We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People
By Peter Van Buren.
Van Buren, a 24-year veteran of the State Department, spent a year in Iraq leading a Provincial Reconstruction Team on one of the most extensive (and expensive) hearts-and-minds campaigns since the Marshall Plan. In his eyewitness account, Van Buren retells the stories of Iraqi civilians and the sometimes surreal attempts of American forces to rebuild the world they had just destroyed. Using razor-sharp irony and wit, Van Buren details his quixotic journey involving pointless projects, fumbling bureaucrats, oblivious administrators and exhausted soldiers. A tragic comedy of sorts, ?We Meant Well? is a master class in the pitfalls nation-building
By Peter Van Buren.
Van Buren, a 24-year veteran of the State Department, spent a year in Iraq leading a Provincial Reconstruction Team on one of the most extensive (and expensive) hearts-and-minds campaigns since the Marshall Plan. In his eyewitness account, Van Buren retells the stories of Iraqi civilians and the sometimes surreal attempts of American forces to rebuild the world they had just destroyed. Using razor-sharp irony and wit, Van Buren details his quixotic journey involving pointless projects, fumbling bureaucrats, oblivious administrators and exhausted soldiers. A tragic comedy of sorts, ?We Meant Well? is a master class in the pitfalls nation-building
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