Long War Book News

How Globalization Spurs Terrorism: The Lopsided Benefits of "One World" and Why That Fuels Violence

2008-08-30T16:19:00.000-04:00

by Fathali M. Moghaddam

From the publisher:
This book explores modern Islamic terrorism in the context of globalization and cultural evolution. 21st century terrorism is different and new, first because it relies heavily on electronic communication systems and other aspects of modern technologies, and second, because it is in large part a product of fractured globalization, with its associated threats to the collective identity of Muslims.

Part one of this work contrasts globalization as an ideal with globalization as it is actually taking place, with its enormous contradictions and threats. Moghaddam, a longtime and highly respected terrorism and conflict researcher, argues that globalization is resulting in serious threats to the basic psychological needs of some, particularly in connection with collective identity.

Part two explores how globalization has brought sudden contact between different groups with no previous history of large-scale contact, resulting in a rapid decline in diversity. Terrorism is one of the dysfunctional defense mechanisms of people in such conditions, facing external threats.

Part three describes long-term solutions, focusing particularly on the role of women and the nature of the family in traditional Islamic societies. Moghaddam shows us why globalization is resulting in what he calls "catastrophic evolution," the rapid decline and disappearance of minority cultures and languages, and why that brings a clash of ideologies and the rise of extremism. There are also other dangerous trends, and those call for inspired solutions, springing from an understanding that traditional conflict-resolution, evolved in the shadow of the Cold War, is no longer effective and needs to change.

Creating Young Martyrs: Conditions That Make Dying in a Terrorist Attack Seem Like a Good Idea

2008-08-30T16:10:00.000-04:00

by Alice LoCicero and Samuel J Sinclair

From the publisher:
The authors explain how and why we must understand the conditions that spur youths to become martyrs by making them think suicide bombings and other acts of self-destructive terrorism are a "good" way to die. LoCicero and Sinclair present cutting-edge research and theory about the political, social, and living conditions that raise the risk of children deciding to join organizations that use terrorist tactics, and, having joined, to volunteer for missions in which they intentionally die while causing death and destruction, in order to make an impact. Equally important, LoCicero and Sinclair offer concrete suggestions about how ordinary Americans can help reduce and prevent terrorism around the globe.

"What could possibly lead young people, in their teens or even younger, to knowingly take their own lives in order to kill others? LoCicero and Sinclair provide thoughtful, original, and provocative answers to this question. Unlike other recent discussions of the motives that drive terrorist violence, the authors take a developmental and cultural perspective, focusing on the evolving mind of the young person who lives in a world in which his or her people are dominated by powerful others and basic human rights and opportunities are scarce. Based on the best modern and classic scholarship and their own in-depth interviews with young and older persons in war-torn regions, they provide a powerful analysis that is sure to add to our understanding of one of the most vexing problems facing today's world." - Tom Pyszczynski, Ph.D, Professor of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Constitutional Politics in the Middle East: With Special Reference to Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan

2008-07-31T21:23:00.001-04:00

by Said Amir Arjomand

From the publisher:
This book is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of constitutional politics and constitution-making in the Middle East. The historical background and setting are fully explored in two substantial essays by Linda Darling and Saïd Amir Arjoman

Saïd Amir Arjomand is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the founder and President (1996-2002, 2005-08) of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies.

From LWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month.

The Terrorist Threat from Thailand: Jihad or Quest for Justice?

2008-07-31T21:18:00.001-04:00

by Rohan Gunaratna and Arabinda Acharya

From the publisher:
Since January 2004, the violence in the southern provinces of Thailand has claimed more than 2,000 lives. The violence has also adversely affected the local economy and quality of life in the southern provinces. The atmosphere of fear and intimidation is dividing the society on religious lines, with growing apprehension that what began as a separatist nationalist conflict might well end up as a clash between Buddhism and Islam. There is also a strong potential for the Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand to get sucked into the global jihad.

Rohan Gunaratna and Arabinda Acharya provide a short history of the conflict, which dates at least to the early 1900s, as well as an analysis of factors contributing to the most recent escalation of violence, which began in 2001 but assumed an alarming proportion in 2004. The authors shed light on the causes of the Southern Thai conflict and examine its potential to spread from Thailand to neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Even more alarming, the authors find that there is the possibility that this predominantly localized conflict could escalate into an international Islamic jihad. In addition to analyzing the insurgents capabilities and opportunities, the authors provide a critique of government policies and make astute suggestions for resolving the conflict.

Rohan Gunaratna is head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also senior fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacys Jebsen Centre for Counter-Terrorism Studies, Boston. Gunaratna is the author of twelve books, including Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, an international bestseller. His latest book is Countering Terrorism: Can We Meet the Threat of Global Violence?, coauthored with Michael Chandler, chairman of the UN Taliban and al Qaeda monitoring group. He is Visiting Professor at Sydney University's Center for International and Security Studies. Arabinda Acharya is manager of strategic projects at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His area of research includes conflict, human security, and political violence and terrorism, with an emphasis on terrorist ideology and terrorist financing.

Enemy Combatants and U. S. Courts

2008-07-31T20:54:00.002-04:00

by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel (Editors)

From the publisher:
The Enemy Combatants Papers presents the five major enemy combatant cases of the post-9/11 era. Presented in narrative form, these original documents tell the story that clarifies the questions at the heart of the American detention of alleged combatants in the war on terror. These documents discuss the right to counsel, the right to a trial, the right for the accused to see the evidence against him, and the intersection between domestic and international law. The book highlights the tension between the needs of national security and the liberties allotted to alleged enemies of the state by highlighting the basic question of what the U.S. Constitution guarantees and to whom. In these documents, the reader can follow the evolving arguments about presidential powers in time of war, habeas corpus, the Geneva Conventions, balance of powers, and matters of detention and prisoner treatment. Complemented with a comprehensive timeline and appendices that include the relevant cases from the Civil War, World War II, and the Korean War and the premises for setting up military commissions and Combatant Status Review Tribunals, this book is meant for those who seek to understand the issues - legal, political, and military - that have dominated the search for balance between justice and security in the war on terror.

Karen J. Greenberg is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security. She is the editor of the NYU Review of Law and Security, co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, and editor of the books Al Qaeda Now and The Torture Debate in America. She is a frequent writer and commentator on terrorism, international law, the war on terror, and detainee issues. Her work has been featured in the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, the American Prospect, and on major media outlets. Joshua Dratel is a practising attorney in New York City. He is past President of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Along with Major Dan Mori, Dratel assisted in the defense of Australian detainee David Hicks. He also defended al Qaeda member Wadih el Hage after the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Dratel has written articles on defending terrorism cases, including Ethical Issues in Defending a Terrorism Case: How Secrecy and Security Impair the Defense of a Terrorism Case and Ethical Issues in Defending a Terrorism Case: Stuck in the Middle. He is co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. He received his B.A. from Columbia College and his law degree from Harvard Law School.

A History of Modern Iran

2008-07-31T20:43:00.000-04:00

by Ervand Abrahamian

From the publisher:
In a reappraisal of Iran's modern history, Ervand Abrahamian traces its traumatic journey across the twentieth century, through the discovery of oil, imperial interventions, the rule of the Pahlavis and, in 1979, revolution and the birth of the Islamic Republic. In the intervening years, the country has experienced a bitter war with Iraq, the transformation of society under the clergy and, more recently, the expansion of the state and the struggle for power between the old elites, the intelligentsia and the commercial middle class. The author is a compassionate expositor. While he adroitly negotiates the twists and turns of the country's regional and international politics, at the heart of his book are the people of Iran. It is to them and their resilience that this book is dedicated, as Iran emerges at the beginning of the twenty-first century as one of the most powerful states in the Middle East.

"Ervand Abrahamian has done for Iran what de Tocqueville did for France, showing how the revolution continued the work of the ancien regime, through the ever increasing power of the state." - Edward Mortimer, Senior Vice-President, Salzburg Global Seminar, and author of Faith and Power: the Politics of Islam

"Ervand Abrahamian's authoritative overview of twentieth-century Iran fills a large gap in the literature of Iranian studies. His predilection for social analysis and class studies provides an original prism through which the reader gains fresh insights into the drama of the drawn-out conflict between traditional vested interests and growing state power. Drawing on a lifetime of research and writing, Abrahamian has produced a book that successfully combines erudition and original scholarship with accessibility. Specialists and general readers alike will benefit greatly from its reading." - Andrew Whitley, Director, UNRWA Representative Office

"Ervand Abrahamian's A History of Modern Iran is a splendidly well-researched and well-written, interpretive overview of 19th and 20th century Iran. The main developments under the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties and under the Islamic Republic, the important role of Shiism in Iran's history, the origins of modernization, the quest for democratic reform at various junctures, popular participation in the revolutions of 1906 and 1978--Abrahamian covers all this and much, much more. This book, by a first rate historian, is a must read for students and those interested in modern Iranian history." - Haleh Esfandiari, Director, Middle East Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Islamic Terror: Conscious and Unconscious Motives

2008-07-30T20:25:00.000-04:00

by Avner Falk

From the publisher:
Independent scholar Falk analyzes Islamic terror from many standpoints, including religious, cultural, historical, political, social, economic and, above all, psychological. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Falk's writings specialize in psychohistory and political psychology. Here, he examines topics including infantile experience and adult terrorism, the meaning of terror, terrorists and their mothers, narcissistic rage and Islamic terror, and whether terrorists are "normal" people, as some scholars claim. He also describes the infantile development of terrorist pathology, non-psychoanalytic theories of terrorism, globalization's effect on terrorism, and the notion of the clash of civilizations.

Examining the emotional structure of traditional Muslim families, Falk also shows us the Muslim child's ambivalence toward his or her parents, how Muslims abuse women and children, the roots of Muslim rage, and why all of that plays into future terrorism development. Other topics addressed in this reader-friendly analysis include history's first Islamaic terrorists, and three important cases - two recent deadly terrrists, and the last a primary figure in our current "war on terror."

The central idea throughout the book is that a person's attitude toward terror and terrorism - as well as whether he or she becomes a murderous terrorist, or one who wages a global war on terror - has much to do with that person's own terrifying experiences in infancy and childhood. Such terror, usually experienced first in the earliest experience with the mother - is symbolically expressed, as Falk shows, in fairy tales and myths about terrifying withces and female monsters. Further terror may be experienced in one's relationship with the father, and also in various traumatic ways otherwise in childhood. It is these early terrors, when extreme and uncontrollable, that most often produce terrorists and wars on terror, Falk argues. Thus, this book focuses on the conscious, but also the irrational and unconscious, causes of terrorism.

AVNER FALK is an internationally-known Israeli scholar, expert in the fields of psychohistory and political psychology. He trained as a clinical psychologist at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at Washington University in St. Louis. He practiced psychotherapy for 25 years, during which he served as Senior Clinical Psychologist at several mental health centers, before becoming a full-time independent scholar. He has authored seven earlier books, including Anti-Semitism: A History and Psychology of Hatred (Praeger, 2008), Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Napoleon Against Himself: A Psychobiography.

The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment

2008-07-29T09:13:00.000-04:00

by Sas Fayazmanesh

From the publisher:
When and why did the United States policy of containment of Iran come about? How did it evolve? Where is it going?

Much has been said about the US policy of dual containment, particularly as it pertains to Iraq. However, there has been little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran.

Sasan Fayazmanesh explores this often neglected subject by analyzing the history of this policy. The analysis includes the role that the Carter and Reagan Administrations played in the Iran-Iraq war, the numerous sanctions imposed on Iran by the Clinton Administration and the aggressive and confrontational policy toward Iran adopted by the George W. Bush Administration after the events of September 11, 2001.

This topical read synthesizes a range of primary sources, including firsthand reports, newspaper articles and electronic media, and presents a coherent analysis of the ebbs and flows in the US thinking on Iran and Iraq.

Terrorism in the 21st Century

2008-07-25T13:16:00.000-04:00

by Cynthia C. Combs

From the publisher:
Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century helps readers understand what terrorism is and realistically assess the future of this phenomenon. Putting terrorism into historical perspective and approaching it as a form of political violence, this text offers tools like the latest data and numerous case studies to facilitate the critical analysis of terrorist acts and break down what, who, why, and how. Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century surveys national and international responses, evaluating their effectiveness and concluding with notes on future threats and trends.

Understanding Terriorism and Political Violence

2008-07-23T13:13:00.000-04:00

by Dipak Gupta

From the publisher:
This ambitious book has two inter-related objectives, proposing a new theory of human behaviour and then analyzing terrorism in the light of this general theory.

It starts with a new theoretical construct regarding individual motivations. Dipak Gupta posits that in order to understand human motivation, along with self-interest, we must take into account our other primordial instinct: to belong to a group. On the basis of this expanded view of human motivations, the book provides an understanding of the lifecycle of terrorist organizations. Since the lifecycle of a group is inextricably intertwined with public policies, the author also examines the role of the authorities in promoting, maintaining, and suppressing violent dissent.

This innovative and broad-ranging new book will be essential reading for advanced students of terrorism studies and political science, and of great interest to students of social psychology and sociology.

Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism

2008-07-22T13:09:00.001-04:00

by Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford (Editors)

From the publisher:
In this volume the contributors argue that the events of 9-11 and the subsequent "war on terrorism" have had big implications for Japan. These events have called into question the assumptions and limits of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution. Within hours of the 9-11 attacks Japan began making important policy innovations that suggested to many analysts a new readiness to support and participate in the use of force overseas, even to the extent of fighting hand-in-hand with US forces in conflicts far from Japanese shores. The authors consider these questions by examining an understudied variable, public opinion.

Robert Eldridge is Associate Professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy. Paul Midford is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Politica Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

How Should the U.S. Proceed in Iraq?

2008-07-18T13:05:00.000-04:00

by William Dudley

From the publisher:
Books in this anthology series focus a wide range of viewpoints onto a single controversial issue, providing in-depth discussions by leading advocates. Articles are printed in their entirety and footnotes and source notes are retained. These books offer the reader not only a full spectrum of dissent on the subject, but also the ability to test the validity of arguments by following up on sources used as evidence. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to further research. This series provides a quick grounding in the issues, a challenge to critical thinking skills, and an excellent research tool in each inexpensive volume.

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

2008-07-15T12:57:00.001-04:00

by Jane Mayer

From the publisher:
A dramatic and damning narrative account of how America has fought the "War on Terror"

In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long held agenda to enhance Presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.

THE DARK SIDE is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world-- decisions that not only violated the Constitution to which White House officials took an oath to uphold, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author, Jane Mayer, relates the impact of these decisions—U.S.-held prisoners, some of them completely innocent, were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the twenty-first century.

THE DARK SIDE will chronicle real, specific cases, shown in real time against the larger tableau of what was happening in Washington, looking at the intelligence gained—or not—and the price paid. In some instances, torture worked. In many more, it led to false information, sometimes with devastating results. For instance, there is the stunning admission of one of the detainees, Sheikh Ibn al-Libi, that the confession he gave under duress—which provided a key piece of evidence buttressing congressional support of going to war against Iraq--was in fact fabricated, to make the torture stop.

In all cases, whatever the short term gains, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, and our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself. THE DARK SIDE chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency.

