Category Archives: Reviews

The Righteous Mind

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Reviewed by Kathy London

This book by Jonathan Haidt is sub-titled “Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion”. This strikes me as one of the most important social topics today. I found the book to be enjoyable and accessible. Haidt’s style is conversational, with little jargon. I got a real sense of human beings, not just data. If you find your blood pressure rising at some points, you’ll be happy to know the book lays out the evidence in detail and is thoroughly footnoted so you can do your own evaluation.

I’ve often listened to pundits on cable-TV ask “why?” Why is the political opposition so hypocritical, so biased, so wrong? Haidt argues that disagreements do not reflect good and evil – the “other side” is composed of good people with something important to say. He hopes to give Americans a new way to think about politics and religion, to drain the anger and make conversations more civil, and more fun. I think this is important, so this article is both a book report and a review.

I suggest you read the introduction, at least the “What Lies Ahead” portion. While Haidt draws heavily on science, his message can be found in ancient texts: Whether an 8th Century Zen Master Sen-ts’an: “If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against”; or a more familiar quote: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3-5.

Haidt draws on everything from philosophers to bumper stickers to illustrate his points, but the book’s core is data-driven. He says that hypotheses are cheap; theories are useful when tested, supported, and corrected. (You can participate in the research at the YourMorals web site.) My own style tends to be analytical, so I appreciate this approach. I enjoyed reading the many psychology experiments, though if you don’t need to be convinced of a particular point you could skim them. Each chapter ends with an “In Sum” section. You might want to read the chapter summary first, and then decide where you want to read carefully. You may even want to read the “Conclusion” chapter first, so you’ll know where to watch for surprises.

A lot of animal analogies are used in the book. One favorite says we are each a passenger riding on an elephant: the elephant is our intuitive reactions and the rider offers post hoc rationalizations. The title of the second chapter says it more simply: “The Intuitive Dog and Its Rational Tail”. This tail does not wag the dog.

On religion, Haidt shows how our obsession with righteousness is the normal human condition. It has produced large cooperative groups that kinship would not justify. Religion is not just “believing” but also “doing” and “belonging”. He thinks the “New Atheists” miss the point that religion has helped people create communities with shared morals that reduce violence and cruelty.

Haidt describes “moral capital” as an “interlocking set of values, virtues, norms…and institutions” that mesh with human psychology and “enable a community to regulate selfishness and make cooperation possible”. Everyone understands economic capital – the things we need (money, tools, and workers) to produce goods and services. Moral capital is also needed for successful individuals, companies, and communities. Conservatives understand this better than liberals and detect threats to moral capital that liberals do not see.

The core of the book is the Six Moral Foundations. Think of them as analogous to taste receptors in your tongue. Everyone has the same taste receptors, but we don’t all like the same foods. Similarly, everyone has six “moral receptors”. But we don’t all rely on them to the same extent or in the same way. Here, I think, is Haidt’s explanation for why people are “hypocritical”. What triggers the foundations, and to what intensity, is complex and intuitive.

Care: People despise suffering and cruelty. We want to help the under-dog and the victim. This foundation is so strong, we even apply it non-human things, such as baby animals.

Fairness: People have a deep, intuitive sense of karma; rewards and punishments should be proportional to actions. We will punish a cheater, even if it means harming ourselves. (I found the studies demonstrating this to be especially interesting.)

Loyalty: People trust and reward those on their team, whether the team is a small group or a nation. Traitors are viewed as worse than enemies.

Authority: People respect hierarchy. Authority must take on responsibility for order and justice in society. We should fulfill the obligations of our place within the group. This sort of awareness is even encoded in some languages that have different verb-forms for polite and familiar speech.

Sanctity: People know that some things are noble and pure, others are degrading and base. Sacred values, including symbols and ideas, bind groups together. This can be expressed through traditional religion, but also through other concerns, such as for the environment.

Liberty: People hate bullies. Powerful elites must know their limits and authorities must earn trust. We are vigilant against signs of tyranny and will band together against illegitimate restraints.

