit and refrained from gratuitous violence. I am starved for answers or at least information and feared being traumatized beyond Katrina and the economy by war stories. I live like a nun in the suburbs and I don't even have a car, I ride a bike that survived Katrina.

So I particularly appreciated your brief moments of comic relief so to speak. I laughed out loud about page 196, Ash in the outhouse transmitting his photos and also at him screaming at you as he ran through the field of shit after a false lead. To be fair, who would ever guess what was going on in the outhouse though. You taught me in the Middle East things are not what they seem, there is a dual universe.

Not what they seem especially when the primitive meets technology and brutality--e.g. the DBIED(s) of page 173. Or when you find that Pearl Land is Pear Land , not a gem but a humble piece of fruit. What can you say when you work in a place when even the geese seem confused . . . but they get back into formation after readjusting in flight (page 205).

The producer of Survivor (in Los Angeles by way of the English army) said you don't have to have the specifics planned step by step, you just have to be like a plane in flight, readjusting as things happen in the air to head for your goal again.

In any event. You have a gift for juxtaposition then again, who is to say it is irony after all. It's a new reality.

Speaking of the mayhem, one of the funnier moments (more so in hindsight probably) would be the 6000 marines breaking into somebody's house and using it as a latrine. That's one non-violent means of ending a war that's based on religious nobility and selflessness--just use degradation and humiliation . . . who would ever expect this maneuver? I can just see them crying out, Laish Laish Habibi . . . when showing your knees was bad enough.

But seriously, I did get some thoughts organized as to the linear progression of the Middle East . Russia invades Afghanistan and we save the Afghans from the brutality of communism but we leave too early and the lessons are forgotten. The area ends up in chaos and the Taliban rises to establish order. I'm thinking demographically there are a lot of broken families and orphans which give rise to the gangs and fiefdoms and their cruelty.

Yet they mix and intermarry . . . then as you say there's the post-Saddamian implosion. Chalabi returns from exile and tells Iraqis to liberate themselves by holding the election even though he has been disassociated after all those years away. Concurrently there's the notion that the population is so tough a leader needs a whip. But how far down is the Mid East to mainly women, children and old folk? Yet the children are being taught, the Koran mandates the killing of nonbelievers? Will the fighting die down, literally?

So maybe borders will be redrawn. Wasn't it the British at the turn of the century that redrew the borders for their own administrative ends? Then the Brits withdrew slowly and according to promise and plan? That was peaceful enough but created the vacuum for the Americans to enter. Do the Iraqi's want a plan? How can you reach a goal with no plan?

Let's leave the embassy--everybody has embassies and San Francisco has more than any other city. Let's leave things the Iraqis like such as American movies, music, the World Cup (didn't that come with the British a century before?) . . . let's give them whatever it was that got Jill Carroll and her pink hair released in three months . . . diplomatic things.

But to wrap up with a song of musical mayhem set in London long ago . . . here's Sweeney Todd, a demon barber created by corruption and brutality and coveting of what is rightfully another's . . .

Johnny Depp sings upon his return to London after being transported to Australia as a criminal:

There's a hole in the world

like a great black pit

and the vermin of the world inhabit it

and it's morals aren't worth

what a pig could spit

and it goes by the name of London

At the top of the hole are the privileged few

Making mockery of the vermin in the lower zoo

Turning beauty into filth and greed

I too

have sailed the world and seen it's wonders

for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru

but there's no place like London . . .

There's a hole in the world

like a great black pit

and it's filled with people

who are filled with shit

and the vermin of the world inhabit it . . .

So Dexter, enjoy your beautiful autumn runs in New York and Florida and Cambridge . Let me know what dreams you are sorting out in your head as you go. Thanks so much for making me feel my trust is well placed and my time invested well. I had meant to finish your book by November 4th but it was captivating.

Well done.

Cheers,

Cindy Warner

San Leandro, California

Cindy Warner  10/15/2008 02:20 PM Report

Read The Forever War by Dexter Filkins. He's about my age and a lifelong runner, he ran even in Iraq and Afghanistan to save his sanity . . . after Filkins' appearances in San Francisco the SF Library has fifty two holds on The Forever War.

Nevertheless I bought the book based on my faith in the integrity of PBS journalists and the groups he spoke to such as the World Affairs Council. I hope you ask him back as things change in the Middle East so much . . . as I learned from Filkins.

