Winning the War of Words: Selling the War on Terror from Afghanistan to Iraq

by Wojtek Mackiewicz Wolfe

From the publisher:
Throughout history and especially during contemporary times, presidential rhetoric sets the foreign policy tone not only for Congress but mainly for the American public. Consequently, US foreign policy is actively marketed and spun to the American public. This book describes the marketing strategy of the War on Terror and how that strategy compelled public opinion towards supporting the spread of the War on Terror from Afghanistan to Iraq.

The author investigates how President George W. Bush's initial framing of the September 11th attacks provided the platform for the creation of long term public support for the War on Terror and established early public support for U.S. action in Iraq. Mining public opinion data and nearly 1500 presidential speeches over a four year period, the book argues that presidential framing of threats and losses, not gains, contributed to public support for war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, and President Bush's successful reelection campaign. President Bush's initial framing of the terrorist threat was introduced immediately after the September 11th attacks and reinforced throughout the Afghanistan invasion. During this time period, presidential threat framing established the broad parameters for the War on Terror and enabled the president to successfully market a punitive war in Afghanistan. Second, the president marketed the strategy of preemptive war and led the country into the more costly war in Iraq by focusing on the potentially global threat of terrorism and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

President Bush's previous war rhetoric was repackaged into a leaner, more focused format in which the Iraq war became part of the War on Terror, resulting in increased support for the president and a successful reelection campaign. Finally, the author examines the withdraw vs. surge in Iraq debate bringing the book up to date.

The book shows the influencing potential of presidential spin and of risky foreign policy in the Middle East, and presents a systematic analysis of how a president effectively pursued a marketing strategy that continues to show an enduring ability to influence public support. Even two years after the Iraq invasion, 52% of Americans believed that the U.S. should stay in Iraq until it is stabilized. This finding bypasses agenda setting explanations, which prescribes issue salience amongst the public for only one year. The large speech database available with the study will also be an added benefit to scholars seeking to teach undergraduate and graduate level qualitative research methods.

WOJTEK MACKIEWICZ WOLFE received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He currently teaches both there and at the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Relations. This is his first book.

Enemy Combatants, Terrorism, and Armed Conflict Law: A Guide to the Issues

by David K. Linnan

From the publisher:
How do you strike the balance in opposing national security to individual liberties and the rule of law, both internationally and domestically?

Beyond an individual liberties perspective, what does this entail in institutional or structural terms?

How does this tie into long-running changes in international law aspects, including legitimacy and the use of armed force?

With a renewed emphasis on national and homeland security, the United States is once again seeking to balance the needs of the state with both the rights of its citizens as well as those of other nations. This book represents an interdisciplinary approach to the legal dilemmas borne out by the war on terror-against the specific background of Afghanistan, Iraq, and this new kind of conflict. It is a strong contribution to a broader debate visible since 9/11, which will remain in the public eye for the foreseeable future. It addresses the overlap between religion, ethics, armed conflict, and law, within the context of the current conflict.

While many issues in areas such as intelligence, reconciliation of civil liberties, dealing with terrorist threats, and the permissible bounds of interrogation, treatment of prisoners and laws governing armed conflict have long standing precedents under domestic and international law, this war has challenged even long standing legal interpretations. The contributors to this volume explore those precedents and contemporary challenges to them. Now that traditional wars between nation states are no longer the rule, the terrorist threat has gained credence (popularly, terrorism and its claimed breeding ground in failed states), linked in practice to issues of intervention on the territory of states harboring such groups. In military circles the idea of armed struggle between modern military forces and what were formerly called guerillas has now largely been replaced by asymmetric warfare and the concept of intelligence and preventive action interchangeably within U.S. borders and overseas.

Opposing views contemplate that different-and presumably lower-legal standards may apply in internal armed conflicts. Such legal issues are visible under current circumstances of asymmetric warfare in conjunction with questions about prisoner status and detentions, including the permissible bounds of interrogation versus torture following the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq but also the treatment at the Guantanamo Bay facility of alleged Al Q'aeda captives from Afghanistan. All of the contributors in this book explore the changing circumstances against which these contentious new legal issues now unfold. The experts strike no consensus. Indeed, one of the work's many strengths can be attributed to the fact that the many facets of the ongoing debate are represented herein.

DAVID K. LINNAN is Associate Professor of Law, University of South Carolina. A scholar of comparative, economic, and public international law with a special interest in the law of armed conflict, he studied humanities at Emory University (B.A. 1976) and law at the University of Chicago (J.D. 1979), where he was comment editor of the law review.

Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda : A Spy's Story

by Omar Nasiri

From the publisher:
Between 1994 and 2000, Omar Nasiri worked as a secret agent for Europe's top foreign intelligence services--including France's DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), and Britain's MI5 and MI6. From the netherworld of Islamist cells in Belgium, to the training camps of Afghanistan, to the radical mosques of London, he risked his life to defeat the emerging global network that the West would come to know as Al Qaeda.

Now, for the first time, Nasiri shares the story of his life--a life balanced precariously between the world of Islamic jihadists and the spies who pursue them. As an Arab and a Muslim, he was able to infiltrate the rigidly controlled Afghan training camps, where he encountered men who would later be known as the most-wanted terrorists on earth: Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, Abu Zubayda, and Abu Khabab al-Masri. Sent back to Europe with instructions to form a sleeper cell, Nasiri became a conduit for messages going back and forth between Al Qaeda's top recruiter in Pakistan and London's radical cleric Abu Qatada.

A gripping and provocative insider's account of both Islamist terror networks and the intelligence services that spy on them, Inside the Jihad offers a completely original perspective on the ongoing battle against Al Qaeda.

From LWBN:
The exact day of release for this January title is unknown.

How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan

by Roy Gutman

From the publisher:
Focusing principally on events and policy missteps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, award-winning journalist Roy Gutman weaves a narrative that exposes how and why the U.S. government, the United Nations, and the Western media "missed the story" in the leadup to 9/11.

He advances this narrative carefully and persuasively and approaches his subject with an objective, journalistic eye, drawing heavily on his own original research and extensive interviews with key players both in the United States and abroad.

Arguing that the U.S. government made a strategic mistake by categorizing bin Laden's murderous assaults prior to 9/11 as terrorism, he ultimately concludes that the core failure was in the field of U.S. foreign policy. Sure to attract a wide audience, this first-rate, deeply engaging volume makes a highly original contribution to our understanding of the events and mistakes that ultimately led to 9/11 and offers much-needed insight so that such a story is not missed again.

Roy Gutman is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who currently serves as foreign editor for McClatchy newspapers.

Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays

by Sherman Kent, Donald P. Steury (ed.)

From the publisher:
With each new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) generating headlines worldwide, it is important to know what the NIE was designed to do and what it cannot do.

Sherman Kent was chairman of the Board of National Estimates from 1952 - 1967 and these essays represent the essence of his thinking on estimate preparation as well as important historical background on the methodology used before and during his tenure. The foreword is by J. Kenneth McDonald, then (1994) chief of the CIA History Staff and the text includes some security-related redactions. This book, long out of print, is a foundational text in the study of intelligence analysis.

These collected essays by Sherman Kent were edited by Donald P. Steury and published in 1994 by the History Staff of the Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington D.C.

Available online, this edition represents the first hardcopy edition since publication. It will be useful not only to students and practitioners of the craft of analysis but also to the consumers of intelligence estimates.

The Changing Face of War: Combat from the Marne to Iraq

by Martin Van Creveld

From the publisher:
One of the most influential experts on military history and strategy has now written his magnum opus, an original and provocative account of the past hundred years of global conflict. The Changing Face of War is the book that reveals the path that led to the impasse in Iraq, why powerful standing armies are now helpless against ill-equipped insurgents, and how the security of sovereign nations may be maintained in the future.

While paying close attention to the unpredictable human element, Martin van Creveld takes us on a journey from the last century’s clashes of massive armies to today’s short, high-tech, lopsided skirmishes and frustrating quagmires. Here is the world as it was in 1900, controlled by a handful of “great powers,” mostly European, with the memories of eighteenth-century wars still fresh. Armies were still led by officers riding on horses, messages conveyed by hand, drum, and bugle. As the telegraph, telephone, and radio revolutionized communications, big-gun battleships like the British Dreadnought, the tank, and the airplane altered warfare.

Van Creveld paints a powerful portrait of World War I, in which armies would be counted in the millions, casualties–such as those in the cataclysmic battle of the Marne–would become staggering, and deadly new weapons, such as poison gas, would be introduced. Ultimately, Germany’s plans to outmaneuver her enemies to victory came to naught as the battle lines ossified and the winners proved to be those who could produce the most weapons and provide the most soldiers.

