For academics, the end of marking the year’s essays and exams brings a brief sigh of joy, followed by a moment in which it is possible to sit down and read a book or two, uninterrupted. Luckily for me, this moment coincided with Mark Mazzetti’s The Way of the Knife and Jeremy Scahill’s Dirty Wars landing on my desk. What is interesting in part is that both essentially belong to the same genre (‘War on Terror journalism’ of the ilk of David Sanger or Stephen Grey) but they are remarkably different books in some respects. The first is size: Scahill’s book weighs in at over five hundred pages, excluding footnotes, Mazzetti’s at a respectable 300-odd. That being said, Scahill’s book appears to have almost 50% extra words per page due to the leading of the text. In short, it’s a beast. The second key difference is the particular focus – Mazzetti’s work has a lot more Bob Woodward-esque material on the Washington movers-and-shakers (as well as some of the colourful characters that popped up along the way) while Scahill’s book is relentlessly focused on the effects America’s ‘third war’ has on the ground. But there are similarities, both are studies of bureaucracies that appear to be dangerously out of control (Scahill takes particular umbrage with JSOC, Mazzetti is more focused on the CIA). More importantly, I think both end up making points that they didn’t mean to: Mazzetti’s account of American policy formation in the War on Terror reads less like the precise way of warfare alluded to in the title, and more like a headbutting contest between Washington bigwigs and bureaucracies; Scahill’s account of JSOC-unleashed is meant to scare us but at times points out quite how limited the power of the United States actually is.

The real ‘joy’ of Scahill’s book for me were the chapters on Somalia. Here, Scahill points out, America shot itself in the foot. It is, in all honesty, an unrelenting history of screw-ups that de-stabilised the country, ended up with al-Shabaab almost taking over, and America getting its hands dirty via supporting warlords, and then Ethiopia, and then the recognised government. Oh, and with JSOC and the CIA killing people in the mix, too. Of the many dimensions of Scahill’s book, in my opinion, it is the strongest. One is, I think, meant to read these chapters while umm-ing and ah-ing about the foul deeds of the US government. I read them while thinking back to the Project for a New American Century’s vision of American power in it’s 2000 report. The divergence between the American state that can fight two major theatre wars simultaneously in PNAC’s vision, and the one that cocked up in Somalia is quite considerable. Again, returning to Mazzetti’s book, this lean, mean, empire-sustaining machine is quite absent. The surgical way of warfare gives way to bureaucratic infighting and shouting matches between a bunch of dudes in suits. And that’s just the Americans. In many senses, war is almost entirely absent from sections of this book, its place taken by slanging matches in DC. Furthermore, I think Mazzetti makes the point quite well that the outsourcing and franchising of violence (be it to Blackwater, or men in Mogadishu) is an implicit component of this way of fighting – America can’t fight this type of war without resorting to those type of people. Though Scahill never actually defines what a dirty war is in his book (pro-tip, check out our dept’s own on the matter) Mazzetti’s focus on the internal convulsions in the CIA demonstrate that at least the CIA understands it is fighting one. One could say “but that’s what the CIA does” but I think Mazzetti makes a pretty good point towards the end of his book that the opportunity costs of doing so (missing the Arab spring, for instance) are quite considerable.

