Babylon by Bus- Ray Lemoine

An entertaining story of two young Americans who traveled to Iraq to find employment working for the Coalition Provisional Authority in the Green Zone. With no experience and virtually no interview, they were given jobs setting up Non-Governmental Organizations to provide relief and aid to the Iraqi people. This story provides the reader with a glimpse of the culture of war society of those involved in it.

We had a great discussion yesterday, centering around the following questions:

• What was the "deal" with these kids...what drove them to throw themselves into a war zone and nearly get killed?

• Why didn't they join the military?

• Undoubtedly they received help in writing this...and although I don't think the writing itself was that great, it was a very interesting perspective of the Green Zone. What was your overall sense of the war zone?

• The commentary on the difference between enlisted soldiers, reserve, and mercenaries was also interesting. Would you agree with their assertion that the mercenary soldiers are murders- getting paid nearly $1000 a day?

• Media coverage of the war: I was surprised to read about the nbc, fox, and cnn parties. We discussed the manipulation of the media on the war (ie very seemingly pro at first, when they were riding on the fear wave of 9/11, and then a sudden turn against).

• We discussed the pr efforts by the military to recruit more- these commercials are often showed before movies at theaters. They are trying to appeal to the adventure/game driven senses of today's youth. Do you think young people are not enlisting because they are anti-war? Would a draft end the war quickly? Are the mercenary soldiers necessary?

• Ray and Jeff imbibed heavily on drugs and alcohol while they were there...did their use of these substances make you doubt their observations and/or opinions?

If you liked reading this, you might also be interesting in the following titles:

1. "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." (2007) by Jeremy Scahill
2. "Censored 2007: The Top 25 Censored Stories." (2006) by Peter Phillips
3. "How America Lost Iraq." (2005) by Aaron Glantz