Curiosity Killed the Goat

I have become a big fan of Jon Ronson from listening to him on podcasts.  He’s a nerdy effeminate British dude which is kind of my kryptonite.  In my admittedly lazy fandom, I hadn’t realized that he was the author of this book.

One of my personal goals is to read everything on my “to be read” shelf and review it for CBR.  As a frequent browser of used book stores who also experiences poor impulse control, the unread pile is a little out of control.

I picked up this book before I saw the movie.  I don’t remember the movie very well, except that George Clooney makes a lot of wacky faces and Ewan McGregor is adorable as always…

…sorry drifted off there thinking about Ewan McGregor.

Back to the book.  Holy Shit, this is about real events!  I had no idea.  Jon Ronson writes about secret  CIA attempts to develop a psychic soldier squad in the early 80s and into the early 90s.  That they tried this is not surprising.  That they failed is not surprising either.  That the purpose behind these experiments was to create a more peaceful world through the elimination of conflict was a bit a surprising.  That techniques developed through this alternative approach to soldiering were later adopted as torture and interrogation techniques at places such as Abu Grhaib prison during the G. W. Bush administration is, disappointingly, not surprising either.

Ronson approaches the subject matter and the people involved with benevolent skepticism.  He carefully traces the origins of the First Earth Battalion and their evolution from one man’s vision into a few small projects and then into the  distribution of their techniques as they are used in the war on terror.   It’s not a particularly flattering portrayal of the U.S. Military, but Ronson does treat his subjects with kindness.

The book is very funny, until it becomes another expose of how badly the U.S. was flailing about in the early 2000s when confronted with a new kind of war with an enemy so hard to fight.  Then the mistakes made become to painful and I finished this book with renewed commitment to advocating for the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

Overall I would recommend this book to anyone.  Ronson does a good job piecing together all the different players and giving them a fair, yet forgiving, story.