A worthy account of a valiant operation.
A lively account of heroism after the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Americans celebrated when the Soviet military evacuated Afghanistan in 1989, leaving the government and its supporters to the cruel mercies of the victorious Taliban. Few cheered when America did the same last year, as U.S. leaders failed to keep their promises that they would not abandon their allies. Among those caught up in the chaos of the final months were interpreters, civil servants, and elite members of Afghan Special Forces, who worked closely with their American counterparts. Mann, a retired Green Beret with more than 20 years of international combat experience, builds his story around Nezamuddin Nezami, an Afghan commando who found himself trapped in the increasing chaos. Frightened for his family’s fate once the Taliban regained control of the country, he applied for a Special Immigrant Visa to the U.S., which never came. He appealed frantically to former comrades, including the author, all safely in America, often retired, and none highly placed. Stirred to action, they assembled an ad hoc collection of Afghan vets, CIA officers, USAID advisers, and congressional aides dubbed the Pineapple Express, and the group planned tactics, bypassed red tape to talk directly to overwhelmed officials under siege at the Kabul airport, and succeeded in extracting Nezami and his family. By this time, aware of appeals from other trapped Afghans, they managed to guide hundreds to safety before a terrorist bomb at the airport abruptly ended their work, leaving thousands behind. Mann delivers gripping accounts of a few successful rescues and admiring portraits of his Pineapple Express colleagues, but he is also careful to point out that America dishonored itself. In hastily abandoning Afghanistan, neither Presidents Trump nor Biden displayed more than token sympathy for the Afghan people. Particularly helpful for general readers are the timeline, cast of characters, and acronyms list.
A worthy account of a valiant operation.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00353-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
By examining the causes of specific ancient and modern wars, Kagan tries to determine the underlying reasons for war in general. While scholars throughout history have studied this matter, Kagan (Classics, History, Western Civilization/Yale; The Fall of the Athenian Empire, not reviewed, etc.) argues that it has a special urgency in our own time because of the catastrophe threatened by modern warfare. However, he limits the usefulness of his otherwise well-reasoned study by choosing only four wars—two ancient (the Peloponnesian War and the Second Punic War) and two modern (World Wars I and II)—and an international incident in which war was narrowly averted (the Cuban missile crisis). Kagan admits that he made these choices in part because of his own familiarity with Western tradition (indeed, his European orientation leads him to treat WW II solely as a European phenomenon, without discussing Japan or the Manchurian crisis). While conceding that these wars had disparate specific causes, Kagan quotes Thucydides, the great chronicler of the Peloponnesian War, in arguing that wars, in ancient as well as in modern times, can generally be traced to a ``trio of motives'': fear of other states, the pursuit of state interests (e.g., commercial), and the pursuit of honor. Kagan concludes that the preservation of peace requires constant planning, attention, cooperation among states, and sacrifice; that states will compete constantly as a normal condition of international affairs; and that states have a greater chance of preserving peace, ``not by resorting to disarmament, withdrawal, and disengagement, but by maintaining a strong military power and willingness to use it when necessary.'' Although Kagan restricts his study too much by examining only a small number of wars drawn solely from the Western experience, he presents a soberly realistic, thoughtful, and well-written look at the human race's oldest scourge.
Pub Date: Jan. 5, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-42374-8
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
Far more worthy than the celebrity-driven narratives of recent seasons, this is an exceptionally valuable addition to the...
An extraordinary tale of bravery under fire and the will to endure.
When the Philippines fell to Japan in 1942, hundreds of the Allied troops who survived the Bataan death march were imprisoned in the jungle camp of Cabanatuan. Some would be tortured, others executed without cause; all suffered starvation and illnesses such as “dengue fever, amoebic dysentery, bacillary dysentery, tertian malaria, cerebral malaria, typhus, typhoid.” For three years, the “ghost soldiers” of Cabanatuan lived in an earthly hell, and they would have remained there longer had an elite group of Rangers fighting with Douglas MacArthur’s invading army not planned and executed a rescue operation of tremendous emotional but doubtful strategic value—and one that could easily have ended in a costly disaster. Led by a young colonel named Henry Mucci (called “Little MacArthur” not only because he smoked a pipe incessantly but also because “he had, like the Supreme Commander, a firm grasp of the theatrics of warfare”), the Rangers penetrated deep within Japanese-controlled territory, mounted an attack on the Japanese troops and tanks surrounding the camp, and led hundreds of Allied prisoners to safety—with thousands of enemy soldiers in hot and vengeful pursuit. Amazingly, the operation cost only a handful of casualties. Justly celebrated in its time (“Every child of coming generations will know of the 6th Rangers, for a prouder story has not been written,” declared one combat correspondent of the rescue), the Cabanatuan rescue has since been all but forgotten. Sides (Stomping Grounds, 1992) restores the episode to history in a thoroughly researched and reported narrative that is careful in its attention to detail and never short of thrilling.
Far more worthy than the celebrity-driven narratives of recent seasons, this is an exceptionally valuable addition to the popular literature surrounding WWII.Pub Date: May 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-49564-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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