No True Glory - A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah

No True Glory – A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah by Bing West

As I write this review, the United States of America is still shell shocked by the brutal terrorist killings that occurred in San Bernardino, California in November 2015.  Sadly, the country doesn’t appear to be united.  President Obama and the far left think that stricter gun laws can prevent such atrocities whereas those on the far right, including presidential candidate Donald Trump, are essentially wanting to ban all Muslims from the United States.  War is hell.

I only say this because the whole Iraq mess seemed to culminate from the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  We went to war believing Saddam Hussein was hoarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Since most agree that we had faulty intelligence and no weapons were found, what could we do now that we’ve committed ourselves?  Well, the good news is that Hussein was toppled from power, and forced to flee (he was eventually found, and systematically executed).  The Iraqi people rejoiced, and our 24 hour news coverage showed a jubilant population celebrating in the streets while ransacking his ubiquitous palaces and statues that wallpapered Baghdad.

The problem was, what happens next?  Here’s where most people, excluding the political astute, simply were clueless.  Many believed that we could “destroy” Iraq and then somehow rebuild the backwards country to resemble the state of Vermont.  Those who know better knew better.

This book puts us right in the middle of the nastiest place in Iraq, the ugly grime-filled city of Fallujah.  This is the last place where anyone would want to be during a war.  A bit like the Siberian Front in World War II.  What author Bing West manages to do is tell a very thorough account of the frontlines during this calamity that begin in April 2003.  He spends equal time talking about the battles with several of the key players on the ground, as well as many involved in the military and political leadership.  The author shows us that there’s a very big disconnect going on here.

Fortunately, this is not a “Pro War” nor an “Anti-War” book.  The author manages to focus on war, and any war is extremely unpleasant.  While reading, I couldn’t help draw many parallels to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.  A big criticism of that war is that it seemed as though the U.S. wanted the South Vietnamese to win the war more than the South Vietnamese did.  Such seems to be the case here.  Even with Saddam Hussein gone, you can’t expect a nation that has been embroiled in a set way of living to suddenly throw all the shackles off and embrace democracy.  Even after Saddam is gone, there are rife political sides, and most still hate America.  A sad analogy: If you adopt a five-year-old dog that has been abused and tormented its whole life, that dog will never be “normal”, no matter how much love you shower upon it.

So America really wants to help.  Money is spent.  Money is given to Fallujah and Iraq.  Lots of money.  That will inspire them.  Right?  Nope.  So we give more money.  More decisions are made, more disagreements between leaders, more frustrated marines on the battlefield.  etc. etc.  You have to admire the marines for wanting to get the job done.  They know they have the manpower to obliterate this hell-hole, and they’re highly motivated after seeing all of the injustice and nastiness firsthand.  But we can’t fight wars that way anymore.  Not with CNN reporting every move we make.  Sadly, casualties in a war always expand beyond the enemy on the frontlines.  Buildings get bombed containing innocent civilians, and the 24 news networks are quick to make these the lead stories, which then drives up animosity for any conflict.  So President Bush knows he has to be careful.  One needs to only remember the Abu Gharib prison story that made headlines during all of the Fallujah crap.  Most Americans can probably tell you more about that incident than they can the whole Fallujah episode because, let’s face it, a story about prisoners being unjustly tortured makes sensational headlines.

Hindsight tells us that even though we were finally “successful” in Fallujah, nothing has really changed.  Imagine turning on your kitchen lights at 2 a.m. and seeing 100 cockroaches.  If you’re lucky, you can kill about 5 of them, but the rest will scurry under the surface, multiply, and be back the next night.  And the cockroaches in Fallujah have guns and homemade bombs.  Like Vietnam, we may have dropped a lot of bombs and killed far more of the enemy than what we lost, but until you break the psyche of the enemy (as we did with Germany and Japan), you can never really say that you’ve “won” the war.  We were never able to accomplish that in Iraq, and Fallujah was where this was at its ugliest. 

A good, but depressing read.