Jane Mayer is the co-author of two bestselling and critically acclaimed narrative nonfiction books, LANDSLIDE: THE UNMAKING OF THE PRESIDENT, 1984-1988, and STRANGE JUSTICE: THE SELLING OF CLARENCE THOMAS, the latter of which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Mayer was also awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in connection with THE DARK SIDE. She is currently a Washington-based staff writer for The New Yorker, specializing in political and investigative reporting. Before that, she was a senior writer and front-page editor for The Wall Street Journal, as well as the Journal's first female White House correspondent. She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband, Bill, and their daughter, Kate.

Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo: Learning from Mistakes in East Timor, Iraq and Darfur

2008-07-15T10:35:00.000-04:00

by Aidan Hehir

From the publisher:
This title offers a critical analysis of the record of global civil society and the normative thesis since NATO's intervention in Kosovo. The book advances a new direction for the humanitarian intervention debate. This book unites theory and practice; it provides an in depth analysis of events through case studies of Iraq, Darfur and others, while other chapters build on this data to provide robust theoretical arguments. It makes an important contribution to the theoretical thinking on humanitarian intervention. It examines what makes a 'just' war at a time when a number of recent international issues have reignited the debate regarding internal intervention.

When should the international community intervene to prevent suffering within sovereign states? This book argues that since Kosovo, the normative thesis has failed to influence international politics, as evidenced by events in Iraq and Darfur. This critique rejects realism and offers a new perspective on this important issue.

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq

2008-07-15T10:32:00.000-04:00

by Aidan Delgado

From the publisher:
A young man's transformation from Army Reserve volunteer to Buddhist conscientious objector and critic of the war in Iraq

In 2003 Aidan Delgado was deployed to Nasiriyah and Abu Ghraib with the U.S. Army Reserve. When his colleagues learned that he spoke some Arabic, they made use of him but also began to mistrust him. Delgado's opposition to the war mounted as he saw American arrogance and abuse of unarmed Iraqis run rampant. Concluding that war ran counter to his Buddhist principles, he sought Conscientious Objector status and was honorably discharged. Back home, he began to speak out against the injustices he had seen.

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib is Delgado's account of those days in Iraq. In chronicling the struggles of military life and the dehumanizing effects of war, he examines the attitudes that make prisoner abuse possible and explores his own developing Buddhist beliefs against a brutal backdrop. It is a tale of the cost—but also the urgent necessity—of moral courage.

Aidan Delgado served with the U.S. Army Reserve in Iraq and is now an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. A 2006 graduate of the New College of Florida, he lives in Sarasota, Florida.

New Protective State: Government, Intelligence and Terrorism

2008-07-10T10:26:00.000-04:00

by Peter Hennessy

From the publisher:
The gathering of intelligence by the Secret Services is an issue of major importance in the modern world. It was on this basis that Bush and Blair decided to go to war, ensuring that arguments both for and against will go on beyond our own generation.

This title discusses the gathering of intelligence by the Secret Services.

Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Ethics and Liberal Democracy

2008-07-08T10:23:00.001-04:00

by Seumas Miller

From the publisher:
No one denies the impact of terrorism in the contemporary world, but when it comes to understanding the nature of terrorism and its ethical implications there is little agreement. Terrorism and our responses to it give rise to the profound moral issues addressed in this book, including the moral permissibility/impermissibility of terrorists using lethal force against non-combatants in the service of political goals, the practices of assassinating and torturing terrorists, and the infringement of civil liberties by security agencies for the purpose of protecting the lives of citizens against terrorist attacks.

By placing terrorism within the broader framework of contemporary liberal democracies, the author provides a strong basis with which to understand the effects of terrorism and the counter-measures used to combat it. This book is an important read for anyone interested in the ethics of terrorism in the modern world.

Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

2008-07-08T10:11:00.001-04:00

by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence

From the publisher:
The amazing story of the soldiers, conservationists, and ordinary Iraqis who united to save the animals of the Baghdad Zoo

Woven through the narrative is Anthony's obvious love of animals and his anger at what they suffer at the hands of humans, lending a poignancy and immediacy to the story - Booklist

Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power

2008-07-07T12:20:00.000-04:00

by Robert K. Brigham

From the publisher:
A revised and updated edition of Is Iraq Another Vietnam?

"A superb contribution to our understanding of how these conflicts are the same, how they are different, and how they shape our world."- General Wesley K. Clark, former NATO Supreme Commander and author of Waging Modern War

Robert K. Brigham is the Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar College. He is the author of numerous books and essays on American foreign relations, including Argument Without End: In Search of the Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy written with Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight.

By His Own Rules: The Story of Donald Rumsfeld

2008-07-07T12:12:00.000-04:00

by Bradley Graham

From the publisher:
Once considered among the best and brightest of his generation, Donald Rumsfeld was exceptionally prepared to assume the Pentagon's top job in 2001. Yet six years later, he left office as the most controversial Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war and for his difficult relationships with Congress, administration colleagues, and military officers. Was he really the arrogant, errant, over-controlling Pentagon leader frequently portrayed — or as his supporters contend, a brilliant, hard-charging visionary caught in a whirl of polarized Washington politics, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, and bad luck?

Bradley Graham, who closely covered Rumsfeld's challenging tenure at the Pentagon, offers an insightful biography of a complex and immensely influential personality. What emerges is a layered and revealing portrait of a man whose impact on U.S. national security affairs will long out-live him.

Bradley Graham has spent more than twenty-five years at The Washington Post in various reporting and editing assignments focused on military and foreign affairs. The author of Hit to Kill: The New Battle Over Shielding America From Missile Attack, he lives in Washington, D.C.

Terrorism Informatics: Knowledge Management and Data Mining for Homeland Security

2008-07-04T11:58:00.001-04:00

by by Hsinchun Chen, Edna Reid, Joshua Sinai, Andrew Silke, and Boaz Ganor (Editor)

From the publisher:
Terrorism informatics has been defined as the application of advanced methodologies, information fusion and analysis techniques to acquire, integrate process, analyze, and manage the diversity of terrorism-related information for international and homeland security-related applications. The wide variety of methods used in terrorism informatics are derived from Computer Science, Informatics, Statistics, Mathematics, Linguistics, Social Sciences, and Public Policy and these methods are involved in the collection of huge amounts of information from varied and multiple sources and of many types in numerous languages. Information fusion and information technology analysis techniques which include data mining, data integration, language translation technologies, and image and video processing play central roles in the prevention, detection, and remediation of terrorism. While there has been substantial investment on computer technology research applications to terrorism, much of the results and the literature has been a fragmented hodgepodge that is too narrowly focused on unconnected and unlinked discipline domains. As a result, there has been little effort to relate the research across the discipline domains from which terrorism informatics is drawn.

TERROR INFORMATICS: Knowledge Management and Data Mining for Homeland Security will provide an interdisciplinary and comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art of terrorism informatics domain along three basic dimensions: methodological issues in terrorism research; information infusion techniques to support terrorism prevention, detection, and response; and legal, social, privacy, and data confidentiality challenges and approaches. The book will bring "knowledge" that can be used by scientists, security professionals, counterterrorism experts, and policy makers.

The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West

2008-07-02T12:25:00.001-04:00

by Lee Harris

From the publisher:
Whether by choice or not, the West finds itself in a low-grade yet bitter war with Islamic fanaticism. It is a war the West is singularly ill equipped to fight. The foe is resistant to any of the normal methods of conflict resolution such as negotiation, economic sanctions, or conventional armed confrontation.

The Suicide of Reason shows how modern liberal societies, whose political theories are born of the Enlightenment, are unfamiliar with the nature of mass fanaticism. The West can only think of fanaticism as a social pathology, a failure to modernize, rather than as what it is: a variety of social order that is not only fully viable in the modern world but also willing to use weapons to which the West is uniquely vulnerable. A governing philosophy based on reason, tolerance, and consensus cannot defend itself against a strategy of ruthless violence without being radically transformed-or destroyed. Extraordinarily original and thought-provoking, The Suicide of Reason explains the logic of fanatical movements from the Crusades through Nazism to radical Islam; describes how the Enlightenment overcame fanatical thinking in the West; shows why most Western attempts to address the problem are doomed to fail; and offers strategies by which liberal internationalism can defend itself without becoming a mirror of the tribal forces it is trying to defeat.

Lee Harris is the author of Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History and a frequent contributor to Policy Review, the Wall Street Journal’s “Opinion Journal,” and other publications, both print and online. He lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Go! Go! Go!: 17 Minutes That Changed the World

2008-07-01T12:09:00.002-04:00

by Nigel McCrery

From the publisher:
n 1980, a group of terrorists seized the Iranian embassy in London and took captive everyone inside. When one of the hostages was murdered, the SAS Special Air Services of the British Army received their orders: “Go! Go! Go!” Seventeen minutes later, five of the six terrorists lay dead, and the last taken prisoner. The remaining hostages all survived, and no Special Forces man died. This mission carried out in daylight at the Prime Minister’s demand, so that the world could see catapulted the SAS overnight from obscurity to worldwide fame. Written with the active involvement of the men who participated, this fascinating work features a host of revelations that will surprise even the most dedicated SAS enthusiast, and interest everyone concerned with terrorism in our dangerous age.

Baghdad Bonanza: Iraq's Failed Reconstruction

2008-07-01T12:05:00.002-04:00

by Pratap Chatterjee

From the publisher:
"If you feel you only have time to read two American writers about the disaster in Iraq, your choice is easy: Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker and Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch."-David Weir, Stanford University

After five years of occupation and billions of US dollars spent, Iraq has less electricity, less drinkable water, and even less oil than before the invasion. Who got the tens of billions of dollars to rebuild the country, and what did they do with the money? To find out, Pratap Chatterjee travels to Iraq three times and comes back telling stories and naming names. He describes spectacular examples of fraud, from the ex-convict who bought luxury cars and gold watches with money he received to fix a library, to the company that repainted the national airline's own equipment and tried to sell it back to the Iraqi government.

Chatterjee details how US contractors played a role in training death squads, why 190,000 missing US guns are exacerbating the security crisis, and what the big roles played by Halliburton and Bechtel are. Written in the same fast-paced style that made his Iraq, Inc. a hit, Baghdad Bonanza is fearless investigative writing, destined to have a profound impact. This is a complete how-NOT-to manual for policymakers and citizens alike, anyone concerned with the issues of occupation and reconstruction.

Pratap Chatterjee is managing editor of CorpWatch. He is the author of Earth Brokers (Routledge, 1994), and he has written for the Financial Times and the Guardian. Chatterjee has appeared on CNN International, BBC, Fox, and MSNBC, and he was the recipient of a National Federation of Community Broadcasters award for his work in Afghanistan.

The War on Islam

2008-07-01T12:02:00.000-04:00

by Enver Masud

From the publisher:
A collection of essays revised to include new information about the war on terror, this analysis examines world affairs and dispels myths put forth from a doctored and complacent United Sates media. Urgent, important, and topical, this treatise gives insight into American's reputation around the world as well as how to rid the American public of their misconceptions about Islam. This exploration also attempts to increase international understanding of Islam and Muslim life, offering a balanced truth of the culture and religion.

Enver Masud is the founder and CEO of the Wisdom Fund. He worked as an engineering and management consultant for the World Bank and USAID around the world.

Inside Iran

2008-07-01T11:55:00.000-04:00

by Mark Edward Harris

From the publisher:
The Islamic Republic of Iran is at the center of world attention politically, socially, and culturally—but it remains largely a cipher to the West. Award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris has traveled throughout Iran to produce the first contemporary photographic book on a place seldom seen or understood. His images of daily life offer a fascinating look at a society of juxtapositions—ancient and modern, commercial and spiritual, serene and intense, political and personal. With chapter introductions and extended captions providing context for the images, Inside Iran is a crucial look at a country whose future is likely to influence our own.

Mark Edward Harris has traveled and photographed in more than 70 countries and is the author of several books, most recently Inside North Korea. He lives in Los Angeles.

Generation Kill

2008-07-01T11:51:00.001-04:00

by Evan Wright

From the publisher:
Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears-soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the "First Suicide Battalion" would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer.

Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.

Evan Wright is a reporter for Rolling Stone.

From LWBN
This is the first paperbak edition of a previously published hardback.

War and Media Operations: The US Military and the Press from Vietnam to Iraq

2008-07-01T10:55:00.001-04:00

by Thomas Rid

From the publisher:
This is the first academic analysis of the role of embedded media in the 2003 Iraq War, providing a concise history of US military public affairs management since Vietnam.

In late summer 2002, the Pentagon considered giving the press an inside view of the upcoming invasion of Iraq. The decision was surprising, and the innovative "embedded media program" itself received intense coverage in the media. Its critics argued that the program was simply a new and sophisticated form of propaganda. Their implicit assumption was that the Pentagon had become better at its news management and had learned to co-opt the media.

This new book tests this assumption, introducing a model of organizational learning and redraws the US military’s cumbersome learning curve in public affairs from Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, the Balkans to Afghanistan, examining whether past lessons were implemented in Iraq in 2003. Thomas Rid argues that while the US armed forces have improved their press operations, America’s military is still one step behind fast-learning and media-savvy global terrorist organizations.

War and Media Operations will be of great interest to students of the Iraq War, media and war, propaganda, political communications and military studies in general.

The Speed of Heat: An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

2008-06-30T11:08:00.001-04:00

by Thomas W. Young

From the publisher:
With its fleet of large transport aircraft, the United States military can put personnel and equipment anywhere on the globe within hours. In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in particular, virtually every soldier, every bullet, every pint of blood, and every bite of food have arrived in the war zone by airlift.

This book tells the story of one Air National Guard airlift wing as related by its members. The 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard consisted of a squadron of 12 C-130 cargo planes, their crews, and all the supporting sections—in all, more than 1,200 people. The author, a former Associated Press reporter turned aviator, flew as an active member of that unit and interviewed nearly 70 servicemen and women for this book. They include aircrews who dodged heat-seeking missiles, mechanics who made combat repairs, flight nurses who treated and transported the wounded, even two motor pool truck drivers struck by a roadside bomb.

Senior Master Sergeant Thomas W. Young is a flight engineer with the West Virginia Air National Guard and a former writer and editor for the broadcast division of the Associated Press. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Global Security Watch - Iran: A Reference Handbook

2008-06-30T11:04:00.000-04:00

by Thomas R. Mattair

From the publisher:
This book explains the foreign policy decisions of Iranian leaders, as well as the foreign policy decisions of its neighbors and major world powers.

Iran is not treated primarily as a problem to be dealt with by the United States and its friends. There is an effort to understand not only the concerns and policies of the United States and its allies, but also to understand Iranian concerns and policy. Thus, this book is better able than many others to explain the actions, reactions, and interactions of all the relevant actors and to explore the prospects for future war or peace.

Mattair provides a comprehensive analysis of Iran's relations with its neighbors and major world powers. He begins with a review of Iran's foreign relations from the time of Iran's founding in the 5th century B.C. through the Islamic era beginning in the mid-600's A.D., and the native dynasties that ruled in more recent centuries as Iran faced challenges from foreign powers such as the Ottoman Empire and Western colonial empires. The rule of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, from 1941 until 1979, is analyzed in detail, covering his efforts to deter aggression by the Soviet Union, forge an alliance with the United States, assert Iran's power in the Persian Gulf, and exercise Iran's economic power, particularly through its oil wealth.

