• Reviews

    Reviews and Comments on Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan — Available Now!

    Van Buren returns with a deeply-researched anti-war novel, Hooper’s War. Set in WWII Japan, Lieutenant Nate Hooper isn’t sure he’ll survive his war. And if he does make it home, he isn’t sure he can survive the peace. He’s done a terrible thing, and struggles to resolve the mistake he made alongside a Japanese soldier, and a Japanese woman who failed to save both men. At stake? Souls.

    With allegorical connections to America’s current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reverse chronology telling of Hooper’s War (“Fighting over the covers is better than remembering the empty side of the bed,” Hooper says) turns a loss-of-innocence narrative into a complex tale of moral injury inevitable in societies that go to war. Think The Things They Carried, crossed with Catch-22.

    Peter Van Buren’s Hooper’s War is an early 21st century American allegory of understated, but hauntingly memorable ethical power… a masterpiece of sparsely worded brevity.

    — Pete Free, Author and Veteran

    Nothing good can come from prolonging such a war, and in Van Buren’s retelling, atrocities and tragedies occur with a frequency one would expect of a war driven by racial hatreds and profound cultural misunderstandings. Nevertheless, in the darkness he provides a ray of hope as Lieutenant Nate Hooper, the main character, becomes separated from his unit and has to deal on an intimately human level with a Japanese sergeant. I don’t think I give away much by stating their relationship doesn’t end well for all — such is the reality of a war driven by hatred. The horror of war goes deep, Van Buren shows us, but so too does the potential for mitigating and ultimately for overcoming it.

    — W.J. Astore, Bracing Views
     

    “Hooper’s War” is a raw novel, caustic in tone and sober in its treatment of war and the forever rot that war creates within us. It revolves around a character who is a World War II veteran, and its content carries even greater resonance as Americans mark another Memorial Day.

    — Shadowproof Review

     
    In this alternate-history novel, Van Buren follows both present-day and historical timelines to explore what might have happened if the United States had launched a ground invasion of Japan to end the second world war.

    In 2017, elderly Nate Hooper is in a retirement home, reflecting on a recent visit to Kyoto, during which he kept a promise to his late wife. But back in 1946, Hooper is an 18-year-old Army officer leading a group of equally young soldiers through the remnants of Kyoto after it’s been firebombed, dealing with the horrors of war and the less-than-humanitarian instincts of his own men. The narrative jumps between the two timelines as Hooper contends with memories of battle and secrets he’s kept for decades. Readers gradually discover the truth about his wartime actions.

    Van Buren presents a bleak picture of a world in which no action is ideal but avoiding decisions is impossible. The dialogue captures the raw emotion of war and the soldiers’ struggles for self-preservation (“Is the morphine for Garner so he stops screaming, or is the morphine for you so you don’t have to hear him screaming?” says a medical officer. “He probably feels better screaming”). Hooper is an engaging protagonist, a prototypical innocent young man dealing with the loss of his illusions and the demands of a new role (“The worst words in the English language to me had become ‘What should we do, Lieutenant?’ ”).

    Van Buren doesn’t provide simple answers, and readers are left with the understanding that decisions made in battle can be both right and wrong at the same time. An afterword provides context for the book’s alternate version of the war. A complex portrayal of a counterfactual invasion.

    — Kirkus Reviews

    Van Buren is obviously a scholar and historian both of Japan and America, there is no doubt to that as you read Hooper’s War, a modern day Catch-22 or Slaughterhouse Five that we desperately need. Peter has also obviously been to war, as have I, and his heart has been broken, as has mine. He broke it again, several times in Hooper’s War, though I wasn’t sure I had that much left to break. He’s owed a debt of gratitude for this, for bearing such witness and testimony for so many millions who cannot do so for themselves, those have been so ghastly immolated in our past and current wars and who can only cry out when people like Peter do so for them. Beautiful and heartbreaking.

    — Matthew Hoh, former Marine, current Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy

     

    Hooper’s War tackles the critical subject of moral injury, the effect on the soul of people – soldiers and civilians alike – exposed to the horrors of conflict. Van Buren tackles the subject through fiction, bringing us into the mind of his main character struggling to understand his decisions in war, and trying to find a way back after returning home. A book for our times.

    – Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower, The Pentagon Papers

    Peter Van Buren’s Hooper’s War is a powerful anti-war novel of empathy, wit and engaged imagination, vividly depicting war’s commingled devastation and savage beauty. Van Buren portrays the lasting wounds suffered by innocent victims and guilt-ridden soldiers wracked by grave moral injury. As Van Buren writes, “This sh*t doesn’t end when the war does, but only ends when we do.”