One substantial disagreement I have with Scahill’s general narrative is his treatment of the death of Abdulrahman Awlaki. Scahill’s narrative is encapsulated in the chapter title in which his death is detailed: “Paying for the sins of the father”. Scahill does his level best to construct a narrative in which the US government targets and kills a 16 year old US citizen. This, of course, is the denouement to the more famous killing of his father, Anwar. I understand exactly why Scahill wants to make this connection: if the world is a battlefield, then the government will kill its own citizens anywhere. It is quite a scary thought for American citizens. Prima facie, the problem with this narrative and Abdulrahman is that the evidence for this is drawn from very tenuous material. Scahill’s book is constructed of copious quotes, and the suspicions of a bereaved family isn’t exactly balance. Also, trying to nail Peter King on ‘false accusations’ for incorrect statements made while obviously trying to avoid talking to a reporter is grasping at straws. It is a point where Scahill steers perilously close to conspiracy theory where another, quite often stated, explanation exists: Abdulrahman was killed in a strike that targeted Ibrahim al Banna, a senior AQAP figure. Scahill veers away from this explanation, because it doesn’t fit with the “Government assassinating Americans without due process, etc” narrative that he builds throughout the book. I think he’s wrong to do so, if only because engaging with the prospect that the American government accidentally killed one of its own citizens while trying to kill a terrorist is far more worrying for the average American. After all, most Americans don’t ‘fit the profile’ of a terrorist, however widely it is drawn by the American government. But quite a few Americans do go abroad from time to time (I have, I’ll admit, met a Texan who grew up 2 hours from the border and had never left the state). In the type of war that Mazzetti and Scahill are describing, how would an American citizen know where to stand in a border-less war, in order to prevent getting blown to pieces by their own government? Most people would be sane enough not to go near a traditional battlefield, and they’d have all sorts of warnings that they were approaching one, but in the conflict Scahill is outlining, if Abdulrahman was in fact an innocent young man, attempting to find his dad (on the basis of Scahill’s evidence, it’s hard to disagree), what warning could he have had that he was in imminent danger? Okay, stay away from Yemen, perhaps. But if the US government seriously considers targeted killings as a way of taking out terrorists in ‘lawless’ spaces (aka places that either don’t come under state authority, or do to the extent that politics constrains the use of ground forces), then a considerable amount of the Earth’s surface is affected. The prospect of being mis-identified for targeted killing is a reasonable fear for a section of the American population. The prospect of being killed for standing near someone that you had no idea your own government had defined a terrorist now applies to all American citizens, everywhere the US the government reserves the right to use force. Maybe it’s a good time to be a Texan, or cancel any future vacations.

 

 

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If anything, I wanted to nerd him up a bit.

I originally received the now famous email in the autumn of 2003. I have shared it with colleagues on every appropriate occasion because it truly is a nifty bit of writing on a subject dear to our (military historians and similar) hearts, the pursuit of knowledge through wide reading. It is the sort of thing to inspire scholarly giddiness.

The decision to publish it came only recently, after a discussion with my King’s colleague, Pablo de Orellana. I shared it with him under the same circumstances as above, and he was as surprised as impressed – it was not the sort of thing that made the Euro academic press. He wanted it on Strife, he was adamant that it was a necessary corrective to usual depictions of American officers.

As for me, I saw two points of interest. The first is that in general the concept of commanding historiographies is fascinating to me - I can see the book, What Generals Read, a collection of essays on the subject by leading historians. Super nerdy and geeky stuff. Lots of footnotes. Sigh. And second, with respect to the emails particularly, my feeling was that while his original message was impressive, his willingness to engage critique was the real gem, what I thought made the whole thing valuable. He’s quite certain he doesn’t have all the answers, doesn’t just want to hear from people that he’s smart and right, and is open to new ideas, corrections, different interpretations, and so forth. And that, my friends, is the result and purpose of wide reading – humility and the unflagging zeal to continue seeking more knowledge.

I would point out, as well, that my decision to publish was premised on obtaining the General’s permission. Not only was it necessary – they were his words, after all – but I also knew that it would reign in any inclinations to get too reverential and lose the scholarly perspective. I’ll admit I got a bit carried away with Clio and Hegel (no, not SecDef), but that was in reference to the idea of General’s entry into the historical process, was a by-product of his action but not his intention. I also specifically eschewed the Mad Dog, in the title or the text. [1]

Bottom line, the purpose was to put to the world an important primary source that had some real meat for discourse. The better conversation about his email – and the one I think General Mattis would enjoy seeing – than an elegy to his greatness would be a scholarly review of his reading. If he read Bell, what did he miss by not reading someone else? Who has the latest and most authoritative work on Lawrence? He cites so many works, it’s a gold mine. Or a discussion of the issue of how historiographies influence the conduct of war.