The bulk of the book, however, focuses on the foreign relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979, during the time in which Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors have ruled. The reasons for Iran's early revolutionary activism, its antagonism toward the United States and Israel, and its war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988, are carefully examined. The reasons for international efforts to contain Iran, particularly efforts by the United States, are also analyzed. Iran's more pragmatic policies are explained, as well, including its close relations with Russia and China, its efforts to repair relations with Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states of the Gulf, its cooperation with U.S. efforts to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, and its offer of comprehensive negotiations with the United States in May 2003. Finally, Mattair analyses the current global debate about whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action are appropriate responses to Iran's nuclear programs, its role in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, and its resistance to Israel.

"Dr. Mattair has written a superb, insightful work that thoroughly lays out the issues, history, and options regarding our relationship with Iran. It is a must read for those interested in this critical problem and for those who will decide our course of action." - General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC, (Ret.), Former Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command, commanding U.S. military forces in the Middle East, 1997-2000; Former special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, 2002

Treating Victims of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Medical, Legal and Strategic Aspects

2008-06-30T10:54:00.000-04:00

by Patrick Barriot and Chantal Bismuth (editors)

From the publisher:
During the last century, the weapons of war became increasingly sophisticated and their effects ever more remote from the actual user. Militarization of nuclear atomic forces, chemicals and biological agents has considerably enlarged the arena of warfare, but of possibly even greater concern is the threat of such agents being deployed by terrorists. This book was originally published in French in 2004: subsequent events, such as the London bombings in July 2005, have only reinforced the importance of all doctors and emergency personnel understanding the various agents that could be used and having the knowledge to deal with victims of an attack or even an industrial accident. The book has therefore been translated into English to make it available to a wider audience.

The book was coordinated by Chantal Bismuth, Professor of Medicine who has acted as an advisor for the Minister of Health in France and is an international consultant in toxicology. Her co-editor, Patrick Barriot, is an anaesthetist with operational experience in the Paris Fire Brigade and the 11th division of Paratroops who is now responsible for the department of ‘Biological risks from new technologies’. The authors are representative of the doctors who would have to deal with the human casualties of warfare or a terrorist attack. They review all weapons of mass destruction, both chemical and biological, including the use of bacteria, anthrax and viruses such as variola and influenza. In each case, they describe the pathogenic agent, the human consequences, organizational aspects of care for the victims and best practice for treatment. As one author reports, “The infections caused by potential biological warfare agents are seldom taught in the course of medical studies and the majority of physicians never encounter these types of pathology in their daily professional practice. Since its eradication, people are not trained to recognize smallpox or to make the differential diagnosis between anthrax and bronchitis.” Other chapters cover the effects of nuclear weapons and radiation on humans as well as the features of Gulf War syndrome. An important chapter deals with the organization of medical responses to chemical or biological attack: “Planning, equipping, and training responder services are the best responses to the dispersion of chemical and biological agents.”

The book addresses all those involved in the security of the civilian population, the organization of rescue services and the treatment of victims.

Restoring Justice After Large-scale Violent Conflicts: Kosovo, DR Congo and the Israeli-Palestinian Case

2008-06-30T10:49:00.000-04:00

by Ivo Aertsen, Jana Arsovska, Holger-C Rohne, Marta Valinas, and Kris Vanspauwen (editors)

From the publisher:
This book provides a comparative analysis of the potential of restorative justice approaches to dealing with mass victimization in the context of large-scale violent conflicts – focusing on case studies from Kosovo, Israel-Palestine and Congo, incorporating contributions from leading authorities in these areas.

One of the main objectives of the book is to examine if, how and to what extent restorative justice is applicable in various different cultural, social and historical contexts, and what common themes can be identified within the different regions under analysis.

The book will also provide a critical analysis of the UN Basic Principles on the use of restorative justice programmes in criminal matters as applied to the context of large scale violence.

The 9/11 Encyclopedia

2008-06-30T10:43:00.000-04:00

by Stephen E. Atkins

From the publisher:
Horror. Sadness. Protests. Military action. Conspiracy theories. From personal loss to economic upheaval to a paradigm shift in U.S. foreign relations, few events in the past 100 years have impacted American life so greatly as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

This comprehensive two-volume set details every event leading up to 9/11, going back up to a decade prior to the attacks, and including all participants from any place in the world. Also covered are events since the attack that have influenced our understanding of the ordeal. With A-Z entries, descriptive sidebars, and over 40 primary documents, The 9/11 Encyclopedia is an essential source for understanding one of the blackest marks on the pages of American history.

Volume one presents A-Z entries on the event, including:

# Conspiracy theories
# Economic impact of 9/11
# FBI and 9/11
# Flight 93
# Hamburg Group
# John O'Neill
# Khalid Sheik Mohammad
# Logan Airport
# Mohammad Atta
# New York Fire Department
# Osama Bin Laden
# Ramzi Ahmed Yousef
# World Trade Center Bombing (1993)

Volume two includes over 40 primary documents relating to the event. Selections include:

# Osama Bin Laden's declaration of Jihad
# Richard Clarke's memorandum to Condoleezza Rice on al-Qaeda
# Oral testimony from survivors of the 9/11 attack
# Interview with Mullah Umar Muhammad
# The White House declaration on the humane treatment of al-Qaeda and Taliban Detainees

STEPHEN E. ATKINS is Associate University Librarian for Collection Management at Texas A&M University. His numerous published works include Encyclopedia of Modern American Extremists and Extremist Groups (Oryx 2002), Historical Encyclopedia of Atomic Energy (Greenwood 2000), which was awarded a Booklist Editors' Choice Award for 2000, and Terrorism: A Handbook (1992).

Iran, North Korea and the Emerging Nuclear Proliferation Crisis

2008-06-30T09:52:00.002-04:00

by Arjun Makhijani

From the publisher:
North Korea has the bomb, as do eight other countries. Iran is developing the capacity to make one. Behind them, more than 30 other countries, including Japan, Egypt, Ukraine, Brazil, Turkey, Venezuela, and South Korea have the potential to become nuclear powers in the years ahead. Arjun Makhijani, one of the world's leading experts on nuclear proliferation, explains why the world could be on the brink of President Kennedy's nightmare - dozens of nuclear states, all threatening to use these apocalyptic weapons against one another. How can the global community stop the frightening rush to nuclear standoffs around the globe? This up-to-the-minute book reveals the untold story of the nuclear arms race in North Korea and Iran and how we can stop the spread of nuclear weapons before it's too late.

Warring Friends: Alliance Restraint in International Politics

2008-06-29T11:51:00.000-04:00

by Jeremy Pressman

From the publisher:
Allied nations often stop each other from going to war. Some countries even form alliances with the specific intent of restraining another power and thereby preventing war. Furthermore, restraint often becomes an issue in existing alliances as one ally wants to start a war, launch a military intervention, or pursue some other risky military policy while the other ally balks. In Warring Friends, Jeremy Pressman draws on and critiques realist, normative, and institutionalist understandings of how alliance decisions are made.

Alliance restraint often has a role to play both in the genesis of alliances and in their continuation. As this book demonstrates, an external power can apply the brakes to an incipient conflict, and even unheeded advice can aid in clarifying national goals. The power differentials between allies in these partnerships are influenced by leadership unity, deception, policy substitutes, and national security priorities.

Recent controversy over the complicated relationship between the U.S. and Israeli governments--especially in regard to military and security concerns--is a reminder that the alliance has never been easy or straightforward. Pressman highlights multiple episodes during which the United States attempted to restrain Israel's military policies: Israeli nuclear proliferation during the Kennedy Administration; the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; preventing an Israeli preemptive attack in 1973; a small Israeli operation in Lebanon in 1977; the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982; and Israeli action during the Gulf War of 1991. As Pressman shows, U.S. initiatives were successful only in 1973, 1977, and 1991, and tensions have flared up again recently as a result of Israeli arms sales to China.

Pressman also illuminates aspects of the Anglo-American special relationship as revealed in several cases: British nonintervention in Iran in 1951; U.S. nonintervention in Indochina in 1954; U.S. commitments to Taiwan that Britain opposed, 1954-1955; and British intervention and then withdrawal during the Suez War of 1956. These historical examples go far to explain the context within which the Blair administration failed to prevent the U.S. government from pursuing war in Iraq at a time of unprecedented American power.

Jeremy Pressman is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut.

From LWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month. This is the first paperbak edition of a previously published hardback.

Global Terrorism

2008-06-29T11:45:00.000-04:00

by James M. Lutz and Brenda Lutz

From the publisher:
This textbook is a comprehensive introduction to global terrorism helping students to understand the history, politics, ideologies and strategies of both contemporary and older terrorist groups.

From LWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month.

Security versus Justice?: Police and Judicial Cooperation in the European Union

2008-06-29T11:39:00.001-04:00

by Elspeth Guild and Florian Geyer (editors)

From the publisher:
One of the most dynamic areas of EU law since the great changes brought to the EU constitutional order by the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999 has been cooperation in the fields of policing and criminal justice. Both fields have already been the subject of substantial legislative effort in the EU and an increasing amount of judicial activity in the European Court of Justice. In 2007 – after the Constitutional Treaty of 2004 failed – the new Reform Treaty planned very substantive changes to these policies.

Bringing together a wide-ranging set of topics and contributors, this book enables readers to understand these changes by examining three key questions: how did we get to the Reform Treaty; what have been – and still are – the key struggles in competence; and how do the changes fit into the transformation of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the EU?

Elspeth Guild is based at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, Belgium and is a Professor of European Migration Law at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Florian Geyer is based at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, Belgium.

From LWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month.

From Terrorism to Politics

2008-06-29T11:32:00.000-04:00

by Anisseh Van Engeland and Rachael M. Rudolph

From the publisher:
How do terrorists become politicians? This book embraces a series of comparative case studies in order to examine important issues regarding the relationship between terrorism and political processes. It identifies the characteristics necessary for the transition from a 'terrorist' organization to a political party and situates this within broader debates about substantive ethical concerns motivating the distinction between legitimate politics and illegitimate violence.

The volume offers a presentation of how some terrorist groups see the world in which they live. It also provides an understanding of how established democracies such as the US react to the phenomenon of the terrorist–politician transition. This is a useful resource for students and scholars of international relations, political ethics and comparative politics.

Contents: Foreword; Introduction: the transition process, Rachael M. Rudolph; A successful 'turn over': the African National Congress moves from sabotage to a legitimate political force and from apartheid to democracy, Anisseh Van Engeland; Hezbollah: from a terrorist group to a political party – social work as a key to politics, Anisseh Van Engeland; Political movements in the making: the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin, Anisseh Van Engeland; A political movement to make peace or war? Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) and Batasuna – the impossible truce, Anisseh Van Engeland; The Islamic Resistance movement in Palestine (Hamas): a successful transition, but will it survive?, Rachael M. Rudolph; The Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine: a wild card in Palestinian politics?, Rachael M. Rudolph; The Islamic Salvation Front: transition FIS-style, Rachael M. Rudolph; Failed attempts: the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and Union Patriotica (UP), Anisseh Van Engeland; Transition in the Philippines: the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)and the Abu Sayyaf's Group (ASG), Rachael M. Rudolph; Terrorism all the way! Terrorist nihilist groups: the example of al Qaeda, Anisseh Van Engeland; Conclusion: toward a transition theory and implications, Rachael M. Rudolph; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author: Anisseh Van Engeland, Max Weber Fellow at European University Institute, Assistant Professor, James Madison University, and free lance consultant, USA and Rachael M. Rudolph, Assistant Professor at Emory & Henry College and Instructor at West Virginia University, USA

'The question of which factors lead armed groups to abandon violence and embrace politics to achieve their objectives is very relevant for contemporary security. This volume explores this issue in great detail and through a very strong analysis of a number of case studies it makes an important contribution to our understanding of how terrorists become politicians and how armed groups become political parties.' - Francesco Cavatorta, Dublin City University, Ireland

From LWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month.

Counterterrorism: Democracy's Challenge

2008-06-29T11:13:00.000-04:00

by Andrea Bianchi and Alexis Keller (editors)

From the publisher:
Terrorist violence is no novelty in human history and, while government reactions to it have varied over time, some lessons can be learnt from the past. Indeed, the debate on when and how a state should use emergency powers that limit individual freedoms.

Andrea Bianchi is Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva and at the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University, Milan. In 2004 he edited Enforcing International Law Norms against Terrorism

From LWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month.

The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation

2008-06-28T10:40:00.000-04:00

by Marwan Muasher

From the publisher:
Marwan Muasher, a prominent Jordanian diplomat, has been instrumental in shaping Middle East peace efforts for nearly twenty years. He served as Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel and was also ambassador to the United States, spokesperson at peace talks in Madrid and Washington, minister of foreign affairs, and deputy prime minister in charge of reform. Here he recounts the behind-the-scenes details of diplomatic ventures over the past two decades, including such recent undertakings as the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East Road Map.

Muasher’s insights into internal Arab politics and the successes and failures of the Arab Center are uniquely informed and deeply felt. He assesses how the middle road approach to reform is faring and explains why current tactics used by the West to deal with Islamic groups are doomed to failure. He examines why the Arab Center has made so little progress and which Arab, Israeli, and American policies need rethinking. Part memoir and part analysis, this book reveals the human side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is essential reading for all who share the hope that moderate, pragmatic Arab voices will be heard in today’s vitriolic debates over how to achieve an enduring peace in the Middle East.

The Military Error: Baghdad and Beyond in America's War of Choice

2008-06-24T10:33:00.000-04:00

by Thomas Powers

From the publisher:
Why did George W. Bush invade Iraq? What were the real motives, the overarching policy decisions that drove events from September 11 until the war began?

To a large extent, we still don’t know. But by now we do know in some detail, as Thomas Powers carefully explains in the essays collected here, how the administration made its case for war, using faulty intelligence to argue that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a mounting threat to the Middle East. Once Iraq was occupied and the weapons turned out not to exist, the case for war seemed to disappear as well. Bit by bit the evidence–the documents suggesting that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger, the aluminum tubes that the United States claimed were meant for uranium enrichment, the Iraqi defector code-named Curveball who claimed Saddam had mobile biological weapons labs–has been exposed as unreliable, misinterpreted, “cherry-picked,” exaggerated, or just fake.

But as faulty as the intelligence was, it was always only a pretext, a way of persuading Congress, America, and the world to support a war that President Bush had already decided to wage. The real question remains: Why did Bush insist on a war of choice, refusing to accept any solution short of an American occupation of Iraq? The answers Powers proposes to that question, which assess the Iraq invasion as an insistence on responding to political and cultural conflicts with military action, suggest an overarching failure of American policy in the region that, as long as it remains insufficiently understood and publicly debated, will make it difficult for any president to change course.

No one is better prepared than Powers to evaluate the way the Bush administration used intelligence to make its case for war, used the CIA for political ends, and used arguments of secrecy to advance both its geopolitical agenda and its claims for executive power. But beyond the now-familiar stories of nonexistent WMDs, The Military Error proposes a new, deeper analysis of the error of using military force, which has succeeded primarily in generating opposition and increasing resistance to American aims. America went into Iraq full of bright hopes and confident ideas, but Powers argues that those ideas, based on the ability of force to solve problems, defeat opponents, and make friends, were largely illusions. Such illusions, as we learned at great cost in Vietnam, die hard, but we can make decisions about our future role in Iraq only by understanding the errors that got us embroiled there in the first place.