    –Douglas A. Wissing, journalist and author of Hopeless but Optimistic: Journeying through America’s Endless War in Afghanistan and Funding the Enemy: How US Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban.

     

    This should be required reading for every 18 year-old boy who plays Battlefield in the comfort of their basement. Amidst the abject fear and the necessary delusion and braggadocio of war, Hooper’s War reveals a soldier’s struggle to hold onto his soul. Every scene vibrates with flesh and blood, life and death, right and wrong in an upside-down world. Van Buren brilliantly illuminates the deepest , inner-most thoughts of young men in war. In fearlessly exposing the questions which remain long after soldiers have returned to civilian life, Van Buren carefully unfolds the true human cost of war.

    – Linda Hassani, Writer/Director, Dark Angel

     

    Peter Van Buren is already an accomplished non-fiction writer. Now Hooper’s War shows that he’s a master of fiction as well. Whether it’s present-day Hawaii or post-war Japan, Van Buren makes the reader feel like he’s in the room. You will become friends with these characters. But more importantly, Hooper’s War is relevant to our own current political and military struggles. There are parallels to American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and lessons for all of us to learn. Read this book. You’ll be better for it.

    — John Kiriakou, Former CIA Officer and author of Doing Time Like a Spy
    Van Buren’s writing skills continue to impress, as Hooper’s War gives voice to American and Japanese soldiers as they engaged in bloody combat in the 1940’s. Van Buren is a darn good storyteller, and weaves a fascinating narrative from wartime diaries and present-day recollections, with gritty descriptions of the experiences and inner thinking of the warriors. It grabs you from page one, and doesn’t let go.

    – Peter B. Collins, Host, The Peter B. Collins Radio Show

    One damn good writer! Peter Van Buren’s searing Hooper’s War is a haunting WWII novel that reveals the darkest secrets about war and the warriors. In weaving a stunningly written tale about the lives of U.S. and Japanese soldiers, it exposes the most raw side of conflict. We see good men turn bad. We see both sides sink into evil and barbarism. Read the book and weep. Better yet, read the book and get active to help build a world without war.

    – Medea Benjamin, Co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace
    Peter Van Buren has done an interesting thing here; with Hooper’s War, he’s managed to capture the rage, chaos, disorder, but most of all, shame, of the fighting men from our most noble war effort, without apologizing for any of it. Men in extraordinary circumstances often commit themselves to bouts of magical thinking, and Hooper is no exception.

    –Brandon Caro, author of Old Silk Road, novel of the Afghan war 

     

    Peter Van Buren crafts a raw novel, caustic in tone and sober in its treatment of war and the forever rot that war creates within us.

    —Kevin Gosztola, Managing Editor, Shadowproof.com
    Hooper’s War is evocative and beautiful, its writing sweeps you along, touches lives and transports you effortlessly on a sometimes poignant, sometimes stark, sometimes obscure journey; that of Hooper himself, attempting to reconcile the deep tragedy and moral ambiguity of war. These are ever-relevant themes and Van Buren’s authentic insight into human nature reveals itself like the prick of a pin. Anyone can recognize the depth of research that has gone into this book, it’s something those who know Van Buren have come to expect from his work – it feels effortless and uniquely enriches each character, bringing them to life in ways that build empathy for the reader, through details or twists from the ordinary to the obscene – fluently evoking the horror of war.’

    – Dr. Emma L Briant, Lecturer in Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.

     

    Hooper’s War is a powerful and important novel. It captures how war forever transforms the lives of those involved. During war soldiers are forced to become killers, and, afterwards, they are forced to deal with the moral and psychological costs of their actions. Peter Van Buren’s engaging writing brings the consequences of war to life. And while Hooper’s War is set in World War II Japan, it offers the opportunity to reflect on the implications of the U.S. government’s numerous wars since that time.

    – Christopher Coyne, F.A. Harper Professor of Economics, George Mason University

     

    I studied and fell in love in Kyoto. Later I represented the U.S. government at memorial services for the victims of the firebombing of Tokyo. Van Buren’s anti-war classic of Kyoto incinerated like Dresden left me shaken at the choices we make, the choices we seemingly have to make, and all of their bastard sequelae. Van Buren flays with the shrapnel of an alternate history.

    — Daniel H. Garrett, former U.S. Diplomat, author of Pieces of the Moon

     

    This memorable work of alternative World War II history depicts in gripping detail the horrors and sufferings of war, reminding us in a powerful way of how destructive violence can be to our humanity.

    — John Brown, U.S. Diplomat, (ret.)