I have worked at PBS in New Orleans on live public affairs shows. WLAE TV; plus I interned at KQED long ago, in the old building.

Here are my impressions of the book and some other links to Filkins.

www.DexterFilkins.net.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/07/DDOK139KFL.DTL

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec08/filkins_10-01.html

An hour long radio talk with callers asking him things live in San Francisco.

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R809241000

This is an hour long appearance at the Google office, he shows some nice photos that are not necessarily in the book.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fa-oXcft0RY&feature=user

This is himself articulating.

http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=1610

Finished first reading of The Forever War just now after picking it up in San Francisco on my bike Thursday night. Took leap of faith and paid the $25 based on the integrity of the groups and media you have been talking to as well as that of the NY Times. You get what you pay for. So, Dexter, Shukran jazeelan.

I feel that I have read the diary of a friend, who spoke to me as a peer and gave me some credit and refrained from gratuitous violence. I am starved for answers or at least information and feared being traumatized beyond Katrina and the economy by war stories. I live like a nun in the suburbs and I don't even have a car, I ride a bike that survived Katrina.

So I particularly appreciated your brief moments of comic relief so to speak. I laughed out loud about page 196, Ash in the outhouse transmitting his photos and also at him screaming at you as he ran through the field of shit after a false lead. To be fair, who would ever guess what was going on in the outhouse though. You taught me in the Middle East things are not what they seem, there is a dual universe.

Not what they seem especially when the primitive meets technology and brutality--e.g. the DBIED(s) of page 173. Or when you find that Pearl Land is Pear Land , not a gem but a humble piece of fruit. What can you say when you work in a place when even the geese seem confused . . . but they get back into formation after readjusting in flight (page 205).

The producer of Survivor (in Los Angeles by way of the English army) said you don't have to have the specifics planned step by step, you just have to be like a plane in flight, readjusting as things happen in the air to head for your goal again.

In any event. You have a gift for juxtaposition then again, who is to say it is irony after all. It's a new reality.

Speaking of the mayhem, one of the funnier moments (more so in hindsight probably) would be the 6000 marines breaking into somebody's house and using it as a latrine. That's one non-violent means of ending a war that's based on religious nobility and selflessness--just use degradation and humiliation . . . who would ever expect this maneuver? I can just see them crying out, Laish Laish Habibi . . . when showing your knees was bad enough.

But seriously, I did get some thoughts organized as to the linear progression of the Middle East . Russia invades Afghanistan and we save the Afghans from the brutality of communism but we leave too early and the lessons are forgotten. The area ends up in chaos and the Taliban rises to establish order. I'm thinking demographically there are a lot of broken families and orphans which give rise to the gangs and fiefdoms and their cruelty.

Yet they mix and intermarry . . . then as you say there's the post-Saddamian implosion. Chalabi returns from exile and tells Iraqis to liberate themselves by holding the election even though he has been disassociated after all those years away. Concurrently there's the notion that the population is so tough a leader needs a whip. But how far down is the Mid East to mainly women, children and old folk? Yet the children are being taught, the Koran mandates the killing of nonbelievers? Will the fighting die down, literally?

So maybe borders will be redrawn. Wasn't it the British at the turn of the century that redrew the borders for their own administrative ends? Then the Brits withdrew slowly and according to promise and plan? That was peaceful enough but created the vacuum for the Americans to enter. Do the Iraqi's want a plan? How can you reach a goal with no plan?

Let's leave the embassy--everybody has embassies and San Francisco has more than any other city. Let's leave things the Iraqis like such as American movies, music, the World Cup (didn't that come with the British a century before?) . . . let's give them whatever it was that got Jill Carroll and her pink hair released in three months . . . diplomatic things.

But to wrap up with a song of musical mayhem set in London long ago . . . here's Sweeney Todd, a demon barber created by corruption and brutality and coveting of what is rightfully another's . . .

Johnny Depp sings upon his return to London after being transported to Australia as a criminal:

There's a hole in the world

like a great black pit

and the vermin of the world inhabit it

and it's morals aren't worth

what a pig could spit

and it goes by the name of London

At the top of the hole are the privileged few

Making mockery of the vermin in the lower zoo

Turning beauty into filth and greed

I too

have sailed the world and seen it's wonders

for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru

but there's no place like London . . .

There's a hole in the world

like a great black pit

and it's filled with people

who are filled with shit

and the vermin of the world inhabit it . . .

