Download or read book Blood on Our Hands written by Nicolas J. S. Davies and published by Nimble Books LLC. This book was released on 2010 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's crimes against the people of Iraq were shielded from public scrutiny by what senior U.S. military officers called the quiet, disguised, media-free approach developed in Central America in the 1980s. The echo chamber of the Western corporate media fleshed out the Pentagon's propaganda to create a virtual Iraq in the minds of the public, feeding a political discourse that bore no relation to the real war it was waging, the country it was destroying or the lives of its inhabitants. Davies takes apart the wall of propaganda surrounding one of history's most significant military disasters and most serious international crimes: non-existent WMDs; the equally fictitious centuries-old sectarian blood feud in Iraq; and the secrecy of the dirty war waged by American-led death squads. He places each aspect of the war within a context of illegal aggression, hostile military occupation and popular resistance, to uncover the brutal reality of a war that has probably killed at least a million people. From publisher description.
Download or read book America s Destruction of Iraq written by Michael M. O'Brien and published by Sense of Place Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's Destruction of Iraq by Washington insider Michael M. O'Brien details the origins of radical Islamic terrorism now spreading across the Middle East and North Africa. The outgrowth of America's involvement in Iraq, culminating with its March 2003 invasion, is the Islamic State-the most violent terrorist organization in history. Michael O'Brien is an outlier: a conservative and former political appointee in the administration of George W. Bush, with an abiding contempt for the political and military mismanagement of the Iraq War, officially referred to as Operation Iraqi Freedom. A graduate of West Point and former Infantry officer, and a former U.S. government Contracting Officer, O'Brien saw the effects of the Iraq invasion from the inside out-not as a soldier but as a contractor advising the new Iraqi Army and Ministry of Defense on its physical infrastructure, including the acquisition of land and Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) originally built for Coalition forces. Compounding in outrage, compelling in detail, Michael O'Brien condemns the waste of tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and the needless loss of American and Iraqi lives. The Bush administration's desire for war was built on fabricated intelligence and the political agendas of a handful of senior officials. But it is the senior American military for whom O'Brien has his greatest disdain. They should have known how to properly execute the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and the courage to tell their political superiors what it would take to succeed, come what may to their careers. America's Destruction of Iraq is a detailed expose of the "military-industrial complex" President Eisenhower warned America of in 1961. Only someone with Michael O'Brien's background and experience, who was at the heart of America's so-called 'reconstruction' of Iraq, can accurately describe America's intervention in Iraq for what it is: a disaster in magnitude equal to the quagmire of the Vietnam War."
Download or read book Blind Into Baghdad written by James Fallows and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-02-25 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the autumn of 2002, Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows wrote an article predicting many of the problems America would face if it invaded Iraq. After events confirmed many of his predictions, Fallows went on to write some of the most acclaimed, award-winning journalism on the planning and execution of the war, much of which has been assigned as required reading within the U.S. military. In Blind Into Baghdad, Fallows takes us from the planning of the war through the struggles of reconstruction. With unparalleled access and incisive analysis, he shows us how many of the difficulties were anticipated by experts whom the administration ignored. Fallows examines how the war in Iraq undercut the larger ”war on terror” and why Iraq still had no army two years after the invasion. In a sobering conclusion, he interviews soldiers, spies, and diplomats to imagine how a war in Iran might play out. This is an important and essential book to understand where and how the war went wrong, and what it means for America.
Download or read book A Universal History of the Destruction of Books written by Fernando Báez and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the many reasons and motivations for the destruction of books throughout history, citing specific acts from the smashing of ancient Sumerian tablets to the looting of libraries in post-war Iraq.
Download or read book To Start a War written by Robert Draper and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Essential . . . one for the ages . . . a must read for all who care about presidential power.” —The Washington Post “Authoritative . . . The most comprehensive account yet of that smoldering wreck of foreign policy, one that haunts us today.” —LA Times One of BookPage's Best Books of 2020 To Start a War paints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making process that was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear and paranoia, rank naïveté, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with idées fixes who gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing was true. Robert Draper’s fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principal actors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close to sorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusion all the more damning. In the spirit of Barbara W. Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, To Start A War will stand as the definitive account of a collective scurrying for evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirely false—evidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that shows no signs of ebbing.
Download or read book How America Lost Iraq written by Aaron Glantz and published by Tarcher. This book was released on 2006 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reporter in Iraq shows how the U.S. squandered its early victories and goodwill among the Iraqi public and allowed the newly freed society to descend into violence and chaos. Here is a brutally honest account of a reporter who discovered how popular the U.S. presence was in Iraq-and who watched this change as the Bush administration mishandled the war, leaving us with the intractable conflict we face today.