     

    Does it offer redemption to witness the horrors of war through the eyes of one with a conscience? If so, then all must read Hooper’s War. Lt. Hooper is thrust into an invasion of Japan at the end of World War II – an alternative history that is as horrific as the actual account. His relationships with the Japanese woman, Naoko, and Sgt. Nakagawa make Hooper question his own humanity. Surviving battle after battle, often within his own army, does not provide Hooper solace nor victory. He must find a way to heal, even seventy years after the war’s end. The flashbacks unveil Hooper’s struggles bit by bit, making the reader yearn for the ending, if only to relieve the burden of memory. Hooper’s War is not an easy read due to the magnitude of the issue – the emotional weight of war – but it is necessary to read in the current divisive culture. Reminiscent of McCormick’s Purple Heart and Myer’s Sunrise Over Fallujah and Fallen Angels, Hooper’s War offers an intense emotional struggle not to be missed. As Van Buren writes, “..the question isn’t so much why Private Garner is screaming. It’s why we aren’t.”

    — Lisa, Five-Star Amazon Review
    A bloody American invasion of Japan; the incineration by firebombing of Kyoto; an unlikely truce between a U.S. lieutenant and a Japanese sergeant. In Van Buren’s imaginative retelling of the end of World War II, we learn about the stubborn horrors of war — and the fragile grace that blooms ever so fleetingly amid the chaos. “The question isn’t so much why Private Garner is screaming,” notes a doctor treating a PTSD casualty.  “It’s why we aren’t.”  Striking words from a story of searing intensity.

    – William Astore, Lt Col, USAF (Ret.), author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism
    With its changing points-of-view and reverse timeline, Peter Van Buren’s “Hooper’s War” is a spiritual cousin to the movies “Rashômon” and “Memento”. The book is set in an alternate World War II, in which U.S. forces invade Japan, rather than drop the atomic bomb. With philosophical precision and wit, Van Buren has constructed a literary origami, which unfolds to reveal that the creases and lines of history are determined as much by personal chance as they are big decisions—and that war is as much our doing, as it is our undoing.

    —Randy Brown, author of Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire (Middle West Press, 2015)
    Hooper’s War is a classic war story of blood and guts spilled in Japan during WWII but with contemporary meanings. Told by both an young American lieutenant and a young Japanese soldier, Van Buren writes of the the inevitable questioning of what wars do to those who fight. “This sh*t doesn’t end when the war does, it only ends when we do.” “Garner is likely to just be insane for the rest of his life, mind torn apart and all that. His body’s in terrific shape, not a scratch. But the question isn’t so much why Private Garner is screaming. It’s why we aren’t, Lieutenant.”

    “Besides, Garner went insane because of what he saw in Kyoto. Curing him means I’d have to convince him seeing the burned children he’s shouting about was not a reason to be insane.” These are commentaries echoed seventy-five years later by our young soldiers with PTSD from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

    –Ann Wright, US Army Reserve Colonel and former US diplomat.

     

    Reviews and Comments on Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent – Available Now!

    As Earl takes an endless bus ride around his hometown of Reeve, Ohio, we witness the downwardly spiraling events of his life as he tries to make sense of how a boom town went bust. It’s the twenty-first century, and the factory that founded and funded this Rust Belt town is gone, taking with it the livelihood and lives of hardworking and hard-drinking men like Earl and his father before him. Men who were duped into bartering their dreams of glory for what would turn out to be the empty promise of a steady wage.

    In a device that could well be employed in a Beckett drama, Earl’s mythical bus teems with a constant parade of unearthly visitors from his past—family, friends, and fellow downsized derelicts who, in their unreal way, convey the painful reality that erodes society when the American dream turns into a nightmare. Van Buren turns his keen eye to the shameful treatment of the nation’s unemployed and homeless.

    — Booklist
    Politicians come and go, but the critical issues tearing at our society do not. In his new book Ghosts of Tom Joad Van Buren turns to the larger themes of social justice and equality, and asks uncomfortable questions about where we are headed. He is no stranger to speaking truth to power, and the critical importance of doing that in a democracy cannot be overestimated. Standing up and saying “This is wrong” is the basis of a free society. The act of doing so must be often practiced, and regularly tested. — Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower, The Pentagon Papers.
    A lyrical, and deeply reported look at America’s decline from the bottom up. Though a work of fiction, Ghosts of Tom Joad is – sadly, and importantly – based on absolute fact. Buy it, read it, think about it. —Janet Reitman, contributing editor, Rolling Stone, author of Inside Scientology: the Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion.
    A sober reflection on the United States economy and how it has transformed in the past decades… There’s a “story truth” to what Van Buren writes that is similar to the “story truth” in the classic work of fiction, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien… It is our story. It is America’s story. —Kevin Gosztola, FireDogLake.com
    Read this book. It is a compassionate look at the American Dream since 1973 through the eyes of someone whose experience has been more nightmare than dream-like. It is also a cautionary tale – recognize the path that brought us to this pass in order to find a way out of the morass. The references to Grapes of Wrath are well woven into the story and remind us of the need for constant vigilance to prevent exploitation.

