Andy and Judy's Book Club

I just finished reading Rageh Omaar's excellent book Revolution Day, his account of his time in Iraq before, during, and after the liberation/invasion/occupation. I recommend this book very strongly: he doesn't write from a clear-cut ideological/polemical position (as far as I can tell), but his steady accretion of details, facts, anecdotes, and humane common sense demonstrates -- to devastating effect -- just how inept, ill-informed and clumsy the entire coalition operation/politicking has been, and how ill-served the ordinary people of Iraq have been by all the important players from the West/North: the US, the UK, the UN.

I came away from this book saddened, and much clearer in my mind about what a monumental fuck-up has been imposed on Iraq. Rageh Omaar illuminates -- in clear, compassionate prose -- the immense and disturbing gap between the coalition's political rhetoric and the reality for ordinary Iraqis. He's also very good at tying together the broader political/sociological background, and showing how the ham-fisted interventions of the coalition's military/political arms have made a deep-seated mess of the post-Sadaam Iraq. It ain't pretty reading, but it's a really valuable book.