To Be a Friend Is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America

To Be a Friend Is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind

The â€œsearingâ€ (The New Yorker), â€œmust readâ€ (The Philadelphia Inquirer) memoir of â€œone of the few genuine heroes of Americaâ€™s war in Iraqâ€ (Dexter Filkins).

In January 2005 Kirk Johnson, then twenty-four, arrived in Baghdad as USAIDâ€™s (US Agency for International Development) only Arabic-speaking American employee. Despite his opposition to the war, Johnson felt called to civic duty and wanted to help rebuild Iraq. Working as the USAIDâ€™s first reconstruction coordinator in Fallujah, he traversed the cityâ€™s IED-strewn streets, working alongside idealistic Iraqi translatorsâ€”young men and women sick of Saddam, filled with Hollywood slang, and enchanted by the idea of a peaceful, democratic Iraq. It was not to be. As sectarian violence escalated, Iraqis employed by the US coalition found themselves subject to a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and assassination.

On his first brief vacation, Johnson, swept into what doctors later described as a â€œfugue state,â€ crawled onto the ledge outside his hotel window and plunged off. He would spend the next year in an abyss of depression, surgery, and PTSDâ€”crushed by having failed in Iraq. One day, Johnson received an email from an Iraqi friend, Yaghdan: People are trying to kill me and I need your help. That email launched Johnsonâ€™s now seven-year mission to get help from the US government for Yaghdan and thousands of abandoned Iraqis like him.

To Be a Friend Is Fatal is Kirk W. Johnsonâ€™s â€œtruly incredibleâ€ (Ira Glass) portrait of the human rubble of war and his efforts to redeem a shameful chapter of American history. â€œIt is difficult to imagine a book more urgent than thisâ€ (The Boston Globe).
Country USA
Brand SCRIBNER
Manufacturer Scribner
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber illustrations
ReleaseDate 2014-10-07
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781476710495

Country	USA
Brand	SCRIBNER
Manufacturer	Scribner
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	illustrations
ReleaseDate	2014-10-07
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781476710495

To Be a Friend Is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind

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