People who identify as conservative, liberal, or libertarian share these foundations, but rely on them to different extents. This is where the book begins to feel important and not simply interesting.

Libertarians are most sensitive to Liberty, to the extent that they call on the other foundations very little. But markets really are miraculous. They bring supply, demand, and ingenuity together, and the rest of us should listen.

Haidt says he is a liberal, so he spends time analyzing where liberals go wrong. Liberals are most sensitive to Care, Liberty, and Fairness, but willing to trade fairness to protect victims. In their zeal to help victims, liberals often push for changes that weaken groups and actually hurt the people they are trying to help. Yet, liberals have some good points. They are experts in Care, and see the harm done to individuals before conservatives do. Some big problems really can be solved by government regulation.

Conservatives use all six foundations, which Haidt says gives them a political advantage, makes them more numerous and more likely to understand others. They rely more on Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity than liberals. While they are willing to trade care of individuals for other foundation values, they protect communities we all need to thrive.

Liberals and conservatives are more akin to yin and yang than good and evil. We need both perspectives, not just to be fair, but to create a successful country. To understand others, Haidt says you must consider all six Moral Foundations and which foundations relate to a controversy.

Haidt discusses where Americans have gone wrong in political life and how to address the issues. (Haidt presents more on this topic, including disagreements with his views on the CivilPoltics web site.)

Social relationships are necessary for people with differing foundations to trust and listen to each other. Haidt shows how, since the 1960s, Americans have been losing their social relationships across liberal/conservative groups. Political parties have become more purely liberal or conservative. Technology and lifestyle changes have been isolating: if you want to find people who voted for Obama, go to Whole Foods. If you want to find people who voted for McCain, go to Cracker Barrel. This kind of alignment of politics with seemingly unrelated views has always puzzled me. Haidt shows why this is so.

Friendly relations, commonality, and trust make it easier for people to listen to each other. Establish bonds with people before you try to convince them your position is right. You might both see the issue in a new light. Conversations might become more respectful and more constructive.

Haidt offers us this advice: “If you really want to open your mind, open your heart first.”

Blood Stripes

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This is the best book I’ve read for some time. The descriptions of experiences of four non-commissioned officers in the Iraq war were informative and deeply emotional for me. I’ve read some of the Amazon reviews. There were a few complaints about writing style, but I don’t agree. The writing engaged me and made me feel connected to the experiences of the warriors described in the book.

The first learning experience for me was the origin of the title, and I was confused until I searched “Blood Stripes” and found a photo on Wikipedia. The “Blood Stripe” is a red stripe (varying in width, depending on rank) that runs down the outer leg of the dress uniform of noncommissioned and commissioned officers of the Marines. The “Blood Stripe” is described as being a tribute to the unusually high casualty rate of Marine noncommissioned officers and officers during the Battle of Chapultepec in Mexico in 1847.

The learning certainly didn’t stop with descriptions of Marine uniforms. The “Author’s Notes” tells me that “…Iraq is an Arabic word, (and) the English equivalent has no proper pronunciation: the closest would be ‘eee-rock’.” The word derives from the Arabic urug, which means “root.” Adding a letter from the Arabic alphabet arrives at the translation “Root of All.”

Much of the book is about the warrior culture of the Marines, and the first chapter is titled, “Go Tell the Spartans.” The quote immediately after that title is “I think the Army is much more connected to society than the Marines are. The Marines are extremists.” Recruiters for other military services promise education benefits, the possibility of world travel, and excellent retirement benefits for those who stay long enough. The Marines were and are promised intense physical training that many will not be strong enough or have enough stamina to withstand. They are promised that if they could make it through training they are likely to have multiple deployments to live in primitive and very uncomfortable places where other people were trying to kill them. The book “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield about the Spartans who all died together at Thermopylae is described as the unofficial Marine Bible. Marines are promised they will be expected to fight and die together like the Spartans. The Marines described in the book dealt with the risk of death by considering that they already knew they were going to die, although the men did worry about masculinity-ending injuries. The only time fear seemed to be prevalent was when the time was approaching for their departure.