The Changing Face of War then propels us to the even greater global carnage of World War II. Innovations in armored warfare and airpower, along with technological breakthroughs from radar to the atom bomb, transformed war from simple slaughter to a complex event requiring new expertise–all in the service of savagery, from Pearl Harbor to Dachau to Hiroshima. The further development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War shifts nations from fighting wars to deterring them: The number of active troops shrinks and the influence of the military declines as civilian think tanks set policy and volunteer forces “decouple” the idea of defense from the world of everyday people.

War today, van Crevald tells us, is a mix of the ancient and the advanced, as state-of-the-art armies fail to defeat small groups of crudely outfitted guerrilla and terrorists, a pattern that began with Britain’s exit from India and culminating in American misadventures in Vietnam and Iraq, examples of what the author calls a “long, almost unbroken record of failure.”

How to learn from the recent past to reshape the military for this new challenge–how to still save, in a sense, the free world–is the ultimate lesson of this big, bold, and cautionary work. The Changing Face of War is sure to become the standard source on this essential subject.

Martin van Creveld, professor of history at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, is one of the best-known experts on military history and strategy. He has written seventeen books, which have been translated into fourteen languages; most notable among them are Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, Command in War, and The Transformation of War. Professor van Creveld has consulted to the defense departments of numerous governments, including those of the United States. He was the second civilian expert ever to be invited to address the Israeli General Staff, and has lectured or taught at practically every institute of strategic military study. He has appeared on CNN, BBC, and other international networks and has been featured in many magazines and newspapers, including Newsweek and the International Herald Tribune.

From LWBN:
This is the first paperback edition of a hardcover book.

Towards Sustainable Security: Alternatives to the War on Terror

by Paul Rogers

From the publisher:
The Iraq War shows no sign of ending, NATO is progressively more mired in conflict in Afghanistan, and the al-Qaida movement has established safe havens in western Pakistan while being seen once again as a major threat. In light of this, the new Oxford Research Group international security report questions current policies and argues for the adoption of sustainable security as the underlying approach.

Tackling events in chronological order over the key 2006-07 period, the report offers a clear and compelling account of a 'war on terror' that has gone wrong in every major respect and is in urgent need of a comprehensive re-thinking of the entire outlook.

Comments on earlier editions of the Oxford Research Group International Security Report:

"Incisive, elegant, profound: if you want to understand what happened and why, you should start here." GEORGE MONBIOT

"Paul Rogers is a secular prophet for our trouble age. This analysis should be required reading in the Pentagon." DAVID LLOYN, BBC

"Paul Rogers has proved himself, time and again, to be a dispassionate analyst of events in Iraq this is a must-read." TOM WALKER, SUNDAY TIMES

Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed

by John Phillips and Martin Evans

From the publisher:
After liberating itself from French colonial rule in one of the twentieth century’s most brutal wars of independence, Algeria became a standard-bearer for the non-aligned movement. By the 1990s, however, its revolutionary political model had collapsed, degenerating into a savage conflict between the military and Islamist guerillas that killed some 200,000 citizens.

In this lucid and gripping account, Martin Evans and John Phillips explore Algeria’s recent and very bloody history, demonstrating how the high hopes of independence turned into anger as young Algerians grew increasingly alienated. Unemployed, frustrated by the corrupt military regime, and excluded by the West, the post-independence generation needed new heroes, and some found them in Osama bin Laden and the rising Islamist movement.

Evans and Phillips trace the complex roots of this alienation, arguing that Algeria’s predicament—political instability, pressing economic and social problems, bad governance, a disenfranchised youth—is emblematic of an arc of insecurity stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Looking back at the pre-colonial and colonial periods, they place Algeria’s complex present into historical context, demonstrating how successive governments have manipulated the past for their own ends. The result is a fractured society with a complicated and bitter relationship with the Western powers—and an increasing tendency to export terrorism to France, America, and beyond.

Martin Evans is professor of contemporary history at the University of Portsmouth and author of The Memory of Resistance: French Opposition to the Algerian War 1954–62 (1997). John Phillips has reported from Algeria for The Times and other newspapers and is author of Macedonia: Warlords & Rebels in the Balkans (2004).

No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent into Chaos

by Charles Ferguson

From the publisher:
The first book of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, No End In Sight is a shocking story of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality.

Culled from over 200 hours of footage collected for the film, the book provides a candid and alarming retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials, Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts. Together, these voices reveal the principal errors of U.S. policy that largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today--and what we could and should do about them now.

