The Immaculate Invasion [Hardcover]

Bob Shacochis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

Bob Shacochis has been praised as a "stunning" writer who "summons the spirits of America and the Third World" (New York Newsday). Now, he brings to his first major work of reportage the worldview and political vision that have earned him comparisons with Graham Greene and V. S. Naipaul. Here is his eyewitness account of the 1994 invasion and occupation of Haiti, of American soldiers deployed into a strange war zone, "where there are no friends and no enemies, no front or rear, no victories and, likewise, no defeats, and no true endings." From the Pentagon's war room to the bitter infighting in the dangerously divided U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince and its on again/off again relationship with terrorists, Shacochis chronicles what the military calls OTW Operations--other than war. Most enduring, from his eighteen months in the field in Haiti where he lived with a team of Special Forces commandos, Shacochis brings us the stories of soldiers, their exploits and frustrations, their inner lives as well as their heroic deeds, as they struggle to bring democracy to a country ravaged by tyranny. Not since Michael Herr's Dispatches has an American author of this stature written such a ground-eye view of soldiering, as intimate and telling as Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In The Immaculate Invasion, Bob Shacochis, winner of the 1985 National Book Award for Easy in the Islands, returns to the Caribbean setting to tell the story of Operation Uphold Democracy, the United States government's official name for its 1994 occupation of Haiti. Focusing on the Clinton administration's policymakers and the soldiers who implemented their plans, Shacochis explores the capacity for altruistic action in the midst of a bloody pandemonium of human-rights outrages. While the American military's original strategy was to obliterate the murderous regime of General Cedras--executing a "hard entry" with "attitude and with a lot of ammunition"--they quickly found themselves caught up in a haphazard scheme for the transformation of the despot's thugs into a political party. Such cynical accommodationism confused the rules of engagement and restricted soldiers' ability to respond to atrocities. One officer, Captain Lawrence Rockwood, infuriated with by superiors' bureaucratic disregard of the concentration-camp-like conditions of Haiti's prisons, disobeyed orders and personally attempted to seize a jail in which dozens of prisoners were slowly dying. Shacochis follows Rockwood through his subsequent arrest and court martial, which he faces unrepentantly: "I'm an American soldier," Rockwood insists, "not a member of the Waffen SS."

Blending Haitian history and culture with his accounts of living amongst a Special Forces team, Shacochis achieves an unsettling triumph of combat journalism that will earn The Immaculate Invasion comparisons to other modern classics, such as Michael Herr's Dispatches. Its focus on compassion urges a profound redirection of the purposes and application of American interventionism. --James Highfill

From Publishers Weekly

When an 11th-hour diplomatic initiative in September 1994 transformed a planned U.S. military invasion of Haiti into a peacekeeping mission to restore Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, Shacochis, an NBA-winning fiction writer, was waiting on the sidelines. Shacochis had first visited Haiti in 1986 in the heyday of the uprising that sent dictator Baby Doc Duvalier into exile, a trip that left him fascinated with the helter-skelter history of the region. Taking an assignment from Harper's, Shacochis returned to Haiti in the wake of the U.S. occupation, traversing the country with a circle of war-hardened reporters before finally pitching his tent with a detachment of special forces commandos in Limbe, a sprawling, isolated mountain district termed "the unfriendliest town in Haiti." There, Shacochis observes at eye-level the vagaries of "Operations Other than War," the sort of open-ended relief work that has defined American military intervention abroad since Vietnam, in which, in his words, "soldiers weren't obsolete, only victory." A country engulfed in an unending nightmare of government atrocities, revolt and grinding poverty, Haiti proves especially resistant to the best intentions of the soldiers Shacochis meets and befriends. Interweaving dispatches from the streets of Haiti and interviews with commanding officers, Shacochis assails those in the military who failed to grasp the moral complexities of Haitian politics, singling out for particular scorn Colonel Mark Boyatt, whom he terms "the Elvis of Operation Uphold Democracy," and who allegedly characterized the FRAPH, a Haitian terrorist organization, as "the loyal opposition." Favoring a gonzo, visceral style clotted with regional patois and military jargon, over the graceful lucidity of a correspondent like Philip Gourevitch, Shacochis presents a narrative that at times resembles a hair-raising, humvee ride through the jungle. But what emerges, ultimately, is a potent chronicle of both a Caribbean nation and a U.S. military machine in profound transition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670863041
• ISBN-13: 978-0670863044
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,291,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From someone who has actually been there, December 18, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Immaculate Invasion (Paperback)

