Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy | Ilario Pantano, Malcolm McConnell

Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy | Ilario Pantano, Malcolm McConnell | Ilario Pantano is a hero, warrior and an amazing man

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Warlord: No Better...

	Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy Ilario Pantano, Malcolm McConnell Threshold Editions, 2006 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 51 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

On a raid in the Sunni hotbed of the Al Anbar province during the most violent and chaotic phase of the war on terror, Lieutenant Ilario Pantano shot and killed two Iraqi insurgents. Months later, one of his own men disputed Pantano's self-defense claim in the Al Anbar shootings. Pantano was relieved of his command and charged with premeditated murder, a crime punishable by death. This is Pantano's gripping story in his own words -- the story of a patriot who left behind his wife and children to fight for their future; the harrowing account of a military hearing that sparked a national "Defend the Defenders" campaign; and the inspiring choices of an unconventional warrior who continues to call on his fellow Americans to stand strong in the face of our enemies.

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See the Iraq you won't see in the news

It's simply infuriating to tune into the media on any given day to find out what's going on in Iraq. The problem is twofold. One, bias rears its ugly head. The mainstream media are, with few exceptions, largely left-leaning in their coverage of the war. They aren't interested in promoting American values or touting our triumphs, so any stories they do on the war will always focus on the negative. That's why you'll read reams about the ridiculous Abu Ghraib prison "scandal" or other supposed "wrongdoings" and little about the good deeds our boys and girls perform on a daily basis. Two, and even worse in some ways, is the emphasis media place on having stories that grab the audience's attention. It's boring to show schools, roads, and institutions being built. That stuff is for suckers. Our journalists are far more interested in showing cars and buildings blowing up, blood flowing in the streets, and bullets flying. If it bleeds, it leads baby! That's why CNN shows American troops taking bullets in the head from insurgent snipers. That's why the news from Iraq centers on the latest car bombings. Anything to drive those ratings through the roof, right?

At the same time, the images we see from Iraq do offer a partial representation of what our soldiers face on a daily basis. They are in grave combat situations where life and limb are at constant risk. It's a war zone, obviously, a place where the enemy can hide amongst the civilian population quite easily. The jihadists in Iraq use the innocents as cover to build and deploy their notorious improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have killed hundreds of American soldiers. They use houses to hide guns, ammunition, explosives, and other arms used to wage daily war against the hated "infidel" invaders. They also prey on the innocent Iraqi civilians, maiming and killing them for helping us or for not joining in the fight against the crusaders. The foes we face in Iraq are murderous thugs without a shred of human decency. They're roaches that scuttle under the nearest rock when we shine the light of justice on them. We don't need to "understand" them, or try to befriend them, or listen to their complaints. We need to exterminate them before they kill us and our loved ones. And they would. Without a moment's hesitation, they would kill your parents, your wife or husband, your kids--and they wouldn't lose a moment of sleep over it, either.

That's why a book like Ilario Pantano's "Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" is such an important read. Pantano, a Marine officer who reenlisted after 9/11 to go fight America's enemies in Iraq, tells us exactly what we face in that hostile land. His is a depressing tale, a story about death, fear, destruction, and the inability of America to face its enemies without tying both hands behind its back. The author tells us about friends he's lost to the enemy, desperate firefights in the streets of Iraq where the next bullet could very well have your name on it, and how our troops can't properly fight a real war because of politically correct Rules of Engagement. When you learn that our soldiers have to fill out paperwork like a beat cop when they stop someone to search their car, or have to carry around handcuffs in case they need to arrest someone (and these things happen in Pantano's Iraq), you just know we aren't going to win the war. Even worse, Pantano faced capital murder charges for a traffic stop gone bad that resulted in the deaths of a couple of Iraqis. That's right: capital murder charges. In a war zone.

"Warlord" is a great book. Not because of the insightful picture it paints of the Iraqi adventure, although that's a large part of it. Not because Pantano tells us wonderful stories about the brave men and women pouring their blood into the desert sands in order to avenge our country for 9/11 and protect you and I on a daily basis, although that's another part of the book that deserves praise. The best part of the book is how it deftly blends biography with war narrative. Ilario Pantano and I, as far as I can tell, are roughly the same age, yet his life goes so far beyond anything I've accomplished. Born in New York to Italian immigrant parents, Pantano went to a private school, stared down thugs in the streets of New York, joined the Marines and fought in the first Gulf War, went to college, married and divorced and married again, had kids, worked for Goldman Sachs, worked in the entertainment industry, and helped start up a new media company with the birth of the Internet age. Then he reenlisted to fight in Iraq again, this time going through additional training to become a Marine Corps officer! Then it was off to Iraq to fight the jihadists and to try and stay alive. Then back to the United States to fight for his life in a courtroom. Wow! This guy is a real hero.

