A Great Place to Have a War, by Joshua Kurlantzick

Laos is one of my favourite countries and I've been fortunate enough to have visited twice. Being a history buff, particularly American history, I was eager to read this forthcoming book from Joshua Kurlantzick, which I received as an uncorrected proof.

I was not disappointed. A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA is an excellent history of a tragic period of history. It traces the origins of the war and of the CIA very well, but adds in a personal dimension by telling the stories of four men who guided the war and the expansion of power undergone by the CIA during that period: Bill Lair, Tony Poe, Vang Pao, and William Sullivan.

I studied the Vietnam War in university and later learned bits and pieces during my extensive travels through Southeast Asia, and yet much of this book was new to me. Particularly in his descriptions of battles, his dealings with characters on a personal level, and his studies of declassified CIA documents, Kurlantzick has put forth a valuable and enthralling resource.

It is also, of course, highly disturbing. Anyone well-versed in the tragic history of the Vietnam War knows that atrocities occurred all the time, and a great deal of them by Americans. This book details some of those atrocities, including shocking facts:

US bombing of Laos would become so intense that it averaged one attack every eight minutes for nearly a decade.

and

In 1969 alone, the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than it did on Japan during all of World War II. By 1973, when the bombing campaign ended, America had launched over 580,000 bombinb runs in Laos.

Figures like that, and relating to the unexploded bombs that continued - and still continue - to kill innocent civilians are mindblowing. Yet they are also hard to fathom because they are so terrible. Kurlantzick, however, brings the war over in more personal terms that makes it easier to appreciate the awfulness of the U.S. actions in Laos.

He talks about how random the bombing could be, saying:

In the first months of 1970, some U.S. pilots routinely released ordnance over the kingdom without really locating any military target, simply because they could not find a target to hit in North Vietnam and they did not want to land back in Thailand still carrying their bombs.

He talks of villages wiped off the map and people gunned down in the streets for target practice. The coldness of the U.S. pilots is beyond belief. And yet these were not isolated, single events:

96 percent of the Laotian civilians surveyed had witnessed a bombing attack, and most had witnessed more than one.

He goes on to say that 60% of people had personally seen someone being killed by U.S. bombs.

Towards the end of the book Kurlantzick wraps up his story by showing how the U.S. simply withdrew, leaving Southeast Asia in a terrible mess, and how the CIA had grown during its Laos war from a spy outfit to a war machine. It is a sad read, but an important one in understanding this complicated and depressing modern world. 

iGuerilla, by John Sutherland

In this mostly ridiculous book, John Sutherland details the things in this world that he hates and thinks we should all fear. That includes Muslims, Arabs, and Communists, amongst others. He tells us why these things are awful and why they’re getting worse (well, except for Communism, which is responsible for all the new bad stuff).

Sutherland's iGuerilla: Reshaping the Face of War in the 21st Century careens back and forth attempting to explain how technology is making the world a scary place, while comparing everything to the Fall of Rome or the Rise of Hitler or Pearl Harbor. Anything he doesn’t like is immediately compared to Hitler, and there is nothing bad said about that which he loves – the great countries of America and Israel.

The book is full of stupid and annoying metaphors, always completely overblown and often mixed with other imagery. His language is sneering, violent, and sensationalistic:

They are barbarous and yet tech-savvy denizens of the modern world. They resemble a schizophrenic cross between Attila the Hun and Mark Zuckerburg. (sic)

He thinks in terms of pure Good and Evil, and thinks all change is bad. In his world, the Cold War was good because at least he knew where he stood. Now everything is awful and getting worse, and it’s Russia’s fault for not being tough enough. His logic is overly simplistic, ignoring anything inconvenient.

iGuerilla is researched from Wikipedia, a number of low-brow or right-wing media outlets, and a scattering of reputable sources just for appearances. He also seems to be relying upon his fanciful memory of history class. The author seems fearful about technology and yet also largely ignorant, using ancient terminology like “cyberspace” that no self-respecting author of a book about technology would ever utter. He is vague in describing the threats that our “enemies” pose, but they involve computers.

In the end, this whole awful mess of a book is designed to instil fear in its reader. Yet, like the godawful right-wing news channels Sutherland appears to enjoy so much, his book is shallow, misleading, and woefully lacking in subtlety. Just read this abominable passage and I’m sure you’ll agree this is not a book I could in good conscience recommend:

There’s no shortage of enemies determined to strike Americans. We will face our Arminius just as Rome did...

…We no longer have the luxury of focusing on the very visible state dragon. We now face a snake pit filled with a myriad of non-state threats and their shady rogue state sponsors…

…They can attack the homeland although they aren’t an existential threat – yet. They aren’t toting nukes or superbugs – yet.

Shadows in the Work of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Baraka

Today's review will not be posted here. You can read it here at Beatdom. It concerns a newly released book about Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Amiri Baraka, and their relation to shadow imagery in the post-war era.

Anything related to the Beat Generation will be published at Beatdom and not here.