Can't Give This War Away

Book Review: "Kaboom" by Matt Gallagher

"Kaboom" by Matt Gallagher

For the full review, check the Amazon link above.

I read (and reviewed) this book in 2010 when it first came out, and I was only moderately impressed - but I think I was too close to the subject matter at that time, having recently returned from Iraq myself, and so didn't give enough credit to the information that Matt Gallagher presents.

Reading it again in January, 2012, I found that "Kaboom" holds up impressively well about two years after its initial release; in fact, it feels even more current today, with the Iraq situation very much unsettled despite the US departure. Re-reading it this second time, I now see that this story's wry, funny and detailed style deftly explains one of the least understood aspects of the Iraq War.

I thought the first time I read it, and still think, that "Kaboom's" biggest value is the additional context it might add to a broader book like Tom Ricks' "The Gamble." Since Ricks covers a much broader scope, sometimes the human story gets a little lost. Gallagher gives an on-the-ground look at this often ignored or misunderstood aspect of the war.

Many of the more conventional 'combat' narratives are also well written, but all sort of run together in the growing library of Iraq War books. 

Gallagher takes a more unique approach and now stands apart, even more so with some distance and time. "Kaboom" is one of the rare books that's actually better with age. 

So Julian Assange thinks embedded reporters are compromised?

Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame said this to interviewer Michael Hastings, about Pulitzer Prize winner David Finkel, author of "The Good Soldiers." In the interview, he criticised Finkel for covering up/exusing the helicopter gunship video that Wikileaks released as "Collateral Damage."

"He had been embedded with ground troops in that area for some nine months on the ground. He had clearly developed too close an affinity for the people he was embedded with and came out essentially campaigning on their behalf after the release of the video."

"The Good Soldiers" is one of the best and most even-handed embedded accounts from the Iraq War, and while empathetic to the soldiers that Finkel was with, it was hardly one-sided to their exclusive benefit.

The sports site Deadspin posted a series of emails between Auburn University's PR people and a variety of TV and print journalists.

You want to see what "affinity" and "campaigning on their behalf" really looks like, go there:

http://deadspin.com/5855433/am-i-sick-are-we-all-sick-overwrought-things-the-media-wrote-to-auburns-pr-guy-during-cam-newtons-wild-2010-season

It's long, but very compelling in a behind-the-curtain way.

The "journalism" represented in the emails that the article collects are everything Michael Hastings avoided in The Operators. Everything written to Auburn's PA staff is designed to protect access at all costs, and dance slightly around any controversey. The reporters aren't burning the bridges - they are providing the bricks and mortars to Auburn's staff.

I have no opinion on whether it was fair or unfair to harange Cam Newton about incidents from his past, or scandals of the recent present. But it's clear that for most of the sports reporters that was much less important than protecting their access down the road. Of course, other than reputation, the stakes of sports journalism aren't very high at all.

Julian Assange's Rolling Stone reference to David Finkel, author of "The Good Soldiers," and another perspective

Michael Hastings, author of The Operators, interviewed Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame in this week's Rolling Stone.

It proves one thing - the more "notorious" a journalist, the better chance they'll have of landing interviews with higher-level sources. The fact that Hastings supposedly brought down Gen. Stanley McChrystal didn't stop Assange from talking with Hastings - maybe he thought Hastings would be a sympathetic ear, maybe he saw them both as enemies of the establishment. Doesn't really matter...Hastings was the one sitting across the table from him, not Brian Williams or Bill Keller.

Matt Gallagher, "Kaboom" author, on Michael Hastings' "The Operators."

Matt Gallagher, author of the well-done Iraq War civic lesson/memoir "Kaboom," has an insightful review of Michael Hastings' The Operators.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/17/the-operators-by-michael-hastings-review.html

Gallagher makes a especially accurate observation:

“The guilt that many felt for not serving was covered up by an uncritical attitude toward those who did,” writes Hastings, both about the disconnect at the highest levels of power and what he coins the media-military industrial complex. As embarrassing as some scenes are for McChrystal and his subordinates, it’s really some of Hastings’s comrades in journalism (I couldn’t help but think of Thomas Friedman’s infamous “Suck on this” clip) whom he most takes to task, lambasting their lack of critical thinking and hard questions in exchange for continued access to the movers and shakers of the war effort.

While Gallagher can't speak for all officers or soldiers, he's a representative voice of the younger generation of military leaders - too many of which have chosen to return to the civilian life that often doesn't understand them or care to, and leaving the military bereft of a lot of hard-won experience.

(The Thomas Friedman video clip is one of the most deluded, proven-wrong-by-history, screeds I've seen in quite some time).

Sebastian Junger on the recent Marine video

Sebastian Junger - who spent much of a year with soldiers in the Korengal of Afghanistan - weighs in on the Marine "urination" video, with sadness and disgust.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-all-guilty-of-dehumanizing-the-enemy/2012/01/13/gIQAtRduwP_story.html

It comes down to the choice between holding oneself to a high standard, or being content to wallow in the mud. What's disappointing about the action of the Marines is not the act itself - which Junger explains needs to be seen in the context of frustration and anger - but the malice aforethought.

The battle's over, the guys are dead, the fight's been won - you find out who you are in the quiet moments when you have time to think about what you're doing. I don't blame the Marines for their anger, but their lack of discipline and pride is something else. 

After 10 years of war, and recession, and cultural debasement, and blame without responsibility, and time spent typing anonymous screeds on internet message boards, it should be no surprise at all that America has reached the point where there's a "debate" over this kind of behavior. But at least the Marines in the video signed up to do the job - that's more than 99 percent of their defenders or critics ever did.