The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

by J. Kael Weston

Overview

A New York Times Editors' Choice
A Military Times Best Book of the Year

J. Kael Weston spent seven years on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan working for the U.S. State Department. Upon returning home, traveling throughout the United States to pay his respects to the dead and wounded, he wondered what lessons, if any, could be learned from these wars.

In this essential book, Weston questions, interprets, and explains our wars in the Middle East through a tapestry of voices—Iraqi, Afghan, and American—taking readers across California and Fallujah, Khost and Colorado. Along the way we meet generals, corporals, and captains, former Taliban fighters, Afghan schoolteachers, SEAL teams, imams, and many Marines.

When will these wars end? How will they be remembered? Perhaps no one is better suited to tackle these important questions than Weston. The Mirror Test is an unflinching look at warfare and diplomacy, and a necessary reckoning with America’s actions abroad.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345806949
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	624
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

JOHN KAEL WESTON represented the United States for more than a decade as a State Department official. Washington acknowledged his multi-year work in Fallujah with Marines by awarding him one of its highest honors, the Secretary of State's Medal for Heroism.

www.jkweston.com

Read an Excerpt

By summer 2003, massive and ongoing troop movements had outstripped the Pentagon’s ability to fly U.S. service members to Iraq using only military aircraft. Lucrative contracts were awarded for commercial and charter airlines to fill the gap. Soon Boeing 757s helped transport battalions of Marines and soldiers to Kuwait. From there the Pentagon’s workhorse C-130 flown by uniformed pilots—many National Guard units in effect federalized—made the final, corkscrew landing into Baghdad.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Mirror Test"
by .
Copyright © 2017 J. Kael Weston.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Preface xv

Prologue: Twentynine Palms, California 3

Part I The Wrong War

Quagmire 15

Friends and Enemies 26

Phantom Fury or New Dawn? 37

Happy Birthday 49

The Potato Factory 63

Clear, Hold, Build 79

Helo Down 92

Collaboration 106

KIA in Mayberry 123

When Senators and Generals Talk 136

Sara al-Jumaili and the Last Grand Mufti 150

A Farewell to Fallujah 161

The 93 176

To Monument Valley 195

Part II The Right War

Deeper into the Muslim World 213

Dilawar of Yakubi 228

Khost U. 242

A Handshake, or Two 251

Reformed Taliban 260

The Ego Has Landed 270

Life After Guantánamo 279

The Dead of Sabari District 290

The Commander and the Top Student 303

Jackpots and Dryholes 311

Motor City 323

Escalation 336

Our British Friends 346

Ask and Tell 357

A Dignified Transfer and The 91 366

Part III Home

To Cherokee, Iowa 391

To Menard, Texas 404

The Parade 416

Semper Fido and the Sierras 427

Operation Mend 436

The Spirit of America 446

The Library 463

A Museum of War 476

Nick's Home 485

The Mall of America 498

Epilogue: New York City 513

After War: A Soldier's War Journal 533

31 Angels 543

Author's Note 569

Sources 573

Acknowledgments 575

Editorial Reviews

Praise for J. Kael Weston’s The Mirror Test:
 
“Closely observed and illuminating. . . . Weston’s reportage recalls the finest foreign correspondence of the Iraq and Afghan wars.” –The New York Review of Books

“Weston is. . . a diplomat of great bravery, erudition and heart who befriended Afghans and stood up to his superiors. . . . The emotional core of The Mirror Test is Weston’s profound love for the Marines. . . . Weston is [a] civilian hero.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Weston, who worked as a State Department official for more than a decade, brings balance and cultural perspective different from the previous war books. . . . Along the way, he heralds humanitarian efforts and describes a fascinating dynamic of American dollars simultaneously rolling out to fund the allied war effort and the Afghan infrastructure.” —The Desert News
 
“This book shines when it recounts Weston’s day-to-day dealings with Marines (and Iraqis and Afghans). . . . [The Mirror Test] deserves a salute.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Weston, a former State Department official, spent seven courageous and harrowing years on the front lines as a political adviser to American troops. His memoir offers a serious examination of the effects of terrorism from a personal and emotional perspective.” —The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

“As a former Foreign Service officer, Weston is perfectly positioned to provide a different perspective on these wars’ sometimes-particular complexities. . . . The Mirror Test offers insights into tribal, cultural and religious dynamics; the limits of military power as a political instrument; the use of drones; the heavy reliance on special operators; cooperation and failed cooperation among military services, agencies and allies.” –The Washington Post

From the Publisher

12/01/2015
After seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan for the State Department and more time at home paying respects to the dead and wounded, Weston reports on his conversations with American soldiers, Iraqi truck drivers, Afghan schoolteachers, imams and mullahs, former Taliban fighters and former Guantánamo detainees, and more to show what the war has cost everyone involved.

Library Journal

2016-04-30
A former U.S. State Department official who spent seven consecutive war years in Iraq and Afghanistan debuts with a damning memoir about our lies, failures, and horrors in the region.Weston's title refers to the moment when people with severe facial injuries first look at themselves in the mirror. He believes the rest of us need to take a look, as well. This is no story told by someone residing safely in academia or in a Washington, D.C., office. The author, who worked for both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, was assigned to the Marines for much of his duty, and he had extensive experience with gunfire, explosive devices, and terrible accidents. On one occasion—an event that haunts him throughout this deeply disturbing text—his actions led, indirectly, to the deaths of 31 service members, whose helicopter crashed on the way to secure polling locations for the 2005 Iraqi elections—a mission the author had urged. Weston revisits this moment continually, his guilt emerging in painful, self-recriminating sentences. Later, back in the United States, he endeavored to visit all of their graves and to meet some family members. The author spares no one. Bush and Cheney, he says, lied—even joked—about weapons of mass destruction; politicians from both major parties supported the troops in rhetorical but not meaningful ways. In several places, Weston provides lists of fallen warriors, and readers will be struck by the youth of those killed in action: many were teenagers, most others in their 20s. And for what? he asks repeatedly. The author declares that on both fronts—Iraq and Afghanistan—we failed to accomplish much that's meaningful, and in Iraq, we sowed the seeds of al-Qaida, the Islamic State group, and a most horrific civil war. Weston also focuses sharply on the wounded and disfigured and on the local people, who have suffered unspeakably. Vivid pages soaked with blood, reverberating with cries of pain, loss, and regret.

Kirkus Reviews