Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill

I nearly read this book in 2014, only my reading schedule was tight and I put it aside for another time. After watching the documentary a few weeks back, I decided the time to read it was now, as I could not believe that the book would be anywhere near as sensationalist in style as that truly awful documentary.

I was disappointed to find that it was. Maybe I shouldn't have watched the Doco first with all it's blatant heart string pulling slow shots of children's little faces and weeping wives and grandmothers. Maybe my cynicism came to the book as a result of that tarnish. But there was no doubt what this author was about. Sensationalism in it's finest post Vietnam War petticoats.
Something happened to War Journalism during and after the Vietnam War. With the other large conflicts that preceded it, WW1 and WW2, civilians had blind faith in their soldiers. They were heroes and assets to their greater community, gracing print media and advertising material with their arms around the girl, or Coca Cola pouring down their throats.

They could do no wrong and did no wrong. They did not rape nor torture, and collateral damage was a myth.
Of course, none of that was true. But while soldiers in WWI & II were portrayed with positive bias, the Vietnam War brought about a new world order of negative bias. These modern armies became armies of 'baby killers'. Degraded and shamed by the media, they were murderers of women and children. Burning villages, slaughterers of the innocent.

There was murder. There is no doubt of that. Women and children killed and villages destroyed, but it has always been this way in war. It was this way in WWI and WWII. It was this way in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it will be this way forever more. This is the bloody reality of War. And while this journalist went about trying to expose covert US led thuggery, tried to prove that the American military and the JSOC arm were all bloodthirsty baby killers, to me all he really managed to expose was his own ignorance of War.

Isn't it time that journalists got passed the exhaustive finger pointing. This need to sensationalise and dramatise for the benefit of making a name for themselves amoung the bleeding hearts?
I did not think this book revealed any new moot points about American led covert global operations. The author worked the usual angles of America the thug. America the war monger. Killing with expedience and without remorse. Baby killers.
Vietnam's Search and Destroy becomes the Middle East's Capture or Kill.
So easy to put down an easy target like the US, when one does not realise they are only one piece of a broader puzzle.
America do not go these things alone. Why do journalists like these ignore that fact? What conflict or offensive has America ever gone into that was not supported by another country in some way or boosted by Coalition SOF?

This book did it's job. It exposed some catastrophic failures by professional soldiers. To err is human. And in many cases, those errors have disappointing outcomes. That will always be revealed when you put War under the microscope.

The world is full of readers who will not sense the exaggerated stylings of its author, but since I am not a bleeding heart, I believe less than half of what he is saying.  I know when a journalist who was not there and does not know, and clearly did not heed any opportunity to expunge JSOC of any sin (imagined or not), is trying to lead me around by the nose.

2/5

The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen

While some may say that Kilcullen's theories on the Accidental Guerrilla are not revolutionary, I believe that to the date of the book being published they, in a manner of ways, were.
In fact the author himself says "The ideas are not new; implementing them effectively would be". And that is what this book is all about.
Implementing conceptual frameworks that quantify best practise in the field of Accidental Guerrilla syndrome (ad hoc fighters with little interest in Jihad motivations) and in counter insurgency.
Not an easy thing to do, I expect, in an unstable environment torn apart already by ethno sectarian violence and war. Where these very counter insurgency best practice approaches revolve around an enemy which is constantly adapting, evolving and applying pressure.

His words on Western led globalisation and its hand in straining resentment amoung less wealthy cultures is of particular interest, or should be of particular interest to anyone observing the shifting tides of allegiance and disunity in the Middle East.
He points out that relative deprivation can be a fire in the tinder box of anti Western sentiment. That we have so much and they have so little, and that they want what we have and we won't give it to them, makes us 'Accidental Supremacists' (my term not his) of a sort. A source of resentment. We think we are supremely better because we are spoilt and nobody likes a spoilt brat with an attitude of intolerance towards lessors, do they?
And this is why Vietnam War style Psych Wars have been replaced by the 'winning hearts and minds' ethos instead. Give a kid a Football, don't give a kid a leaflet.

Protecting the population is key to the hearts and minds ethos.
It is also the key to successful counter insurgency. But the downside to that, is that this means bringing war to where the people are concentrated, as David Kilcullen himself states; "You win or lose it a village at a time, and you secure villages and gain access to the people by controlling valleys, roads, and heights that overlook them, in order of that priority."
Hard to keep local populations clear of collateral dangers when the fight is in their backyards.

Western led Military Forces must also help to connect that local population to the government and not to the military.
It is all very complex and unlike any war we have fought before. Or tried to fight before.
There is a great quote in the book by Sir Olaf Caroe that speaks to that complexity. "Unlike other wars, Afghan wars become serious only when they are over"
That is something I think we can all see, no-one more so than those on the ground trying to micro manage population protection in the face of looming troop withdrawals.

According to Kilcullen and his peers, hiring hundreds of local security and local peoples to help build roads and other infrastructure projects plays a crucial role in protecting populations. Hire local people, and those people are more likely to defend their projects against outside insurgents. Or if not defend, at least pass information on to those who can, Western led Military Forces and their representatives.
I cannot help but wonder however, whether hiring hundreds of 'locals' indiscriminately for local security is one of the reasons why there is an increase in local security turning on soldiers and western contractors and gunning them down. But, I suppose there will always be those kinds of dangers when dealing with an enemy that must resort to unethical or unorthodox methods to fight back.

I was surprised to learn in this book that the counter insurgency efforts in the South of Afghanistan have become, in many ways, counter narcotic in nature more so than anything else. I did not know that.

The book itself is interspersed with the author's own field notes, which was good and he mixed in a few of his combat experiences also.
He goes into detail regarding 'the Surge' in Iraq and expounds upon those informed approaches and tactics that helped him contribute to the Surge strategy.

In all, this is an excellent book in my opinion. It is the only one of its sort that goes into this specialised kind of detail on counter insurgency and the Accidental Guerrilla.

5/5

NB* I wrote this review a couple years back and, like many of my reviews, am only now moving it to my blog.