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falturani's review against another edition
4.0
I took my time with this slim volume, which I recommend but don't have much to comment on. I think by now, for anyone who has followed the abuses that have characterized and dogged the war on terror, nothing set forth by Kumar will be revelatory. Instead, what's great here is the way he stakes out a space between journalism and cultural criticism, and the observations or conclusions he draws. Mostly, he focuses on several cases linked by the usage of stings, informants, and, arguably, entrapment, centering on two in particular but expanding out to include reports from various fronts in India over the last couple decades -- Mumbai, Delhi, Kashmir. That's another strength here, as it's in a way a comparative study of the US and India, which seem to have made many of the same shameful blunders as each other. As a novelist, poet and literary critic, Kumar also holds up 9/11-inspired art (again, not just American) of various media to the cases and events he reports on, and analyzes the different strands that run through this growing corpus.
The only other stray note I have to add is that I was impressed with the even-handedness and calm that pervades the book, even when Kumar confronts the reader with the most sickening and egregious stories of legal and humanitarian abuse. Perhaps it was because he actually had to interview and interact with many of the people he was writing that he did not vilify, say, the prosecuting attorneys or law enforcement folk who feature in the court cases he discusses. But in particular, I think of his treatment of Anthony Swofford's Jarhead and Michael Herr's Dispatches, as well as Errol Morris and Philip Gourevitch's Standard Operating Procedure, in which he shows compassion for the American soldiers who might be fighting wars that we are opposed to and even those who have committed some of these abuses. It reminded me of a discussion I had at the Jaipur Literature Festival with a young Indian, someone with whom I have a mutual friend, after a panel discussion with Rory Stewart, David Finkel and Jon Lee Anderson. (Stewart, funnily enough, voiced many of the same criticisms of the British and Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been leveled against him, namely ineptitude and lack of expertise.) Finkel and Anderson tried to shy away from politics and instead focused on providing context for what American soldiers endure and experience on these tours of duty and the toll it takes on them, in an effort to humanize these people. My companion was so disgusted that she actually left the panel early, and when we caught up, she explained that such an undertaking effectively ignores and absolves of the "occupying powers" (Reporting the Occupation was the name of the panel) the crimes of war. It calls to mind the mirror image, provided by the late Tim Hetherington in an interview with the AV Club about his film Restrepo, in which he says that, yes, he's morally outraged by war but that such feelings get in the way of what's more important to communicate -- that is, what actually goes on in war, what it's like to fight in it, etc. To cut what might seem like a digression short, I tend to think that these two positions or approaches are not mutually exclusive; both are, indeed, necessary for as full an understanding of war as is possible. Kumar recognizes all this, allowing him to show compassion and complexity -- and to allow for what we among the "admirable anti-war brigade," as he terms it, often fail to grasp -- while also coming to a moral judgment.
The only other stray note I have to add is that I was impressed with the even-handedness and calm that pervades the book, even when Kumar confronts the reader with the most sickening and egregious stories of legal and humanitarian abuse. Perhaps it was because he actually had to interview and interact with many of the people he was writing that he did not vilify, say, the prosecuting attorneys or law enforcement folk who feature in the court cases he discusses. But in particular, I think of his treatment of Anthony Swofford's Jarhead and Michael Herr's Dispatches, as well as Errol Morris and Philip Gourevitch's Standard Operating Procedure, in which he shows compassion for the American soldiers who might be fighting wars that we are opposed to and even those who have committed some of these abuses. It reminded me of a discussion I had at the Jaipur Literature Festival with a young Indian, someone with whom I have a mutual friend, after a panel discussion with Rory Stewart, David Finkel and Jon Lee Anderson. (Stewart, funnily enough, voiced many of the same criticisms of the British and Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been leveled against him, namely ineptitude and lack of expertise.) Finkel and Anderson tried to shy away from politics and instead focused on providing context for what American soldiers endure and experience on these tours of duty and the toll it takes on them, in an effort to humanize these people. My companion was so disgusted that she actually left the panel early, and when we caught up, she explained that such an undertaking effectively ignores and absolves of the "occupying powers" (Reporting the Occupation was the name of the panel) the crimes of war. It calls to mind the mirror image, provided by the late Tim Hetherington in an interview with the AV Club about his film Restrepo, in which he says that, yes, he's morally outraged by war but that such feelings get in the way of what's more important to communicate -- that is, what actually goes on in war, what it's like to fight in it, etc. To cut what might seem like a digression short, I tend to think that these two positions or approaches are not mutually exclusive; both are, indeed, necessary for as full an understanding of war as is possible. Kumar recognizes all this, allowing him to show compassion and complexity -- and to allow for what we among the "admirable anti-war brigade," as he terms it, often fail to grasp -- while also coming to a moral judgment.
ratthew86's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
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