The first reading

This being first notice of a book (reference 1) which I was prompted to read by the piece in the NYRB at reference 3. One of the qualifications of the author was a year or so in Iraq during the 2007 surge, while in the US Marine Corps.

A rather tangled tale built around the doings of four people, most of the time in Columbia, but with diversions to Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Pennsylvania. A Columbia at a troubled time, with large areas given over to warring factions: coca growers (mostly poor), drugs gangs, guerillas, irregular military, real military and the police. With the rest of the population being bashed about between them: it is no wonder than so many wanted to leave and start over somewhere else.

There is a great deal of violence and there are many intestines falling out of broken bodies. Often non-combatant bodies. Men, women and children. A fair amount of torture, often mostly exemplary, to scare others into obedience. Most - but not all - of this being the work of the irregulars rather than the regulars. I found it frightening how a society could slip into this sort of thing.

Almost as frightening as what seemed to be the penchant for fighting among many of the Afghans, many of the Columbians and quite a few of the soldiers from the US - and presumably from the UK too. These men liked fighting, they liked combat. Performance in combat was what defined them, what made them men. Combat was an end it itself and any booty was a bonus, a trophy. The sort of thing that was common enough among our upper classes, say around the time of the Norman Conquest - but which we have now largely left behind - with hunting for foxes with dogs being something of a relic. Common enough among the upper classes in ancient Greece if the Iliad is anything to go by.

Part of the tangle is the regular avalanche of initials, mostly for obscure, not to say secretive, organs of the US state and military. I associate to the same sort of thing in the novel about the assassination of President Kennedy - reference 6 - which I probably read near thirty years ago. I think it has now been retired; at least, I can't put my hand on it this morning.

The author does not much care for militant Islam, taking for its creed stuff put together in the tribal desert 1,500 years ago. Which is slightly ironic given the US faith in their 200 year old constitution, also, perhaps, more than a touch out of date.

The book ends on an optimistic note, with the thought that the US may have caused much of the trouble in Columbia with its appetite for illegal cocaine and may have caused much death and misery with misguided action in Afghanistan and Iraq, but was, nevertheless, a force for good in Columbia. It really did help the Columbians to get the situation under control, spending a huge amount of money there along the way.

I'll give the book a rest for a few weeks then, perhaps, have another go.

PS 1: at some point towards the end of the book, page 379 in my paperback edition, a young girl starts on Psalm 88, said to be the grimmest in the series. The one without hope. Which seems rather appropriate given the story that has been told - grim in a different way from the lamentations in Ecclesiastes with which I am more familiar. In any event, this psalm is reproduced above from Wikipedia - not, however, in the translation used in the book, which is modern.

PS 2: at about the time I finished this book, I fell for the Kindle version of that at reference 5. Which touches on some of the same ground, this author having served (as a civilian) in both Afghanistan and Iraq, amongst other places. A former politician who attracts my interest, despite his being a Tory from Eton, acquainted with royals.

PS 3: later on: I was bemused to read in today's Metro that an older man from Muswell Hill has been fined nearly £16,000 for killing a fox cub by putting poison in his wheelie bin. Given that foxes are something of a nuisance in suburban estates, I wonder what this chap did to have the magistrate throw the book at him. Did he own an unpleasant dog as well? Then how did the authorities get to know about it? Or is it just that the Metro, a freebie, can't afford proof readers? Can't expect something for nothing after all.

PS 4: I then thought to ask Bard, who, while not knowing about this Muswell Hill case, starts off by observing that: 'the fine for poisoning a fox cub in a wheelie bin in the United Kingdom can vary depending on the severity of the offense and the offender's criminal history', which reads rather as if this were a chargeable offence in its own right, which it is not. Bard reading too much into the question once again. On the other hand, it goes on to suggest substantial fines and to mention the relevant act, the Animal Welfare Act of 2006. All of which agrees with other sources. Overall, its response to my question is pretty good. That said, 'vermin' does not seem to be a term of law at all, contrary to what I had thought, and I am now not sure what is allowed in the way of clean killing of foxes - although I have read of places like golf clubs hiring people to come in and shoot them. While today I read that the total number of foxes may have halved in the last twenty five years. Is it the tubercular badgers moving into their niche in the world?

References

Reference 1: Missionaries - Phil Klay - 2020.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Klay.

Reference 3: Twenty Years of Outsourced War: In Uncertain Ground, Phil Klay sets out to determine what twenty-first-century US foreign policy has done to the cocksure American mind - Suzy Hansen, NYRB - 2023.

Reference 4: Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War - Phil Klay - 2023. The second, more recent book covered by the piece at reference 3.

Reference 5: Politics on the edge: A memoir from within - Rory Stewart - 2023. Guilty, inter alia, of editing his own page on Wikipedia!

Reference 6: Libra - Don DeLillo - 1988.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selah. This word occurs twice in the psalm snapped above. Perhaps more a word of punctuation than anything else. I dare say it is omitted in modern translations.