Download or read book The Real Price of War written by Joshua S. Goldstein and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2005-09 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calculates and expounds on the costs to individual Americans of the War on Terror Are Americans in denial about the costs of the War on Terror? In The Real Price of War, Joshua S. Goldstein argues that we need to face up to what the war costs the average American—both in taxes and in changes to our way of life. Goldstein contends that in order to protect the United States from future attacks, we must fight—and win—the War on Terror. Yet even as President Bush campaigns on promises of national security, his administration is cutting taxes and increasing deficit spending, resulting in too little money to eradicate terrorism and a crippling burden of national debt for future generations to pay. The Real Price of War breaks down billion-dollar government expenditures into the prices individual Americans are paying through their taxes. Goldstein estimates that the average American household currently pays $500 each month to finance war. Beyond the dollars and cents that finance military operations and increased security within the U.S., the War on Terror also costs America in less tangible ways, including lost lives, reduced revenue from international travelers, and budget pressures on local governments. The longer the war continues, the greater these costs. In order to win the war faster, Goldstein argues for an increase in war funding, at a cost of about $100 per household per month, to better fund military spending, homeland security, and foreign aid and diplomacy. Americans have been told that the War on Terror is a war without sacrifice. But as Goldstein emphatically states: “These truths should be self-evident: The nation is at war. The war is expensive. Someone has to pay for it.”
Download or read book An Autumn War written by Daniel Abraham and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ruler Otah Machi, who has struggled to prepare his people for a future without their magic protectors, realizes that he has run out of time when his city is targeted by an expansionist empire from across the sea.
Download or read book Pay Any Price written by James Risen and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War corrupts. Endless war corrupts absolutely. Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses -- and until this book, it has worked very hard to cover them up. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. FDR authorized the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans. Presidents Bush and Obama now must face their own reckoning. Power corrupts, but it is endless war that corrupts absolutely.
Download or read book A Real Good War written by Sam Halpert and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 1997 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engrossing fictionalised account of a B-17 crew during the Second World War.
Download or read book the real war will never get in the books written by Louis P. Masur and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1995-07-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These thousands, and tens and twenties of thousands of American young men, badly wounded, all sorts of wounds, operated on, pallid with diarrhea, languishing, dying with fever, pneumonia, &c. open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, new things, exploring deeper mines than any yet, showing our humanity, (I sometimes put myself in fancy in the cot, with typhoid, or under the knife,) tried by terrible, fearfulest tests, probed deepest, the living soul's, the body's tragedies, bursting the petty bounds of art." So wrote Walt Whitman in March of 1863, in a letter telling friends in New York what he had witnessed in Washington's war hospitals. In this, we see both a description of war's ravages and a major artist's imaginative response to the horrors of war as it "bursts the petty bounds of art." In "...the real war will never get in the books", Louis Masur has brought together fourteen of the most eloquent and articulate writers of the Civil War period, including such major literary figures as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, and Louisa May Alcott. Drawing on a wide range of material, including diaries, letters, and essays, Masur captures the reactions of these writers as the war was waged, providing a broad spectrum of views. Emerson, for instance, sees the war "come as a frosty October, which shall restore intellectual & moral power to these languid & dissipated populations." African-American writer Charlotte Forten writes sadly of the slaughter at Fort Wagner: "It seems very, very hard that the best and noblest must be the earliest called away. Especially has it been so throughout this dreadful war." There are writings by soldiers in combat. John Esten Cooke, a writer of popular pre-Revolutionary romances serving as a Confederate soldier under J.E.B. Stuart, describes Stonewall Jackson's uniform: "It was positively scorched by sun--had that dingy hue, the product of sun and rain, and contact with the ground...but the men of the old Stonewall Brigade loved that coat." And John De Forest, a Union officer, describes facing a Confederate volley: "It was a long rattle like that which a boy makes in running with a stick along a picket-fence, only vastly louder; and at the same time the sharp, quiet whit-whit of bullets chippered close to our ears." And along the way, we sample many vivid portraits of the era, perhaps the most surprising of which is Louisa May Alcott's explanation of why she preferred her noon-to-midnight schedule in a Washington hospital: "I like it as it leaves me time for a morning run which is what I need to keep well....I trot up & down the streets in all directions, some times to the Heights, then half way to Washington, again to the hill over which the long trains of army wagons are constantly vanishing & ambulances appearing. That way the fighting lies, & I long to follow." With unmatched intimacy and immediacy, "...the real war will never get in the books" illuminates the often painful intellectual and emotional efforts of fourteen accomplished writers as they come to grips with "The American Apocalypse."
