Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy
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- ISBN13: 9781568584416
- Condition: New
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Product Description
In this Wall Street Journal “Book of the Year”, Michael Soussan gives a darkly comic first-person account of the oil-for-food scandal that rocked the United Nation to its core. The year is 1997, Michael Soussan, an idealistic young Brown University graduate has recently accepted his dream job at the United Nations’ Oil-For-Food programme, the largest humanitarian operation in the organisation’s history. His mission is to help 23 million Iraqi civilians survive the devastating impact of economic sanctions that were imposed following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under conflicting guidance from fifteen bickering nations on the UN Security Council, the Oil-for-Food program would oversee the use of 64 billion petrodollars against a backdrop of simmering international tension that constantly threatens to explode into an all out war. An absolute beginner in the world of international diplomacy, Soussan initially struggles to negotiate the increasing paranoia of his incomprehensible boss and the inner-workings of one of the world’s most Kafkaesque bureaucracies. As he learns more about the vast sums of money flowing through the program, Soussan finds himself embroiled in a world of spies, corrupt oil tycoons, and dysfunctional diplomats whose office turf wars and petty personal rivalries all set the stage for a dramatic political showdown. His discovery that Saddam Hussein is extracting illegal bribes while UN officials turn a blind eye sets him on a crash course with the organization’s leadership. On March 8, 2004, in a Wall Street Journal editorial, he becomes the first insider to call for ‘an independent investigation’ of the UN’s dealings with Hussein. One week later, Kofi Annan appoints Paul Volcker to lead a team of sixty international investigators who ultimately expose the largest financial scandal in UN history. “Backstabbing for Beginners” is at once a darkly comic tale of one man’s political coming of age, and a stinging indictment of the hypocrisy that prevailed at the heart of the world’s most idealistic institution.
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An appealing read, at least for persons of us who work within the Organization. Written with humour, a keen eye for human foibles and descriptions of characters that are dead on, it is worth reading despite its self-righteous tone and factual inaccuracies. He manages to capture the uniqueness of effective for an international bureaucracy which is probably unlike any additional.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
A planeful of laughter and first rate account of what happened during this major fiasco in humanitarian history.
I majored in politics, but until this day, I had not come across such a page flicker, alternating chin scratching and genuine laughter.
Importantly, honest reviews from insiders concerning sad UN power stakes and choice building processes are extremely rare !!!
A MUST READ then in my opinion. An opportunity to learn something about the theme and delight in a Xmas break at the same time. I never thought that could be possible…
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This book was really fantastic. He’s a excellent writer and he really knows his theme. I permanently wondered what my life might have been like if I’d gone into something like this and now I’m really relieved that I didn’t. I know that probably wouldn’t be his intention but it was helpful to me nonetheless. I even bought the book for my daughter because it was permanently my policy to tell her all the things I had learned about this world, excellent or terrible. Well, this was something I hardly imagined. It proved to me once again that we human beings have got to learn to examine our own motives. We are never going to get anywhere with changing the world until we are able to say what motivates us and deal with our negative characteristics in a productive way. Books like this can help us to start that process.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This is a grea insight into the wierd world of the UN and the corruption thta surrounds its excellent efforts
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
I loved this book. I’ve spent some weird times in some weird places, and it describes depressingly well yet entertainingly exactly how things are. A must read for bored cynics or naive ideologues. If Olaya Street Could Talk — Saudi Arabia: The Heartland of Oil and Islam briefly touches on some of the same phenomena in a Saudi hospital, but this book does it the best and most explicitly of any I’ve read. I do have questions about the very last section, but I wasn’t there, so its possible (I won’t say more or I’ll spoil it).
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5