No End In Sight marks the first time Americans will be allowed inside the White House, Pentagon, and Baghdad's Green Zone to understand for themselves the disintegration of Iraq-- and how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war.

Charles Ferguson is director and producer of No End in Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, which is his first film. A political scientist and strategic consultant, Ferguson co-founded one of the earliest Internet software companies, Vermeer Technologies, which he eventually sold to Microsoft. Ferguson is a visiting scholar of political science at MIT and UC Berkeley, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a director of the French-American Foundation. He is the author of three books on information technology.

Brothers by Fire: A Marine's Story in Iraq

by Van Taylor

From the publisher:
In Iraq, America fields an all volunteer, professional military. Even so, the initial mission's logic endured substantial doubts, before, during and after execution.

Captain Van Taylor, USMCR, and Harvard MBA, joined the 4th Reconnaissance Battalion in Iraq in the first wave in 2003; his frank and first person account follows the recon captain and his platoon, from mobilization and adaptation to the realities of the Iraqi battlefield through his unit's return home.

A Window of Opportunity: Europe, Gulf Security and the Aftermath of the Iraq War

by Christian Koch, Felix Neugart (Editors)

From the publisher:
Contributors to this volume explore the chances for greater engagement by the European Union in future Gulf security arrangements. They look at a variety of themes including the security prerogatives of the Gulf States, the current situation in both Iraq and Iran, the applicability of various security models for the region and the possibility of expanding the GCC-EU political dialogue on security matters.

Christian Koch is Program Director for GCC-EU Relations at the Gulf Research Center (GRC), Dubai. Felix Neugart is a Research Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians Unversity, Munich.

Condi: The Life of a Steel Magnolia

by Mary Beth Brown

From the publisher:
Condoleezza Rice rose from humble beginnings in racially segregated Alabama to become an accomplished classical pianist, Stanford University professor and provost, US national security advisor, and secretary of state. In this gripping and inspiring book, Mary Beth Brown artfully explores the roles played in Condi's life by her parents, mentors, faith, and key events and how those things have prepared her for her present position of power and global influence.

In 2005, Condi topped Forbes' list of the world's most powerful women. In 2007, she topped GQ's ranking of Washington's most powerful players. Not only does she appeal to moderates and Republicans, she draws women, African Americans, and Hispanic voters from the Democratic Party. Additionally, Condi may emerge as a strong vice presidential candidate, a possibility the book explores.

Cities Under Siege: The War on Terror as Anti-Urban Crusade

by Steve Graham

From LWBN:
We were unable to find a description of this book, neither from the publisher's website nor any bokksellers website. We did find the author's faculty webpage at his university here.

Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror

by Jeffrey Goldberg

From the publisher:
They met in 1990 during the first Palestinian uprising—one was an American Jew who served as a prison guard in the largest prison in Israel, the other, his prisoner, Rafiq, a rising leader in the PLO. Despite their fears and prejudices, they began a dialogue there that grew into a remarkable friendship—and now a remarkable book. It is a book that confronts head-on the issues dividing the Middle East, but one that also shines a ray of hope on that dark, embattled region.

Jeffrey Goldberg, now an award-winning correspondent for The New Yorker, moved to Israel while still a college student. When he arrived, there was already a war in his heart—a war between the magnetic pull of tribe and the equally determined pull of the universalist ideal. He saw the conflict between the Jews and Arabs as the essence of tragedy, because tragedy is born not in the collision of right and wrong, but of right and right.

Soon, as a military policeman in the Israeli army, he was sent to the Ketziot military prison camp, a barbed-wire city of tents and machine gun towers buried deep in the Negev Desert. Ketziot held six thousand Arabs, the flower of the Intifada: its rock-throwers, knifemen, bomb-makers, and propagandists. He realized that this was an extraordinary opportunity to learn from them about themselves, especially because among the prisoners may have been the future leaders of Palestine.

Prisoners is an account of life in that harsh desert prison—mean, overcrowded, and violent — and of Goldberg's extraordinary dialogue with Rafiq, which continues to this day.

Islam and Muslims in Germany

by Ala Al-hamarneh and Jorn Thielmann (editors)

From the publisher:
In the European discourse of post 9/11 reality, concepts such as “Multiculturalism”, “Integration” and “European Islam” are becoming more and more topical. The empirically-based contributions in this volume aim to reflect the variety of current Muslim social practices and life-worlds in Germany.

