Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan’

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Summer One-liners

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Since I haven’t taken the time to write even brief reviews of the books I’ve read over the last several months,  here’s a list of them in roughly the order they were read.  As, or if, reviews are added, they will link from this page.

Shut Up, I’m Talking – Gregory Levey.   Very funny memoir by a Canadian writer in New York who ends up working briefly as a speech-writer for the Prime Minister of Israel.

The Age of American Unreason – Susan Jacoby.  Sobering look at anti-rationalism in America over the last four decades and its ill effects on our nation.

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid – Jimmy Carter.  June book club selection.  President Carter’s version of the history of the Israeli-Palestine conflict.  Not widely regarded as completely accurate, disturbing nonetheless.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East – Sandy Tolan.  Fascinating story about two families and one house in Israel/Palestine.  Recommended by a friend at work in Tel Aviv.

Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds – Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini.  Survey of many of the ways we fool ourselves.  Other than some confusing editing in one section, a very interesting look at cognitive science’s understanding of our mental blind spots.

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts – Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.   Mostly about confirmation bias, covering the gamut of ways we fool ourselves through self-justification.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time – Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin. July book club selection.  Poorly written, but very inspirational example of the power of a single human.

Why Evolution Is True – Jerry A. Coyne.  Lucid overview of evolution and natural selection, with very clear explanations of all the types of evidence for both.  Minimal (compared to Prothero) but strong criticisms of creationism.

Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction – Susan Blackmore.  My re-entry into trying to understand consciousness, again.  Accurately sub-titled, good overview with an intriguing nod to Buddhist meditation as a means of understanding.

Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness – Daniel C. Dennett.  Analysis of the main philosophical distractions keeping us from moving forward toward understanding consciousness.

Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance–and Why They Fall – Amy Chua.  Given, via her thesis, that tolerance supported the rise of all hyperpowers and intolerance contributed to their declines, Chua analyzes how this applies to the USA now.  Nice historical review of the power and place of previous hyperpowers too.

Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali.   Amazing story of her journey, and disturbing insight into civil war in Somalia and the manifestations of Islam in eastern Africa.

Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World – Dennis Ross.   August book club selection.  Good review of recent examples of good and bad statecraft, prescriptive lists for successful negotiating and mediating, and analysis of what USA needs to do next in regards to foreign policy actions.

The Mind of the Market: How Biology and Psychology Shape Our Economic Lives – Michael Shermer.   Great refutation of the standard homo economicus explanation.  Goes far beyond just describing our economic behavior.  Shermer would have been better served by a grander, less marketing-driven title.

Buddhism without Beliefs – Stephen Batchelor.  Recommended by Susan Blackmore.  Sincere meditations on Buddhist meditation without religious trappings/distractions.

Zen without Zen Masters – Camden Benares.  Silly book I’ve had for years.  No content or guidance.    May re-read after another twenty years.

Buddhism Plain and Simple – Steve Hagen.  More detailed than Batchelor (but with less impact on me), also free of religious distractions, focuses on awareness.

Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses – Thomas W. Clark.  Nice introduction to many of the aspects of naturalism.  There is no such thing as contra-causal free will.

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The Accidental Guerrilla

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

I had seen some pretty high-power reviews of David Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One start popping up, then a co-worker who’s acknowledged in the book’s Acknowledgements lent me her copy. Very, very interesting.  For starters, this is a good description of the difference between counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.  Kilcullen takes great pains throughout the book to make sure the reader understands and remembers why these two types of activities are different and how both their successful tactics and strategies differ from one another.

Kilcullen begins the book with a very thorough description of the accidental guerrilla.  In a nutshell, an accidental guerrilla is someone who falls into violent terrorist or insurgent ways due mainly to his economic, sociological, political and religious environments.  I think one of Kilcullen’s main points is that proper counterinsurgency actions both reduce the number of existing accidental guerrillas and reduce the likelihood of the creation of future accidental guerrillas,  hus increasing security.

Chapter Two covers the author’s experiences with counterinsurgency actions in Afghanistan from 2006-2008.  He contrasts them with the at-times inappropriate and insurgency-causing counterterrorism actions taken by the West (or at least, the part of the West fighting in Afghanistan).  Chapter Three covers part of the Surge in Iraq in 2007; again describing the effectiveness of counterinsurgency actions.  Both of these chapters are very detailed and include very thorough references.  Kilcullen was operating at a level in both countries which allowed him an effective balance between on the ground experience and access to high-level military and diplomatic leaders.  Because of this, his observations, analyses, criticisms and prognostications may be more likely to be accurate.  Chapter Four surveys insurgencies and counterinsurgency actions in smaller regions from Europe to Indonesia.  Both Chapter Five and the Conclusion discuss, again in great and interesting detail, how to move from counterterrorism to counterinsurgency actions, when and where needed.

