Reviews for Peace Meals: Candy-Wrapped Kalashnikovs and Other War Stories

The average rating for Peace Meals: Candy-Wrapped Kalashnikovs and Other War Stories based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-12 00:00:00 Joe Cook Badken has lyrical way of describing friendship in impossible war torn places. I love how she closes the book stating that being in a state of war intensifies ones emotions to one of absolutes. I love this book because it focuses on war through rose-colored glasses of unity between allies via having meals together. It is amazing what war correspondents go through for a story. The only way I can explain why these people are attracted to war torn countries is that they love the rush of war. Having said this, I trust the mainstream media more than conservative media because whereas the mainstream media are driven more by data and facts, conservative media have an agenda to tell and actively look for facts that drive their agenda, meaning their coverage is automatically biased. One only needs to W justification of the war in Iraq to show this is true. W. decided to go to war in Iraq and looked for raw unvetted intelligence to justify the war. I realize that if one tells a story this means that it is some what biased. Besides having the wrong intelligence for causing the Iraq war, the Iraq war was poorly planned and executed. The special ops troops sent into Iraq was made to quickly find the enemy and neutralize them not for nation building and for playing political police of transition to democracy. Clearly, part of the problem is the lack of a clear mission objective after ousting Saddam Hussein. The interesting about the neoconservative thinking about global affairs is that they think the military preemptive strikes solves political problems that is the reasons why they do not plan for democratic transition that Iraq needed. The lack of planning for Iraqi's aftermath is the height of incompetence. We aloud militants to fill the power vacuum left from Saddam Hussein by the lack of security and basic services provided after we ousted him. Although Iraq intelligence was forged without a strategic plan to do good, the impulse of getting Saddam Hussein combined with bringing democracy to the most literate country in the middle east was a good one. One thing is for sure, no one is going to miss Saddam Hussein and his effective propaganda machine. If anything, Iraq shows us that if one conquers a country and does not mean to annex the country, one has to have a nation building strategy from initial military attack to security to bringing basic services to people and finally democratization process. Iraq shows us that one cannot go to war half-assessed. Colin Powell should have been in charge of the Iraq war b/c he is more thorough in his approach to winning rather than planning the military end of it. Compounding the issue of our army not knowing who is friend from foe, we had to go house to house and flush out possible "militants." From an Iraqi's perspective, I would be pissed off if the military searched my house in the middle of night while my family and I are sleeping especially if I was falsely accused of doing something that I did not do. I am soooo glad we are out of Iraq since the Iraqi's thought that we were occupiers and our projects to help them were no longer appreciated. What is the point of helping someone who does not want to be helped especially if we are spending tax payer money to try to help them? Aside from the fact that the military personnel might get killed at any moment due to the fact we did not know who the enemy is, the soldier's personal life suffers as marriages end in divorced due to constant redeployment. Things I have learned reading this book: 1) Political alliances mean nothing in Afghanistan only tribal and family alliances are important. I do not know how one can defeat an enemy that constantly changes sides as the losing Afghani's seem to do. The initial attraction of Afghani's toward that Taliban is that they brought order out of chaos. In a place where rape was very common place in which the winning side would justify its action by saying rape just comes with the territory, one can see why the fundamental ordered way of the Taliban was a very good alternative to the chaotic mess that governed the country. In a war torn country like Afghanistan, I don't know how one can begin to think about rehabilitating a country that only skill of its population is war. Humanitarian aid in war torn countries almost never goes to the people who need it most. Instead, people who usually receive the aid are the people with guns and then the population that supports the warriors while the rest ends up in the market of public consumption. 2) The war torn population of Afghanistan can only survive by making poppy seeds to feed its family which incidentally saw an increase in production with the Afghanistan war. The only good news with the increase in poppy production is that the price for production has declined so much that other crops can now compete with poppy production for space in its production. 3) While the male population has profited from the ousting of the Taliban with the proliferation of music and movies such as the Titanic, women are still very much second citizens. In an area in which women are still very much second class citizens, incremental change such as providing universal education and lending women micro-finance loans are the way to allow them to thrive. 4) Russian alcoholism combined with communism is the reason why Russia will never be able to compete globally with the US, EU, East Asian countries with their better work ethic. I think it also speaks to the dangers of massive addiction in crippling a countries potential. Russian centralized mentality in leading also speaks to low-likelihood of it being a true democracy. If the Kremlin can sacrifice its citizens in pursuit of terrorist without thinking twice. I mean for the 2 people killed by Chechnian terrorist is thoroughly offset by the 150 people the Russian counter-terrorism team killed to rescue its population. Badkhen also proves that capitalism is the best and most efficient way to bring products to the market. 5) Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows why Gaza is the breeding ground for terrorist due to its youthful population with 80% unemployment and stagnant political life. Its social safety net is Hamas which doubles as a terrorist group and charity for its society, it is not hard why people see it as a benevolent force. Only a few people like Anna's friend can escape the force to be suicide bomber. 6) Even with the relatively high unemployment, America is still the land of plenty. Even poor people have access to basic necessities to live unlike impoverished 3rd world areas such as East Africa where access to clean water is nonexistent. Parents in these places have to choose which of their children will live and which will die. Lower m.c. people, eat as much as royalty in these East African nation. For international aid agencies, humanitarian assistance only creates dependency on people who need the assistance. Although these agencies know that development is the only way that these people can live a self-sustaining life, the lack of development funds causes it to never be funded.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-08-14 00:00:00 Kiera Bracken Badkhen, an experienced journalist, relates experiences from her time in Russia, Jordan, Iraq and Afghanistan, threaded together with the universal experience of food--a candy bar given as a bribe, meals eaten with a translator's family while gunfire roared outside, binge drinking in Moscow while waiting for news of the theater hostage catastrophe, the meals served on US bases, feasts Afghans insisted on having for her American husband (who resembled an Elvis-level Afghan singer who had died in 1979) and the surreal airdrop of off-brand pop tarts.