tagged w/ World Politics
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So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits, and the President Failed on Iraq
In early 2003, Greg Mitchell was one of the few mainstream journalists to seriously question the stated reasons for invading Iraq. In the years since, he has repeatedly challenged the media to probe the conduct of the war and its toll on our troops. Now, after five years of war, he traces the conflict – from the "runup" to the "surge" – and the media's coverage of it, in this important collection of commentaries with significant new additions: an original introduction and dozens of pages of fresh material that unify the essays.
If a free press is the watchdog of democracy, then Greg Mitchell must be the watchdog of the watchdogs, tracking the performance of the media at Editor & Publisher, the influential magazine of the newspaper industry. Over the past five years, in his widely read column, "Pressing Issues," he has repeatedly been ahead of the curve in intensely scrutinizing both the president and the press–and the controversies swirling around Donald Rumsfeld, Pat Tillman, "Scooter" Libby, Ann Coulter and numerous other figures.
His book is a unique history of the entire war – and as topical as today's headlines. Whether writing early warnings that anticipated a long and bloody war, analyzing Stephen Colbert's in-his-face mockery of George W. Bush, or imagining the president confessing his sins to Oprah Winfrey, Greg Mitchell explores how we got into the war in Iraq–and why we just can't seem to get out. With tens of thousands of American troops still in Iraq, debate over the war continues to rage on TV news and across editorial pages. Against this backdrop of controversy, Greg Mitchell is the rare journalist who has seen it all with clear eyes. In So Wrong for So Long, he can finally tell the whole story.So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits, and the President Failed on Iraq... more
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This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe.
As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods.
Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research—conducted in multiple languages and on several continents—begun years before most of us had ever heard ofOsama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern... more
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On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition. From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, Phillipe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law.
The Torture Team delves deep into the Bush administration to reveal:
· How the policy of abuse originated with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was promoted by their most senior lawyers
· Personal accounts, through interview, of those most closely involved in the decisions
· How the Joint Chiefs and normal military decision-making processes were circumvented
· How Fox TV’s 24 contributed to torture planning
· How interrogation techniques were approved for use
· How the new techniques were used on Mohammed Al Qahtani, alleged to be “the 20thhighjacker”
· How the senior lawyers who crafted the policy of abuse exposed themselves to the risk of war crimes chargesOn December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at... more
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Fiasco, Thomas E. Ricks's #1 New York Times bestseller, transformed the political dialogue on the war in Iraq—The Gamble is the next news breaking installment
Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.
Since early 2007 a new military order has directed American strategy. Some top U.S. officials now in Iraq actually opposed the 2003 invasion, and almost all are severely critical of how the war was fought from then through 2006. At the core of the story is General David Petraeus, a military intellectual who has gathered around him an unprecedented number of officers with both combat experience and Ph.D.s. Underscoring his new and unorthodox approach, three of his key advisers are quirky foreigners—an Australian infantryman-turned- anthropologist, an antimilitary British woman who is an expert in the Middle East, and a Mennonite-educated Palestinian pacifist.
The Gamble offers news breaking information, revealing behind-the-scenes disagreements between top commanders. We learn that almost every single officer in the chain of command fought the surge. Many of Petraeus's closest advisers went to Iraq extremely pessimistic, doubting that the surge would have any effect, and his own boss was so skeptical that he dispatched an admiral to Baghdad in the summer of 2007 to come up with a strategy to replace Petraeus's. That same boss later flew to Iraq to try to talkPetraeus out of his planned congressional testimony. The Gamble examines the congressional hearings through the eyes of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and their views of the questions posed by the 2008 presidential candidates.
For Petraeus, prevailing in Iraq means extending the war. Thomas E. Ricks concludes that the war is likely to last another five to ten years—and that that outcome is a best case scenario. His stunning conclusion, stated in the last line of the book, is that "the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered by us and by the world have not yet happened."Fiasco, Thomas E. Ricks's #1 New York Times bestseller, transformed the political... more
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David Sanger is at home in the corridors of power, whether in Washington, D.C. (where he has been covering the White House for The New York Times throughout the Bush presidency) or in the military compounds housing Pakistan's generals. His reportage focuses on interviewing world leaders and their aides in paneled offices and underground situation rooms, rather than the man (or woman) on the street or the terrorists and secret operatives in the back alleys. Through his interviews with top officials, who defend and justify or disavow and repudiate policies in which they had been involved, Sanger has produced one of the most comprehensive -- and harrowing -- accounts of American foreign policy ever written.
