-
Sometimes being right doesn’t solve a damn thing
People ask the question in various ways, sometimes hesitantly, often via a long digression, but my answer is always the same: no regrets.In some 24 years of government service, I experienced my share of dissonance when it came to what was said in public and what the government did behind the public’s back. In most cases, the gap was filled with scared little men and women, and what was left unsaid just hid the mistakes and flaws of those anonymous functionaries.
What I saw while serving the State Department at a forward operating base in Iraq was, however, different. There, the space between what we were doing (the eye-watering waste and mismanagement), and what we were saying (the endless claims of success and progress), was filled with numb soldiers and devastated Iraqis, not scaredy-cat bureaucrats.
That was too much for even a well-seasoned cubicle warrior like me to ignore and so I wrote a book about it, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the War for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. I was on the spot to see it all happen, leading two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in rural Iraq while taking part up close and personal in what the U.S. government was doing to, not for, Iraqis. Originally, I imagined that my book’s subtitle would be “Lessons for Afghanistan,” since I was hoping the same mistakes would not be endlessly repeated there. Sometimes being right doesn’t solve a damn thing.
The whole story makes for an interesting read, especially the part about how the book came to be published. You can read the original article about all this on TomDispatch.com.
The piece was also reprinted at a number of other sites:
American Conservative Magazine
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Recent Comments
Leave A Comment
Buy Peter’s Books on Amazon!
Mary said...
1Peter,
Your book/blog and criticism of the State Dept. is necessary due to all the deaths and displacement that resulted from this foolish war.
Thank you very much. You are an honorable man, and history will prove that you are right.
Carry on.
04/19/12 1:23 PM | Comment Link
Insider Quote: AIP Fatigue and a Little Hostility | Diplopundit said...
2[…] Sometimes being right doesn’t solve a damn thing (wemeantwell.com) Share this:EmailPrintTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]
06/4/12 6:49 AM | Comment Link