So Dexter, enjoy your beautiful autumn runs in New York and Florida and Cambridge . Let me know what dreams you are sorting out in your head as you go. Thanks so much for making me feel my trust is well placed and my time invested well. I had meant to finish your book by November 4th but it was captivating.

Well done.

Cheers,

Cindy Warner

San Leandro, California

Fran  10/02/2008 08:29 PM Report

Until I heard Dexter's account of the situation in Iraq, I wasn't sure that I believed anything that was reported about the positive effects of "the Surge". I have intentions of passing this link to all of my friends, so that they can hear this unbiased account of the situation.

Axure  10/02/2008 06:38 PM Report

THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A FULL HOUR FEATURE, NOT A 19-MINUTE SCRAP!!!

Shalom Freedman  10/02/2008 01:07 PM Report

Dexter Filkins is a courageous reporter who has done the real hard work required for the most serious kind of journalism. His willingness to go to the most difficult and dangerous places to get the story, is what being a 'reporter on the ground' is all about.

Shalom Freedman  10/02/2008 01:06 PM Report

Dexter Filkins is a courageous reporter who has done the real hard work required for the most serious kind of journalism. His willingness to go to the most difficult and dangerous places to get the story, is what being a 'reporter on the ground' is all about.

tedregencia  10/02/2008 06:38 AM Report

fascinating, fascinating interview! filkins is an inspiration to me as a journalist.

Keith  10/02/2008 03:18 AM Report

sockpuppet, of the "at least 180,000 people in the country", half are Iraqi citizens. As for winning hearts of minds, I didn't address that in my previous response. A large majority of the non-Iraqi-citizen contractors have no effect since they don't interact with the Iraqi population. The ones who do, though, rightfully get a bad reputation. They dragged us into fighting in Fallujah and have been condemned by the Iraqi government for wanton killing of civilians, among other things. I am certainly not trying to make a case that contractors are benign, just that the bad apples don't mean we need to burn down the orchard. It would be easy to think "soldiers good, contractors bad" but you would be wrong.

sock puppet  10/01/2008 02:16 AM Report

Keith - Google U. From NYT 8/11/2008 - "Contractors in Iraq now employ at least 180,000 people in the country, forming what amounts to a second, private, army, larger than the United States military force, and one whose roles and missions and even casualties among its work force have largely been hidden from public view. The widespread use of these employees as bodyguards, translators, drivers, construction workers and cooks and bottle washers has allowed the administration to hold down the number of military personnel sent to Iraq, helping to avoid a draft." --------------------------->> Wondered if they helped or hindered re 'hearts and minds?'

Keith  10/01/2008 01:55 AM Report

Forgive my hastily written erroneous math. "20,000 to 40,000" should be "10,000 to 30,000", but, again, check with someone with direct knowledge about contractors instead of using my numbers.

Keith  10/01/2008 12:49 AM Report

sock puppet, that is a great question: how much of the "load" in Iraq is being "carried" by contractors. I wish I had a great answer. I'm not sure it's even possible to provide an adequate answer because the military and contractors generally have such different missions. First, there are something like 150,000 US military personnel in Iraq, a few thousand military personnel from other Coalition Force nations, and something like 80,000 contractors hired by the US government. Estimates I've seen are that 1/2 to 3/4 of the contractors are Iraqi citizens working indirectly for the military (linguists) or as laborers and experts for Iraqi sub-contractors to Haliburton, etc. The remaining 20,000 to 40,000 contractors are US or Coalition Force country citizens, most of whom are working in non-combat roles: logistics expertise, high-tech maintenance, linguistic support, etc. Only a small number of contractors hired by the US government are providing security, with Blackwater, Dyncorp, and a UK company whose name escapes me being preeminent. These contractors have very little impact on operations but are very visible because of their portrayal in the media and because they are providing personnel security to non-DOD entities (State Dept, etc.). In addition, the Iraqi government is hiring tons of security contractors, but that is not through US channels and is not very newsworthy.

irish  10/01/2008 12:09 AM Report

Fascinating conversation. But the book review Charlie quoted sounded bizarre and far removed from actual feeling - how is the journal of a reporter supposed to console the maimed and bereaved?