Thomas Powers is the author of The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, Intelligence Wars, and The Confirmation, a novel. He won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1971 and has contributed to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s, The Nation, The Atlantic, and Rolling Stone.

Condor Blues: British Soldiers at War

2008-06-24T10:22:00.000-04:00

by Mark Nicol

From the publisher:
This honest and visceral account of British soldiers in Iraq, focusing on two platoons based at Camp Condor in Maysan Province, provides shocking insight into the consequences of the flawed thinking behind Allied operations in Iraq.

Mark Nicol is the author of the acclaimed Ultimate Risk and Last Round, and writes for the Mail on Sunday. He is also the defence analyst for Sky, GMTV and Radio Five Live.

From LWBN
This is the first paperback edition of a previously published hardback.

Justice at War: The Men and Ideas that Shaped America's War on Terror

2008-06-24T10:18:00.003-04:00

by David Cole

From the publisher:
How did America become a nation that tortured prisoners, spied on its citizens, and gave its president unchecked powers in matters of defense? Has justice been the greatest casualty of the war on terror?After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration swiftly began to rethink its approach to national security. In a series of memos and policy decisions, many top secret and only made public much later, the administration’s lawyers dismissed the Geneva conventions as “quaint,” justified the torture of suspected terrorists, argued that the president in his capacity as commander in chief was bound by no laws in defending the nation at home and abroad, and approved a domestic surveillance program that flagrantly violated US law.

In Justice at War, David Cole takes a critical look at the men who made the decisions that shaped America’s war on terror. After September 11, Attorney General John Ashcroft aggressively expanded federal law enforcement powers. John Yoo, who served in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, drafted some of the most controversial memos justifying torture. David Addington, Dick Cheney’s counsel, argued for virtually unlimited presidential power. Alberto Gonzales, Bush’s counsel, seemed willing to defend the president’s view on any issue.

Yet Cole believes that America can prevail against the threat of terror, not by dismantling the checks and balances that guarantee the fairness of our justice system but by restoring them. He discusses how Michael Mukasey, the new attorney general, may try to improve the Justice Department’s tattered reputation. He explains why the Supreme Court rejected the president’s claim of authority to try enemy combatants in military tribunals under rules that violated the Geneva conventions. And he considers arguments by legal scholars about the limits of constitutional protections when the nation is under the threat of terrorism.Yet above all we must remember that the Constitution embodies principles that we should not give up in times of fear, Cole argues: “Both the strength and security of the nation in the struggle with terrorists rest on adherence to the rule of law, including international law, because only such adherence provides the legitimacy we need if we are to win back the world’s respect.”

David Cole is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. His latest book, written with Jules Lobel, is Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror.

Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War

2008-06-23T10:15:00.000-04:00

by Dennis Perrin

From the publisher:
Americans see the Democratic Party as the anti-war party: vacillating flip-floppers in the eyes of conservatives; or, in the liberal view, restrained, measured wagers of war as "last resort." In November 2006, voters put the Democrats into Congress to bring an end to the Iraq war. Yet the Democrats supported the "surge," giving Bush more money than he himself requested, and voted through the next $459.6 billion defense budget.

In this hard-hitting examination of their role in the War on Terror, political analyst and satirist Dennis Perrin shatters the myth of the reluctant-warrior Democrats. He explores Democrat collusion in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and support for Israeli assaults on Gaza and Lebanon, while revealing their overlooked appetite for planning wars and selling them to the electorate. Compelling and bleakly humorous, Savage Mules shows a party at odds with its public image on this key issue in the race for the White House.

Dennis Perrin is the author of Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue, The Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous and American Fan: Sports Mania and the Culture That Feeds It. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Realist, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, at MSNBC, and in numerous independent weeklies and newspapers. He was a jokewriter for Bill Maher, and has blogged under the name Red State Son.

My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me

2008-06-23T10:01:00.001-04:00

by Mahvish Khan

From the publisher:
Mahvish Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Afghan parents in Michigan. Outraged that her country was illegally imprisoning people at Guantanamo, she volunteered to translate for the prisoners. She spoke their language, understood their customs, and brought them Starbucks chai, the closest available drink to the kind of tea they would drink at home. And they quickly befriended her, offering fatherly advice as well as a uniquely personal insight into their plight, and that of their families thousands of miles away.

For Mahvish Khan the experience was a validation of her Afghan heritage—as well as her American freedoms, which allowed her to intervene at Guantanamo purely out of her sense that it was the right thing to do. Mahvish Khan's story is a challenging, brave, and essential test of who she is — and who we are.

Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror

2008-06-19T17:27:00.000-04:00

by Benjamin Wittes

From the publisher:
Benjamin Wittes offers the first nonpartisan critique of a crucial front in America’s war on terror—the legal battles fought by and among the Bush administration, the U.S. Congress, and the Supreme Court

Six years after the September 11 attacks, America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror. It is losing not to Al Qaeda but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people—its military and executive branch, as well as its citizens—in the midst of a conflict unlike any it has faced in the past. Now, in the twilight of President Bush’s administration, Brookings Institution fellow Benjamin Wittes offers a vigorous analysis of the troubling legal legacy of the Bush administration as well as that of the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court. Law and the Long War tells as no book has before the story of how America came to its current impasse in the debate over liberty, human rights, and counterterrorism and draws a road map for how the country and the next president might move forward.

Moving beyond the stale debate between those fixated on the executive branch as the key architect of counterterrorism policy and those who see the judiciary as the essential guarantor of liberty against governmental abuses, Wittes argues that the essential problem is that the Bush administration did not seek—and Congress did not write—new laws to authorize and regulate the tough presidential actions this war would require. In a line of argument that is sure to spark controversy, Wittes reveals an administration whose most significant failure was not that it was too aggressive in the substance of its action, but rather that it tried to shoulder the burden of aggressiveness on its own without seeking the support of other branches of government. Using startling new empirical research on the detainee population at Guantánamo Bay, Wittes avers that many of the administration’s actions were far more defensible than its many critics believed and actually warranted congressional support. Yet by resisting both congressional and judicial involvement in its controversial decisions, the executive branch ironically prevented both of those branches from sharing in the political accountability for necessary actions that challenged traditional American notions of due process and humane treatment.

Boldly offering a new way forward, Wittes concludes that the path toward fairer, more accountable rules for a conflict without end lies in the development of new bodies of law covering detention, interrogation, trial, and surveillance. Sure to discomfort and ignite debate, Law and the Long War is the first nonideological argument about a controversial issue of vital importance to all Americans.

Benjamin Wittes is a Fellow and Research Director in Public Law at the Brookings Institution. A former editorial writer for The Washington Post specializing in legal affairs, he currently writes a column for The New Republic Online and is a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly. He is a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law.

Security Informatics and Terrorism: Patrolling the Web:Social and Technical Problems of Detecting and Controlling Terrorists' Use of the WWW

2008-06-15T13:57:00.001-04:00

Edited by C.S. Gal, P.B. Kantor and B. Shapira

From the publisher:
This work is intended to be of interest to counter-terrorism experts and professionals, to academic researchers in information systems, computer science, political science and public policy, and to graduate students in these areas.

The goal of this book is to highlight several aspects of patrolling the Web that were raised and discussed by experts from different disciplines. The book includes academic studies from related technical fields, namely, computer science and information technology, the strategic point of view as presented by intelligence experts, and finally the practical point of view by experts from related industry describing lessons learned from practical efforts to tackle these problems.

This volume is organized into four major parts: definition and analysis of the subject, data-mining techniques for terrorism informatics, other theoretical methods to detect terrorists on the Web, and practical relevant industrial experience on patrolling the Web.

Social Dynamics of Global Terrorism and Prevention Policies

2008-06-15T13:52:00.000-04:00

by N. Çabuk Kaya and A. Erdemir, editors

From the publisher:
Over the course of the first decade of the third millennium, terrorism has become a phenomenon that no state, society, or individual can afford to ignore. Particularly in the post-9/11 world, terrorism has not only turned into an ubiquitous fact and an omnipresent spectacle but also an alarming global concern. It is, nevertheless, surprising for many people that the global convergence towards growing fear and anxiety of terrorism has not necessarily led to a parallel convergence in our understanding and definition of the phenomenon. Defining terrorism today is no simpler a task than the days of the French revolution during which the term was first coined. Although definitional exercises are often perceived by various politicians and practitioners as yet another bizarre avocation of scholars, attempts to redefine the term terrorism time and again is neither straightforward nor vein.

This edited volume is compiled in response to the challenge of global terrorism, bringing together over two dozen scholars and practitioners from around the world who are experts on the study of terrorism.

Should Governments Negotiate With Terrorists?

2008-06-13T09:53:00.000-04:00

by Amanda Hiber

From the publisher:
Books in this anthology series focus a wide range of viewpoints onto a single controversial issue, providing in-depth discussions by leading advocates. Articles are printed in their entirety and footnotes and source notes are retained. These books offer the reader not only a full spectrum of dissent on the subject, but also the ability to test the validity of arguments by following up on sources used as evidence. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to further research. This series provides a quick grounding in the issues, a challenge to critical thinking skills, and an excellent research tool in each inexpensive volume.

Between Terror and Democracy: Algeria since 1989

2008-06-10T11:02:00.002-04:00

by James D. Le Sueur

From the publisher:
This book by an internationally recognized expert on Algeria and political Islam, tells the story that began with that country's attempt to make the transition from authoritarianism to democracy - a move never made after the imposition of martial law in 1992 by a military government forestalling the imminent electoral success of the Islamist National Salvation Front. The principle Islamist leaders were arrested, other militants went underground, and the aggressive actions of the military government spun the country into chaos. Islamists declared a jihad against the state which responded in turn with extreme methods of suppression. During the next decade, over 100,000 civilians were killed, often caught in the crossfire. Today, despite the historic 2005 amnesty referendum, which sought to end the standoff between the State and Islamic militants, the violence continues to threaten the stability of the current government as well as the entire region. Between Terror and Democracy: Algeria since 1989 is mandatory reading for those seeking to understand the current international situation.

James D. Le Sueur is Associate Professor of history at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and a Senior Associate Member of the Middle East Center at St. Antony's College, Oxford.

Media and Peace: From Vietnam to the 'War on Terror'

2008-06-10T10:58:00.002-04:00

by Graham Spencer

Much is known about the media's role in conflict, but far less is known about the media's role in peace. Graham Spencer's study addresses this deficiency by providing a comparative analysis of reporting conflicts from around the world and examining media receptiveness to the development of peace. This book establishes an argument for the need to rethink journalistic responsibility in relation to peace and interrogates the consequences of news coverage that emphasizes conflict over peace.

Terrorism, War, or Disease?: Unraveling the Use of Biological Weapons

2008-06-09T10:55:00.000-04:00

by Anne Clunan (Editor), Peter Lavoy (Editor), Susan Martin (Editor)

From the publisher:
The use of biological warfare (BW) agents by states or terrorists is one of the world's most frightening security threats but, thus far, little attention has been devoted to understanding how to improve policies and procedures to identify and attribute BW events. Terrorism, War, or Disease? is the first book to examine the complex political, military, legal, and scientific challenges involved in determining when BW have been used and who has used them.

Through detailed analysis of the most significant and controversial allegations of BW use from the Second World War to the present, internationally recognized experts assess past attempts at attribution of unusual biological events and draw lessons to improve our ability to counter these deadly silent killers. This volume presents the most comprehensive analysis of actual and alleged BW use, and provides an up-to-date evaluation of law enforcement, forensic epidemiology, and arms control measures available to policymakers to investigate and attribute suspected attacks.

"This book offers flashes of insight over the dark terrain of bioterrorism. A real contribution." —Richard Danzig, Secretary of the Navy 1998-2001

Terrorism and Homeland Security: Thinking Strategically About Policy

2008-06-09T10:53:00.001-04:00

by Paul Viotti (Editor), Michael Opheim (Editor), Nicholas Bowen (Editor)

From the publisher
Despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been active since November of 2002, the American homeland is still not secure from terrorist attack. What passes as DHS strategy is often just a list of objectives with vague references to the garnering of national resources, and the marshalling of support from other nations.

Drawing on the expertise of several of the nation's leading reseachers and policy experts, Terrorism and Homeland Security: Thinking Strategically About Policy provides policymakers with a much needed starting point for the creation of an effective coherent national security strategy. Its origins pre-dating 9-11, this volume grew out of an extensive project featuring the participation of various institutions including the Army War College.

The primary goal: develop a strategy that optimizes security with minimal infringement on rights and liberties.

After addressing points salient to a central strategy, the book then identifies the domestic and external elements that need to be addressed in building such a strategy. To this end, it examines the nature of terrorist threats, looks at challenges specific to various weapons of mass destruction, and then goes beyond terrorism to discuss safeguarding society and its infrastructure from natural disasters.

In concluding, the editors present a number of preliminary suggestions. It is hoped that policymakers and others may take these suggestions into account when developing a comprehensive national security strategy.

Explosion and Blast-Related Injuries: Effects of Explosion and Blast from Military Operations and Acts of Terrorism

2008-06-06T10:50:00.002-04:00

by Nabil M. Elsayed and James L. Atkins

From the publisher:
Explosion and Blast-Related Injuries is an authoritative text that brings together diverse knowledge gained from both the experience of clinicians treating blast casualties and the insights of scientists obtained from research and modeling of blast exposures.

By providing information on explosion and blast injury patterns, as well as the mechanism of blast-induced injuries, it is a useful reference for both physicians and researchers. With contributions by experts from around the globe, the book covers topics such as the epidemiology of blast and explosion injury, pathology and pathophysiology, and the modeling and mechanism of injury. Finally, this book might stimulate additional studies into ways to improve our current mass casualty response systems.

* Contains contributions from current and retired military Commanding Officers including the Commanding General of US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the former US Navy Surgeon General, and the Director of the Bureau of Medicine

* Presents practical, real-world tactics and experiences in dealing with explosives and blast injury

* Covers the latest in current issues and hazards encountered by US and world forces in Iraq and Afghanistan

Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

2008-06-03T13:35:00.000-04:00

by Fred Burton

From the publisher:
For decades, Fred Burton, a key figure in international counterterrorism and domestic spycraft, has secretly been on the front lines in the fight to keep Americans safe around the world. Now, in this hard-hitting memoir, Burton emerges from the shadows to reveal who he is, what he has accomplished, and the threats that lurk unseen except by an experienced, world-wise few.

In the mid-eighties, the idea of defending Americans against terrorism was still new. But a trio of suicide bombings in Beirut–including one that killed 241 marines and forced our exit from Lebanon–had changed the mindset and mission of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the arm of the State Department that protects U.S. embassy officials across the globe. Burton, a member of DSS’s tiny but elite Counterterrorism Division, was plunged into a murky world of violent religious extremism spanning the streets of Middle Eastern cities and the informant-filled alleys of American slums. From battling Libyan terrorists and their Palestinian surrogates to having facing down hijackers, hostages, and Hezbollah double agents, Burton found himself on the front lines of America’s first campaign against Terror.

In this globe-trotting account of one counterterrorism agent’s life and career, Burton takes us behind the scenes to reveal how the United States tracked Libya-linked master terrorist Abu Nidal; captured Ramzi Yusef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and pursued the assassins of major figures including Yitzhak Rabin, Meir Kahane, and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan–classic cases that have sobering new meaning in the treacherous years since 9/11. Here, too, is Burton’s advice on personal safety for today’s most powerful CEOs, gleaned from his experience at Stratfor, the private firm Barron’s calls “the shadow CIA.”

