Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia Review

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(More customer reviews)Anthropologist David Vine spent years researching and writing "Island of Shame", and the meticulousness with which he approached his subject matter shows. For this reader, the book provided important nuances beyond the time constraints of John Pilger's moving television documentary on the deportation of the Chagossians, especially with regard to the type and level of compensation doled out to the evicted Cold War residents of Diego Garcia. (About the only thing missing from "Island of Shame" available within Pilger's first-rate program was the extremely telling on-camera interview with former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who became visibly irritated, and questioned Pilger's motives.)
Like Pilger, Vine gets up close and personal with some of the deported Chagossians, explains the caste system at play in their new "home", and makes no bones about displaying sympathy for their plight. Likewise, he does a thorough job examining the development of the U.S. government's Strategic Island Concept, and fully chronicles the interplay between Washington and London in formulating the coverup of the handoff of Diego that persisted for decades. And the Epilogue poignantly demonstrates how geopolitical decisions, once made, can pose enduring moral tribulations for those who become cogs in the public policy machine.
Despite this book's painstaking research on a subject of moral significance, Vine's final chapter on the creation of a "Humanpolitik" descends into a broad-based polemic against military installations and American "empire", with precious little analysis of the pros and cons of the Strategic Island Concept and the use of American beach heads (although his discussion of the Bikinians is directly on-point). Tempering the emotions of this laudable work might have taken the wind out of Vine's sails, but the final chapter of his book, as written, also seems too big a subject to cover seriously in a mere 17 pages.
Despite this shortcoming, "Island of Shame" is well worth reading, slowly and carefully. It expands on John Pilger's admirable work, provides yet another illustration of America's far-reaching hand of power (captured magnificently in Stephen Kinzer's "Overthrow"), and should keep us ever-alert to the actions of government - any government.
Postscript: Soon after the release of this book, the current U.S. Administration released a small group of Chinese Muslims no longer deemed to be "enemy combatants" from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Bermuda. The British Government protested publicly, stating categorically that they had never been consulted by Washington on the matter. One must ask: despite the legitimacy of the release of these individuals, is this another example of London dancing to Washington's tune and engaging in "plausible deniability"?

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