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Wall Street Journal Best Books – Bing West Scores Again

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12.26.2008 at 07:58pm

Bing West’s newest book The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq has been named a Wall Street Journal Best of 2008. Congrats, Semper Fi, as well as fair winds and following seas to you and yours Bing.

In preparation for writing The Strongest Tribe, former Marine infantry officer Bing West “traveled with 60 U.S. and Iraqi battalions and interviewed 2,000 soldiers… His chronicle is full of eyewitness accounts of nerve-wracking patrols, improvised-explosive detonations and small-unit gunfights,” wrote reviewer Jonathan Kay, the managing editor for comment at Canada’s National Post newspaper. The resulting book — about the implementation of the American troop surge in 2007 – provided a bracing counterpoint to the usual scornful portraits of the war in Iraq, Mr. Kay said. The book “deserves to be read as an authoritative testament to this historic achievement.”

Description: From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around–and the choice now facing America.

During the fierce battle for Fallujah, Bing West asked an Iraqi colonel why the archterrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled in women’s clothes. The colonel pointed to a Marine patrol walking by and said, “Americans are the strongest tribe.”

In Iraq, America made mistake after mistake. Many gave up on the war. Then the war took a sharp U-turn. Two generals–David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno–displayed the leadership America expected. Bringing the reader from the White House to the fighting in the streets, this remarkable narrative explains the turnaround by U.S. forces.

In the course of fourteen extended trips over five years, West embedded with more than sixty front-line units, discussing strategy with generals and tactics with corporals. He provides an expert’s account of counterinsurgency, disposing of myths. By describing the characters and combat in city after city, West gives the reader an in-depth understanding that will inform the debate about the war. This is the definitive study of how American soldiers actually fought –a gripping and visceral book that changes the way we think about the war, and essential reading for understanding the next critical steps to be taken.

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