Told in a no-holds-barred, gripping, nuanced style that illuminates a complex and driven man, Ghost is both a riveting read and an illuminating look into the shadows of the most important struggle of our time.

Fred Burton is one of the world’s foremost experts on security, terrorists, and terrorist organizations. He is vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security at Stratfor, an influential private intelligence company. He is the former deputy chief of the Diplomatic Security Service, the Department of State’s counterterrorism division.

Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror - A Public Defender's Inside Account

2008-06-03T10:46:00.002-04:00

by Steven T. Wax

From the publisher:
“OUR GOVERNMENT CAN MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR.”

Those were words Steven T. Wax never imagined he would hear himself say. In his thirty-four years as a lawyer, Wax didn’t have to warn a client that he or she might be taken away to a military brig, or worse, a “black site,” one of our country’s dreaded secret prisons. So how had we come to this? The disappearance of people happens in places ruled by tyrants, military juntas, fascist strongmen–governments with such contempt for the rule of law that they strip their citizens of all rights. But in America?

Under the Bush administration, not only have the civil rights of foreigners been in jeopardy, but also those of U.S. citizens. In Kafka Comes to America, Wax interweaves the stories of two men he represented who were caught up in our government’s post-9/11 counterterrorism measures. Brandon Mayfield, an American-born, small-town lawyer and family man, was arrested as a terrorist suspect in the Madrid train station bombings after a fingerprint was mistakenly traced back to him by the FBI. Adel Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator working in Pakistan, was taken from his apartment and flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for no substantiated reason. Kafka Comes to America reveals where and how our civil liberties have been eroded in favor of a false security, and how each of us can make a difference. If these events could happen to Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad, they could happen to anyone. They could happen to you.

Steven T. Wax is in his seventh term as the Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon. A cum laude graduate of Colgate University and Harvard Law School, he was a key part of the Brooklyn, N.Y. District Attorney’s prosecution of David Berkowitz, a.k.a. “Son of Sam.” Wax and his team are representing seven men held as “enemy combatants” in Guantánamo. He has taught at the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College, serves as an ethics prosecutor for the Oregon State Bar, and lectures throughout the country.

The Poet of Baghdad: A True Story of Love and Defiance

2008-06-03T10:42:00.002-04:00

by Jo Tatchell

From the publisher:
In the winter of 1979 Nabeel Yasin, Iraq's most famous young poet, gathered together a handful of belongings and fled Iraq with his wife and son. Life in Baghdad had become intolerable. Silenced by a series of brutal beatings at the hands of the Ba'ath Party's Secret Police and declared an “enemy of the state,” he faced certain death if he stayed.

Nabeel had grown up in the late 1950s and early '60s in a large and loving family, amid the domestic drama typical of Iraq's new middle class, with his mother Sabria working as a seamstress to send all of her seven children to college. As his story unfolds, Nabeel meets his future wife and finds his poetic voice while he is a student. But Saddam's rise to power ushers in a new era of repression, imprisonment and betrayal from which few families will escape intact. In this new climate of intimidation and random violence Iraqis live in fear and silence; yet Nabeel’s mother tells him “It is your duty to write.” His poetry, a blend of myth and history, attacks the regime determined to silence him. As Nabeel’s fame and influence as a poet grows, he is forced into hiding when the Party begins to dismantle the city’s infrastructure and impose power cuts and food rationing. Two of his brothers are already in prison and a third is used as a human minesweeper on the frontline of the Iran-Iraq war. After six months in hiding, Nabeel escapes with his wife and young son to Beirut, Paris, Prague, Budapest, and finally England.

Written by Jo Tatchell, a journalist who has spent many years in the Middle East and who is a close friend of Nabeel Yasin’s, this is the gripping story of a family and its fateful encounter with history. From a warm, lighthearted look at the Yasin family before the Saddam dictatorship, to the tale of Nabeel’s persecution and daring flight, and the suspense-filled account of his family’s rebellion against Saddam's regime, Nabeel's Song is an intimate, illuminating, deeply human chronicle of a country and a culture devastated by political repression and war.

Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11

2008-06-03T10:40:00.002-04:00

by Lynn Spencer

From the publisher:
On the azure blue morning of 9/11 the skies were pronounced "severe clear," in the parlance of airline pilots; a gorgeous day for flying. Nearly 5,000 flights were cruising the skies over America when FAA Operations Manager Ben Sliney arrived at the Command Center for his first day on that job. He could never have anticipated the historic drama that was about to unfold as Americans who found themselves on the front lines of a totally unprecedented attack on our homeland sprang into action to defend our country and save lives.

In this gripping moment-to-moment narrative, based on groundbreaking reporting, Lynn Spencer brings the inspiring true drama of their unflinching and heroic response vividly to life for the first time, taking us right inside the airliner cockpits and control towers, the fighter jets and the military battle cabs. She makes vital corrections to the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report, and reveals many startling, utterly unknown elements of the story.

As a commercial pilot herself, for whom the attacks hit terribly close to home, she knew that the true scope and nature of the response so brilliantly improvised that morning by those in the thick of the action -- with so little guidance from those at the highest levels -- had not at all been captured by the news coverage or the 9/11 Commission. To get to the truth, she went on a three-year quest, interviewing hundreds of key players, listening to untold hours of tapes and pouring through voluminous transcripts to re-create each heart-stopping moment as it happened through their eyes and in their words as the drama unfolded.

From the shocking moment at 7:59 a.m. that American 11 fails to respond to a controller's call, until the last commercial flight has safely landed and military jets rule the skies, all Americans will find themselves deeply moved and amazed by the grace and fierce determination of these steely men and women as they draw on all of their exquisite training to grasp, through the fog of war, what is happening, put their lives on the line, and mount an astonishing response.

This beautifully crafted and deeply affecting account of the full story of their courageous actions is a vital addition to the country's understanding of a day that has forever changed our nation.

From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

2008-06-03T10:35:00.001-04:00

by Jay Kopelman and Melinda Roth

From the publisher:
In From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava, Jay Kopelman tells a story that is both tender and thought-provoking--candidly portraying the ugly conditions in wartime Iraq, while also describing his (and his fellow Marines') growing attachment to a scruffy stray puppy.

... a tale of radiant joy about Kopelman's efforts to safely transport Lava, the stray dog his Marine unit found in the wreckage of Fallujah - Publisher's Weekly

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

Ghosts: Marine Snipers in Iraq

2008-06-03T10:32:00.000-04:00

by Charles W. Henderson

From the publisher:
In the chaos of the combat zone, there are the living, the dead, and the Ghosts.

In the ongoing Iraq conflict, there are no battle lines, no direct offensives, no ground won or lost-just the daily fight against an enemy who hits and runs, hides and sneaks. If the enemy shows himself, it's only for a moment. But for a Marine Sniper, that is all that is needed.

Readers now have the opportunity, from these warriors' perspective to peer into the killing zone through a telescopic lens, down the barrel of a high-powered rifle, and into the very heart of the enemy. The training, the techniques, and the steel will necessary to survive as a sniper are all described in vivid detail.

Charles Henderson also delves into the core of the enemy--the maniacal ideology, and the tactics that have sown so much violence in Iraq--and how they are all vulnerable to a single bullet from a Ghost.

Charles W. Henderson is a veteran of more than 23 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, with a distinguished career spanning from Vietnam to the Gulf War, after which he retired as a Chief Warrant Officer.

War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq

2008-06-03T10:28:00.000-04:00

by Richard Engel

From the publisher:
In the most dramatic and intimate account of battle reporting since Michael Herr's classic Dispatches, NBC News's award-winning Middle East Bureau Chief, Richard Engel, offers an unvarnished and often emotional account of five years in Iraq. Engel is the longest serving broadcaster in Iraq and the only American television reporter to cover the country continuously before, during, and after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Fluent in Arabic, he has had unrivaled access to U.S. military commanders, Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Iraqi families, and even President George W. Bush, who called him to the White House for a private briefing. He has witnessed nearly every major milestone in this long war.

War Journal describes what it was like to go into the hole where U.S. Special Operations Forces captured Saddam Hussein. Engel was there as the insurgency began and watched the spread of Iranian influence over Shiite religious cities and the Iraqi government. He watched as Iraqis voted in their first election. He was in the courtroom when Saddam was sentenced to death and interviewed General David Petraeus about the surge. In vivid, sometimes painful detail, Engel tracks the successes and setbacks of the war. He describes searching, with U.S troops, for a missing soldier in the dangerous Sunni city of Ramadi; surviving kidnapping attempts, IED attacks, hotel bombings, and ambushes; and even the smell of cakes in a bakery attacked by sectarian gangs and strewn with bodies of the executed.

War Journal describes a sectarian war that American leaders were late to understand and struggled to contain. It is an account of the author's experiences, insights, bittersweet reflections, and moments from his private video diary itself the subject of a highly acclaimed documentary on MSNBC. War Journal is the story of the transformation of a young journalist who moved to the Middle East with $2,000 and a belief that the region would be the story of his generation into a seasoned reporter who has at times believed that he would die covering the war. It is about American soldiers, ordinary Iraqis, and especially a few brave individuals on his team who continually risked their lives to make his own daring reporting possible.

Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians

2008-06-02T13:32:00.000-04:00

by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian

From the publisher:
Best-selling author and Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and journalist Laila al-Arian spent several months interviewing Iraqi war veterans to expose the patterns of the occupation and how it affects Iraqi civilians. The testimonies of these soldiers and Marines provide a disturbing window into the indiscriminate killing of unarmed and innocent Iraqis that is carried out daily by the occupation forces.

Collateral Damage is organized around key military operations on the battlefield — Convoys, Checkpoints, Detentions, Raids, Suppressive Fire, and “Hearts and Minds.” Hedges and Al-Arian uncover how the very conduct of the war and occupation have turned the American forces into agents of terror for most Iraqis. The military convoys that speed through the centers of towns, often driving on the wrong side of the street or on sidewalks, have become trains of death. Soldiers fire upon Iraqi vehicles with impunity at checkpoints; pregnant women being rushed to hospital have been killed at roadblocks when their husbands failed to slow down and children have watched in horror as their parents have been killed.

Hedges and Al-Arian show how this widespread pattern of civilian killing has fueled the insurgency in Iraq, giving rise to instability, sectarian violence, and total chaos.

Chris Hedges has been a foreign correspondent for fifteen years. He joined the staff of The New York Times in 1990 and previously worked for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and National Public Radio. He lives in New York City.

Faith- Based Diplomacy Trumping Realpolitik

2008-06-02T13:25:00.000-04:00

by Douglas Johnston

From the publisher:
For most of the twentieth century, the most critical concerns of national security have been balance-of-power politics and the global arms race. The religious conflicts of this era and the motives behind them, however, demand a radical break with this tradition. If the United States is to prevail in its long-term contest with extremist Islam, it will need to re-examine old assumptions, expand the scope of its thinking to include religion and other "irrational" factors, and be willing to depart from past practice. A purely military response in reaction to such attacks will simply not suffice. What will be required is a long-term strategy of cultural engagement, backed by a deeper understanding of how others view the world and what is important to them.

In non-Western cultures, religion is a primary motivation for political actions. Historically dismissed by Western policymakers as a divisive influence, religion in fact has significant potential for overcoming the obstacles that lead to paralysis and stalemate. The incorporation of religion as part of the solution to such problems is as simple as it is profound. It is long overdue.

This book looks at five intractable conflicts and explores the possibility of drawing on religion as a force for peace. It builds upon the insights of Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (OUP, 1994) -- which examined the role that religious or spiritual factors can play in preventing or resolving conflict -- while achieving social change based on justice and reconciliation. The world-class authors writing in this volume suggest how the peacemaking tenets of five major world religions can be strategically applied in ongoing conflicts in which those religions are involved. Finally, the commonalities and differences between these religions are examined with an eye toward further applications in peacemaking and conflict resolution.

Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past

2008-06-01T21:52:00.000-04:00

by Lloyd C. Gardner (Editor), Marilyn B. Young (Editor)

From the publisher:
With countless lives lost and the situation in Iraq more desperate than ever, it is clear that U.S. foreign policy makers have learned little from the past, even as they have been obsessed with the "Vietnam syndrome." Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam explores this conundrum.

In Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam, Lloyd C. Gardner, author of several celebrated books about U.S. foreign policy and Vietnam, and Marilyn B. Young, author of the leading history of the Vietnam War, have brought together the most renowned historians of Vietnam—and leading analysts of contemporary U.S. foreign policy—to consider the correspondences between then and now. By closely examining how our policy makers have failed to understand the history of our wars, relations with allies and antagonists, military strategies and capabilities, and the nature and limitations of presidential and American power, these writers demonstrate that Rumsfeld had it right when he noted that "the biggest problem we've got in the country is people who don't study history anymore." As Howard Zinn notes, "Iraq is not Vietnam, the makers of war tell us, hoping we will forget. The writers in this volume insist that we remember, and, in these thoughtful, sobering essays, they explain why. It is history at its best—meaning, at its most useful."
With contributions by: Christian G. Appy • Andrew J. Bacevich • Alex Danchev • David Elliott • Elizabeth L. Hillman • Gabriel Kolko • Walter LaFeber • Wilfried Mausbach • Alfred W. McCoy • Gareth Porter • John Prados

Lloyd C. Gardner is Research Professor of History at Rutgers University and the author of more than a dozen books, including Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam. He lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Marilyn B. Young is a professor of history at New York University and the author of numerous books, including The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990. She lives in New York City.

In the House of My Bibi: Growing Up in Revolutionary Iran

2008-06-01T13:18:00.001-04:00

by Nastaran Kherad

From the publisher:
This is a powerful memoir of a girlhood spent during the upheaval of the Iranian Revolution. From early childhood, Nastaran chronicles vivid recollections of her imprisonment at age 18 on trumped-up political charges. During her brutal incarceration in the women’s cell block of Adelabad Prison in the city of Shiraz, in southern Iran, she was tortured and made to live in harsh over-crowded conditions. Many of the people imprisoned at Adelabad were innocent victims of tyranny, and this included Nastaran’s brother, Mohammed, 24 years old, who was on death row for his political views and his belief in a free and just society. The Ayatollah Khomeini’s secret police executed tens of thousands of young university students and schoolchildren in a sweeping attempt to destroy all signs of modernization and to sever all ties with the West. Nastaran’s narrative is a compelling glimpse into this nightmare world.

Nastaran grew up in Shiraz, a beautiful garden city, under the protection of Bibi, her maternal grandmother. Bibi mesmerized her granddaughter with countless stories, traditional prayers, and simple yet profound wisdom gleaned from a harsh life. At first it was just Nastaran and Bibi in the house, but when Nastaran turned 6 years old, her mother and brothers came to live with them, turning Bibi’s simple home into a microcosm of the clash of cultures that was Iran in the 1970s. Nastaran was torn between the traditional upbringing of a girl her age, and the call of the modern world. She established a special bond with Mohammed, her agate-eyed older brother, who introduced her to the world of ideas, literature, and art. It is the love and nurturing of Bibi and Mohammed that guide Nastaran through her tangled and tumultuous adolescence. This is a dramatic story of struggle and survival, and readers will gain a deeper understanding of a country and its people about which many in the West know very little.