Marines acknowledged that they understood they were joining to learn how to kill legally, and craved the “thrill of battle.” Winston Churchill was quoted as saying, “There is nothing quite as exhilarating as being shot at and missed.” Mostly they were inspired by the brotherhood of soldiers fighting beside one another. That inspired their “gung-ho” attitude, despite the fact that phrase originated with a Chinese expression that means “all together.” Some readers would undoubtedly be put off by descriptions of satisfaction from seeing the “pink mist” created when a bullet passes through the body of an enemy.

There is an interesting footnote that the Continental Congress ordered Samuel Nicholas to organize two battalions of Marines on November 10, 1775. Nicholas began his recruiting in Philadelphia’s Tun Tavern. “Marines are very proud that the Corps was born in a bar.”

The book describes the language of Marines. Discussions with one another would often be considered coarsely obscene and degrading to an outsider. I recall one fire team leader thinking he should compliment his team after an especially intense day of combat. He told them, “Y’all used o be a bunch of girls, but now you’re women.” Quotes from several movies make it into the conversations of Marines preparing for battle. One was Mel Gibson’s line in Braveheart, “At least we don’t get dressed up for nutin’.”

The first assignment of the Marines in this book was guarding “national strategic assets” at a Naval Submarine Base at Bangor Washington, home of several Trident missile submarines. The Marines “…could neither confirm nor deny that they guarded those assets.” The Marines were mostly bored and disappointed with the assignment. They were asked whether they were willing to go kill “rag heads” in what promised to be a long war. The four corporals featured in the book all raised their hands.

The book focuses on what it takes to become a Lance corporal in the Marines, which is the lowest rank authorized to wear blood stripes on the slacks of the dress uniform. “Lance corporals excel through alpha male characteristics of strength, cleverness, skill, and force of personality.” There is no doubt there are few who could meet all the requirements.

The enemies in Iraq were called “Muj,” short for Muhajideen. Friendly Iraqis were called “hajji.” The Marines were there to win the hearts “…of the hajjis while killing every Muj they could find. Separating Muj from hajji was the hard part.” There is one description of a raid on an Iraqi police station that found large amounts of the weapons and outfits worn by the Muj. There was a prolonged battle between the Marines and Muj in the area with hundreds killed. It was observed there were many fewer policemen after the battle. There was one ambush that involved insurgents firing at the Marines from two buildings opposite each other. The Marines under this intense ambush described it as a “Polish ambush,” since anyone with common sense would not position soldiers shooting across a street at one another.

The Marines had an interesting manner of dealing with Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs that were planted by insurgents. If they suspected something was an IED they would kick it hard, hoping that the force of the kick would disable the device. They noted a Harrier war plane making a bombing approach a hundred feet in the air set off numerous IEDs. The Marines then often requested low flybys by Harriers before patrolling down a street.

The daily routines of the Marine were as interesting as the descriptions of the many intense battles. The Marines rated the quality of their quarters based on the quality of privies, which ranged from “luxurious” air conditioned units to basic stinking latrines. They loved the Lamisil cream used to treat the abrasions created from wearing heavy equipment for days in the oppressive daytime heat and the frigid nights that caused them to need to spoon together to retain precious body heat. Alcohol wasn’t accessible to grunt units, so they depended on Motrin, caffeine, and nicotine. They mostly depended on one another.

I recommend this book to all adult readers; I believe it would be particularly interesting to people who never served in the military.

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

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This book by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (and several coauthors of various chapters) was not much fun to read. The book is written in a “scholarly” style complete with numerous acronyms that probably would appeal to sociology majors, but not to me. It also uses interesting words such as “psychometricians. “However, the information in the book is disturbing. It does not paint a bright picture of what college students are getting for their tens of thousands in student loan debt. I will admit I did not do anything more than skim the final more than a hundred pages containing the “Methodological Appendix,” Notes, Bibliography, and Index.

