Book Review: The Good Soldiers, David Finkel

The Good Soldiers by David Finkel

The crack of thunder woke me early this morning. The lighting was so close that I saw its flash through my closed eyelids. It woke me up, and I felt just like how an animal feels during a thunderstorm; I was scared. My heart was racing, my breath was short and quick.

I took some deep breaths and I was able to fall back asleep. When I woke up later that morning, I was thinking about The Good Soldiers. I thought that the way I felt, waking up to thunder, might be how those soldiers feel leaving their compounds (their FOB—forward operating base). Of course, I know that my waking-up-to-bad-weather fright paled in comparison to their stays in Fedaliyah, Iraq. Nonetheless, I felt that I had gotten a taste of the ubiquitous fear and anxiety that invades their subconscious during and after their service. A life of IEDs, EFPs, mortars, and street patrols through dicey neighborhoods where American troops are not looked on favorably.

And, as Finkel captures, one of the things that makes service during the surge so scary is that it’s all chance; your fate is out of your hands. Every time, a soldier hops in a Humvee (just to travel from one point to the next—not necessarily to go on an aggressive mission after insurgents) they are relinquishing control of their life and their limbs. They are at the mercy of the road and the EFPs that may or may not be buried underneath it. These cheap, gruesome weapons account for most of the deaths in Iraq. Detonated by a frustratingly-invisible enemy, they blow through the bottom of Humvees and spray shrapnel throughout its interior.

The Good Soldiers, however, is about more than just the paranoia and fear of serving in Iraq during the surge. As its title suggests, it’s about the soldiers, young and middle-aged (but mostly way young--my age). Their lives and their brotherhood during service. It just so happens that serving in Iraq during the surge is a pretty damn scary, so much of Finkel’s writing captures this fear and frustrating helplessness.

Finkel captures their fear and frustration with poignancy. He writes with an astounding intimacy. There are a couple of quotes I’ve written down below that I feel capture this sad proximity to the soldiers; he articulates their struggles astoundingly well, capturing their complex war-stretched emotions with an intimacy and a truthfulness as though he is one of them. It’s pretty astounding.

And as his writing is soaked with a powerful closeness, it is also structured in a clever and striking way. The first few pages of the book, are enough to serve as an example: this was before, the soldiers hadn’t yet, he would say it…"Except now, on April 6, 2007, at 1:00 a.m., as someone banged on his door, waking him up, he said something different. ‘What the fuck’ he said, opening his eyes."

The comparison to The Things They Carried is apt (although FSG’s is the author of this flattering comparison). Finkel writes with the same intensity as O’Brien, and it loyally captures (at least I think), with a difficult intimacy and cleverness, these good soldiers lives.

This book was especially powerful for me because it’s the first book on war where my peers are the ones fighting. 19, 20, 21, 22 year olds just like me. Books and films about Vietnam or World War II seem so far removed from my life. I’m able to understand the morals and feel the emotions of these soldiers—Charlie Sheen in Platoon, Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket—but they still end up feeling a bit distant—removed form my life. But as I read about the good soldiers, and the difficult passages of young men like me dying in gruesome ways (19-year olds burning alive in cars, their bodies full of shrapnel) it felt more realistic, more disturbingly tangible and powerful.

My one caveat about the book would be that it’s told almost purely from the soldier’s perspective. As a result, there are a lot of generalizations, and the macro-level details of the conflict aren’t captured. Finkel makes it clear that his intention is to capture the soldiers perspectives—which is different from what think tank scholars and talking heads focus on. Nonetheless, there’s little info on Muqtada al-Sadr or the Jaish al-Mahdi. Nor is there any information on West Baghdad, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the Sons of Iraq. So if you’re looking to understand who the they are that Finkel refers to, or what motivates insurgent attacks (or most interestingly, why the Muqtada’s cease-fire declaration resonates) then this book won’t be of much help. But Finkel’s goal is to capture the lives of these young, good soldiers, and this he does with a remarkable poise and weight that their service deserves.

Small rocky islands with disproportionate foreign policy impacts

I just got back from a vacation in Argentina/Uruguay. On the flight down to Buenos Aires, my dad, brother and I started talking about the Falklands War. This war lasted for two and a half months in 1982, and began when junta-led Argentina invaded the British-held Falkland Islands. The war was more of a sign of Argentine instability than anything else. Argentina was experiencing a deep economic crisis, and the military dictators leading the country were facing growing resistance to their rule. So the idea to grasp a few rocky islands off their coast was an attempt to distract the Argentine people from their faltering rule and, instead, inspire patriotism and national unity. Needless to say, it didn't end well for Argentina. More than 600 Argentine soldiers died, and the military junta was completely discredited, leading to transition to democratic rule.