Sanger's main point is that George Bush and his top aides were too driven by their moral certitude to understand the complexities of events. Their "with U.S. or against us" approach (with its reliance on pressure, diplomatic coercion, and military force) led them to overlook opportunities, while their hubris allowed them to overestimate American control over events. In one case after another the Bush administration squandered American diplomatic, military, and fiscal resources, failing to take advantage of opportunities for settlements with adversaries. And they were always too late to change an unsuccessful policy line, because in White House precincts "a strategic change was often equated with weakness or viewed as an admission of error." Consider the complex dominos of Southwest and South Asia: Bush's decision to invade Iraq meant that resources were shifted away from the mission to defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan; that in turn led to a reliance on NATO for a military mission it was unwilling and unable to perform, resulting in a resurgent Taliban; an American "tilt" to India fueled Pakistan's fears that its adversary would surround it (by building roads in Afghanistan), leading the Pakistani intelligence services to continue their close relationship with the Taliban as a counterweight; American efforts to press the Pakistanis to fight Pashtun tribes in the Frontier Territories pushed the terrorist problem ever further eastward, with the result that the Obama administration must now deal with Pakistan as a failed state -- a failed state with nukes.David Sanger is at home in the corridors of power, whether in Washington, D.C. (where... more
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The next U.S. president will need to pursue a new strategic framework for advancing American interests in the Middle East. The mounting challenges include sectarian conflict in Iraq, IranÕs pursuit of nuclear capabilities, failing Palestinian and Lebanese governments, a dormant peace process, and the ongoing war against terror. Compounding these challenges is a growing hostility toward U.S. involvement in the Middle East. The old policy paradigms, whether President George W. BushÕs model of regime change and democratization or President Bill ClintonÕs model of peacemaking and containment, will no longer suit the likely circumstances confronting the next administration in the Middle East.The next U.S. president will need to pursue a new strategic framework for advancing... more
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In this era of superheated rhetoric and vitriolic exchanges between the leaders of Iran and Israel, the threat of nuclear violence looms. But the real roots of the enmity between the two nations mystify Washington policymakers, and no promising pathways to peace have emerged. This book traces the shifting relations among Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present, uncovering for the first time the details of secret alliances, treacherous acts, and unsavory political maneuverings that have undermined Middle Eastern stability and disrupted U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the region.
Trita Parsi, a U.S. foreign policy expert with more than a decade of experience, is the only writer who has had access to senior American, Iranian, and Israeli decision makers. He dissects the complicated triangular relations of their countries, arguing that America’s hope for stability in Iraq and for peace in Israel is futile without a correct understanding of the Israeli-Iranian rivalry.
Parsi’s behind-the-scenes revelations about Middle East events will surprise even the most knowledgeable readers: Iran’s prime minister asks Israel to assassinate Khomeini, Israel reaches out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, the United States foils Iran’s plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah, and more. This book not only revises our understanding of the Middle East’s recent past, it also spells out a course for the future. In today’s belligerent world, few topics, if any, could be more important.In this era of superheated rhetoric and vitriolic exchanges between the leaders of... more
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Nations around the world are uncertain and anxious about Iran's intentions in the Middle East and the wider global arena. Its current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made no secret of his opposition to Western society, particularly Israel, and his desire to acquire nuclear weapons. However, as Anthony H. Cordesman and Martin Kleiber point out, Ahmadinejad does not necessarily speak for the Iranian clerical regime, who operate in a cloud of secrecy and also directly control Iran's military. Given the ambiguous nature of Iran's global objectives, this new study focuses on the tangible aspects of Iran's military forces and takes an objective look at the realistic threats that Iran poses to the region and the world. The authors systematically assess each aspect of Iranian military forces from their conventional armies to their asymmetric threat via proxy wars in the region.
Much attention in national security debates is paid to Iran's intentions without first understanding its capabilities. Lacking such a fundamental understanding, much of this speculation tends to be wasted and irrelevant to what could actually happen in the event of a conflict. Cordesman and Kleiber's study provides, in meticulous detail, a basis for understanding the realistic threat that Iran poses to the Northern Gulf.
Offers a comprehensive review of of Iran's military forces and a balanced assessment of its regional threat.Nations around the world are uncertain and anxious about Iran's intentions in the... more
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By virtue of its size, history, resources, and strategic location, Iran under any circumstances would pose particular relevance for American policy, but the 1979 revolution and the political system that it wrought placed Iran squarely at the heart of U.S. security challenges.
As the third book in the series from the Institute's Muslim World Initiative on pivotal states in the Muslim world, this lucid and timely volume sheds much-needed light on Iran's strikingly complex political system and foreign policy and its central role in the region. Suzanne Maloney systematically outlines Iran's sources of influence in the Muslim world, including its strategic ambitions and dynamism, political innovations, economic clout, religiocultural institutions, and historical and cultural linkages. Maloney argues that although its leadership and rhetoric often appear stagnant, Iran is in reality one of the least static societies in the Muslim world.