    But this is not just a political commentary. Van Buren has written a very human story about a man’s life, his expectations and disappointments. Heartbreaking, yet familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the heartland of America over the past thirty years. Every American should read this book. And the wider world as well to understand what makes – and unmakes – the American Dream. — Amazon Review
    This book stands on its own as a novel, because the writing is wonderful. But it is – sadly – a cautionary tale for those who refused to understand history. Tom Joad is back, and Van Buren skillfully echoes Steinbeck while at the same time creating a tale of the early 21st century. Belongs on the shelf next to Nickel and Dimed. — Amazon Review
    Was Mr. Van Buren informed by John Steinbeck? You bet. Steinbeck was the clarion call of awareness for the Depression-era Oakies, and Van Buren is no less of a mirror and literary translator for an entire generation that has been destroyed by the end of manufacturing as we knew it. — Amazon Review
    I was often reminded of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickled and Dimed… Like the referenced Grapes of Wrath, the future is bleak. In the author’s deft hands, the ways of the modern working poor are made clear: pay day loans, rent-to-own, working for healthcare coverage, SNAP benefits barely covering grocery expenses, and minimum wage. I can testify to the trueness of Van Buren’s writing. These lives, though fiction, are real and living among us. These “ghosts” are our neighbors in need of salvation. And for that attention, Van Buren has accomplished much. —The Avid Reader
    Ghosts of Tom Joad is a heartbreaking tale of one man against the world, or rather the world against one man. I don’t think you can call it an epic since it takes place almost entirely within a small town in rust-belt Ohio, but it’s definitely raw, gritty, and painful. The narrator pulls no punches when it comes to describing his downward spiral into underemployment and homelessness, and the novel that results is heartbreakingly authentic.

    Fair warning: this book contains descriptions of sexual activity, physical abuse, and violence. Still, the most frightening part came when I realized that the narrator was being haunted by the ghost of the American dream. —Live to Read, Read to Live
    Set against the grim shuttered factories and empty Main Street storefronts of America’s post-industrial heartland, Peter Van Buren’s touching, angry, beautifully crafted debut novel pulls back the veil on the growing underclass that much of our country would prefer not to acknowledge. Charting Midwest everyman Earl’s inexorable slide from retail stock clerk to subsistence-wage day laborer to homelessness, “Ghosts of Tom Joad” is at once a powerfully intimate portrait of a man trying to hold onto his dignity, and an epic, bracing wake-up call for a nation in denial and decline. Like his heroes Steinbeck and Agee before him, the author takes us on an unflinching tour of America’s “broken places,” yet true to his predecessors Van Buren never loses sight of his rough characters’ resilient humanity, their deeply held yearning for the grounding connection of family and community, their stubborn hope for a better life. An urgent, important story and an incredibly necessary book. —James Spione, Academy Award-nominated documentarian, Incident in New Baghdad and Silenced.
    Bloody marvelous! —Maine World News Service
    An original, nitty-gritty novel… grippingly written fiction, it’s also a powerful portrait of the new American world… Highly recommended. —Tom Englehardt, editor, TomDispatch.com
    Peter Van Buren gets it. —Douglas Wissing, author, journalist
    This is not a plug for a friend or even an acquaintance. Van Buren and I have never met, never spoken. I am his Facebook “friend,” and will continue to read whatever he writes because his voice is so wise and so necessary. —Steve Weinberg
    I know these people and have worked at this level. They are the army of invisibles. Their powerlessness and ours to affect better outcomes for them is stultifying. I call it societal implosion. The American character is not designed to look inwards on itself. —Blog Reader Alex

     