Download or read book The Real History of the Vietnam War written by Alan Axelrod and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Examines the history of Vietnam leading up to the war, investigates the reasons for the conflict, looks at the war's escalation and progression (or lack thereof), and explores its repercussions then and now"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Three Trillion Dollar War The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict written by Linda J. Bilmes and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-02-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true cost of the Iraq War is $3 trillion—and counting—rather than the $50 billion projected by the White House. Apart from its tragic human toll, the Iraq War will be staggeringly expensive in financial terms. This sobering study by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes casts a spotlight on expense items that have been hidden from the U.S. taxpayer, including not only big-ticket items like replacing military equipment (being used up at six times the peacetime rate) but also the cost of caring for thousands of wounded veterans—for the rest of their lives. Shifting to a global focus, the authors investigate the cost in lives and economic damage within Iraq and the region. Finally, with the chilling precision of an actuary, the authors measure what the U.S. taxpayer's money would have produced if instead it had been invested in the further growth of the U.S. economy. Written in language as simple as the details are disturbing, this book will forever change the way we think about the war.
Download or read book Investment in Blood written by Frank Ledwidge and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this follow-up to his much-praised book Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, Frank Ledwidge argues that Britain has paid a heavy cost - both financially and in human terms - for its involvement in the Afghanistan war. Ledwidge calculates the high price paid by British soldiers and their families, taxpayers in the United Kingdom, and, most importantly, Afghan citizens, highlighting the thousands of deaths and injuries, the enormous amount of money spent bolstering a corrupt Afghan government, and the long-term damage done to the British military's international reputation. In this hard-hitting exposé, based on interviews, rigorous on-the-ground research, and official information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Ledwidge demonstrates the folly of Britain's extended participation in an unwinnable war. Arguing that the only true beneficiaries of the conflict are development consultants, international arms dealers, and Afghan drug kingpins, he provides a powerful, eye-opening, and often heartbreaking account of military adventurism gone horribly wrong."--
Download or read book Paying the Human Costs of War written by Christopher Gelpi and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Korean War to the current conflict in Iraq, Paying the Human Costs of War examines the ways in which the American public decides whether to support the use of military force. Contrary to the conventional view, the authors demonstrate that the public does not respond reflexively and solely to the number of casualties in a conflict. Instead, the book argues that the public makes reasoned and reasonable cost-benefit calculations for their continued support of a war based on the justifications for it and the likelihood it will succeed, along with the costs that have been suffered in casualties. Of these factors, the book finds that the most important consideration for the public is the expectation of success. If the public believes that a mission will succeed, the public will support it even if the costs are high. When the public does not expect the mission to succeed, even small costs will cause the withdrawal of support. Providing a wealth of new evidence about American attitudes toward military conflict, Paying the Human Costs of War offers insights into a controversial, timely, and ongoing national discussion.
Download or read book War of the Rats written by David L. Robbins and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For six months in 1942, Stalingrad is the center of a titanic struggle between the Russian and German armies—the bloodiest campaign in mankind's long history of warfare. The outcome is pivotal. If Hitler's forces are not stopped, Russia will fall. And with it, the world.... German soldiers call the battle Rattenkrieg, War of the Rats. The combat is horrific, as soldiers die in the smoking cellars and trenches of a ruined city. Through this twisted carnage stalk two men—one Russian, one German—each the top sniper in his respective army. These two marksmen are equally matched in both skill and tenacity. Each man has his own mission: to find his counterpart—and kill him. But an American woman trapped in Russia complicates this extraordinary duel. Joining the Russian sniper's cadre, she soon becomes one of his most talented assassins—and perhaps his greatest weakness. Based on a true story, this is the harrowing tale of two adversaries enmeshed in their own private war—and whose fortunes will help decide the fate of the world.