The depth of The Accidental Guerrilla is in no way represented by this brief review.  The analysis work that Kilcullen has done on the causes of insurgency, the differences between insurgent and terrorist actions, the potential and real undesirable effects of counterterrorism actions against insurgents, and the way to move military, political and diplomatic actions towards counterinsurgency when needed is very detailed, documented well in the text and presented well to the reader. Reading this book and thinking about its implications both in the areas Kilcullen described and here in Mexico was like taking a very intense university course, in that the material was thorough, well-prepared and well-presented.

For indepth reviews, see  The NY Times, thearmchairgeneral.com, The Economist (below a review of Ricks’ The Gamble), Bacevich’s criticism and Kilcullen’s response.

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The Looming Tower

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

I picked up a copy of Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage) this weekend in Santa Fe.  Started reading it just to fill in a few minutes, then couldn’t stop reading it.  Apologies to all those who’s earlier recommendations of this book to me went unheeded until now.  You were all correct.  The Looming Tower is an amazing, revolting, fascinating and terrifying recounting of the life of Osama bin Laden, the history of al-Qaeda, the consequences of the broader Middle East Conflict and the tragically inefficient efforts of the U.S. intelligence community.

For me, aside from the detailed explanations of exactly how the repeated lack of inter-agency cooperation made the U.S. blind to first bin Laden, then to al-Qaeda, then to their plans, the main benefit of the book was gained from understanding part of the life of bin Laden.  To see how he started off in life, where he went, how he reacted to events in his life, who he listened to, how he changed and how he changed al-Qaeda was amazing.  The book would have been great in that sense even if it had stopped prior to 9/11.

Other than some Truthers who claim the USG destroyed the World Trade Center, the book is very favorably reviewed.   I, too, highly recommend it for anyone looking for an accessible explanation of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

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The Dust of Empire

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

For months, I have been scavanging the shelves of my area’s largest used book store, trying to find a copy of Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia.  I finally broke down and ordered a new copy (pre-reading thanks to Dan C. and Meghan B. for the ringing endorsements).  During my last search though, I found Karl E. Meyer’s The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in The Asian Heartland.  Turns out, this was a great book to read right after the Genghis Khan title (see previous entry).  Meyer and his wife Shareen Blair Brysac  also authored the larger, more detailed Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (which I’ll eventually read, to complement The Great Game), but Dust was written to provide an introductory survey of the histories of the five Central Asian republics, the Caspian and the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Russia.

Meyer begins with a review of the British Empire’s method of rule, contrasted against American foreign policy trends.  In the prologue, he states that “the thesis of this book is that the moral and diplomatic dilemmas confronting Washington today differ in degree but not in kind from those that confronted Britain before World War I (emphasis added).“  He then spends a chapter on each of the countries/regions listed above, beginning though with Russia and the “long talons of memory.”  Meyer closes the book (in the winter of 2002 I think), with his thoughts on the direction that America should take, post 9/11.  He is a big fan of NATO and consensus-building, and makes a fairly strong argument (that looks much stronger in retrospect) regarding the American responsibility to take actions with consideration of other countries.

Whether or not one agrees with Meyer’s conclusions, I think he meets his objective of introducing the unconcerned American reader to the historical drama, tragedy and importance of these countries.  Also, his references to other works on the countries, regions and issues are extensive and useful.  If I was re-ordering the reading sequence of my books, I would place this one a little earlier in the program.

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Taliban

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

Several times in Descent into Chaos, Amhed Rashid made reference to his first work on the Taliban and how he would not repeat that story in Descent. So, having covered 2001 through early 2008 in Descent, I went back to learn more about the Taliban from the beginning (approximately 1994).  Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia covers the historical/political backdrop to the genesis of the Taliban, their history through mid-1999, their place in and affect on Islam, and the world’s reaction to them (the New Great Game).  It also has some great reference tools in the appendices.

Rashid’s style is easy to follow and he does not appear to editorialize too much.  He tries to credit and reference as much as he can, but a lot of his data comes from personal meetings with people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not publicly published documents.

As Rashid ends Taliban, Musharraf has not yet been put into power through a military coup in Pakistan, Al Qaeda has not yet launched their 9/11 suicide attacks in the U.S.  and Ahmad Shah Masud has not yet been assassinated in his tent by Al Qaeda suicide bombers posing as journalists.  Thinking about these acts and the actions (and non-actions) of the world in response to them made it sad reading his last chapter on the future of Afghanistan.

I’m planning on reading a few books about the USA/Mexico border next; but when I return to my research on Afghanistan, I want to learn more about the creation of Pakistan.  The three books I’ve just read about Afghanistan’s modern history all demonize Pakistan.   Looks like to understand Afghanistan better, I’m going to need to understand Pakistan too.  Reading suggestions are welcome.

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