The book begins with a comment from a former Harvard president saying, “Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should.” That statement isn’t too alarming, but the words to follow are. He says that students graduate from college “…without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers…reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems.” That sounds bad enough, but the information presented in the book indicates the concerns are understated. Many students are portrayed as attending college with no intention of learning. They focus on enjoying the college experience to the maximum. They borrow large sums of money to be there and search for the classes that have no educational demands to maintain enough of a grade point average to remain in school, study very little, have fun, and eventually graduate. A significant portion of the borrowed money is spent on entertainment, socializing, and travel. Graduates enter the work force (if they are fortunate enough to find a job) with a large debt burden and little ability to succeed.

One basis of the problems with college education comes from the students and enablement from the colleges. A large number of the students are described as “drifting dreamers” who have “…high ambitions but no clear life plans…” They have no understanding about their chosen professions, the educational requirements of the professions, or even if there is even a market demand for the profession they chose. The book title derives from the belief of the authors that many students are “…largely academically adrift.” One student is quoted as saying, “I hate classes with a lot of reading that is tested on.” The student admits to doing “leisure pursuits” instead of doing reading assignments. Colleges have enabled students to stay in college and pay the rapidly inflating tuitions by providing classes that have few academic demands. The student acknowledges that he will be able to graduate with a 3.5 GPA “…but it doesn’t really matter if I don’t remember anything…It’s one thing to get the grade in a class and it’s another to actually take something from it, you know.”

It is disturbing to read that the quality of education has dropped markedly while costs have increased at twice the rate of inflation. Professors are increasingly concentrating on research and publication instead of teaching and the classes are often taught by graduate assistants. The students are encouraged to rate classes highly that have replaced rigorous education with entertaining activities. The average time spent by faculty in preparing and delivering instruction and meeting with students is eleven hours per week. Professors who go against this approach and spend more of their time teaching are not “significantly rewarded.” The net result is that a Secretary of Education Commission wrote that “…the quality of student learning at U.S. colleges and universities is inadequate, and in some cases, declining.”

The heart of the book comes from the testing of 2,322 students enrolled across a range of campuses. They were tested before college, after two years, and after graduation for critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving and writing by something called the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). The CLA is described as to test the ability to give the students descriptions of real life problems and test their ability to both solve the problems and clearly communicate their reasoning and approaches. The test is lauded by some experts and dismissed as flawed by others. I will editorialize that educators are almost certain to dismiss the results of the tests as flawed, because the results present a dismal picture of the quality of college education. One professor was quoted as saying the public is satisfied with what higher education is doing. “This is a market system, and the customers are buying.” The “customers” should read this book and decide whether they are getting the value they deserve in return for the tens of thousands of dollars and four years of investment.

The book identifies that the problems begin with inadequate education in high schools. Forty-six percent of students in Chicago agreed with the statement, “Even if I do not work hard in high school, I can still make my future plans come true.” Many students with an average grade of C or less in high school are being admitted into four-year colleges. Perhaps that is why such large numbers of students coming to college are required to take several remedial classes. The CLA finds that many college students continue to underperform. The book asks the question, “How much are students actually learning in contemporary education? The answer for many undergraduates, we have concluded, is not much.” The CLA finds “…no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skill for at least 45 percent of the students in our study.” About the same number of students reported that they had not taken classes that required extensive reading or writing. Forty-eight percent of them were enrolled in humanities and social sciences, which are the fields of study that have been found to offer students higher grades for little effort.

There is a disturbing assessment that our current higher education system is a “…complicated sieve.” Its purpose is to sift “…the able from the dull.” However, the system is willing to accept tuition from all.

There is a posting on the blog link of this web site that gives some opinions about what students might want to consider in their search for higher education options.

Ending the Iraq War: A Primer

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I previously reviewed the book “The Good Soldiers” by David Finkel about an infantry battalion that was part of the surge, and that led me to read a book that gives the anti-Iraq war perspective. This book by Phyllis Bennis certainly fits that description. There are quotes from a report by the National institute for Strategic Studies describing the war as creating “…an incubator for terrorism.” I may have chosen poorly, since the book has not had a single review posted on Amazon.