What struck me about this brief conflict, was that as my Dad says, "it was over a bunch of rocky, miserable islands where only a handful of sheep herders kick around." And yet, it was mentioned in nearly every IR class I took in college (it's generally used as an example of domestic politics spurring intrastate war), and the conflict had large national affects on the two states that briefly fought over these islands.

In Buenos Aires, I was shocked by the number of Malvinas War (Spanish for Falklands) signs and monuments I saw. The two photos above were taken at B.A.'s Plaza del Mayo where veterans of the Malvinas protested for greater government compensation. In Britain, the Falklands War gave Thatcher a significant popularity boost at home. Patriotism abound, her approval rating nearly doubled (source via wikipedia) following Britain's victory. Some argue that Britain's victory propelled Thatcher and the Conservative Party to victory in the 1983 election.

So, I got thinking, what are some other tiny islands that have had a disproportionate affect on foreign policy?

And so, here are some other small islands whose mention is most often coupled/followed with the logical question, "where the hell is that?"

Palau

The South Pacific islands of Palau made international news when they agreed to take 17 Uighurs from Guantanamo Bay. The US pledged to give the nation of 258 tiny islands, $200 million in long term aid. More importantly for the US, these tiny tropical islands helped the US take its first step toward closing Guantanamo Bay. Although Barack Obama's had to revise this promise, Palau--an exotic dot on the map--was able to help the US take its first, strange strange step towards filling its promise and restoring its values. And I still have to look it up on Wikipedia because I can never remember its name.

Nauru

You think Palau's small? Ha! Nauru is half its size. What it lacks in size, it makes up for ininteresting history. During the 1960s and 1970s it boasted the highest per capita income of any sovereign state (wikipedia) as a result of its phosphate reserves (note: the island is a big phosphate rock). With its phosphate reserves having been spent for years, it recently received some much needed money and made international news when it became the 4th nation in the world to recognize Abkhazia's sovereignty from Georgia. This small island--approximately 1/3 the size of Manhattan--followed Palau's lead in taking a decisive stand on a sensitive international issue. In the larger scope of things, Nauru's recognition of Abkhazia's existence is meaningless. But, at the very least, it briefly drew attention back to the still-delicate Russia-Georgia conflict and the larger issues that surround it. Then again, maybe Nauru really was impressed by Abkhazia's awesome size: it's 20 times bigger than Nauru.

(to be continued / updated)

Cape Verde = "African Success Story"

Sao Tome and Principe = uninhabited island until the Portuguese...future in oil? (Ghazvinian)

South Pacific in WW2

Carribean in age of exploration--a battleground for colonial supremacy

Copehenhagen Cynicism

The Copenhagen climate talks, like Health Care reform, seem so detailed and nuanced that a casual reading still leaves a lot unclear. In other words, my head spins a bit when I think too much about it.

This is what I understand; There are two big obstacles: compensation and enforcement. First, enforcement. Developing nations (both poor African/Asian nations and growing behomeths, like China and India) want compensation from developed nations. Many of these nations will feel the adverse affects of climate change much more than Western nations. For instance, Bangladesh and the Netherlands are both low-lying nations, nearly below sea-level. But those smart, well-to-do Dutchmen and Dutchwomen have state-of-the-art dykes which will help them cope with rising ocean levels, while Bangladeshis do not. Similarly many African nations will be hit hard by the dry rivers and more frequent droughts that climate change will cause, while Westerners will just have to pay a few cents more on food products at the supermarket. Famine is thankfully not an issue here.

Additionally, developing nations don't want to hinder their growth by agreeing to emissions caps. Which makes sense; the US and Europe were allowed to industrialize and grow to the economic powerhouses they are today (all the while massively polluting the world) without any stringent emissions caps, so why should developing nations have to? And the responsibility of poor, developing nations is to improve the quality of life of their citizens--to give them jobs and cars--not to shackle themselves to any agreements that Western nations never had while they were industrializing. So developed nations should compensate the developing world, it's just a question of how and how much.

Secondly, enforcement is an issue. The only thing tougher than agreeing to emissions caps is actually living up to them. The US or China can boast they'll cut carbon emissions by X%, but there's currently no way to see that they meet their goals. And even if they don't meet their goals, there's not a whole lot the rest of the world can do. The rest of the world can yell at them a bunch and tax their products, but that's not that scary.

So, I'm pretty pessimistic about any major agreements happening in Copenhagen. As Bruce Bueno de Mesquita writes, it's extremely difficult for 170+ disparate nations to agree to anything--even if the health of our planet is at stake. Either the problem will have to become drastically bigger--to the point where we're standing on the cliff's edge--or clean energy will have to become cheaper and more accessible. In other words, the costs of change will have to go down or the felt impact--the fire's breath on our necks--will have to become impossible to ignore. I'm all for multilateralism, but sadly I think that chaos or luxury are the most likely ways to jolt disparate interests into alignment.

What's going on...