Iran today is fraught with pressures and tensions as a result of a disproportionately young population, an economy subject to considerable external pressures and cyclical fluctuation, and the massive transformations occurring along its borders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maloney analyzes the social, economic, and regional forces that are driving Iran toward change and asks what these factors mean for U.S. foreign policy. She concludes that despite historical, legal, and practical constraints, the United States must ultimately engage Iran on a range of issues.
Insightful and balanced, this volume presents a realistic, precise, and objective assessment of Iran for policymakers, academics, as well as the interested public.By virtue of its size, history, resources, and strategic location, Iran under any... more
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Declaring at the outset that he has an "ax to grind," Columbia University professor Dabashi focuses on the last 200 years of Iranian history, through the lens of a worldly cosmopolitan. He rejects the familiar dichotomy between the "traditional" and the "modern" in Iran, arguing that it's at best ill-conceived and at worst a tool of European/American colonialism. Instead, Dabashi suggests the notion of an "anticolonial modernity," predicated on Iranians' struggles "against the colonial robbery of the moral and material foundations of [their] historical agency." While he raises many worthy questions, Dabashi's thesis is weakened by a lack of nuance. He also exhibits many of the flaws he decries, establishing, for instance, his own dichotomies ("for us the world was squarely divided into two opposing parts: those who ruled it and those who resisted this tyranny") and using a historical terminology to dismiss people, ideas or national projects with which he disagrees (e.g., equating Iran's Islamic Republic with America's "Christian empire"). Peppered alternately with delightful vignettes from his Iranian youth and dense academic-speak, the result is a book that may please those who agree with its author, but is unlikely to win over the uninitiatedDeclaring at the outset that he has an "ax to grind," Columbia University... more
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The potency of a right
Ha'aretz - Tel Aviv,Israel
Many years ago, a member of the British House of Lords asked Chaim Weizmann why the Jews insist on settling in the Land of Israel when there are so many ...The potency of a right
Ha'aretz - Tel Aviv,Israel
Many years ago, a member of... more
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The waste of Israel's Gaza war
Aljazeera.net - Qatar
People here are not asking to be given anything, they are not even expecting a single Israeli soldier to face war crimes charges for what they have done ...The waste of Israel's Gaza war
Aljazeera.net - Qatar
People here are not asking... more
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2004 CIA Inspector General Torture Report's Release Delayed Again
By The Huffington Post News Editors
"War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders.'" -- President George W. Bush, March 13, 2003, on the eve of the Iraq War. Let the trials begin. ...2004 CIA Inspector General Torture Report's Release Delayed Again
By The... more
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US warns Sri Lanka that war crimes cannot be committed with impunity
Asian Tribune - Bangkok,Thailand
To another question whether the US takes seriously of alleged war crimes committed during the operation to militarily defeat the LTTE, Mr. Sullivan's answer ...US warns Sri Lanka that war crimes cannot be committed with impunity
Asian Tribune -... more
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"19 terrorists in 6 weeks have been able to command 300 million North Americans to do away with the entirety of their civil liberties that took 700 years to advance from the Magna Carta onward. The terrorists have already won the political and ideological war with one terrorist act. It is mindboggling that we are that weak as a society": Rocco Galati"19 terrorists in 6 weeks have been able to command 300 million North Americans... more
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Israeli Army amasses troops, military hardware along Lebanese border:
The Israeli Army stepped up its presence along the border with Lebanon deploying armored tanks and setting up fortifications as it intensified airspace violations in the area, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reportedIsraeli Army amasses troops, military hardware along Lebanese border:
The Israeli... more
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Manufacturing Consent For Attack On Iran :
'Ahmadinejad win requires primed IDF':
"The scope of threats against us has widened from Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists to Iran, which is working to attain nuclear capabilities. We will not remove any option from the table and advise others to do the same," the defense minister saidManufacturing Consent For Attack On Iran :
'Ahmadinejad win requires primed... more
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US denied Iran official visa for UN meeting:
Tehran's U.N. envoy on Friday accused the United States of denying Iran's first vice president and members of his delegation visas to attend a three-day U.N. conference on the global financial crisis.US denied Iran official visa for UN meeting:
Tehran's U.N. envoy on Friday... more
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Chavez sees US, Europe behind Iran protests:
He said protests and violence that have rocked Iran since the contested vote appear part of a recurring strategy by U.S. and European intelligence agencies to destabilize "enemy" governments.
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=986145&lang=eng_newsChavez sees US, Europe behind Iran protests:
He said protests and violence that... more
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Iran claims FBI blocking Web sites:
The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting network claims the FBI ordered Washington to disconnect 80 news, social networking and other Web sites, including the Beirut bureau of Press TV, because of depictions of government protesters.
http://snipurl.com/ky9vlIran claims FBI blocking Web sites:
The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting... more
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