    Every so often I pick up a book to review that not only wakes me up with a slap to the face but also beats me down. The story is very realistic and typical of the environment. I highlighted and noted almost as many passages from this novel as I would from a nonfiction book on an unfamiliar subject… It reads as real life. This book is very well done on so many levels. Even though I left long ago, it is not something I, or anyone else, can run from forever. It is spreading across the country with every business that closes, every job that goes away and is replaced with a part time dead end job…”and you can’t build a nation on the working poor.” — Joseph Spuckler
    There is no greater social problem in America today than the growth of income inequality to record levels. While occasionally the issue gains some attention, as with the election of a progressive mayor of New York City, for the most part the poor live lives of quiet desperation out of sight of the media. “The Ghosts of Tom Joad” though a work of fiction, vividly portrays how the plight of the working poor are and should be read by everyone with a social conscience. —Ambassador Dennis Jett (Ret.), Ph.D., Professor of International Affairs, Pennsylvania State University
    Haunting and a kick in the gut, Peter Van Buren’s first novel, The Ghosts of Tom Joad, lays bare the brutal and very personal reality of America’s Great Recession. In his first book, We Meant Well, Peter blew the whistle on the catastrophic effects of American policy in Iraq; now Peter turns his necessary and just attention on the effects of American policy at home. Want to understand the true and honest nature of our modern society and the American way of life? Then read The Ghosts of Tom Joad. —Matthew Hoh, Peace and Veterans advocate, former Marine.
    The Ghosts of Tom Joad, A Story of the #99Percent is a powerful and provocative tale of the working poor. Although the story is fiction, the themes are anything but. In a lively yet serious manner, Peter Van Buren tackles one of the most important issues of our day—how can a free society deal with the costs associated with creative destruction? The Ghosts of Tom Joad is required reading for all concerned with the future of our country.” —Christopher J. Coyne, F.A. Harper Professor of Economics, George Mason University
    I can’t tell you what an impact this book had on me. The writing is beautiful but the story is brutal. I grew up in and around these places and to say it is grim is an understatement. Ghosts captures everything — the human complexity and the profound cultural/economic damages. The story stuck with me long after I stopped reading.

    I grew up and later worked in a “Reeve, Ohio.” While experiencing a visceral recognition, Van Buren’s intimate portrait of this dying town made me feel like a stranger peeking in on places many Americans have no idea exist. I will never again drive by the old manufacturing towns of my
    youth without wondering about the shadows within, as drawn so mesmerizingly in Van Buren’s relentlessly vivid portrayal. As Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath made a place for the Dust Bowl in our literary canon, Ghosts aims to do the same for the devastating industrial decline of the late-American 20th century. —Kelley Vlahos, The American Conservative
    Ghosts of Tom Joad takes a hard, honest look at where millions of Americans are today: living a marginal existence, a no-exit life of grinding poverty. What Peter Van Buren is able to show through his gritty, close-to-the-ground prose, is how capitalism destroys the human spirit, leaving its victims devoid of any purpose in life. Those of us in our sixties and seventies are completely bewildered at where the America of our youth—a very different sort of place from today—went. The answer is contained in the pages of this book: the values of “the market” finally swamped everything else, destroyed any values except those of rapaciousness and self-interest. “I think God owes us an apology,” says the central character of this novel. No, I’d reply; but America certainly does. —Morris Berman, historian, author, The Twilight of American Culture, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, and Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline
    Growing up in Ohio, I got my first jobs in radio in Port Clinton, Bowling Green and Kenton in the early 1970’s. Each town had a thriving Main Street and at least one family-owned manufacturing operation. The jobs went offshore, and big box malls on the edge of town killed Main Street. Based on his personal experience in dead-end retail jobs, Peter Van Buren captures the downward spiral of middle America, as the workers who’ve been sacrificed for corporate profits watch their children flounder in minimum wage jobs and fight to survive. This is a powerful novel that reflects the desperate reality that many Americans face daily. –Peter B. Collins, The Peter B. Collins Show
    Have and have-nots have always existed. The Ghosts of Tom Joad brings this conflict so often touched upon in literature into a modern day, down-turned economy. Riveted with a bit of nostalgia for the rosier 70s and 80s, the story manages to find humor in an otherwise dismal life. When you choose to ride this bus with Earl, you’ll find yourself reminiscing with him, rooting for him, and yearning for the release he strives to find. — Lisa Ehrle, Teacher-Librarian, Aurora, Colorado
    Good stuff. I found the voice and voices engaging, interesting, and compelling. Images and phrases stuck until well after I’d read the work. I often engage myself with themes of middle-class, middle-American struggle, so things like this really resonated with me. The Korean war stuff felt authentic. The snowball-fight / snow-angels motif was nicely threaded throughout the work, and paid-off well. Bottom line: It’s accessible and compelling, a mix of “Canterbury Tales” meets “Grapes of Wrath” meets “American Beauty.” —Charlie Sherpa, Military Blogger, Red Bull Rising
    In Ghosts of Tom Joad, Peter Van Buren invokes his powerful story-telling gifts to portray a job-starved Ohio community. This gripping, contemporary novel in the tradition of Grapes of Wrath is more real than real ­­– and a worthy successor to Van Buren’s reporting about Iraq in his courageous We Meant Well. —Andrew Kreig, Director, Justice Integrity Project, author, Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters.
    In Peter Van Buren’s Ghosts of Tom Joad, things do not always look better in the morning. In this autopsy of the new depression, you turn a page and keep reading hoping the story’s left behind people catch up… because one way or another, they’re us. —Diplopundit
    Van Buren is passionate about the truth, and his new book Ghosts of Tom Joad is a masterpiece, a must-read about the decline of our economy and social structure, an inspirational story showing how one man and one nation can claw its way back to greatness. —Kathryn Milofsky, Producer Reporter ITV (UK) /Executive Producer The Brian Oxman Show (US)
    Peter Van Buren has an amazing ability to draw the reader into his stories. That the author of the definitive work on the debacle of our post-war reconstruction of Iraq has now set his sights on the debacle of our post-industrial America makes perfect sense. Many of the actors are the same, with the same intent. —Daniel McAdams, Ron Paul Institute
    A twenty-first century Grapes of Wrath, this memorable volume documents in a concrete, personal, often moving way the despair among many in America today due to economic and family hardships. In the words of its fictional but all too real narrator — Earl, from a rust-belt small Ohio town, unable get a permanent job or start a family — “they took away the factory, but left the people;” “this ain’t a story, it’s an autopsy.” —John H. Brown, Adjunct Professor of Liberal Studies, Georgetown University
    At the State Department Peter Van Buren was a pioneer blowing the whistle in defense of human rights by challenging torture. In this novel he blows the whistle in defense of America’s roots by challenging the dehumanizing consequences when big business abandoned the Rust Belt in Ohio. This tale of a mythical Earl’s relentless quest for an American dream that has become a mirage is worthy of the voices that inspired it, from Woody Guthrie to John Steinbeck to Bruce Springsteen. —Tom Devine, Legal Director, Government Accountability Project

