Mission Gone Wrong Themes

United States Army General George S Patton famously said: “It is better to fight for something than live for nothing”. Fighting for ones ideals is a righteous and a dangerous game played by many around the world. Usually fighting for ones ideals or what one thinks is right is regarded as heroic and something to be aspired to. However, in many cases the longer and harder one fights for their principles the more they can become misguided and lose sight of their goals or their values. This is clearly seen in the article Mission Gone Wrong by Mattathias Schwartz, in this article Schwartz paints a picture of the United States’ War on Drugs asking the critical question: why are we still fighting this war? Showing how the US has lost sight of the

Specifically in chapters fifteen and in chapter twenty, Wolf Dreams tells the story of Nafa Walid a young Algerian man living in Algiers in the 1990’s. During this time a military dictatorship rules Algeria who at the time of the novel is clashing violently with radical Islamic militias in the country. Nafa is more or less untouched by this violence until his father is killed by police due to Nafa’s affiliation with a radical mosque. Nafa is galvanized by this death and vows to avenge his father: “Nafa felt he would go mad. He blamed himself for the tragic killing of his elderly father. Hunched in a corner, he banged his head, silently ruminating his grief and his hatred, entreating his friends to leave him alone….At the end of his tether he asked to join the Maquis. He had only one thing in his mind: revenge” (171). Here we see that Nafa has a clear goal , that he will avenge the death of his father by fighting the government. Many would agree that this is a just cause, much like the US governments’ efforts to eliminate the scourge of drugs from the US. However, much like the US war on drugs, Nafa’s struggle to avenge the death of his father too becomes misguided as he loses sight of his original goals and