Download or read book Why We Lost written by Daniel P. Bolger and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.
Download or read book I jaam written by Sinan Antoon and published by City Lights Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A risky and risqué prison memoir depicts the collective nightmare of life under Saddam.
Download or read book Invisible War written by Joy Gordon and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 were the most comprehensive and devastating of any established in the name of international governance. In a sharp indictment of U.S. policy, Gordon examines the key role the nation played in shaping the sanctions.
Download or read book The Execution of Saddam Hussein written by Mohamed F Siddig and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2007-04 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq under the fallacious precept of finding and destroying weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi government was toppled and its president Saddam Hussein was captured and put on trial. No weapons of mass destruction were found and the American occupation served to inflame a historic dispute between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The American invasion of Iraq turned into a victory for Iran without loss of Iranian money or blood. The Execution of Saddam Hussein: An American-Iranian Game describes the Iraqi situation as of early 2007 and reveals facts suppressed by the American administration about the influence of Iran on the U.S.-occupied territory. The trial of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is described as a politically expedient farce that culminated in a barbaric execution-a joint work of America and Iran. The conduct of the trial, the assassination of two defense lawyers, and the political pressure that impelled the first judge to resign from the court are outlined. The role of America in the history of Saddam Hussein's regime is reviewed and a rationale is provided for the evident submission of the Bush administration to Iran's influence in Iraq.
Download or read book The War Over Iraq written by Lawrence F. Kaplan and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the crisis with Iraq continues, Americans have questions. Is war really necessary? What can it accomplish? What broad vision of U.S. foreign policy underlies the determination to remove Saddam Hussein? What were the failures of the last couple of decades that brought us to a showdown with a dictator developing weapons of mass destruction? What is the relationship between war with Iraq and the events of 9-11? The answers to these questions are found in this timely book by two of America's leading foreign policy thinkers. Kristol and Kaplan lay out a detailed rationale for action against Iraq. But to understand why we must fight Saddam, the authors assert, it is necessary to go beyond the details of his weapons of mass destruction, his past genocidal actions against Iran and his own people, and the U.N. resolutions he has ignored. The explanation begins with how the dominant policy ideas of the last decade--Clintonian liberalism and Republican realpolitik--led American policymakers to turn a blind eye to the threat Iraq has posed for well over a decade. As Kristol and Kaplan make clear, the war over Iraq is in large part a war of competing ideas about America's role in the world. The authors provide the first comprehensive explanation of the strategy of "preemption" guiding the Bush Administration in dealing with this crisis. They show that American foreign policy for the 21st century is being forged in the crucible of our response to Saddam. The war over Iraq will presumably be the end of Saddam Hussein. But it will be the beginning of a new era in American foreign policy. William Kristol and Lawrence Kaplan are indispensable guides to the era that lies ahead.
Download or read book Fiasco written by Thomas E. Ricks and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-07-25 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • One of the Washington Post Book World's 10 Best Books of the Year • Time's 10 Best Books of the Year • USA Today's Nonfiction Book of the Year • A New York Times Notable Book "Staggeringly vivid and persuasive . . . absolutely essential reading." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "The best account yet of the entire war." —Vanity Fair The definitive account of the American military's tragic experience in Iraq Fiasco is a masterful reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq through mid-2006, now with a postscript on recent developments. Ricks draws on the exclusive cooperation of an extraordinary number of American personnel, including more than one hundred senior officers, and access to more than 30,000 pages of official documents, many of them never before made public. Tragically, it is an undeniable account—explosive, shocking, and authoritative—of unsurpassed tactical success combined with unsurpassed strategic failure that indicts some of America's most powerful and honored civilian and military leaders.
Download or read book Imperial Ambitions written by Noam Chomsky and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first collection of interviews since the bestselling 9-11, our foremost intellectual activist examines crucial new questions of U.S. foreign policy Timely, urgent, and powerfully elucidating, this important volume of previously unpublished interviews conducted by award-winning radio journalist David Barsamian features Noam Chomsky discussing America's policies in an increasingly unstable world. With his famous insight, lucidity, and redoubtable grasp of history, Chomsky offers his views on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the doctrine of "preemptive" strikes against so-called rogue states, and the prospects of the second Bush administration, warning of the growing threat to international peace posed by the U.S. drive for domination. In his inimitable style, Chomsky also dissects the propaganda system that fabricates a mythic past and airbrushes inconvenient facts out of history. Barsamian, recipient of the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, has conducted more interviews and radio broadcasts with Chomsky than has any other journalist. Enriched by their unique rapport, Imperial Ambitions explores topics Chomsky has never before discussed, among them the 2004 presidential campaign and election, the future of Social Security, and the increasing threat, including devastating weather patterns, of global warming. The result is an illuminating dialogue with one of the leading thinkers of our time—and a startling picture of the turbulent times in which we live.
