finished impeerial grunts last night, and the thing is, the usual arguements could apply, about how he doesnt treat women well, he is not critically disengaged with what he is reporting on, that he ignores, or overglosses the history of the ameriacn interventions in the sites he chooses (esp the phillipines), how he is uncritical of what the soilders tell him, how he refuses to engage in history (for example the united fruit wars and its relation to current activites in columbia) and current policies (ie drug policy and how it relates to the taliban or farc) , or how his views of the levant are v. much informed by an orientalist reading--the dude needs to read said, stat. all of that is legitmate, and i can cite text if i need to, and its a standard leftist critique of texts that are supportive of military forces.

the thing that (& i think this is the nature of the project) it did for me, was to actually listen to the soilders as they spoke. the chapter on mongolia, where the residents of teh country discussed gladness for the army there, because it protected them from both china and russia, or how unlike most anarachist and marxist critics of the us interactions in south america, farc's position is related much more to capital and power then it is to liberating indigenous people, or how the forces in afghanistan are slippery, growing beards and giving out power bars...

he doesnt answer the centreal paradox of the interventionist army for me, how can you bomb the fuck out of a country, and still help them, how can you set out bombs and candy, and consider it a moral equal (but then, i think that the arab gulf states building temples in badran or east africa is the same as americans selling levis, elvis, jesus and coca-cola, but im a cynical sob like that.), but i dont think the text was intended to answer that question, or to put it another way, his point of view is so strange and alien to me, that all of that other side, diveristy of opinon shit, present, and the sympathy i got from the us military aside, there was so radical a split in the way we think, that i dont think that the book would have ever given me all the answers to all the questions i had.

sidenote:
i was esp. curious about his reaction to ethopia/eritera. which was the only section that struck me as wrong-headed, so when Hareare has time, i want to talk to him about it.