Regnery - November 2003
352 pages - Hardcover

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B O O K   R E V I E W

WAR STORIES: Operation Iraqi Freedom
by Oliver North

Oliver North loves the troops. He wants you to know that. So he likes to tell you about it, a lot.

"Great troops. I've been hearing those words for most of my adult life. I used to say that, and mean it...Now, having lived with the troops and seen them fight, it's apparent that they really are just that: great troops." There is an "aura of quiet competence in these Marines".

North's reinforcement leaves you wondering: if he loves the troops so much, why does he feel the need to continue reinforcing it? Does it correlate with the usual Fox News—North's employer—mantra, if you repeat something enough, it becomes true?

Tellingly, North's respect for military types diminishes when they challenge his agenda. North writes that "a bevy of "experts" [North's quotation marks], including former generals and admirals, have been adding fuel to this fire by saying that our chemical protective suits don't work, and that there are not enough troops, the right weapons, or enough equipment". North just knows that there, in fact, is.

Then, in response to some newspapers "beating the drum about the Marines being out of food, water, and ammo", North tells the story of his video dispatch for Fox & Friends in which he felt that he proved this idea wrong. Two marines, on his side, told the camera that they indeed had food, water, and ammo. To North, this is proof that the 'liberal media' was lying all along. Yet, he doesn't speculate as to whether or not other marines could be lacking in supplies or nourishment—but his troops are willing to tell the camera that everything's A-Okay. Operation Iraqi Freedom is reigning supreme, in other words, and the liberal media is wrong. Whether other American troops are starving, thirsty, or devoid of ammo, is not any of North's concern. If his small group of men is happy, and his pro-war agenda is pushed forward, all is fine and dandy.

Of course, as could be expected, North brings his brand of usual right-wing political commentary into the book, decrying anyone who criticizes the war of His Republican Party.

As soon as page two, North is already reminding his readers that Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat and harsh critic of the war in Iraq, "had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan".

Oddly, on the same page, North notes that "the media lapped up Byrd's remarks and raced around Washington seeking more outrageous partisanship to feed the hungry maw of the nonstop news cycle". One would then ask, but doesn't North work for Fox News? Such hypocritical comments—attacks on the mainstream media, which North and his Fox News Network are themselves a part of—come often and throughout. North criticizes the "media elites", as if he himself were not part of that group, for not toeing the White House line and actually having the journalistic integrity to dare to question the Bush Administration or the military. Such is the tone of North's political commentary.

Furthermore, the irony of some of North's arguments somehow escape him. North believes he has a step above "well-trained journalists" because he is not one of them. Most would see this as a flaw, rather than a positive factor of North's war reporting. He berates the "so-called mainstream media", even though he is that mainstream media. North seems to think that he's simply part of a well-organized underground alt-media circuit, even though his network is huge in America.

War Stories, aside from toeing the Republican Party line, is mostly a vivid—yet often monotonous and sometimes overly detailed—description of North's experiences in Iraq while serving as a wartime embed for Fox News. If one is unfamiliar with military terms and cares less about military specifics than someone as initiated as North, they may be turned off by the terminology and detail at North's disposal. He clearly knows of what he writes (military-wise), and those with knowledge and interest of military details will find some type of enjoyment in War Stories. They should, of course, also bring with them a willful admiration of the Bush administration and the Iraq War—"Operation Iraqi Freedom", as North so joyfully refers to it.

Robert Furs