Nastaran Kherad was born in 1964 in Abadan, Iran, near the Persian Gulf. At age two, after her father’s sudden death, she moved to Shiraz to live with her maternal grandmother, Bibi. After fleeing Iran she graduated from California State University, Long Beach. She currently is pursuing a doctorate in Contemporary Persian Studies and Exile Literature at the University of Texas in Austin. This is her first book.

Two Wars: One Hero's Fight on Two Fronts--Abroad and Within

2008-06-01T13:16:00.000-04:00

by Nate Self

From the publisher:
For the first time, Army Ranger hero Nate Self tells his story. Self recounts the Roberts Ridge Rescue mission, the ferocious battles in Afghanistan, and the lone war of attrition that Nate Self has waged against post-traumatic stress disorder. This book will become a go-to book for understanding the long-term effects of the war on terror. Thousands of families are fighting this battle, and Nate Self opens up his whole life--tragedies, successes, failures, and a struggle with suicidal thoughts--to share the facts and to show how his family and his faith pulled him through.

War Without End: The Iraq War in Context

2008-06-01T13:13:00.000-04:00

by Michael Schwartz

From the publisher:
In this razor-sharp analysis, TomDispatch.com commentator Michael Schwartz turns every mainstream conclusion about Iraq on its head. He shows how US occupation is fueling civil war in Iraq and beyond, and how US officials dismantled the Iraqi state and economy, helping to destroy rather than rebuild the country.

In a popular style reminiscent of the best writing against the Vietnam War, he punctures the myths used to sell the US public the idea of an endless "war on terror" centered in Iraq. Schwartz shows how the real US interests in Iraq were rooted in the geopolitics of oil and the expansion of a neoliberal economic model in the Middle East-and around the globe-at gunpoint.

War Without End also reveals how the failure of the United States in Iraq has forced US planners to fundamentally rethink the imperial dreams driving recent foreign policy.

This book is the third in a series of very successful books published in cooperation with TomDispatch.com, including the New York Times bestseller United States v. George W. Bush et al. by Elizabeth de la Vega (Seven Stories Press).

Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology and faculty director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University, has written extensively on the war in Iraq at websites including TomDispatch, ZNet, Asia Times, and Mother Jones, and in numerous magazines, including Contexts, Against the Current, and Z Magazine.

Hunting bin Laden: How al-Qaeda Is Winning the War on Terror

2008-06-01T13:09:00.000-04:00

by Rob Schultheis

From the publisher:
"I first met al-Qaeda before there was an al-Qaeda, way back in the winter of 1984. It was an encounter that came within a split second of costing me my life."

So begins Rob Schultheis's gripping account of his journey into the heart of one of the world's most dangerous places, on the trail of the world's most wanted man. A veteran war correspondent (he was one of a handful of Western journalists who covered the Russian war in Afghanistan from inside the country), Schultheis offers a first-hand look at how the seeds of al-Qaeda were planted by foreign jihadists in the 1980s, before most Americans knew what the word "jihad" meant. He then offers a radical assessment of why bin Laden remains at large, detailing the complicit role Pakistan has played in both offering him sanctuary and in helping al-Qaeda establish an almost impregnable stronghold in the Middle East. Finally, fresh from a recent visit to Afghanistan and armed with analysis of current satellite imagery, Schultheis makes his case for where exactly Osama bin Laden is hiding—and why the U.S. government is not acting on this information.

Rob Schultheis, author of four previous books, including the acclaimed Night Letters: Inside Wartime Afghanistan, has been filing dispatches from Afghanistan for over twenty years. His screenplay credits include Seven Years in Tibet, and his articles have appeared in Time, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and Smithsonian. He lives in Telluride, Colorado.

The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel

2008-06-01T12:53:00.000-04:00

by Stephen J. Sniegoski

From the publisher:
Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy, but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East.

Showing that the neocon movement has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote the flow of oil.

Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives, including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as ready after 9/11 for retaliation.

"Sniegoski leaves no stone unturned in exposing the Israeli-neocon alliance and its catastrophic consequences in the Middle East. Timely and important, his book should provoke a much-needed debate about who truly benefits from current US policies in the region." —Jonathan Cook, author, Israel and the Clash of Civilisations

"This is a riveting book." —Paul Craig Roberts, PhD, syndicated columnist; former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; and former associate editor, Wall Street Journal

Homeland Security and Criminal Justice: Five Years After 9/11

2008-05-28T19:52:00.000-04:00

by Everette B. Pen

From the publisher:
Previously published as a special issue of Criminal Justice Studies, this volume analyzes the nexus of homeland security to the discipline of criminal justice by addressing in a scholarly manner issues and challenges facing criminal justice students, practitioners, and faculty in the burgeoning field of homeland security.

No event has shaped international events over the last five years more than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Tragically, less than four years later Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Indeed, in less than five years the United States has experienced its worst terrorist attack and worst natural disaster, both in the number of lives lost and in the costs needed for reconstruction. Both events have clearly indicated that there are tremendous threats to the security and well-being of Americans in their own homeland. Furthermore, these events have demonstrated the importance of criminal-justice agencies who are the first responders to threats to the US. Since the threats of further terrorist attacks, natural disasters, epidemics and cyber crime continue to lurk as potential dangers to the homeland, the American Criminal Justice System must be committed to mitigating, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from these tragic events, and its commitment must be steadfast and ubiquitous.

The Truth about Syria

2008-05-27T13:06:00.002-04:00

by Barry Rubin

From the publisher:
American policymakers have wrestled with the Syria question for years, but it has gained particular urgency in light of the war between Hezbollah and Israel and the country's continued support for the Iraq insurgency. With its mix of competing religious and ethnic groups, radical ideologies, and ferocious political repression, the growing tension surrounding Syria presents an increasingly serious problem for the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. Yet surprisingly, very little is known about this country and its role in shaping the destiny of the region. In this bold investigation, Middle East expert Barry Rubin looks at how the country has become the powderkeg of the Middle East and offers an insightful analysis of recent developments.

Barry Rubin is the author of The Long War for Freedom, Yasir Arafat, The Tragedy of the Middle East, and Hating America. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, and many other publications. He has been a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow and is the editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs.

Our Good Name

2008-05-27T12:47:00.001-04:00

by J. Phillip London

From the publisher:
The Crisis That Rocked a Country and a Company...
In April 2004, an illegally leaked U.S. Army report thrust CACI, an information technology company, into the international spotlight by casting suspicion on a CACI employee for being "either directly or indirectly responsible" for the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. At the same time, pictures from the abuses were shown on national television and tarnished anyone associated with Abu Ghraib--including CACI.

What ensued was a media frenzy rarely seen by any company in recent decades. The media twisted the unsupported allegations into a guilty verdict without regard for the facts or the truth, creating a damning public perception of CACI. Our Good Name recounts how CACI battled to defend itself against erroneous and malicious reports by a rampaging media, how it responded to the wide-ranging government investigations, and how it overcame misplaced anger and criticism that put the company's dedicated employees and excellent reputation--even it's future--at risk.

Faced with constant accusations, exaggerations, and false reports, CACI refused to allow the media storm and uninformed opportunists to drag it down. The company condemned the behavior depicted in the infamous prison photos. If any employee had been culpable of any wrongdoing, the company would respond forcefully and accordingly, but only adhering to the rule of law. There would be no witch hunts, no lynch mobs, and no kangaroo courts.

Spearheaded by its long-time leader, chairman, president, and CEO Dr. J. Phillip London, the company mounted a concentrated campaign to address the allegations and make the facts known. CACI used innovative methods of crisis management and consistent communications to push back against the distortions and mistakes. CACI would also rely upon its long-established, proven culture of ethics and integrity to direct its activities and set the record straight.

Our Good Name is CACI's story of facing one of the biggest scandals in recent history...and coming out honorably with its head high.

Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement

2008-05-26T10:59:00.003-04:00

by Zaki Chehab

From the publisher:
The radical Islamist movement Hamas shocked the world when it won a landslide election victory in January 2006 in the Palestinian occupied territories.

One of the few journalists not to be surprised by this outcome was Zaki Chehab who has developed an international reputation as a fearless reporter and was one of the first to interview members the Iraqi resistance in May 2003. Fluent in Arabic, he is a Palestinian refugee who grew up in UN refugee camps and has unique access to and understanding of Hamas.

Like Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, Chehab shows how Hamas built a formidable social base in Palestine through its welfare programs. He also explains why, in the face of the endless complexities, disappointments and delays brought about by the signing of the Oslo Peace Accord, Hamas's strategy of armed struggle and terrorism offers the Palestinian people a seductive, simple and deadly alternative.

In this compelling and sober portrayal, Chebab, an intrepid Palestinian journalist (who was nearly blown up in 2002), explains how the highly organized and notoriously militant Islamic group Hamas was elected to head the Palestinian government in January 2006, to the surprise of much of the world. - Publishers Weekly

Terrorism in Asymmetric Conflict: Ideological and Structural Aspects

2008-05-25T10:53:00.001-04:00

by Ekaterina A. Stepanova

From the publisher:
The book's main focus is on extremist ideologies and structural capabilities of violent non-state actors that employ terrorist means. Ideologies and organizational patterns are seen as the main comparative advantages of such groups in an asymmetrical confrontation at all levels, from the local to the global. Resolution of the key issues of the armed conflict is seen as essential, but this is not sufficient to undermine the foundations of terrorism generated by that conflict, unless the structural capabilities of militant groups are fully disrupted and the role of extremist ideologies in
driving their terrorist activities is neutralized.

With its central focus on Islamist terrorism, the book argues that the quasi-religious, supra-national ideology of violent Islamism, especially in its most ambitious transnational forms, cannot be effectively counterbalanced at the ideological level either by Western democratic secularism or by the use of moderate versions of Islam itself. The author concludes that unless transnational violent Islamism is, first, 'nationalized' and, second, transformed in organizational terms through its being coopted into a more regular political process, it is unlikely to become amenable to persuasion or any external influence, let alone to be destroyed by the repression on which it thrives.

The study also proposes an original typology of terrorism based on the overall level of a militant group's goals and the extent to which its terrorist activities are linked to a broader armed conflict. It combines qualitative research with the analysis of available data on trends in modern terrorism and the use of primary sources and writings.

Dr Ekaterina Stepanova is a Project Leader of the Armed Conflicts and Conflict Management Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). She is also a Senior Researcher on leave of absence from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, where she heads a research group on unconventional security threats at the Center for International Security. Her research and publications focus on armed conflict management and post-conflict peacebuilding, the political economy of conflicts, and unconventional/non-military security threats such as terrorism and transnational crime, particularly in conflict-related contexts.

How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence

2008-05-21T10:45:00.003-04:00

by Virginia Held

From the publisher:
What is terrorism? How is it different from other kinds of political violence? Why exactly is it wrong? Why is war often thought capable of being justified? On what grounds should we judge when the use of violence to be morally acceptable? It is often thought that using violence to uphold and enforce the rule of law can be justified, that violence used in self-defense is acceptable, and that some liberation movements can be excused for using violence--but that terrorism is always wrong. How persuasive are these arguments, and on what bases should we judge them?

How Terrorism is Wrong collects articles by Virginia Held that offer a moral assessment of various forms of political violence, with terrorism the focus of much of the discussion. Here and throughout, Held examines possible causes discussed, including the connection between terrorism and humiliation. Held also considers military intervention, conventional war, intervention to protect human rights, violence to prevent political change, and the status and requirements of international law. She looks at the cases of Rwanda, Kosovo, Iraq, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Finally, she explores questions of who has legitimate authority to engage in justifiable uses of violence, whether groups can be responsible for ethnic violence, and how the media should cover terrorism.

Held discusses appropriate ways of engaging in moral evaluation and improving our moral recommendations concerning the uses of violence. Just war theory has been developed for violence between the military forces of conflicting states, but much contemporary political violence is not of this kind.

Held considers the guidance offered by such traditional moral theories as Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, and also examines what the newer approach of the ethics of care can contribute to our evaluations of violence. Care is obviously antithetical to violence since violence destroys what care takes pains to build; but the ethics of care recognizes that violence is not likely to disappear from human affairs, and can offer realistic understandings of how best to reduce it.

Virginia Held is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York's Graduate School and University Center.

Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas

2008-05-20T13:30:00.003-04:00

From the publisher:
According to the Department of Defense's 2004 Base Structure Report, the United States officially maintains 860 overseas military installations and another 115 on noncontinental U.S. territories. Over the last fifteen years the Department of Defense has been moving from a few large-footprint bases to smaller and much more numerous bases across the globe. This so-called lily-pad strategy, designed to allow high-speed reactions to military emergencies anywhere in the world, has provoked significant debate in military circles and sometimes-fierce contention within the polity of the host countries.

In Base Politics, Alexander Cooley examines how domestic politics in different host countries, especially in periods of democratic transition, affect the status of U.S. bases and the degree to which the U.S. military has become a part of their local and national landscapes. Drawing on exhaustive field research in different host nations across East Asia and Southern Europe, as well as the new postcommunist base hosts in the Black Sea and Central Asia, Cooley offers an original and provocative account of how and why politicians in host countries contest or accept the presence of the U.S. military on their territory.

Overseas bases, Cooley shows, are not merely installations that serve a military purpose. For host governments and citizens, U.S. bases are also concrete institutions and embodiments of U.S. power, identity, and diplomacy. Analyzing the degree to which overseas bases become enmeshed in local political agendas and interests, Base Politics will be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the extent--and limits--of America's overseas military influence.

"Base Politics is a thorough treatment of an important and still somewhat neglected aspect of international relations." --Simon Duke, European Institute of Public Administration

"In Base Politics, Alexander Cooley describes the conditions under which U.S. military basing arrangements in host countries become politicized. He shows that such conflicts often take place in countries that are making a transition to democracy. This is a very important book that highlights how our interests and our ideals can often come into conflict."-- Michael Desch, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-Making, Texas A&M University

From CWBN:
The exact day of release for this May title is unknown.

Intelligence and Human Rights in the Era of Global Terrorism

2008-05-16T14:53:00.003-04:00

by Steve Tsang

From the publisher:
Facing the threats posed by dedicated suicide bombers who have access to modern technology for mass destruction and who intend to cause maximum human suffering and casualties, democratic governments have hard choices to make. The premise of this book is that for intelligence organizations in democratic states to be able to face up to the challenges of global terrorism, they must think outside the box and utilize all of their resources effectively and creatively.

To overcome the enemy, we must also secure the peace. Winning the hearts and minds of the terrorists' pool of potential recruits will be essential to cutting off the supply of suicide bombers. This book therefore addresses not only the question of how intelligence organizations can improve their efficacy in pre-empting terrorist outrages, but also the wider issue of removing the forces that sustain global terrorism as a scourge of the twenty-first century. The general public in the target countries and recruiting grounds must also be persuaded that—despite their rhetoric—the terrorists are not engaged in a holy war. Intelligence services of various countries need to find convincing evidence to prove this point. But it is up to governments, civil society, and the media in different parts of the world to work together if the evidence unearthed by national intelligence services is to be accepted by the general public. Unless the emotional or quasi-religious appeal of the global terrorists can be removed, the simple arrest of bin Laden and his close associates—or even the destruction of Al Qaeda as an organization--will not be sufficient to prevent others from rising to replace them.

