Review on the book War Torn by Andy McNab

This blog post will present a book review on the book War Torn, Written by Andy McNab. I will begin by giving the readers a short introduction to the author, followed by my thoughts on the book and what makes it such an important book for me.

Andy McNab
Andy McNab is a former SAS soldier (Special Air Service, UK's Special Forces) and the author of both fictional and factual books on the subject of warfare. With his experience from the time he served as an SAS Soldier he has been able to describe modern warfare from a whole new perspective and show the world what it actually means to constantly risk your life, thousands of miles from home.

As a result of his many missions in the SAS, with knowledge of a lot of sensitive information that could risk the national security, Andy McNab’s true identity can never be revealed and as such, Andy McNab is only a pseudonym for his real name.

War Torn

War Torn is the story of Sergeant Dave Henley and his platoon as they are fighting against insurgents in the Helmand Province in the southwest part of Afghanistan. It also follows the families at home, fighting their own war on the home front, battling fear of close ones being in a hostile country, fighting an unknown enemy.

The book, although fictional, gives the reader an insight of how it really is for the soldiers and their families at home thanks to McNab’s skillful writing and exhaustive experience in modern warfare. It depicts honest situations on both fronts and the reader can really connect with the characters.

The book War Torn holds a special place in my heart as it was purchased at the time one of my brothers was sent to Afghanistan as a part of Sweden’s engagement in ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). I bought it as I wanted to get an insight to the life of soldiers fighting away from home and despite all the dangers it might bring, to take comfort in knowing that what they do, helps bringing a war torn country back to life and civilization.

The book truly helped me understand the life of the soldiers and the battles they fight, be it a close encounter with insurgents, or the battle of fear from being in this hostile environment.

For those who are or have been in the same situation, with family or friends fighting abroad I can truly recommend this book as well as the sequal "Battle Lines", where the story of Dave Henley and his platoon continues with new endeavors. 

Reflection on Andrew Mcafee's speech "Are droids taking our jobs"?

This blog post is a reflection of Andrew McAfee’s speech regarding the evolution of technology and how human labor is rapidly being replaced by computers, robots etc. 

Andrew is showing the audience the impact that technology has on employment and have quickly come to the conclusion that “yes, droids are taking our jobs”. But he focuses more on the upside of this story, rather than the fact that humans are being replaced.

I agree with Andrews thoughts, while the computers are replacing us in many lines of business; this simply says that we are freed up to focus on the next step in human history. This is not the first time where this has happened. When the engines first were developed, humans were able to focus on other areas, which have led us to where we are now. By freeing ourselves of tasks that can now be performed automatically by computers, we can focus on more research, perhaps in the same area, and continue to develop the technology. Andrew himself talks about this freeing us up to focus more on for instance poverty in the world, which is a great idea and I’m sure that in some way it’s true, albeit maybe not in the nearest future since we have only come so far with computers. In the long run however, when computers will be able to run almost all aspects of our business chain, we will have the ability to shift our focus elsewhere.

Development means adapting. We need to adapt to the evolution of technology and shift our focus to where the technology has not yet reached. When the day comes that this is also being replaced by technology, we need to adapt again. This is a continuous flow and we should already be accustomed to it.

This blog post is in regards to the article posted by BBC; Can a city really ban cars from its streets? Written by Jack Stewart.

I will in this blog post review the article and discuss, from my point of view, if this is feasible or not.

The article describes the plan that the German city Hamburg is planning to eliminate all car traffic from the city within the next two decades and instead introducing what they call "Green networks", a network of parks, playgrounds, sports fields etc. covering around 40% of the city. By doing this, they claim to remove the need for transportation with cars as, according to them it will be easy enough to navigate on foot.

So, is this feasible? 

I do think it is a great idea to start with. We have to acknowledge the fact that we are polluting the air in big cities and something needs to be done to break that trend. To remove all cars from the city is though, in my eyes, wishful thinking and not really feasible. I do think that we could be able to remove traffic from certain areas of the cities, but not entirely. There are some pointers where I feel that we have unanswered questions to adhere to before we can even think about removing roads and their cars.

·        Emergency situations in the city center

o   Without roads, how will ambulances, fire trucks and police navigate the cities in case of emergencies?

·        Long distance commuters with cars

o   Where do all of these commuters park their cars if all of the area inside the city is banned for traffic?

o   They need to provide all commuters, which are commuting by car, with parking outside the banned area of the city

·        Senior citizens

o   Those of us that have problems walking, how will they cope with public transport?

o   They often require personal assistance like, for example, taxi rides

Maybe these questions already have answers by the city of Hamburg, but from where I’m standing, with only what’s described in this article- they do have a series of questions to adhere to before considering to move ahead with the plan.