Jean   09/30/2008 10:29 PM Report

Mr. Filkins has gone to tremendous lengths to bring us the truth... of-the-moment truth and deeply-felt remembered truth. I have read him steadily in the Times and am reading his book. He is everywhere in the media now--- book tour---and people always seem to have 2 responses. They scrutinize (and either romanticize or judge) the traumatic effects he must be feeling, or they talk about how brave he has been (and either romanticize or judge). But his book is almost without ego and shows tremendous restraint. He locates the human thread... makes it all painfully real with a few well chosen details and little excess. I think Mr. Filkins has simply been doing his job. And doing it well... while the rest of the media pontificate and sensationalize. I would remind all the armchair critics that the free press is essential work in our country. I am tremendously grateful to Mr. Filkins and those among his ilk that rise above. I don't wonder that his transition has been difficult. We've become a painfully shallow country. Even the brightest among us cling to politics and easy answers, right and wrong, pointing fingers... while the war goes on.

sock puppet  09/30/2008 09:58 PM Report

Purchased his ebook (Amazon Kindle). MaryMac is spot on with her observation. He's young and possibly mildly traumatized and probably needs to decompress for a few "years."

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________

Keith - Would appreciate your guesstimate as to what percentage Black Water (and all contract employees) carry(s) the load - militarily and otherwise. Over half? Predominantly a contract-for-profit venture?

MaryMac  09/30/2008 07:08 PM Report

If you have lived outside the USA, you will be able to empathize with Dexter regarding his ‘return.’ mm

Gomez  09/30/2008 02:57 PM Report

He was not saying he missed the carnage. He was saying honestly that he was having a hard time dealing with the calm and orderliness of the United States. I find him a disciplined dedicated journalist who truly cares about reporting the truth. What is wrong with that?

RichardR  09/30/2008 11:28 AM Report

I haven't read Mr. Filkins' book, but based on this interview I wouldn't go near it. For him to confess -- with no hint of irony or shame -- that he wanted to go back to Iraq because he missed the carnage is truly repugnant. I wish Mr. Rose had asked him if he would be willing to go the Walter Reed Army Medical Ctr. or any number of VA rehab facilities and make such a puerile, self-serving comment to the sick and wounded he will find there. Mr. Filkins is a vampire, and he should be ashamed of himself, at least for being crass enough to publicly admit how much he enjoys death and destruction, if not for thinking it.

Marilyn  09/30/2008 11:15 AM Report

sock puppet, tip for the day...ABC - Nightline Reports - Life in the Amazon 3 part video. Short on time, big on impact. A welcome escape from the chaos and madness of our creation with it's cold concrete and glass landscape in the background. Of course, there is both the good and the bad here as well.

maureen  09/30/2008 10:11 AM Report

Just think, if we were to pay all the unemployed thugs here in USA $300.00 a month I think it would take a big bite out of crime!!

After all Dexter Filkins has seen,including the death of a serviceman sacrificing his life, it saddens me that someone is listening to how many times he said "you know" rather than hearing that a country is in crisis mode, and american kids, just out of high school,are in the thick of it. I think Mr. Filkins shows alot of stress and maybe needs an assignment to the West Indies for a while !

Keith  09/30/2008 02:47 AM Report

sock puppet, the Sunni Awakening and the American-financed Sunni security is not so much about 'bribery' as economic investment. With the DOD being largely cut off from other federal agencies, and few international organizations involved, Iraq has been in a free-fall of poor security leading to no jobs leading to poor security leading to no jobs, etc. Hiring so many Sunnis, while simultaneously reaching agreements with Al-Sadr, has stimulated Iraq's economy by, as Filkins says, having paying jobs for folks who otherwise would be causing havoc. The surge's timing was coincidental. It would be smart for Iraq to start nationalizing these programs, integrating them into the Ministry of the Interior, though whether they do that when we leave or not, no one knows.

sock puppet  09/30/2008 01:05 AM Report

The surge is working if you agree with paying insurgents and (ex?)al Qaeda $300/mth/head. So's the stock market if a one-day drop of 777 points is acceptable. Twenty foot walls. President Malliki - an admitted sectarian. Only Jingo John and the tooth ferry knows the surge is working. We buy any answer we want. Built to collapse when we leave, whether now or now + n, where n is 1, 10, or McCains 100.

Keith  09/30/2008 12:28 AM Report

As a two-time vet of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I found this interview to be the most honest and straightforward on Iraq I've heard from civilians in a long time.

John L  09/30/2008 12:19 AM Report

Did anyone count the number of times Dexter said "you know".