     

    We Meant Well

    We Meant Well reminds me in its insanity of Joseph Heller’s CATCH-22 and my own experiences in Vietnam. Recommend We Meant Well, a darkly funny inside look at Iraq War from State Department whistleblower Peter Van Buren. —Oliver Stone, Director

     

    One diplomat’s darkly humorous and ultimately scathing assault on just about everything the military and the State Department have done — or tried to do — since the invasion of Iraq. The title says it all: We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People —Steven Myers, New York Times

     

    When it comes to our own missteps in the region, you won’t find a more shocking, saddening—and yes, hilarious—account than Peter Van Buren’s We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, the State Department insider’s firsthand account of how the U.S. is bungling the reconstruction of Iraq with symbolic rather than substantive efforts to provide relief (Van Buren’s image of the U.S. outfitting a local school with computers—rather than electricity—is unforgettable). —Publisher’s Weekly, early review

     

    In this shocking and darkly hilarious exposé of the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq, former State Department team leader Van Buren describes the tragicomedy that has been American efforts at nation building, marked by bizarre decisions and wrongheaded priorities.

    A story of the American ambassador and his lawn elegantly evokes the disconnect between American intention and Iraqi suffering: despite blistering heat, seed-stealing birds, and the astronomical cost of water, the ambassador demanded–and achieved–an emerald green garden within the embassy walls. “We made things in Iraq look the way we wanted them to look,” Van Buren writes.

    With lyrical prose and biting wit, this book reveals the devastating arrogance of imperial ambition and folly. –Publisher’s Weekly, later review
    If Joseph Heller’s war began in 2004 instead of 1944, this would be the book entitled Catch-22. Once I picked up We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, I could not put the book down. I could not believe so much that appears to be fictional satire could instead relate actual events. Very highly recommended. —Seattle Public Intelligencer

     

    I’ve read just about every memoir out of Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade, military or otherwise, and this stands as one of the best — certainly one of the most self-aware and best written. —Garrett M. Graff, Editor, Washingtonian
    Despite the risks of such frankness for Van Buren—he is currently the subject of a State Department investigation—he writes with the sardonic candor of a man too intent on recounting the absurdities he has witnessed to worry about what he has to lose. — The Nation
    Peter Van Buren is reviled by some, celebrated by others. Earlier this autumn, he published what some angry diplomats consider a piss-and-tell book, a memoir of his time leading an Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq. In fact, one might argue that Van Buren has succeeded in writing a most accessible and plain-spoken book about America’s efforts in Afghanistan. It just happens to be about Iraq.

    Snarky, but true. And not without a heart. No matter how sharp-tongued and bushy-tailed he gets, he doesn’t hesitate to let his guard down, and to document the transcendent, disguised as the mundane. –Red Bull Rising

     

    Peter Van Buren, a Foreign Service Officer, spent a year at two forward operating bases in Iraq helping to “reconstruct” that country. With its ironic title, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, his work, a remarkable deconstruction of that effort and more generally of the debacle of American-style armed “nation-building,” will be a classic in the annals of anti-interventionism. He’s also a natural as a writer. Think of him as the State Department’s Michael Herr, though in its first rave reviews his book is being compared to Joseph Heller’s classic World War II novel Catch-22. —TomDispatch

     

    Now, a handful of wars later, comes We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, by a veteran State Department officer who spent a year working in the black hole of the notoriously inept, $63 billion Iraqi reconstruction program.