The only drawback to "Warlord" is the absence of a description from Pantano about the actual event that led to his trial. We learn about the situation through a recitation of the trial record, but Pantano never really talks about what happened in the context of his war experiences. Some readers of a left-wing persuasion would probably take this as some sort of admission of guilt, which is likely total nonsense. A far more adequate interpretation, based on his character traits outlined in the rest of the book, is that the incident is too painful for him to talk about. Yet he still should have addressed it directly. No matter, though, as the book is a real page-turner and a must read for those trying to craft a bigger picture of the Iraq War.

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Ilario Pantano is a hero, warrior and an amazing man

Men like this are very rare. He followed his heart and got stabbed in the back from a fellow Marine. Thank God the system worked and noble countrymen came to his aid. I believe this story illustrates the civil war raging in our country even as we wage war in another. A great story and an eye opener. I thank Ilario and all men like him for what they have done and are doing to protect my country, my family and myself. God bless you all!

Combat Vet

Obviously factual and straightforward. No personal bias is interjected by the author - he just tells it like it is. The transition between combat scenarios, background and the courts martial procedings are logical and seamless. Great read! AND a bit scary when you realize the obvious political prejudice by the government. After reading this book you will better understand the challenges and threats that our military men and women are facing in the war against terrorism.

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A Hero on Trial

Warlord is a look at the moral ambiguities of contemporary warfare and their political resonance on the home front. Its protagonist is not a fashionable anti-hero, but a real American hero, the kind of guy who witnesses the WTC attack and immediately decides to re-enlist, shaving his hair into a Marine buzz cut even before going home. And yet when he does return home from serving his country at war, he finds himself under threat of capital punishment. The stakes here are not just personal: Pantano needs to win his grand jury case on behalf of every soldier in combat who might hesitate to defend himself in the field - and be brought back in a body bag - rather than be tried as a murderer at home.

In addition to the intrinsic drama of the Black Hawk Down-style firefights into which Pantano leads his men, there is the drama of the courtroom, where the details of the incident - the "murder" of which he was accused - grippingly unfold. His reputation and character are almost impossible for the prosecutors to besmirch, but the trial outcome remains in doubt because he may be hung out to dry as a political scapegoat.

Pantano graphically conveys the madness of combat that civilians and politicians cannot comprehend (and yet which many unfairly judge), but there are nice touches of humanity in the madness as well. The family dynamic is another compelling element. Pantano has a wife and young children at home, and it's partly because of his love for them that he goes to war - to defend his country and family in the enemy's backyard rather than wait until the war comes to his own. When he does return, it's his family's turn to defend him, in the courtroom and in the war zone of the American media. The drama is ratcheted up when Pantano discovers that a Pakistani website has marked him and his family as a target for extremists everywhere.

Warlord has a hero you can root for and care about; drama in the battlefield, the courtroom, and at home; and a triumphant (if a qualified one) ending. It's a tale of the gap between the soldiers' reality and the media and politicians at home undermining their efforts - a tale that couldn't be more relevant, instructive, and gripping in light of our war in Iraq.

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This is a great book!

Pantano's experiences reveal the horrible injustices being visited on our soldiers as a result of the "political correctness" movement in the U.S. That type of thinking demands that a U.S. at war MUST have war criminals and will seek any convenient target. While a very few of our own troops undoubtedly engage in illegal behavior during a war, Pantano's story points out the need of the "politically correct" crowd - and even those members of the military who lose their objectivity because of those influences - to find horrible crimes being committed (and those crimes need to be instigated by an officer) whether or not there is any basis in truth.

I purchased this book as soon as it came out and could not put it down. While I felt the "flashbacks" were far too frequent, the book was still a great read.

This should be required reading for all those folks who say they oppose the war but support our troops, as it exposes the results of such thinking.

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