Download or read book Dark Victory written by Jeffrey Record and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prominent national security analyst provides a critical examination of the origins, objectives, conduct, and consequences of the U.S. war against Iraq in this major new study. Focusing on the intersection of world politics, U.S. foreign policy, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Jeffrey Record presents a full-scale policy analysis of the war and its aftermath. As he looks at the political and strategic legacies of the 1991 Gulf War, the impact of 9/11 and neo-conservative ideology on the George W. Bush White House, and the formulation of the Bush Doctrine on the use of force, he assesses rather than describes, judges rather than recites facts. He decries the Bush administration's threat conflation of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, and calls U.S. plans inadequate to meet postwar challenges in Iraq. With the support of convincing evidence, the author concludes that America's war against Iraq was both unnecessary and damaging to long-term U.S. security interests. He argues that there was no threatening Saddam-Osama connection and that even if Iraq had the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration believed necessitated war, it could have been readily deterred from using them, just as it had been in 1991. Record faults the administration for preventive, unilateralist policies that alienated friends and allies, weakened international institutions important to the United States, and saddled America with costly, open-ended occupation of an Arab heartland. He contends that far from being a major victory against terrorism, the war provided Islamic jihadists an expanded recruiting base and a new front of operations against Americans. Such a solid, thought-provoking study merits attention.
Download or read book Why Did the United States Invade Iraq written by Jane Cramer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume presents the foremost scholarly thinking on why the US invaded Iraq in 2003, a pivotal event in both modern US foreign policy and international politics. In the years since the US invasion of Iraq it has become clear that the threat of weapons of mass destruction was not as urgent as the Bush administration presented it and that Saddam Hussein was not involved with either Al Qaeda or 9/11. Many consider the war a mistake and question why Iraq was invaded. A majority of Americans now believe that the public were deliberately misled by the Bush administration in order to bolster support for the war. Public doubt has been strengthened by the growing number of critical scholarly analyses and in-depth journalistic investigations about the invasion that suggest the administration was not candid about its reasons for wanting to take action against Iraq. This volume begins with a survey of private scholarly views about the war’s origins, then assesses the current state of debate by organising the best recent thinking by foreign policy and international relations experts on why the US invaded Iraq. The book covers a broad range of approaches to explaining Iraq – the role of the uncertainty of intelligence, cognitive biases, ideas, Israel, and oil, highlighting areas of both agreement and disagreement. This book will be of much interest to students of the Iraq War, US foreign and security policy, strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics and IR/Security Studies in general.
Download or read book Collateral Damage written by Chris Hedges and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2009-02-10 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first account of the war in Iraq, as told by returned veterans, that gives a disturbing insight into the indiscriminate killing that is carried out on unarmed and innocent Iraqis.
Download or read book A Time of Our Choosing written by Todd S. Purdum and published by Times Books. This book was released on 2014-03-18 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authoritative account of America's most controversial war since Vietnam, a conflict in which "shock and awe" were not confined to the battlefield It was a war like no other the United States had ever fought. It began with the bombing of Saddam Hussein's bunker and ended with statues of the Iraqi dictator being toppled in downtown Baghdad, and it marked a turning point in America's relations with its enemies, its allies, and its sense of itself. Yet most Americans experienced the war as impressionistic and often confusing—the story of one battle here, one unit there, a report from one city, then another, without the larger context we so urgently needed. Each reporter had his "slice" of the war, it seemed, but no one had the whole story or the broad view. A Time of Our Choosing fills that gap brilliantly, drawing on the unparalleled resources and reportage of The New York Times. Todd S. Purdum, one of the paper's most gifted storytellers, traces the war in Iraq from the first rumblings after 9/11, to the diplomatic recriminations at the United Nations, to the battles themselves and their aftermath. He deftly rolls out the whole canvas before our eyes, showing how the individual "slices" fit together into a single, gripping drama. Purdum also explores the complex legacy of America's near-unilateral action. Since the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush has vowed that the United States would confront its enemies "at a time of our choosing," and Purdum shows in vivid terms what this choice has meant for our now transformed world.