    If this ain’t Catch-22, it’s awfully close. For sure, it’s not a novel, but as they say, you can’t make this stuff up.

    But like Catch-22, We Meant Well is held together by Van Buren’s hilariously rendered absurdities, from his encounters with self-important Iraqi and American officials and their fictitious reconstruction projects to the U.S. command’s annual — which is to say, once a year– distribution of a single can of beer to the troops. I laughed ’til I cried. But I think that was the point. –Jeff Stein, SpyTalk

     

    Laugh-out-loud stories about how the United States failed to rebuild Iraq… One of the rare, completely satisfying results of the expensive debacle in Iraq. —Kirkus Reviews, “starred.” Kirkus Reviews also named We Meant Well one of its top non-fiction titles of 2011.

     

    A foreign service officer exposes the truth about American aid to Iraq, using satire, irony and sometimes laugh-out-loud humor to convey grim reality. –Kansas City Star. The Star also named We Meant Well one of the top 100 Books of 2011.

     

    Although not previously a professional writer, Van Buren writes superbly. Every page of his presumably true memoir is laugh-out-loud funny — funny, that is, if readers don’t mind guffawing at expensive so-called expert consultants who had never been to Iraq and did not speak the local language, military commanders who issued idiotic orders almost without exception and the waste of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars annually.

    In more than 250 pages of text, Van Buren can think of almost no expenditure that made sense or helped with the long-term goal of stabilizing Iraq and moving it toward American-style democracy. Read it and weep, or laugh — or probably both. —Dallas Morning News

     

    In his unsparing account of one year on a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq, Van Buren describes how the State Department, in concert with the U.S. military, threw billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money away through waste, fraud, and abuse and failed to help the Iraq people maintain the most basic necessities, like clean water, health care, and sewage, despite all the funding and promises to the contrary. Describing his time in Iraq the way he did breaks all protocol of the typically silent — and compliant — Foreign Service officer. —Antiwar.com

     

    A burn-his-bridges (book by a) foreign service officer. This is a scathing, gallows humor look at a massif of missteps – my favorite is the $3 million order for mobile water-purification units, which didn’t work on Iraq’s highly saline water. Van Buren is merciless: “We were the ones who famously helped paste together feathers year after year, hoping for a duck.’’ —Boston Globe. The Globe also choose We Meant Well as one of the six book about the Iraq War to read.

     

    A book Robert Altman might have loved. I’m about to praise a book by a first time author whose work reads as if he simply wrote down what happened right in front of his eyes, one thing after another, yet who has give us something riveting and true and possibly important, a potential classic. Van Buren’s willingness to tell what, preposterously, really happened, keeps the reader on the line. He is angry, and he’s bitter, but he also has a gift for black humor, and comes across as decent guy who is trying to be fair. –The Progressive Reader

     

    Checkbook Diplomacy. In shopping for hearts and minds in Iraq, the State Department made some bizarre impulse purchases. –Foreign Policy

     

    I very much liked US State Department veteran Peter Van Buren’s We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. Insightful, disturbing, and at times darkly funny, I was constantly reminded of Robert Fisks’s poignant observation that it seems the only thing we ever learn is that we never learn. –Open Canada

    Van Buren’s prose is accessible, colloquial, somewhat macho, with sustained skepticism and moments of humor. –Washington Post
    Van Buren alternates engaging but ultimately depressing chapters about the many ways reconstructing Iraq has failed with vignettes about the effort’s cast of characters – private contractors, Army brass, diplomats and spies, some arrogant, some lonely, some homesick. The reader unquestionably needs the respite, but the characters who provide comic relief in a chronicle of relentless failure in fact create the very failure we need to escape.

    This eye for meaningful details, combined with Van Buren’s plain-spoken storytelling, is what makes the book work. He could tell contractors on sight, he says, because they all wore clothing with a plethora of pockets. “If you filled all the pockets, you wouldn’t be able to climb stairs.” From the popularity of line-itemed programs for widows to the Green Zone’s plentiful cargo pants, Van Buren identifies the styles of our war – and demands we think about its substance. –Christian Science Monitor

     

    Reality so rich it stuns. A time capsule, priceless deep insights into occupation at its worst. Six Stars out of Five and Beyond– Open Heart Surgery on a Corrupt Ignorant Government. –Public Intelligence Blog

    For those of us old enough to remember Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, which chronicled the absurdities of US military life during World War II… Van Buren’s We Meant Well should be seen in a similar vein. Hilarious, horrifying and heart-wrenching. –Whirled View

     