The volume goes beyond the fragmented methods of minority case studies and the monolithic view of Muslims as portrayed by mass media to present fresh theoretical approaches and in-depth analyses of a rich mosaic of communities, cultures and social practices. Issues of politics, religion, society, economics, media, art, literature, law and gender are addressed. The result is a vibrant state-of-the-art publication of studies of real-life communities and individuals.

Contemporary Islamic Conversations: M. Fethullah Gulen on Turkey, Islam, and the West

by Nevval Sevindi (Author), Ibrahim M. Abu-rabi' (Editor), Abdullh T. Antepli (Translator)

From the publisher:
Contemporary Islamic Conversations discusses the ideas of Turkey's most significant Muslim figure, M. Fethullah Gülen. Originally published in Turkish by Nevval Sevindi, one of Turkey's top journalists, this edited translation makes Gülen's work and ideas accessible to the English-speaking world for the first time. It includes interviews conducted by the author with Gülen, who has been living in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999. The book explores his ideas regarding Islam and the West, Islam and violence, and religion and the future of the nation-state in Turkey and the Muslim world.

Gülen has worked hard to revive the religious tradition of the Turkish theologian Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1877-1960), and while his debt to Nursi's ideas is clear, he has a passionate interest in Islamic theology and Arabic and Turkish literature, and is also deeply interested in poetry, philosophy, sociology, and the classics in general. Gülen offers a moderate perspective on Islam, is open to interfaith and intercivilizational dialogue, and defends a notion of Islam in which Muslims are able to fully engage the world without any fear or prejudice. His community of followers has opened 500 high schools around the world, including the United States, and also owns seven universities in Central Asia and Turkey.

"This compelling book provides an important analysis by a Turkish journalist with high respect for Gülen, and is edited by an excellent scholar of twentieth-century Islam who is highly regarded by disciples of Nursi and Gülen. Thus we get to hear Gülen speak for himself but with the benefit of Sevindi's contextualizing and commentary, and Abu-Rabi's editorial hand and judicious footnoting." -- Lucinda Mosher, author of Praying: The Rituals of Faith

Ronin: A Marine Scout/Sniper Platoon in Iraq

by Mike Tucker

From the publisher:
In this raw and provocative new book, readers wear desert camouflage, climb to rooftops, and get behind the rifle with a platoon of elite Marine snipers and scouts in Iraq.

Author Mike Tucker embedded with the unit for its entire combat tour in 2005 06 to tell this exclusive from-the-frontlines story. Ronin captures true-grit Marines at war as they reconnoiter Iraqi villages, track terrorist targets, grapple with unrealistic rules of engagement, and get the kill.

It also contains the only firsthand accounts of such previously unreported actions as an Al Qaeda attack on a police station and the winter of the sniper when terrorist gunmen plagued Coalition forces in Fallujah.

Mike Tucker has more street cred with American warriors in Iraq than any other writer. --Salt Lake Tribune

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America

by Brigitte Gabriel

From the publisher:
Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. In 1975 she was ten years old and living in Southern Lebanon when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into her country and declared jihad against the Lebanese Christians. Lebanon was the only Christian influenced country in the Middle East, and the Lebanese Civil War was the first front in what has become the worldwide jihad of fundamentalist Islam against non-Muslim peoples. For seven years, Brigitte and her parents lived in an underground bomb shelter. They had no running water or electricity and very little food; at times they were reduced to boiling grass to survive.

Because They Hate is a political wake-up call told through a very personal memoir frame. Brigitte warns that the US is threatened by fundamentalist Islamic theology in the same way Lebanon was— radical Islam will stop at nothing short of domination of all non-Muslim countries. Gabriel saw this mission start in Lebanon, and she refuses to stand silently by while it happens here. Gabriel sees in the West a lack of understanding and a blatant ignorance of the ways and thinking of the Middle East. She also points out mistakes the West has made in consistently underestimating the single-mindedness with which fundamentalist Islam has pursued its goals over the past thirty years. Fiercely articulate and passionately committed, Gabriel tells her own story as well as outlines the history, social movements, and religious divisions that have led to this critical historical conflict.

War and Ethics: A New Just War Theory

by Nicholas Fotion

From the publisher:
Think Now is a stimulating and accessible series of books dealing with contemporary social issues from a philosophical perspective. Written by experts in philosophy, these books offer sophisticated and provocative yet engaging writing on political and cultural themes of genuine concern to the educated reader.