I attempt in my reviews to let authors tell their side of the story without editorial comment and then post disagreements in a posting on the blog link. There were sections that gave me difficulty complying with that approach. The book does contain interesting information about the history of Iraq and its ethnic diversity.

I thought using “frequently asked questions” to introduce discussion was a good approach. One question was, “Didn’t the ‘surge’ strategy work?” General Petraeus’s reported that the surge was working. The author disagreed, writing that the reduction in violence in Iraq came from the unilaterally declared ceasefire by Moqtada al-Sadar and his Mahdi Army militia and also because of payments given to Sunni militias in exchange for them not targeting US and UK occupation troops. Violence spiked in 2008 when Prime Minister Maliki ordered an attack on Sadr’s militia in Basra. Large numbers of Iraqi soldiers and police defected to Sadr. Iran arranged a ceasefire between the two Shi’a forces.

Many of the conflicts are between the Sunnis and Shi’a (most books use the term Shiite) militias. Sunnis Arabs make up 15-20 percent of the population and were disproportionally privileged in wealth and power in Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. Shi’as are 55-60 percent of the population. The Kurds are primarily Sunnis.The Kurds have been protected by the US and are the most supportive of US policy. (There are an estimated 30 million Kurds in the world, and they are often named as the largest ethnic group without a state of their own.) Some have tried to make people think of themselves as Iraqis instead of Sunni, Shi’a, or Kurd, but with little success. One fact that is not in dispute is that there are fewer Iraqis in the country because of the war. An estimated two million Iraqis fled mostly to Jordan and Syria.

The borders of Middle East countries were established by “…the French-British trading schemes…” Faisal was appointed by the British to be king in 1921, and his son and grandson succeeded him. Faisal II was overthrown in a revolution against the monarchy in 1958. The Ba’athist government was officially secular but dominated by Sunnis. The book mentions that the CIA “…helped orchestrate the coup…” Saddam Hussein took control in 1968.

There are criticisms of several U.S. politicians to include Henry Kissinger, who developed and funded a plan for Iraqi Kurds to launch an uprising against Baghdad to weaken Iraq in its war against Iran. The Kurds were abandoned and were overrun by the Iraqi military after the war. Kissinger was said to have commented “…covert work should not be confused with missionary work.” President Clinton is criticized for claiming the U.S. was required by the UN to enforce the “no fly zone.” No UN resolution mentions creation or enforcement of such zones. All politicians arguing whether Iraq should be divided in three parts or united are said to be “…rooted in a set of thoroughly colonial assumptions about who has the ‘right’ to impose their will on Iraq and Iraqis from outside.”

The book frequently mentions “lie after lie” by the Bush administration in advocating the start of the war. Specifics include weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons programs, uranium yellowcake in Niger, Iraqi links to al-Qaeda, and Iraqi involvement in 9/11. There is a question whether U.S. actions brought a constitution to Iraq. There was a constitution adopted in 2005, but it was drafted mostly by U.S. lawyers under contract to the State Department.

The question “What war crimes have been committed in Iraq?” begins with bombing civilian targets and a long list of other actions designated as war crimes during the Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The twelve years of economic sanctions that followed were said to have resulted in the death of half a million Iraqi children. Secretary of State Madeline Albright infamously replied to a question about the children, “We think the price is worth it.” The invasion of Iraq is characterized “…as what the Nuremberg principles identify as the worst war crime: a crime against peace in the form of a war of aggression.” The “…congressional authorization passed in November 2002 granting Bush permission to go to war…” did not make the invasion legal.

Part II of the book presents the Bush administration’s arguments for the war and, in the opinion of the author, dispels them. The war is said to have increased recruitment of terrorists instead of making us safer. Iraq had carefully controlled borders before the war, but the U.S. demobilized the border guards. “Iraq has been transformed into a gathering place…for global terrorists…” The author says the real reasons the U.S. wanted a war were, “…oil, power, and ideology.” There are lengthy discussions that oil was main objective. There is a sarcastic comment in a couple of places that Americans seem to think the invading troops would be welcomed “…with sweets and flowers and singing in the streets.”

