{"title":"Peter Van Buren","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"we-meant-well-book-peter-van-buren-9780805094367","title":"We Meant Well","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne diplomat's darkly humorous and ultimately scathing assault on just about everything the military and State Department have done--or tried to do--since the invasion of Iraq. The title says it all.--\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCharged with rebuilding Iraq, would you spend taxpayer money on a sports mural in Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhood to promote reconciliation through art? How about an isolated milk factory that cannot get its milk to market? Or a pastry class training women to open cafes on bombed-out streets that lack water and electricity?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Peter Van Buren shows, we bought all these projects and more in the most expensive hearts-and-minds campaign since the Marshall Plan. \u003ci\u003eWe Meant Well\u003c\/i\u003e is his eyewitness account of the civilian side of the surge--that surreal and bollixed attempt to defeat terrorism and win over Iraqis by reconstructing the world we had just destroyed. Leading a State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team on its quixotic mission, Van Buren details, with laser-like irony, his yearlong encounter with pointless projects, bureaucratic fumbling, overwhelmed soldiers, and oblivious administrators secluded in the world's largest embassy, who fail to realize that you can't rebuild a country without first picking up the trash.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA work of scathing, gallows humor (\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e), \u003ci\u003eWe Meant Well\u003c\/i\u003e is a tragicomic voyage of ineptitude and corruption that leaves its writer--and readers--appalled and disillusioned, but wiser.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49580697977105,"sku":"GOR005620390","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50029550076177,"sku":"CIN0805094369G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50213564907793,"sku":"CIN0805094369A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50313550135569,"sku":"CIN0805094369VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0805094369.jpg?v=1751431233"},{"product_id":"we-meant-well-book-peter-van-buren-9780805096811","title":"We Meant Well","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"One diplomat's darkly humorous and ultimately scathing assault on just about everything the military and State Department have done--or tried to do--since the invasion of Iraq. 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