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Peter van Buren is a former United States Foreign Service employee who wrote the books Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent and We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.

Personal Life

Born in New York City, Peter Van Buren is a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Department of State. He spent a year in Iraq. Following his book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, the Department of State began proceedings against him. Through the efforts of the Government Accountability Project and the ACLU, Buren instead retired from the State Department with his full benefits of service.

Since leaving the government, Van Buren’s commentary has been featured in The New York Times, Reuters, Salon, NPR, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, The Nation, TomDispatch, Antiwar.com, American Conservative Magazine, Mother Jones, MichaelMoore.com, Le Monde, Asia Times, The Guardian (UK), Daily Kos, XpatNation, Middle East Online, Guernica and others. He has appeared on the BBC World Service, NPR’s All Things Considered and Fresh Air, CurrentTV, HuffPo Live, RT, ITV, Britain’s Channel 4 Viewpoint, CCTV, Voice of America, and more.

We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People

Charged with rebuilding Iraq, the U.S. State Department allegedly spent taxpayer money on a sports mural in Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhood, hoping to promote reconciliation through art. They also paid for an isolated milk factory that could not get its milk to market, as well as a pastry class training women to open cafés on bombed-out streets without water or electricity.

According to Van Buren, the U.S. bought all these projects and more in the most expensive hearts-and-minds campaign since the Marshall Plan. We Meant Well is an eyewitness account of the civilian side of the surge. Van Buren details a year-long encounter with allegations of pointless projects, bureaucratic fumbling, overwhelmed soldiers, and oblivious administrators secluded in the world’s largest embassy, who he claims failed to realize that they can’t rebuild a country "without first picking up the trash."

Struggle with the Department of State

Prior to the publication of his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People in 2011, and after 23 years of service at the State Department, Van Buren experienced a series of escalating, adverse actions.

These actions included suspension of his security clearance, confiscation of his Diplomatic Passport, being placed on administrative leave without cause cited, being physically banned from the State Department building, being placed on a security watch list, losing access to his State Department computer, and being reassigned to a makeshift telework position. The State Department also actively monitored Van Buren’s blogs, Tweets and Facebook updates posted during his private time on his personal home computer. The State Department claimed Van Buren had not properly cleared his book for publication under Department rules and that it contained unauthorized disclosures of classified material.

After the Justice Department declined to pursue Van Buren for linking to a Wikileaks cable through his blog (perhaps a test case for the later prosecution of Barrett Brown for a web link), Van Buren’s termination letter came within days of a decision by the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that investigates government wrongdoing and complaints of retaliation by those who report it, to look into his case. At this point the Government Accountability Project and the ACLU stepped in to defend Van Buren on First Amendment grounds. The Washington Post noted that "Van Buren has tested the First Amendment almost daily."

After several months of legal battles, the State Department withdrew its intent to fire Van Buren and he instead retired with his standard pension and benefits.

Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent

Ghosts of Tom Joad is a modern reimagining of Steinbeck’s classic The Grapes of Wrath. The book traces the dilution of the middle class, their replacement with the working poor, and examines the effects of this on the U.S. economy, society, and nation.

Hooper's War

Hooper’s War is an anti-war novel, due out in May 2017.

Hooper's War is the story of American Lieutenant Nate Hooper, his adversary and the man who changes Hooper’s life, Japanese Sergeant Eichi Nakagawa, and Naoko Matsumoto, a resolute woman who meets them both on the road into hell but can only save one.

The story is set in a fictional World War II where the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not take place. The three characters face absurdities and atrocities which last their lifetimes.

SILENCED

Van Buren was Associate Producer for the film SILENCED, (2014) by Academy Award-nominee James Spione.

SILENCED profiles Thomas Andrews Drake, a pre-Snowden, former NSA employee who blew the whistle on NSA wiretapping; John Kiriakou, former CIA officer who blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture policy and pleaded guilty to releasing the name of an intelligence agent and is serving time in jail; and Jesselyn Radack, who blew the whistle on how John Walker Lindh was being treated when she uncovered information while working in the Justice Department.

Published Books

• Hooper's War: A Novel of WWII Japan). Luminis Books. May 15, 2017. ISBN 978-1941311127.
• Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent. Luminis Books. April 25, 2014. ISBN 978-1935462910.
• We Meant Well. Metropolitan Books. September 27, 2011. ISBN 9780805094367.
• Why Peace (as a contributor). Marc Guttman. April 23, 2012. ASIN B007WTUR6E.

References

1. Rein, Lisa (15 March 2012). "State Dept. moves to fire Peter Van Buren, author of book critical of Iraq reconstruction effort". The Washington Post.
2. "U.S. Envoy, Peter Van Buren, Takes Caustic Pen to Iraq War". The New York Times. 7 October 2011.
3. Foreignpolicy.com
4. "U.S. Envoy, Peter Van Buren, Takes Caustic Pen to Iraq War". The New York Times. 7 October 2011.
5. Salon.com
6. "Peter Van Buren". Huffington Post.
7. The Nation
8. Mother Jones
9. MichaelMoore.com
10. XpatNation: Archives for Peter Van Buren
11. Julian Marshall (radio presenter); Peter Van Buren (interviewee) (2011-10-08 (1200 GMT)). BBC World Service Programmes Newshour (Radio broadcast). BBC. Event occurs at 27:12. Retrieved 12 October 2011. author Peter van Buren tells Newshour {{cite AV media}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
12. Salon.com
14. Rein, Lisa (15 March 2012). "State Dept. moves to fire Peter Van Buren, author of book critical of Iraq reconstruction effort". The Washington Post.
15. Diplopundit.net
17. Tribecafilm.com
18. Nakededgefilms.com

External links

• Wemeantwell.com
• Ghostsoftomjoad.com

• Living people
• American political writers
• American male writers
• 1960 births
• American diplomats