Part III discusses global effects of the Iraq war. The brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein was ruthlessly secular and not a safe place for fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. Iraq now “…is global center stage for a concentrated host of terrorist forces.” The war has “…accelerated recruitment for al-Qaeda.”

There is an interesting discussion of how many Shi’a sought refuge in Iran during Saddam Hussein’s rule, and many of those have now returned to Iraq. Iran was one of the first countries in the region to recognize the government of Maliki, and one of the few to maintain full diplomatic relations. The other powerful Iraqi Shi’a, al-Sadr, spends much of his time in Iran “…burnishing his religious credentials…”

Part IV is about ending the war, and I don’t intend to spend much time with that since U.S. combat troops were withdrawn in December 2011 after the book was published. The author directs strong criticism toward the U.S. Congress which “…essentially abdicated its constitutional responsibility to declare or reject war in 2002 when it gave the Bush administration the power to decide whether to go to war against Iraq. Congress could have ended the war at any time by refusing to vote supplemental war funding bills out of committee.

See the posting on the blog link for an update about current events in Iraq.

The Good Soldiers

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David Finkel wrote this book based on the eight months he was with the 2-26 Army Infantry Battalion that was ordered to Iraq as part of the “surge” announced by President George W. Bush in January 2007. The announcement set off a storm of criticism by people opposed to the war (I thought it should have been called “reinforcement”). Battalion commander Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich was eager for his unit to deploy from Fort Riley, Kansas to Baghdad.

The book does not give a clear answer whether the surge was a success or failure, although the tone indicates the author certainly did not consider it a success. The book does provide brutal insight into the lives of combat infantry soldiers facing the daily possibility of being blown apart inside their Humvees by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). Snipers were often waiting for them.

The first death was twenty-two year old Private First Class Jay Cajimat who died either instantly in an explosion or more slowly in the fire inside the Humvee that burned his arms and legs into stumps and the rest of him beyond recognition. The details of the deaths and treatment of the injured are difficult to read. As an example, a soldier treating a comrade with a head injury noted a piece of the injured man’s brain fell out as a bandage was being adjusted. The injuries aren’t always that obvious. The trauma suffered by those who watched fellow soldiers die will be with them for a lifetime. A friend of Kauzlarich had ominously warned him before he and his unit left Fort Riley, “You’re going to see a good man disintegrate before your eyes.”

The families, girl friends, wives, and children of the soldiers also suffered, and of course some suffered more than others. President Bush visited a soldier and his wife in Bethesda. The soldier was described as “ruined,” and was only able to do small movements with his eyes, fingers, and feet. The wife thanked Bush for coming, but wished she had told him he didn’t understand what they were going through and that he didn’t know how it felt. She began to cry, and Bush didn’t understand she was crying in anger.

Reality had been exposed even before the soldiers had left Fort Riley as they and their families completed forms prior to the deployment to select whether they wanted to be buried or cremated, the location of their cemetery, and what personal effects they wanted to have buried with them. The remainder of the country mostly was oblivious with the exception of watching news reports that were often about the opposing political views.

The author describes the soldiers leaving the Forward Operating Base (FOB) fully equipped for combat “…to make their first impression on 350,000 people who surely were just waiting to blow the dumbasses up.” They found an unexploded mortar shell with Iranian markings on the fins. “A lesson, perhaps, in who they would be fighting.”

Kauzlarich began the deployment believing that he and the men of his battalion were going to make a difference, and he was said to very frequently respond to questions or concerns with the comment, “It’s all good.” He also tended to make comments such as, “What’s the difference between ordinary and extraordinary? A little extra.” He had been influenced by studying the battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam, which was the subject of a book and movie called “We Were Soldiers Once…and Young.” He had been told by Hal Moore, the commander of the unit portrayed, to trust his instincts. He had almost daily opportunities to rely on his instincts and the skill and courage of his soldiers as they performed the missions intended to make Baghdad safe for Iraqis. He had great respect for Qasim, his counterpart in the Iraqi military, although the soldiers of the Iraqi unit would mostly desert in the face of intense combat. The explanation for those desertions is given in the descriptions of the torture and murder of Iraqis who had been suspected of helping the Americans.