Last Thursday night, Dadis Camara, military leader and de facto ruler of Guinea was ambushed and shot in an assassination attempt.

Although junta leaders have stressed that Camara's injuries are not serious, he was flown to Morocco. As junta officials have released more information about the assassination attempt, the situation seems increasingly precarious. Camara is apparently recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, which knocked a splinter of bone into his brain. Sounds serious. I haven't heard of too many non-serious gunshot-wounds-to-the-head-with-bone-splinters-in-the-brain injuries, but then again I haven't heard of any such injury. Junta officials say Camara is stable and that he is recovering well. But who really knows. I guess it's not much of a surprise that the military would try to downplay this assassination attempt and occlude details. Releasing more information might destablize an already extremely unstable situation. Guinea's junta leaders have, however, arrested a man suspected in the attempted assasination.

What's more, on Friday BBC's Africa Today podcast said that the top 3 CNDD officials (the National Council for Democracy and Development, the junta which Camara heads) were out of the country. In the last few days, however, General Sekouba Konate, Camara's second-in-command, has apparently returned from Lebanon where he was last week.

I don't fully grasp the details of this. From just a superficial reading of the events I can conclude the obvious: there is a serious crisis at hand. The Camara junta may be losing control, and a serious fight (between factions of the military?) for rule of the nation may be under way. But that's just a guess. What is more certain, however, is that the prospects of this upcoming January's presidential elections took a serious blow. Camara's post-coup vow (from last December) to "return to the barracks" after these elections now seems unlikely. Camara (or his assassin-successors) will now view elections as to risky to their tenuous hold on seized power.

The Hostage Industry

Odd way to describe it, but New America Foundation fellow, Nicholas Schmindle's article on global kidnapping-and-ransom was an enjoyable read. Kidnapping-and-ransom, known in the biz as K&R, is one of the few industries booming in the tough economic times. While the price of oil may fluctuate, rich oil men seem to be reliably valuable commodities that bring plump returns. As a result, K&R insurance plans have become more ubiquitous for foreign companies operating in less stable nations, and K&R insurance premiums continue to rise. Strange.

Schmindle really captures how much of a business K&R. Here are some quotes that I liked:

If there’s any consolation to being abducted in Nigeria, it’s that kidnappers there seldom get violent. It’s purely business. “Someone’s going to pay them something; that they know,” Mark Courtney, a South African kidnapping-and-ransom consultant, recently told me. K.& R. consultants almost never get on the phone and haggle with kidnappers. Their expertise is devising the “target settlement figure,” taking into account numerous factors. Is the victim carrying anything that identifies him as working for a specific company? Are the kidnappers experienced? What was the amount of the previous ransoms paid in that city or state? “You go by what you know to be the going rate in that particular region,” Chase, of AKE, said.

The kidnapping-and-ransom-insurance industry thrives in a morally ambiguous space. But what is the alternative? “Fire insurance has been known to stimulate arson, and life-insurance policies have led to quite a few homicides, too,”

Three years ago, De Don graduated from college with a degree in political science. He considered “The Prince” his favorite book. While at school, he joined a campus gang known as the Greenlanders. When he couldn’t find work after graduation, he tapped into the Greenlanders’ alumni network and asked for help. Soon he was living in the creeks with fellow Greenlanders, part of a kidnapping syndicate.

AIDS and troop buildups (Depressing things)

SA's Youth Communist League issues a statement calling Mbeki accountable for SA's AIDS "debacle". Verashni Pillay offers a smart response on why stating the obvious isn't helpful.

As much as I grapple with the decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, I find my feelings on the decision unresolved. Were I president (and, in this case, put in the same unenviable situation as Obama), I believe I would have made a similar decision. There are just so many unknowns and sending a short-term surge of troops seems like the easiest and safest option (amongst a list of extremely tough and dangerous options).

But I'm still unresolved. (Like I was last year around this time).

There's no question that if the US pulled out, the short-term risks would be greater: Karzai's government would likely fall to Taliban forces and al-Qaeda would likely have a sanctuary (although it's perhaps possible that moderate strands of the Taliban would come to power and would be fed up with the Western intervention that al-Qaeda brings). What's more nuclear-armed Pakistan's security might be put in real danger, which is most terrifying.

But perhaps this short short term (18 month) action provokes greater long term problems. This article certainly provoked these thoughts for me.

Perhaps life in war time makes us myopic. Perhaps the troop build up is counter-productive and causes more resentment against the US. Perhaps we are putting a band-aid on a wound; committing the US to chase al-Qaeda to any weak/failed state it hides in while hurting our economy, our soldiers, our long-term national defense, and our moral bearing.

While I agree with Obama's tough decision, I hope that he isn't loosing sight of his long-term US foreign policy goals: not committing too many troops to one part of the world (it's dangerous in case of other attacks) and not relying too much on hard power over soft power. I don't doubt though that he's considered my above anxieties and many more.