But if you want to sum it all up with a famous General Mattis quote, I think the admonition against triangulation by bumper sticker – or tweet, or meme for that matter - is particularly apt in this case.

 

Notes

[1] Ok, in my mind I may have toyed with “Professor Mad Dog” for the title, but that was only for fun. And by the way, the original title was important, a play on a military history of the Boer War, With Rifle and Bayonet.

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When the casualty incident described in this piece occurred, it fell to me to tend to the unit’s “family.” Beyond those directly affected, the rest experienced these events through my messages. They chronicle a small piece of what happens on the home-front when casualties come home. [1] These events unfold regularly in our midst, but most in the general public have no experience of this aspect of war; they should.

 

Reflecting upon the decade of conflict that has been unleashed in Iraq at the instigation of the military operations to end the regime of Saddam Hussein, there are so many issues. Most fundamentally for me I never believed it was a good idea. Breaking states should only be a strategy choice of last possible resort, and even then it is probably best avoided.

But my professional and intellectual opposition was challenged by personal obligation. In 2004, when I attended their Summer Seminar in Military History, I remember watching the veterans among the West Point faculty experiencing both cognitive dissonance as well as resonance as they confronted their intellectual material. I could tell that they were comparing their experiences with their scholarship, but I did not understand what that meant at the time. Humbled by my own small experience, I have a sense of how they must have felt. My hope is that this glimpse into the wider experience of war and conflict will offer a similar bit of enlightenment for others.

My former husband was a Marine. In 2007, as a Major, he deployed to Iraq in command of a Military Training Team (MTT). I was the unit Key Volunteer, which made me the point of contact between the unit/Marine Corps and the families of the serving Marines and Sailor. For the most part my job was to provide official and correct information to the families on a timely basis. Secondarily, as possible, I tried to offer some measure of support and coordinate any assistance the unit or the families might require. [2] It is the sort of responsibility that anyone not afflicted with terrific arrogance will feel that they have done inadequately.

By way of background on the deployment, Fallujah in the first half of 2007 was roiling. At the time of these events the Marines and the Iraqi Army battalion they were training had already seen significant and regular combat action. Their AOR, an area known as the “Pizza Slice,” was particularly dangerous, with regular and daily insurgent activity. The commanding officer of the Iraqi battalion was a professional officer who had served during the Hussein regime. [3] Pragmatic and hopeful, he was a willing and able partner in the rebuilding of Iraq. The battalion and its training team would endure several months of sustained attacks until the insurgency broke – of its own stupidity and the civilian population’s shifted allegiance – early in the summer.

Before that break, on 29 April, in the afternoon, towards the end of a day’s activity a sniper ambush which led to the casualties occurred. An element of the battalion and its trainers had been conducting a dismounted patrol of Marines and Iraqi soldiers with vehicles in support. As the last task of the patrol, they had stopped to conduct a search. With the units’ vehicles deployed along narrow and twisted streets, the dismounted elements cleared a building which had been identified as a potential insurgent base. Finding nothing in the building, as the Marines made their way to their vehicles the attack opened with precision sniper and general supporting fire.

Within short order, no more than five minutes of fighting, the three casualties had been taken. The remaining 15 to 20 of minutes combat was fought as the dismounted Marines struggled to safely remove the fallen to the vehicles and those in the vehicles provided cover for them. Fighting to hold the ground, the timely arrival of the QRF (quick reaction force) ended the engagement. It was a close run thing, as the Marines engaged on the ground were running out of ammunition to continue their fight.

I think I was munching bagels and driving with my son and dog from NY to Newport, RI, while these events were occurring. (Yes, you do stop to note the surreal aspects of such moments.) I remember this period clearly. I had just returned from the annual Society for Military History conference and was energized for my research. [4]

It was later that night when the Major sent me the following email:

Do NOT say anything/tell anyone.  The worst happened.  Notifications are being made.  I’m still alive.

 

 [Continues on page 2]

 

 

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