• Home
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • Hooper’s War
  • Tom Joad
  • We Meant Well
  • Visuals
  • Contact
  • Sometimes being right doesn’t solve a damn thing

    April 19, 2012

    Tags: HuffPo, Moore, Salon, TomDispatch
    Posted in: Afghanistan, Democracy, Embassy/State, Iraq




    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:

    Salon

    Huffington Post

    The Nation

    Le Monde

    NewsDay

    Daily Kos

    American Conservative Magazine

    Asia Times

    Truthout

    Mother Jones

    Middle East Online

    Michael Moore

    Newser

    Whistleblower.org

    FM Blog

    Al-Arab Online

    Antiwar.com

    ZNET

    Juan Cole, Informed Comment

    OpEd News

    Socialist Worker Online

    War in Context

    Nation of Change

    Smirking Chimp

    Commondreams

    Alternet

    Michigan Blogger

    Government Accountability Project

    Daily Attack

    Democratic Underground

    One News Page

    Foreign Moon

    Pacific Free Press




    Related Articles:

    • Lessons from Afghanistan for the Reconstruction of Ukraine
    • Jack Teixeira, Leaks, and a Matter of Trust
    • Iraq War Anniversary
    • Iraq was 20 Years Ago Today…
    • Ukraine is America’s Afghanistan More Than Russia’s
    • Iran’s Foreign Policy: A Complex Landscape
    • Apocalypses Now, Afghan Redux Edition




    Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.

  • Recent Comments

    • Mary said...

      1

      Peter,

      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

    Leave A Comment

    Mail (will not be published) (required)

Buy Peter’s Books on Amazon!


We Meant Well


Hooper's War



Recent Posts

  • Thomas “T.J.” Jefferson and Race-Based School Admissions
  • Trump and Kryptonite
  • Lessons from Afghanistan for the Reconstruction of Ukraine
  • Dissent Channel, Afghanistan and Confidentiality
  • Disinformation, 1984-2023