"This is essential reading for policy makers, intelligence professionals, and academics. It emphasizes the need to 'think outside the box' to counter religious martyrdom using global communications." —Brian Stewart, former Secretary to the British Joint Intelligence Committee

"This book offers rich information and better understanding of how democratic states should defend themselves and at the same time not give up their main principles, and about changes needed in intelligence communities facing this challenge." —Major-General Jacob Amidror, former head of Research and Assessment Division, Israeli Defense Force

The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guard Unit's Journey from Ground Zero to Baghdad

2008-05-16T14:49:00.002-04:00

by Sean Michael Flynn

From the publisher:
Flynn (Land of Radioactive Midnight) draws on his experience as a company commander with the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard—the Fighting 69th of Civil War, WWI and WWII fame—for this riveting account of the unit's service following 9/11.

Considered the worst unit in the National Guard, at the turn of the 21st century, according to Flynn, the 69th was under-trained, under-resourced, and under-led. Activated on 9/11, its soldiers were the first to arrive at ground zero, and then guarded New York City's bridges and tunnels and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

In 2004, after retraining, the unit was flagged Task Force Wolfhound and certified for overseas deployment, but was barely functional in the field. In Iraq, the 69th provided route security along a six-mile stretch known as 'The Most Dangerous Road in the World,' the main highway between the airport and downtown Baghdad. Learning on the job, the 69th effectively neutralized the roadside bomb threat that has caused a high percentage of the war's casualties, but paid a heavy price in its own killed and injured. Drawing on combat journals, operations orders and interviews with survivors, Flynn fashions a tale equal to the making of the new, contemporary heroes of the Fighting 69th who, against all odds, restored a previously distinguished unit to its former glory.

9/11 and the War on Terror

2008-05-15T14:42:00.002-04:00

by David Holloway

From the publisher:
This series of textbooks focuses on key events in American history from the perspective of several different disciplines, offering the student a range of disciplinary perspectives on one particular historical event. Books in the series will be unique in focusing on one particular event from a range of viewpoints.

This multidisciplinary book discusses representation of 9/11 and the war on terror in the US. David Holloway argues that in the post-9/11 period, when many Americans felt remote from centres of political decision-making and power, culture and media provided the principal sites in which Americans, and others in the West, debated the meanings of contemporary events. Holloway argues that one common facet of US culture after 9/11 was its diagnosis of failure in key political institutions, amounting at times to a palpable sense of crisis in the values and mechanisms of the Republic - one important source of this being the contemporary observation that both 9/11 and the war on terror were products of American empire.

The book includes:

* separate chapters on key historical and political explanations and contexts;

* individual chapters on mass media, cinema, literature, and visual art/photography;

* a timeline, short synoptic biographies of key figures, and an annotated bibliography of recommended further reading

Responses to Cyber Terrorism

2008-05-15T14:30:00.000-04:00

Edited by Center of Excellence - Defence Against Terrorism

From the publisher:
The one issue touched on repeatedly by the contributors of this publication is the difficulty of arriving at a definition of cyber terrorism. A NATO Office of Security document cautiously defines it as “a cyber attack using or exploiting computer or communication networks to cause sufficient destruction or disruption to generate fear or to intimidate a society into an ideological goal.” But the cyber world is surely remote from what is recognized as terrorism: the bloody attacks and ethnic conflicts, or, more precisely, the politically-motivated “intention to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government …” (UN report, Freedom from Fear, 2005). It is hard to think of an instance when computer code has physically harmed anyone. Yet a number of contributors show that exactly such events, potentially on a huge scale, can be expected. For example attacks on critical infrastructure, in particular on SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems which control physical processes in places like chemical factories, dams and power stations. A part of the publication examines cyber terrorism in the proper sense of the term and how to respond in terms of technology, awareness, and legal/political measures. However, there is also the related question of responding to the terrorist presence on the Internet (so-called ‘terrorist contents’). Here the Internet is not a weapon, but an important tool for terrorists’ communications (coordination, training, recruiting), and information gathering on the targets of planned attacks.

Power and Water in the Middle East: The Hidden Politics of the Palestinian-Israeli Water Conflict

2008-05-13T12:20:00.002-04:00

by Mark Zeitoun

From the publisher:
Power and Water in the Middle East provides a powerful new perspective on the Palestinian-Israeli water conflict. Adopting a new approach to understanding water conflict - hydro-hegemony- the author shows the conflict to be much more deeply entrenched than previously thought and reveals how existing tactics to control water are leading away from peace and towards continued domination and a squandering of this vital resource.

Exisiting theories tend to play down the negative effects of non-violent water conflicts, and what is often presented as co-operation between countries hides a deep imbalance and underlying state of conflict between them. Mark Zeitoun's important work shows how the new analytical framework of hydro-hegemony may be used to expose the hidden dynamics of water conflicts around the world and how, in particular, it yields critical insights into the Middle East water situation.

Combining extensive technical knowledge with personal experience in the field, the author offers important new findings that will interest researchers, professionals and policy makers involved with the politics of the Middle East and with water conflict more generally.

Mark Zeitoun is a water engineer with more than a decade of experience in conflict and post conflict zones, including the Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Chad and the Republic of Congo. He is with the Centre of Environmental Policy and Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical Leader

2008-05-12T12:56:00.003-04:00

by Kasra Naji

From the publisher:
As Iran's nuclear program accelerates, all eyes are on the blacksmith's son who could have his finger on the trigger. Who is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What drives him? To whom, if anyone, does he answer?

Internationally acclaimed Iranian journalist Kasra Naji has spent years interviewing Ahmadinejad's friends, family, and colleagues to tell for the first time the true story of how he came to power. What emerges in this riveting account, featuring never before published color photographs, is a picture of a man who is much more of a force to be reckoned with than the caricatures offered up so far suggest.

While Naji documents Ahmadinejad's often strange behavior, he also shows him to be full of complex contradictions: a man gripped by apocalyptic beliefs, yet capable of switching spiritual allegiance in the quest for power. A man tough enough to fight street battles in the name of Ayatollah Khomeini, crude enough to invite the German chancellor to join him in an anti-Jewish alliance, yet sophisticated enough to win the support of the all-powerful Revolutionary Guard. Kasra Naji takes us inside the shadowy council chambers of Tehran, and shows us the plots, passions, and personalities that will influence Ahmadinejad's next move, while the world waits with bated breath.

"An excellent biography, one that is lively and informative, and at the same time sets the President in his international and domestic contexts. In so doing, Naji provides a most informative portrait of Iran today, and of the many, conflicting, forces that are at play within it." -- Fred Halliday, author of 100 Myths about the Middle East

A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East

2008-05-12T12:52:00.003-04:00

by Lawrence Freedman

From the publisher:
It is in the Middle East that the U.S. has been made to confront its attitudes on the use of force, the role of allies, and international law. The history of the U.S. in the Middle East, then, becomes an especially revealing mirror on America's view of its role in the wider world.

In this wise, objective, and illuminating history, Lawrence Freedman shows how three key events in 1978–79 helped establish the foundations for U.S. involvement in the Middle East that would last for thirty years, without offering any straightforward or bloodless exit options: the Camp David summit leading to the Israel-Egypt Treaty; the Iranian Islamic revolution leading to the Shah's departure followed by the hostage crisis; and the socialist revolution in Afghanistan, resulting in the doomed Soviet intervention.

Freedman makes clear how America's strategic choices in those and subsequent crises led us to where we are today. A Choice of Enemies is essential reading for anyone concerned with the complex politics of the region or with the future of American foreign policy.

Sir Lawrence Freedman is professor of war studies at King's College, London. In 2001 he was appointed head of the School of Social Sciences and Public Policy at King's and then in 2003 vice principal for research. Before joining King's he held research appointments at Nuffield College, Oxford, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He is the author of several books of history, including Kennedy's Wars.

SURVIVING THE UNTHINKABLE: What Your Family Needs to Know (and Do) to Survive a Terrorist Attack

2008-05-09T08:18:00.000-04:00

by Nicholas Maniatis

From the publisher:
Islamo-Fascist terrorism presents a very real and grave danger to Western culture in general, and to families of the United States in particular. Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda are actively attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including biological, chemical, and nuclear devices. It is only a matter of time before these weapons (or widespread conventional attacks through suicide bombings), are used to attack the American homeland once again.

The consequences of a WMD attack on U.S. soil are catastrophic: in addition to the many thousands (or tens or hundreds of thousands) that will die, many more will be injured and displaced from their homes. A large-scale attack has the possibility of crippling our economy and changing forever our way of life. The aftermath of such an attack would overwhelm the ability of federal and state authorities to respond effectively in a timely fashion. As Hurricane Katrina aptly demonstrated, government at all levels is woefully unable to coordinate relief efforts in the aftermath of widespread disasters-even though, as with Katrina, we had days of advance warning. There will be no advance warning when al-Qaeda strikes us again.

In Surviving the Unthinkable: What Your Family Needs to Know (and Do) to Survive a Terrorist Attack, Nicholas Maniatis explains what everyone needs to know and do to prepare for and survive the next terrorist attack. Maniatis, a former Acting Deputy-Assistant Federal Security Director with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, draws upon his expertise and experience and sets forth in a clear and easy-to-understand format the steps families must take now to prepare adequately for the future. Maniatis devotes separate chapters to each of the different types of WMD terrorists might use on the U.S., as well as conventional weapons, and describes what these attacks will probably look like. Finally, he offers a no-bones-about-it description of who the enemy is, how and why they live among us even now, why they want to kill us, and what we need to do as a people to help defeat the worldwide threat of Islamo-facism.

Surviving the Unthinkable: What Your Family Needs to Know (and Do) to Survive a Terrorist Attack is based upon numerous government and scholarly sources, reports, and personal experience. No American family can afford to leave this book unread. Are you prepared?

About the Author: Nicholas Maniatis is a fourteen-year veteran of the U.S. Army and a former Acting Deputy-Assistant Federal Security Director with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. As an officer in the United States Army, Captain Maniatis has actively served in the War on Terror, including a tour in Iraq. He is a graduate of Valley Forge Military Academy and College and Towson University. He lives with his wife and children in Baltimore, Maryland.

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

Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Strategic Communication to Combat Violent Extremism

2008-05-08T08:15:00.000-04:00

by Steven R. Corman, Angela Trethewey and H.L. Goodall Jr. (editors)

From the publisher:
Complementing and extending scholarship in three areas-terrorism; the media, mediated representations, and propaganda in contemporary culture and the political and diplomatic environment post-9/11, this book articulates the role of human communication in the "war of ideas." Drawing on contemporary research from a variety of disciplines, this book offers analyses and recommendations for people to make use of informed, inspired, and ethical communication to counter ideological support for terrorism and to promote more effective public diplomacy.

This is the first book to apply human communication concepts and theories-and to offer potential solutions-to the communication problems encountered by nations, communities, and individuals, and in doing so moves beyond critiques of failed U.S. communication campaigns and strategies in the "war on terror."

"A virtual dissection of America's troubled 'information strategy' since 9/11. [This book is] full of trenchant analysis that explains what went wrong, yet replete with practical recommendations for repairing damaged credibility and focusing on the right 'story.' Mandatory reading for all who conduct public diplomacy, those who study it, and those who feel its pervasive effects." - John Arquilla, Director, Information Operations Center, United States Naval Postgraduate School

"... Beyond the incisive analysis of America's strategic communication challenges and the hard-hitting policy recommendations for crafting an effective way forward, the authors open the terrorism studies discipline to a virtually untapped literature, that of communication theory. This book is a must-read for practitioners, scholars, and students of global politics and counterterrorism." - Jarret Brachman, Director of Research, Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy

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

Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Ourselves

2008-05-06T00:06:00.000-04:00

by Michael A. Sheehan

From the publisher:
Written by a man who is arguably the country’s most authoritative voice on counterterrorism, Crush the Cell demolishes, with simple logic, the edifice of false “terror punditry” that has been laid, brick by brick, since 9/11. A veteran of special ops, international diplomacy, and bruising clashes with federal law enforcement agencies, Michael Sheehan delivers in this book a two-part message: First, that we’ve wasted–and are continuing to waste–billions of dollars on the wrong protective measures, and second, that knowing the bad guys’ next move is paramount.

Somewhere in America, Sheehan maintains, are a number of terrorist cells, their members’ heads filled with schemes of mayhem and destruction. Motivated not, as some believe, by feelings of disenfranchisement, disdain for freedom, or economic envy but by a compelling ideological hatred, these individuals plot not just terror but paralyzing terror–the kind that can shut down a country.

Unwittingly aiding and abetting them are many (but not all) “terror experts” and members of the media who, for reasons that are partly self- serving, rate the bad guys’ capabilities far higher than they are, playing into terrorists’ hands with their hype. Spurred by the pundits’ inflated assessments, legislation follows that drains billions from taxpayers’ pockets and pours money into a bloated Washington bureaucracy championing needless programs.

Here, Sheehan shows why defensive fortresses don’t work, but offensive operational intelligence does. He also peels back the mystery surrounding terrorist cells, portraying them as, typically, a group of bumblers searching for a charismatic leader who has what it takes to conduct a complex symphony of violence. Sharing time in the narrative spotlight are not just agents of al Qaeda, but also frighteningly destructive lone wolves, cults, and radical movements.

In his career, Sheehan has operated in the mountain jungles of Central America, the back alleys of Mogadishu, and the teeming streets of New York City–but he has also participated at the highest levels of policy making at the White House, the State Department, and the United Nations. It’s his time protecting America’s most populous city as its counterterrorism czar, however, that yields this book’s most fascinating insights. As Sheehan reveals thwarted threats to New York’s bridges, subways, and landmarks, and recounts extraordinary simulations staged to gauge terrorists’ true abilities, we gain perhaps the clearest picture yet of what modern terror-fighting is all about.

Prisoner of Tehran: One Woman's Story of Survival Inside an Iranian Prison

2008-05-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

by Marina Nemat

From the publisher:
What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life?

In her heartbreaking, triumphant, and elegantly written memoir, Prisoner of Tehran, Marina Nemat tells the heart-pounding story of her life as a young girl in Iran during the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini's brutal Islamic Revolution.

In January 1982, Marina Nemat, then just sixteen years old, was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for political crimes. Until then, her life in Tehran had centered around school, summer parties at the lake, and her crush on Andre, the young man she had met at church. But when math and history were subordinated to the study of the Koran and political propaganda, Marina protested. Her teacher replied, "If you don't like it, leave." She did, and, to her surprise, other students followed.

Soon she was arrested with hundreds of other youths who had dared to speak out, and they were taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Two guards interrogated her. One beat her into unconsciousness; the other, Ali, fell in love with her.

Sentenced to death for refusing to give up the names of her friends, she was minutes from being executed when Ali, using his family connections to Ayatollah Khomeini, plucked her from the firing squad and had her sentence reduced to life in prison. But he exacted a shocking price for saving her life -- with a dizzying combination of terror and tenderness, he asked her to marry him and abandon her Christian faith for Islam. If she didn't, he would see to it that her family was harmed. She spent the next two years as a prisoner of the state, and of the man who held her life, and her family's lives, in his hands.

Lyrical, passionate, and suffusedthroughout with grace and sensitivity, Marina Nemat's memoir is like no other. Her search for emotional redemption envelops her jailers, her husband and his family, and the country of her birth -- each of whom she grants the greatest gift of all: forgiveness.