The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 prompted unprecedented public interest in the ethics of war, a debate that has raged furiously in the media, in politics and in the public consciousness ever since. In this fascinating and informative book, Nicholas Fotion, Professor of Philosophy at Emory University, USA and an expert on the ethics of military action, explores the notion of developing an ethical theory that guides the behaviour of those who are at war.

Fotion gives a clear account of just war theory, presenting it as a useful device in helping us make decisions about what we should do when war appears on the horizon. Examining conflicts such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Israel, the Falklands and Afghanistan, the book interrogates the roles of the various parties involved in military action - the military, government officials, and the side-line judges (journalists, citizens, scholars, neutral nations) - and the role just war theory should play as a direct guide to behaviour. Articulate, provocative and stimulating, War and Ethics is an ideal introduction to this hugely important debate.

The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis

by Alireza Jafarzadeh

From the publisher:
From the controversial expert who brought Iran’s nuclear program to the attention of the world in 2002 comes a searing exposé of the inner workings and plans of Iran’s mullahs.

With access to dissident groups inside Iran, Alireza Jafarzadeh traces President Ahmadinejad’s radical roots and involvement in terror attacks to his impact on Iran’s weapons program.

He reveals new details on Iran’s meddling in Iraq and its broader goals for the future of the Middle East. This is the most authoritative account to date of the looming threat Iran poses to the United States and the Gulf region. Readers will learn for the first time:

* President Ahmadinejad’s radical past as a feared torturer of political prisoners and his zealous mission to deliver the regime its first nuclear bomb

* The chilling trend of the military’s increasing control of the nuclear program

* How Ahmadinejad was handpicked by Iran's mullahs to help create an Islamic Republic in Iraq

* The latest covert actions to bury nuclear facilities in tunnels

* The story of the front companies Iran used to buy its nuclear technology undetected

* The author’s original and insightful policy options to end the Iranian threat

Why Democracy?

by Paul Fairfield

While much of the world now embraces the democratic idea--that the people must rule--the philosophical case for democracy has yet to be made convincingly. Why Democracy? not only reexamines the current debates in normative democratic theory, but also challenges popular conceptions that tend toward an uncritical idealization of popular rule. It is not enough to call for more extensive public deliberation, or for greater participation and inclusion in the democratic process, or for a radical extension of the scope of the process. Making the case for democracy requires examining its imaginative and rhetorical dimensions as well. The democratic idea of "rule by the people" must be understood less as a definition than as an aspiration, a trope, and the beginning of a narrative that includes, while extending beyond, the domain of government.

"This book is well written, polemically forthright, and lucid. I like how the author places participatory and deliberative theories in the context of conflict. He is part of a trend that is interested less in the analytic rigor of political theories than in their function either as political ideologies or as moves within an irresolvable conflict over power." -- Peter Breiner, author of Max Weber and Democratic Politics

All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

by Stephen Kinzer

From the publisher:
Former New York Times reporter Kinzer details the events that led up to the CIA-organized coup that overthrew democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. He focuses on the policy debates in the British and U.S. governments that arose over Mossadegh's nationalization of the British owned oil companies. The coup is described as having been organized by the Dulles brothers, serving under President Eisenhower as Secretary of State and Director of the CIA, and by CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt over the fears and objections of the Shah himself. Events since, including the September 11th attacks, justify those few Americans who opposed the orchestration of the coup, argues Kinzer.

The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family

by Martha Raddatz

From the publisher:
From ABC White House correspondent Martha Raddatz, the story of a brutal forty-eight-hour firefight that conveys in harrowing detail the effects of war not just on the soldiers but also on the families waiting back at home.

In April 2004, soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division were on a routine patrol in Sadr City, Iraq, when they came under surprise attack. Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, 8 Americans would be killed and more than 70 wounded. Back home, as news of the attack began filtering in, the families of these same men, neighbors in Fort Hood, Texas, feared the worst. In time, some of the women in their circle would receive "the call"-the notification that a husband or brother had been killed in action. So the families banded together in anticipation of the heartbreak that was certain to come.

The firefight in Sadr City marked the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency, and Martha Raddatz has written perhaps the most riveting account of hand-to-hand combat to emerge from the war in Iraq. This intimate portrait of the close-knit community of families Stateside-the unsung heroes of the military -distinguishes The Long Road Home from other stories of modern warfare, showing the horror, terror, bravery, and fortitude not just of the soldiers who were wounded and killed but also of the wives and children whose lives now are forever changed.