I highly recommend this book. Immaculate Invasion does an excellent job of portraying the events of Operation Restore Democracy. I should know, because I was a Special Forces soldier there on the ground. Although I disagree with a few of Shacochis'comments and characterizations, he is generally very accurate with his information. Shacochis tells it like it is (or was), from his point of reference. He pulls no punches. He relates the good,the bad, and the ugly regarding the US Military, the US Government, the Haitian people, and the Haitian Government. I find it laughable that several people who have neither been to Haiti nor been in the military would submit harsh reviews of this work. Take it from someone who has been there. This is an excellent book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tre bon, December 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Immaculate Invasion (Paperback)

The Immaculate Invasion is an excellent book. Mr. Shacochis brilliantly describes the conditions that exist in Haiti. Many times I nodded my head as he described scenes in Haiti that I have experienced but could not have put into words. I also think he does a god job of portraying what was obviously a murky military mission. I wish he would have followed up more strongly on Washington's decision to lay off of FRAPH. Does this reflect an established US military policy of "low intensity conflict" that protects the economic interests of the US by protecting the economic interests of the powers that be in Haiti? It seems that he would leave it as a shadowy decision that is hard to trace. That is only true if it doesn't reflect established, but not published, policies. Read "War Against the Poor" by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Other than that I think it is a fabulous book that does not pretend to be anything other than Mr. Shacochis' impressions during a tumultuous time in Haiti that is the result of well documented historical events. Haiti is an unbelievable country with unbelievable stories. It seems a lot of people have a vested interest in what they would have us believe.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not every country resembles the USA, April 16, 1999

By 

Marty Spiller ([e-mail]) (Ashby, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Immaculate Invasion (Hardcover)

The Immaculate Invasion is a well written account of the US "intervention" in Haiti from the day the US Naval vessel, the Harlan County was unceremoniously blocked from docking in Haitian waters, to 1998, well after Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been reinstalled in the Haitian presidential palace. A short but effective smattering of Haitian history as well as graphic descriptions of the dark and tragic political and social environment makes it possible for the reader to draw quite a few unstated conclusions about how thinly the trappings of civilization can be veneered over a primitive culture.

It is written from the point of view of a journalist who seems to have an intimate understanding of the struggles of military men and their state of mind, as well as the overall strategic circumstances of their mission. The jargon he uses throughout the book is sometimes confusing due to the liberal use of military colloquialisms and acronyms as well as turns of phrase, which can at times make it difficult to understand his meaning. It is well that the book contains a glossary.

The "invasion" was immaculate in that it was really a "walk-in" with no overt hostility on either side. One major thrust of the book was the political ineptitude involved in the overall mission objectives which, in typical Clintonian 90's fashion not only muddied the waters between friend and enemy, but completely obliterated the differences between them. Without an enemy to fight, the military men were left with no clear objectives other than preventing violence, and were forced to view murderous terrorist organizations as nothing more than political parties. The author seems to believe (at least partly) that if the real bad guys were simply killed off by the US soldiers, the country would be able to rebuild itself into a nation. My own conclusion, drawn from reading between the lines was different. Primitive cultures lead to primitive governance. The elimination of every former attaché, FRAPH member, macoute and other assorted dirt bag, even if it were possible to do, would lead simply to a political vacuum which would end with the recreation of the same oppression that Aristide's revolution was meant to end.

It is clear, after reading this account that the violence and death, although lessened in intensity still continue in Haiti, and that if the foreign troops ever left, the country would revert back to it's original state of Hell. Although I don't know if the author intended to convey the message or not, it is apparent that the feel-good, New Age approach to "nation building" is simply a myth. Strobe Talbot take note!