Most of the soldiers would soon hate everything about Iraq. The hated the garbage along the roadsides that often was used to hide the IEDs and EFPs. They hated the open trenches of sewage, the smell, the heat, and their living conditions. Mostly they hated “…the way these people don’t care about freedom. I hate that human beings want to kill one another for nothing.” They didn’t understand why the Iraqis hated them as they risked their lives to make the country safe.

Not all felt that way. Bush said in a speech, “We’re helping the Iraqis take back their neighborhoods from the extremists…” Kauzlarich said, “I like this president.” Soldiers were beginning to refer to the “Lost Kauz,” and openly questioned how anyone could think they were winning. They began to openly admit to each other that they were hurting and scared.

General David Petraeus visited and acknowledged, “You never get used to the losses.” He went to Congress to present his report, and gave an optimistic outlook. He focused on the fact the number of combat deaths were declining. MoveOn.org bought a full page ad in The New York Times “…headlined GENERAL PETERAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US?”

Chapter 10 describes the soldiers from the battalion being treated for their devastating injuries at the Brooke Army Medical Center (BMAC) in the company of their wives or other family members. They had been told they hadn’t lost their arms, legs, or sight. “You gave your arm. You gave your leg. You gave your sight.” One of the soldiers had a specimen cup where he collected the pieces of metal and plastic shrapnel he had been pulling out of his wounds.

The soldiers had to attend a mandatory seminar on what to expect after they returned home. Many of them would have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). All of them were told to expect flashbacks, to have trouble sleeping, and to be angry and jumpy. They were warned that some would have broken marriages and to find bank accounts cleaned out. None of them were expected to be unaffected. As they were preparing to return to the United States Senator Barrack Obama was telling General Petraeus, “I’m not suggesting that we yank all of our troops out of the way. I’m trying to get to an end point.”

I think the author sums up his feelings about whether the surge was worth it on the last page. He describes how Kauzlarich doesn’t open his eyes as he is departing in a helicopter. He thought to himself that they had won, “But he had seen enough.”

The Appendix lists the roster of soldiers in the battalion and has pictures of those Killed In Action.

The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

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This book by Masha Gessen describes how Vladimir Putin rose from low-ranking member of the KGB to “…absolute—and absolutly corrupt—power…” as the leader of the Russian Federation. I was eager to read the book and post this review because the latest statistics on this web site indicated large numbers of readers in the Russian Federation and the Ukraine.

The story of Putin’s childhood is murky. His parents were a disabled man and a woman who had almost starved to death and had lost another son. They had a larger apartment and more amenities than neighbors. The apparent advantages of the parent’s living arrangement created rumors about what the father might have done to serve the KGB. There also are rumors that Putin was adopted. The author says what is indisputable is that he “…by the standards of his time, was a miracle child.”

The KGB expected new recruits to be skilled in hand-to hand combat, and Putin studied Sambo, a Soviet martial art. He was assigned to a unit created to fight dissidents and later trained as a spy. He was assigned to Dresden where there were few spying opportunities. Mikhail Gorbachev began the policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, and dissidents in Leningrad had been emboldened by the time Putin and his wife and family returned from Dresden.

The demolition of the Angleterre Hotel, a Leningrad historic site, spawned a revolution. Dissidents calling themselves “Informals” began gathering and giving speech in front of the site, which they called “Information Point.” Glasnost had released the power of freedom and brought about the rapid collapse of the Soviet system.

Putin claimed he resigned from the KGB when the Soviet Union was collapsing. A man named Sobchak worked himself into being chairman of the Leningrad City Council and hired Putin as an assistant. One theory was that Sobchak was said to know “…that it is wiser to pick your KGB handler yourself than to have one picked for you.” Putin convinced one after another higher ranking officials he could be both trusted and controlled amongst all the political intrigue.