    A State Department insider reveals what he believes to be costly and misguided efforts by American forces to reconstruct Iraq. –National Public Radio

    A first-hand account of the faltering and often misguided attempts at reconstruction in Iraq undertaken by the U.S. government. –Democracy Now
    An informative, amusing and horrifying account of the disposition of the $172 billion that the United States, Iraq itself involuntarily and other countries provided for Iraq reconstruction. what Mr. Van Buren writes really becomes amusing — or shocking, depending on how sensitive one is to seeing U.S. taxpayer dollars seep into the Mesopotamian sand. – Former US Ambassador Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

     

    In 2009 and 2010, Van Buren points out, suicide caused more deaths among the U.S. military than combat. While often depressed during his tour and missing his family “terribly,” the very rational Van Buren opted, thank God, for staying alive, keeping sane by scrupulously observing the situation around him. The result is this black-humor book, personal and often very funny, which recounts, from an “on the ground” perspective, the pathetic and tragic American attempt to remake the cradle of civilization. –American Diplomacy

     

    Peter Van Buren’s sensible, funny, and ultimately sad portrait of failed nation-building will need to be resurrected and read and re-read, especially in our schools and media offices, the latter because so many publications and TV commentators were cheerleaders for the invasion. –Spero Forum

     

    We Meant Well is an insider account of the civilian side of the surge in Iraq. The challenges and failures should be lessons for Afghanistan. –Afghanistan101

    Van Buren also describes in great detail what life was like for the American military in Iraq, the monotony of base life enlivened by brief forays into heightened alertness and even terror. In some ways, this book is terribly depressing, redeemed by Van Buren’s sardonic style and all-around snarkiness. There were moments I laughed out loud. –5MinutesforBooks.com

     

    Learning from one’s mistakes is one of life’s most important skills. And if we are really serious about learning the mistakes of nation building in Iraq, Peter Van Buren’s book should be required reading not just for decision makers but for everyone heading to those PRT gigs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan and where ever else it is we are conducting reconstruction and stabilization efforts these days.

    In addition to being an engaging storyteller, the author was smart enough not to fill his book with too much government jargon and acronyms that you need a dictionary just to read it. People back home, if they’d bother to pick up the book will find it a fast read. It is also a book that will be a helpful addition to our understanding of what is wrong in Iraq, provided that we care and want to know. For the plenty squeezed and suffering American taxpayers, this would be a hard book to read. —Diplopundit

     

    Billed as bitingly funny, though I’m not sure I’m laughing; an important book from someone who was there. – Library Journal

     

    We Meant Well, both title and concept, is how pro-war policymakers and pundits rationalized the bloodshed and chaos by doing good things for post-Saddam Iraqis. Largely ignorant of Iraq’s history, culture, and language, Washington’s elite foreign policy circles actually believed the con men and living room warriors who conjured up visions of WMDs and of spreading America’s economic empire by war and thereby transforming the country into a fair and open society. — History News Network

     

    Peter Van Buren’s searing first-hand testimony is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the true depths of the disaster we created in Iraq. With startling candor and mordant wit, Van Buren lays it all out there: the colossal waste and fraud, the clueless hubris, the banal bureaucratic ineptitude of our efforts to “reconstruct” a country with pet projects and plans that have little chance of success in a land where the underlying institutions and infrastructure have been so thoroughly destroyed. A fascinating, heartbreaking, hilarious and moving account of our American Empire at work. — James Spione, Director, Academy Award-nominated “Incident in New Baghdad”

     

    A great read to see the real story of what our country has done in Iraq. It’s not a blame book, but a book without rose-colored glasses. — Shelfari.com

     

    To the extent that Peter Van Buren’s book brings to light wasteful, ineffective and counterproductive undertakings by the U.S. government in Iraq, it must be regarded as a public service. Surely even the most ardent supporters of ousting Saddam Hussein and establishing democracy in that country would want to know whether we are actually achieving our government’s stated objectives — and if not, why not? Kudos to Mr. Van Buren for having the courage to call it as he saw it. — Amazon.com reader

     

    Long after the self-serving memoirs of people named Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld are consigned to some landfill, this unsparing and very funny chronicle will remain on the short list of books essential to understanding America’s Iraq War. Here is nation-building as it looks from the inside—waste, folly, and sheer silliness included. —Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War

    The road to Hell is paved with taxpayer dollars in Peter Van Buren’s account of a misspent year rebuilding Iraq. Abrasive, honest and funny, We Meant Well is an insider’s account of life behind blast walls at the height of the surge. —Nathan Hodge, author of Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation Builders

    We Meant Well is a must-read, first-hand account of our disastrous occupation of Iraq. Its lively writing style will appeal to a wide audience. —Congressman Dr. Ron Paul

     

     

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