Download or read book Profits of War written by Ari Ben-Menashe and published by Trine Day. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this seminal work originally published in 1992, an insider account from the man who paid off the Iranians for the American hostages Ari Ben-Menashe spent more than a decade in the innermost circles of Israeli intelligence. He was privy to the secret negotiations with the Iranians to delay the release of the American hostages until after the election of Ronald Reagan, he enlisted Robert Gates in the transfer of the $52 million payoff to Iran, and was Robert Maxwell's handler. Ben-Menashe brokered secret Israeli arms sales on four continents and briefed George Bush on the vast arms network. He saw Israel's own nuclear arsenal develop, and watched his masters sponsor monstrous terrorist acts in the name of a higher good. Then, as he questioned the immorality around him, he was cut off and set up. This is the full story of the man who oversaw the accumulation of hundreds of millions of dollars in CIA and Israeli intelligence slush funds.
Download or read book Kill Anything That Moves written by Nick Turse and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on classified documents and interviews, argues that American acts of violence against millions of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War were a pervasive and systematic part of the war.
Download or read book Selling War written by Steven J. Alvarez and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2016-03 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 2004, army reservist and public affairs officer Steven J. Alvarez waited to be called up as the U.S. military stormed Baghdad and deposed Saddam Hussein. But soon after President Bush’s famous PR stunt in which an aircraft carrier displayed the banner “Mission Accomplished,” the dynamics of the war shifted. Selling War recounts how the U.S. military lost the information war in Iraq by engaging the wrong audiences—that is, the Western media—by ignoring Iraqi citizens and the wider Arab population, and by paying mere lip service to the directive to “Put an Iraqi face on everything.” In the absence of effective communication from the U.S. military, the information void was swiftly filled by Al Qaeda and, eventually, ISIS. As a result, efforts to create and maintain a successful, stable country were complicated and eventually frustrated. Alvarez couples his experiences as a public affairs officer in Iraq with extensive research on communication and government relations to expose why communications failed and led to the breakdown on the ground. A revealing glimpse into the inner workings of the military’s PR machine, where personnel become stewards of presidential legacies and keepers of flawed policies, Selling War provides a critical review of the outdated communication strategies executed in Iraq. Alvarez’s candid account demonstrates how a fundamental lack of understanding about how to wage an information war has led to the conditions we face now: the rise of ISIS and the return of U.S. forces to Iraq.
Download or read book The Real History of World War II written by Alan Axelrod and published by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the causes of World War II, explores the motivations of important people involved with it, presents the events of the war grouped by the theater in which they took place, and examines its aftermath.
Download or read book Rumsfeld s War written by Rowan Scarborough and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Real Cyber War written by Shawn M. Powers and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2015-03-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary discussion surrounding the role of the internet in society is dominated by words like: internet freedom, surveillance, cybersecurity, Edward Snowden and, most prolifically, cyber war. Behind the rhetoric of cyber war is an on-going state-centered battle for control of information resources. Shawn Powers and Michael Jablonski conceptualize this real cyber war as the utilization of digital networks for geopolitical purposes, including covert attacks against another state's electronic systems, but also, and more importantly, the variety of ways the internet is used to further a state’s economic and military agendas. Moving beyond debates on the democratic value of new and emerging information technologies, The Real Cyber War focuses on political, economic, and geopolitical factors driving internet freedom policies, in particular the U.S. State Department's emerging doctrine in support of a universal freedom to connect. They argue that efforts to create a universal internet built upon Western legal, political, and social preferences is driven by economic and geopolitical motivations rather than the humanitarian and democratic ideals that typically accompany related policy discourse. In fact, the freedom-to-connect movement is intertwined with broader efforts to structure global society in ways that favor American and Western cultures, economies, and governments. Thought-provoking and far-seeing, The Real Cyber War reveals how internet policies and governance have emerged as critical sites of geopolitical contestation, with results certain to shape statecraft, diplomacy, and conflict in the twenty-first century.