Martha Raddatz is one of our most respected news journalists. As ABC's Senior National Security Correspon-dent, she reported extensively from Iraq. A two-time Emmy Award winner, she was recently named Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News, and has appeared on Nightline, Larry King Live, The Charlie Rose Show, Washington Week, and many other news programs. The Long Road Home is her first book.

From LWBN:
This is the first softcover edition of a previously released hardback.

Heroes Among Us: Firsthand Accounts of Combat from America's Most DecoratedWarriors in Iraq and Afghanistan

by Major Chuck Larson

From the publisher:
Over one million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past four years, but fewer than 500 from this group have earned a Silver Star, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Cross, or the Medal of Honor. These Americans all demonstrated an extraordinary courage under fire, in the worst of circumstances. They come from all branches of the military. They also come from all over the country and all walks of life, representing the entire spectrum of races and creeds.

But what unites them are their deeds of consummate bravery, beyond the call of duty. Heroes Among Us tells these extraordinary true stories of valor, honor and sacrifice.

Major Chuck Larson served for a year with the US Army in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and was awarded the Bronze Star. Author website: chucklarson.com.

How Just Is the War on Terror?: A Question of Morality

by Eileen P. Flynn

From the publisher:
This book analyzes the ethics of military action in the age of terrorism.

From LWBN:
No other information on this title is available.

Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror

by Yossef Bodansky

From the publisher:
In this authoritative look at the roots of modern terrorism, Yossef Bodansky, one of the most respected—and best-informed—experts on radical Islamism in the world today, pinpoints the troubled region of Chechnya as a dangerous and little-understood crucible of terror in the struggle between East and West. In his number one New York Times bestseller, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, published before 9/11, Bodansky was among the first to introduce American readers to Osama bin Laden. Now in Chechen Jihad he returns to alert American readers to the lessons to be drawn from the terror campaign in Chechnya—and its ramifications for the global war on terrorism.

The final years of U.S.-Soviet relations left Chechnya a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorism, and in the past decade an uneasy alliance of native Chechen separatists and militant jihadists have joined forces to help al Qaeda and the greater Islamist movement pursue its war against the West. As Bodansky points out, "the Chechens are professional fighters—disciplined and responsible, with a combination of skills, expertise, and character that has made them the most sought-after 'force multipliers' in the jihadist movement." Bodansky traces the secret history of the two Chechen wars, illuminating how the process of "Chechenization" transformed the fight from a secular nationalist struggle into a jihadist holy war against Russia and the secular West. And, in the most instructive message for Western audiences, he reveals how the Chechen rebellion was eventually crippled by a schism between the jihadists and the Chechen people whose nationalist rebellion they had co-opted—an object lesson in the potential vulnerability of Islamist campaigns around the world.

Drawing on mountains of previously unseen intelligence from Islamist movements and other military and intelligence sources from throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as senior officials in many of the affected nations, Chechen Jihad offers an intimate and startling portrait of the jihadist movement that is astonishing in its detail and chilling in its implications—but one that points to a new way forward in the struggle to answer the challenges of international Islamist terrorism.

Yossef Bodansky, author of The Secret History of the Iraq War and the number one New York Times bestseller Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, was the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for sixteen years (1988–2004). He is also the longtime director of research at the International Strategic Studies Association. The author of ten books, he has written frequently for numerous periodicals, including Global Affairs, Jane's Defence Weekly, Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, and BusinessWeek. A member of the Prague Society for International Cooperation, he is a former senior consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State. Bodansky was also a visiting scholar in the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He divides his time between the Middle East and the Washington, D.C., area.

Iran: Open Hearts in a Closed Land

by Mark Bradley

From the publisher:
Explains why in recent years more Iranians have turned to Christ than since the coming of Islam despite the hostility of the government.

This accessible book looks at why Iranian Muslims have been turning to Christ more than the other Muslim groups.

Mark Bradley first sets out clearly why Iran is such a closed land to the Gospel and why one would expect the number converting to decline. The opposite has happened, and in the second half of the book the author examines why ordinary Iranians are so open to Jesus.

It explains how the 1979 revolution brought war, economic chaos, and totalitarianism. This has made Iranians deeply disillusioned and led them to question the religion used to justify the government's policies.