Oligarchs became incredibly wealthy as the country lurched to corrupt enterprise. Russia defaulted on its debts in 1998 amidst hyperinflation. The turmoil opened opportunities for the nondescript Putin. He worked his way into the trust of Boris Yeltsin, who had launched democracy in the Russian Federation with great hope, but Russians quickly became disillusioned amidst terrible economic conditions. Yeltsin resigned and named Vladimir Putin prime minster of Russia August 9, 1999. Yeltsin probably picked him because he believed Putin would not prosecute or persecute him.

The date of Putin’s appointment was intended to make him the “…instant incumbent…” The Russian people and world leaders were “…relieved that unpredictable, embarrassing Yeltsin was gone …” Few understood Putin believed a “…country is as great as the fear it inspires, and the media should be loyal.” The American media was focused on the Bush-Gore election and paid no attention to the turmoil in Russia or Putin’s immediate moves to transform the country back to a Soviet-style government.

There is a story about a tobacco riot  that gives insight into the kind of desperation that led to the collapse of democracy. People were constantly forced to search for food and other commodities, and the stores were often empty. Several thousand people gathered in central Leningrad to demand cigarettes. City council members arrived to prevent violence. It was well after dark when a stash of cigarettes was located and delivered. The protestors lit up and dispersed. However, “…it seemed the city would run out of everything.”

Putin used state control of the media and, according to the author, intimidation, corruption, murder, and terrorism against Russian citizens to solidify his power. The book presents many chilling stories about his actions and how he used corruption to make himself an incredibly wealthy man. The most disturbing accusation is that the FSB, the replacement for the KGB, set off bombs in apartment buildings that killed hundreds of men, women and children. Sacks of the explosive hexogen labeled “sugar” that were used to demolish the apartment buildings were found in a FSB warehouse. It is speculated the bombings were intended to make people want stricter state control; Putin used them to justify canceling gubernatorial elections. The bombings were officially blamed on an Islamic terrorist group. The official response to terrorist attacks was to “…maximize bloodshed…aimed to multiply the fear and the horror.”

There are disturbing stories of Putin’s willingness to punish critics. Wealthy people and powerful public figures who decided to publically oppose Putin’s abandonment of democracy and development of a “tyranny of bureaucracy” paid with their freedom or their lives if they didn’t first escape the country. Some critics died of mysterious poisons such as the radioactive element polonium which could not be obtained by anyone other than a central government. Some critics were convicted of invented crimes and imprisoned by Putin’s imposition of the Stalin theory that the courts existed to “…do the bidding of the head of state and dole out punishment…” He didn’t just apply his “don’t mess with me” policy domestically. He also officially abandoned the “no first nuclear strike” policy against foreign foes. Disasters such as the failure to rescue men on the nuclear submarine Kursh and the slaughter of more than 300 people, mostly women and children, at a school in Breslan by terrorists seemed to cause Putin little concern.

Putin also apparently can’t resist taking things. He pocketed the diamond Super Bowl ring shown to him by New England Patriot owner Robert Kraft. Kraft later ended the embarrassment by saying the ring was a gift. Putin took a glass replica of a Kalashnikov filled with vodka shown to him at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The author calls him a pleonexia, which is a person who has “…the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.”

Dmitry Medvedev (who is around five feet tall, although his height is classified) served as the stand-in when Putin had to leave office because of term limits. Medvedev publically admitted in 2011 that he and Putin had made arrangements for Medvedev to hold the office for Putin until Putin was once again eligible to be president.

All of this leads to the Epilogue, which gives a day-by-day description of the events immediately before and during the Russian Federation election in December 2011. Putin was announced to have been the winner, although the margin was narrow despite the suspected corruption of the election. Mikhail Gorbachev called for a re-vote. There was a Facebook posting “The Snow Revolution, or a Clean Slate.” Large numbers of people (the author estimates 150,000) arrived wearing white armbands or other white articles. I haven’t noticed U.S. coverage of what has happened since, but I intend to research the subject for a blog posting at that link.