The Operators: Inside the World's Special Forces

2008-05-02T17:23:00.001-04:00

by Mike Ryan

From the publisher:
Never before have the techniques and operations of special forces around the world been revealed in such fascinating detail.

Journalist and soldier Mike Ryan's access to restricted information is at the heart of this extraordinary look into the world of special forces and their tactics, training, and protocols. Ryan's web of military contacts in the U.S. and Europe allows him to tell the full stories of famous special forces units (like the SAS, Delta Force, and the French Foreign Legion), to discuss their role today on an ever-changing battlefield, and to ponder their increasing use as political enforcers. Soldiers from all over the world talk candidly about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and operations in the Balkans, Somalia, and Sierra Leone. Every entry on a unit, tactic, or weapon is backed up with photographs of it in action, as well as testimony from operators in the field and a full analysis of its combat effectiveness. 240 color photographs.

Mike Ryan's two books, Baghdad or Bust and Special Operations in Iraq, are among the most reliable accounts of the Iraq War. He lives in London, England.

Terrorism Handbook for Operational Responders

2008-05-01T17:59:00.000-04:00

by Armando Bevelacqua and Richard Stilp

From the publisher:
This essential handbook provides straight-forward guidance on critical emergency response skills required to cope with terrorism incidents. Newly revised for the third edition, it highlights what is required to establish and implement tactical goals during such events, including new equipment and strategies that can enhance a responder’s effectiveness, as well as an emphasis on ODP requirements such NIMS response objectives and complete training in CBRNE response. A one-stop reference, this easy to understand and factual book is a practical companion for any responder involved in terrorist event in their state, region, city or neighborhood, and serves as an excellent training tool for operational response.

The Trial of Saddam Hussein

2008-05-01T17:56:00.000-04:00

by Dr. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani

From the publisher:
Intended as the trial of the century, a vindication of the US assault on Iraq, and an historical turning point in the application of international law, the trial of Saddam Hussein soon descended into chaos and disrepute. This book shows it was not an emergent Iraqi democracy bringing a former dictator to justice, but an American-micro-managed show trial.

An Iraqi-born, British-trained barrister called to the Bar in 1996, Abdul-Haq al-Ani coordinated Saddam Husseins defense from London. He has lived in Scandinavia and Britain for the past twenty years. He joined the Baath party while in his teens, but left it in disappointment a few years later.

A Manual for American Servicemen in the Arab Middle East: Using Cultural Understanding to Defeat Adversaries and Win the Peace

2008-05-01T17:20:00.000-04:00

by William D. Wunderle

From the publisher:
The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has sent U.S. diplomats and troops around the world. In the current security environment, understanding foreign cultures is crucial to defeating adversaries and working with allies. Lt. Col. William D. Wunderle explains how U.S. soldiers and commanders can look at military interventions—from preparation to execution—through the lens of cultural awareness, while always minding post-conflict stability operations. He also suggests much-needed changes to the traditional intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) and the military decision-making process (MDMP). Fascinating, concise, and timely, this is a must-read for military personnel, the intelligence community, and anyone seeking to grasp the motivations and decision-making styles of people all over the globe.

William D. Wunderle is a Political Military Planner for the Joint Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J5) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He lives in Woodbridge, VA.

Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman

2008-05-01T17:15:00.000-04:00

by Mary Tillman

From the publisher:
On April 22, 2004, Lieutenant David Uthlaut received orders from Khost, Afghanistan, that his platoon was to leave the town of Magarah and "have boots on the ground before dark" in Manah, a small village on the border of Pakistan. It was an order the young lieutenant protested vehemently, but the commanders at the Tactical Command Center disregarded his objections. Uthlaut split his platoon into two serials, with serial one traveling northwest to Manah and serial two towing a broken Humvee north toward the Khost highway. By nightfall, Uthlaut and his radio operator were seriously wounded, and an Afghan militia soldier and a U.S. soldier were dead. The American soldier was my son, Pat Tillman.

The Tillman family was originally informed that Pat, who had given up a professional football career to serve his country, had been shot in the head while getting out of a vehicle. At his memorial service twelve days later, they were told that he was killed while running up a hill in pursuit of the enemy. He was awarded a Silver Star for his courageous actions. A month and two days after his death, the family learned that Pat had been shot three times in the head by his own troops in a "friendly fire" incident. Seven months after Pat’s death, the Tillmans requested an investigation.

Boots on the Ground by Dusk is a chronicle of their efforts to ascertain the true circumstances of Pat’s death and the reasons why the Army gave the family and the public a false story. Woven into the account are valuable and respectful memories of Pat Tillman as a son, brother, husband, friend, and teammate, in the hope that the reader will better comprehend what is really lost when our sons and daughters are killed or maimed in war.

In the course of three and a half years, there have been six investigations, several inquiries, and two Congressional hearings. The Tillmans are still awaiting an outcome.

American Heroes: In the Fight Against Radical Islam

2008-05-01T17:11:00.000-04:00

by Oliver North and Chuck Holton

From the publisher:
What is a Hero? New York Times best-selling author Oliver North says, “Real heroes are selfless. Those who serve America in harm’s way in the war against radical Islam have that quality in abundance. And so do their families and loved ones at home. Yet, they rarely get the attention or coverage they deserve."

“Despite the way they are presented by too many in the press and politics, the men and women in uniform today are overwhelmingly good. I never cease to be amazed at the self-discipline of these brave young Americans. They can endure the adrenaline-pumping violence of an enemy engagement, and then, just minutes later, help school children get safely to their classes . . . No nation—ours included—has ever had a military force better than the one we have today. I’m proud of them. You should be too.”

In American Heroes, North addresses issues of defense against global terrorism, Jihad, and radical Islam from his firsthand perspective as a decorated military officer and national security advisor and current Middle East war correspondent. This patriotic book also pulls in new reports and exclusive full-color photographs from War Stories, the award-winning FOX News Channel series hosted by North.

Ambitious in scope, American Heroes details the earliest terrorism faced by the United States in the 1800s at the hands of the Barbary Pirates, the major terrorist group developments of the 1970s and 80s, and, most vividly, the post-9/11 Iraq War era. Most inspiringly, North’s up-close field notes highlight the core values of today’s American soldier in relation to the fight at hand: courage, commitment, compassion, and faith.

Thank God for freedom. Thank God for American heroes.

"Oliver North has spent his life among America’s heroes. This book with its moving words and powerful images will inspire patriots, reassure the faint of heart, and infuriate our nation’s adversaries. These are our heroes, they deserve to have their story told, and no one is better to tell it than Col. North, because when it comes to heroes, it takes one to know one. This book is a treasure." - Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and New York Times bestselling author of Real Change

After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy

2008-05-01T17:05:00.000-04:00

by Timothy J. Lynch, Robert S. Singh

From the publisher:
Towards the end of his second term, it appears George W. Bush's foreign policy has won few admirers, with pundits and politicians eagerly and opportunistically bashing the tenets of the Bush Doctrine. This provocative account dares to counter the dogma of Bush's Beltway detractors and his ideological enemies, boldly arguing that Bush's policy deservedly belongs within the mainstream of the American foreign policy tradition. Though the shifting tide of public opinion has led many to anticipate that his successor will repudiate the actions of the past eight years, authors Timothy Lynch and Robert S. Singh suggest that there will-and should-be continuity in US foreign policy from his Presidency to those who follow. Providing a positive audit of the war on terror (which they contend should be understood as a Second Cold War) they charge that the Bush Doctrine has been consistent with past foreign policies-from Republican and Democratic presidencies-and that the key elements of Bush's grand strategy will rightly continue to shape America's approach in the future. Above all, they predict that his successors will pursue the war against Islamist terror with similar dedication.

"The common sense view - shared by the chattering classes around the world - is that Bush has failed, that the war on terror has been a disaster, and that the United States should return with all speed to the multilateral system is so unnecessarily abandoned some time during 2001. Here is a book that frontally challenges all these cosy assumptions. The world and the United States have changed for ever - it insists - and the sooner the rest of us get used to the fact the better. A provocative, trenchantly argued study that leaves the reader with few places to hide." - Professor Michael Cox, The London School of Economics

"Lynch and Singh make a compelling case that the Bush doctrine will outlast the current American president, and they assemble considerable evidence to show that fundamental components of the doctrine are consistent with foreign policy tradition. The authors skillfully depersonalize the debate about American foreign policy in order to move beyond the current obsession with George W. Bush." - Robert J. Lieber, Professor of Government and International Affairs, Georgetown University

Camelia: Save Yourself by Telling the Truth-a Memoir of Iran

2008-05-01T17:01:00.000-04:00

by Camelia Entekhabifard

From the publisher:
"A courageous book by a gifted journalist that peels back the many layers of repression faced by journalists in Iran. Entekhabifard has written an affecting, emotionally rich memoir that is a must-read for anyone concerned with the current Iranian predicament, women's rights, or the plight of journalists in authoritarian states."- Afshin Molavi

Camelia Entekhabifard was six years old in 1979 when the shah of Iran was overthrown by revolutionary supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Despite the terrors and deprivation of the long Iran/Iraq war, and the constant threat of the religious police patrolling their neighborhood, the Entekhabifards chose to stay in Tehran, incredibly surviving two decades of violent change, though some family members were disappeared by the Ayatollah's military forces.

By the age of sixteen, Camelia was a nationally celebrated poet, and at eighteen she was one of the youngest reformist journalists in Tehran. Just eight years later she was imprisoned, held in solitary confinement, and charged with breaching national security and challenging the authority of the Islamic regime.

After months of solitary confinement and daily interrogation, Camelia confesses to crimes she did not commit, and comes to believe that she is in love with her brutal interrogator. Thus unfolds a dramatic account of this morally ambivalent and emotionally troubling relationship. Once outside of prison, Camelia must struggle anew for her freedom, and find her way out of the compromising secrets she shares with this dangerous and powerful man.

Camelia is both a story of growing up in post-revolutionary Tehran and a haunting reminder of the consequences of speaking the truth in a repressive society.

Camelia Entekhabifard, a journalist and native of Tehran, currently lives in New York City and spends part of her time reporting from Afghanistan.

Understanding Terrorism: Building on the Sociological Imagination

2008-04-30T01:29:00.000-04:00

by Bernard Phillips

From the publisher:
Two fundamental problems within the social sciences are the failure to integrate the existing segments of knowledge and a very limited ability to point out directions for solving social problems, given that lack of integrated knowledge.

This volume illustrates the integrated work of seven sociologists to reverse this situation not only for the problem of terrorism but also for any substantive or applied problem. C. Wright Mills in The Sociological Imagination castigated the failure to integrate social science knowledge, and this volume carries forward his efforts to analyze human complexity. To understand and confront terrorism we require not only the integration of social science knowledge bearing on that problem, as illustrated by these authors. We also require the integration of that knowledge with the understanding of those on the front lines in order to connect the dots of specialized basic and applied knowledge, which this volume makes possible.

Contributors: J. I. (Hans) Bakker, Adam Rafalovich, Thomas J. Scheff, Sando Serge, Jonathan H. Turner, Todd Powell-Williams.

Bernard Phillips, a student of C.Wright Mills, received a Ph.D. at Cornell and taught at the Universities of North Carolina and Illinois before teaching at Boston University. He is editor, most recently, with Harold Kincaid and Thomas Scheff, of Toward a Sociological Imagination: Bridging Specialized Fields (University Press of America 2002).

The House of Wisdom: Five Years in Iraq

2008-04-30T01:24:00.001-04:00

by Franco Pagetti

From the publisher:
In January 2003 Franco Pagetti went to Baghdad. Three months later he was photographing the city through the fall of Saddam, capturing a population in the throws of released dictatorship, more interested in the Iraqi destiny than that of the US war machine churning its way through the city. But it soon became increasingly difficult for foreign journalists to stay and work. By the end of 2003 the insurgency had developed rapidly.

The first targets being the US military, with roadside bombs and ambushes, soon after
any foreigner was in danger. Many journalists retreated from the country. Pagetti however stayed, he found a way to carry on working although it was becoming
more treacherous than ever. Committed to his cause of documenting the unfolding story of Iraq and its people, four years later he was still there, in a country that has now descended into a desperate and bloody civil war. No one is safe now, innocent civilians are killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the middle of the Shiite-Sunni conflict.

Pagetti's only hope to continue his determined quest was to work embedded with the US military, and find ways of slipping through the cracks to document the reality of
the Iraqi dream that became a living nightmare. Whilst embedded he also captured the face of war at the frontline, the events at Fallujah in 2004, and the innumerable operations against both Sunni and Shia. 2008 will herald the fifth year of a further
evolving and complex situation. Pagetti will be there, his images showing a unique presence and a steadfast dedication to follow the unfolding, and uncertain, future of a country torn.

Franco Pagetti is the most recent member of the respected VII agency, joining in November 2007. He has emerged as one of the principal chroniclers of the Iraq war, his photographs appearing in Stern, Le Figaro and most notably in TIME Magazine, are the definitive images of the most important news story of our time. Most of his recent work has involved conflict situations: Afghanistan, Kosovo, East Timor, Kashmir, Palestine, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

Mission of Folly: Why Canada Should Bring Its Troops Home from Afghanistan

2008-04-30T01:20:00.001-04:00

by James Laxer

From the publisher:
Mission of Folly is a candid report on Canada's participation in America's war on terror.

Laxer explores the policy vacuum that resulted in Canadian troops being sent to fight a war that would last longer than any previous Canadian allied engagement.

With passion and perspicacity he details the motives underlying the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld's Wars: The Arrogance of Power

2008-04-30T01:16:00.000-04:00

by Dale R. Herspring

From the publisher:
Not since Robert McNamara has a secretary of defense been so hated by the military and derided by the public, yet played such a critical role in national security policy--with such disastrous results.

Donald Rumsfeld was a natural for secretary of defense, a position he'd already occupied once before. He was smart. He worked hard. He was skeptical of the status quo in military affairs and dedicated to high-tech innovations. He seemed the right man at the right time--but history was to prove otherwise.

Now Dale Herspring, a political conservative and lifelong Republican, offers a nonpartisan assessment of Rumsfeld's impact on the U.S. military establishment from 2001 to 2006, focusing especially on the Iraq War--from the decision to invade through the development and execution of operational strategy and the enormous failures associated with the postwar reconstruction of Iraq.

Extending the critique of civil-military relations he began in The Pentagon and the Presidency, Herspring highlights the relationship between the secretary and senior military leadership, showing how Rumsfeld and a handful of advisers--notably Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith--manipulated intelligence and often ignored the military in order to implement their policies. And he demonstrates that the secretary's domineering leadership style and trademark arrogance undermined his vision for both military transformation and Iraq.

Herspring shows that, contrary to his public deference to the generals, Rumsfeld dictated strategy and operations--sometimes even tactics--to prove his transformation theories. He signed off on abolishing the Iraqi army, famously refused to see the need for a counterinsurgency plan, and seemed more than willing to tolerate the torture of prisoners. Meanwhile, the military became demoralized and junior officers left in droves.

Rumsfeld's Wars revisits and reignites the concept of "arrogance of power," once associated with our dogged failure to understand the true nature of a tragic war in Southeast Asia. It provides further evidence that success in military affairs is hard to achieve without mutual respect between civilian authorities and military leaders--and offers a definitive case study in how not to run the office of secretary of defense.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.