Book picks similar to
The Trouble with Terror: Liberty, Security and the Response to Terrorism by Tamar Meisels
ethics
law
reading-list-1
terrorism
The Meadow
Adrian Levy - 2012
It tells of the escape of one hostage, the secret letters another wrote and hid in his clothing as he contemplated his situation, and how, with a brutal beheading, the kidnappers took an irreversible step into the abyss.
The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
Thomas E. Ricks - 2009
This was 'the surge', and at its helm was General David Petraeus, now acknowledged as one of the greatest military tacticians in US history. Based on unprecedented access to the entire chain of army command - at the top and fighting on the ground - this is the definitive account of one of America's biggest ever military gambles, and what it means for the future of Iraq.
The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack
Ronald Kessler - 2007
Kessler takes you inside the war rooms of this battle—from the newly created National Counterterrorism Center to FBI headquarters, from the CIA to the National Security Agency, from the Pentagon to the Oval Office—to explain why we have gone so long since 9/11 without a successful attack and to reveal the many close calls we never hear about. The race to stop the terrorists, Kessler shows, is more desperate than ever.Based on exclusive interviews with FBI Director Robert Mueller, CIA Director Michael Hayden, White House Counterterrorism Chief Fran Townsend, and dozens of key intelligence operatives at all levels, The Terrorist Watch:• tells the previously unreported story of how the United States helped thwart the 2006 London terrorist plot, broke up terrorist cells in Canada, and prevented numerous other attacks • reveals how the CIA and FBI have rolled up more than 5,000 terrorists worldwide since 9/11 • provides a stunning insider’s account from the FBI agent who spent eight months debriefing Saddam Hussein after his capture• pinpoints press leaks that have resulted in CIA agents’ deaths, caused foreign countries to stop cooperating on key investigations, and even tipped off Osama bin Laden to U.S. surveillance• destroys numerous media myths, such as the canard that the FBI and CIA still don’t cooperate on investigations • discloses the truth about the number of U.S. mosques where imans preach jihad• shows how the intelligence community has radically changed its mission—and how the media have misled the public about those changes Never before has a journalist gained such access to the FBI, the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the other agencies that are doing the unheralded work of finding and capturing terrorists. Ronald Kessler’s you-are-there narrative tells the real story of the war on terror and will transform the way you view the greatest problem of our age.
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
Ahmed Rashid - 2000
The most extreme and radical of all Islamic organizations, the Taliban inspires fascination, controversy, and especially fear in both the Muslim world and the West. Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban into sharp focus in this enormously interesting and revealing book. It is the only authoritative account of the Taliban and modern day Afghanistan available to English language readers.Based on his experiences as a journalist covering the civil war in Afghanistan for twenty years, traveling and living with the Taliban, and interviewing most of the Taliban leaders since their emergence to power in 1994, Rashid offers unparalleled firsthand information. He explains how the growth of Taliban power has already created severe instability in Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and five Central Asian republics. He describes the Taliban' s role as a major player in a new "Great Game"a competition among Western countries and companies to build oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to Western and Asian markets. The author also discusses the controversial changes in American attitudes toward the Talibanfrom early support to recent bombings of Osama Bin Laden's hideaway and other Taliban-protected terrorist basesand how they have influenced the stability of the region.
Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria
Sam Dagher - 2019
Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis.Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region.Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another.
Dear Santa: Children's Christmas Letters and Wish Lists, 1870 - 1920
Chronicle Books - 2015
Along with its vintage charm, timeless sentiments, and non-denominational perspective, this heartwarming book is filled with historical discoveries that will delight everyone who loves this holiday ritual. Dear Santa is a celebration of one of Christmas's most enduring traditions, and a tribute to the millions of households that keep it alive.
Christmas Ever After
Elyse Douglas - 2012
Willowbury is a quiet New England town, especially festive and picturesque during the Christmas season. Jennifer Taylor owns and operates a shop called Cards N’ Stuff. The death of her fiancé, on Christmas Eve the year before, has left her bitter and angry. A few days before Christmas, a mysterious woman named Mrs. Wintergreen stops by Jennifer’s shop and offers Jennifer the gift of an adventure. At first, Jennifer refuses. After a violent snow storm destroys her shop, Jennifer finds Mrs. Wintergreen and, out of desperation, agrees to the adventure. In New York City on Christmas Eve, Jennifer confronts her past, present and future. She falls in love and her life changes forever.
The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq
George Packer - 2005
It brings to life the people and ideas that created the Bush administration’s war policy and led America to the Assassins’ Gate—the main point of entry into the American zone in Baghdad. The Assassins’ Gate also describes the place of the war in American life: the ideological battles in Washington that led to chaos in Iraq, the ordeal of a fallen soldier’s family, and the political culture of a country too bitterly polarized to realize such a vast and morally complex undertaking. George Packer’s best-selling first-person narrative combines the scope of an epic history with the depth and intimacy of a novel, creating a masterful account of America’s most controversial foreign venture since Vietnam.
Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill
Jessica Stern - 2003
Traveling extensively—to refugee camps in Lebanon, to religious schools in Pakistan, to prisons in Amman, Asqelon, and Pensacola—she discovered that the Islamic jihadi in the mountains of Pakistan and the Christian fundamentalist bomber in Oklahoma have much in common.Based on her vast research, Stern lucidly explains how terrorist organizations are formed by opportunistic leaders who—using religion as both motivation and justification—recruit the disenfranchised. She depicts how moral fervor is transformed into sophisticated organizations that strive for money, power, and attention.Jessica Stern's extensive interaction with the faces behind the terror provide unprecedented insight into acts of inexplicable horror, and enable her to suggest how terrorism can most effectively be countered.A crucial book on terrorism, Terror in the Name of God is a brilliant and thought-provoking work.
9-11
Noam ChomskyRadio B92 - 2001
involvement with Afghanistan, media control, and the long-term implications of America's military attacks abroad. Informed by his deep understanding of the gravity of these issues and the global stakes, 9-11 demonstrates Chomsky's impeccable knowledge of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and South Asia, and sheds light on the rapidly shifting balance of world power. Speaking out against escalating violence, Chomsky critically examines the United States' own foreign policy record and considers what international institutions might be employed against underground networks and national states accused of terrorism. 9-11's analysis still stands as a measure of how well the media is able to serve its role of informing the citizenry, so crucial to our democracy in times of war.
Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
Lawrence Lessig - 2004
Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and can't do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine.
Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World
Christina Lamb - 2014
She crossed the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan with mujaheddin fighting the Russians and fell unequivocally in love with this fierce country of pomegranates and war, a relationship which has dominated her adult life.Since 2001, Lamb has watched with incredulity as the West fought a war with its hands tied, committed too little too late, failed to understand local dynamics and turned a blind eye as their Taliban enemy was helped by their ally Pakistan.Farewell Kabul tells how success was turned into defeat in the longest war fought by the United States in its history and by Britain since the Hundred Years War. It has been a fiasco which has left Afghanistan still one of the poorest nations on earth, the Taliban undefeated, and nuclear armed Pakistan perhaps the most dangerous place on earth.With unparalleled access to all key decision-makers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, London and Washington, from heads of state and generals as well as soldiers on the ground, Farewell Kabul tells how this happened.In Afghanistan, Lamb has travelled far beyond Helmand – from the caves of Tora Bora in the south to the mountainous bad lands of Kunar in the east; from Herat, city of poets and minarets in the west, to the very poorest province of Samangan in the north. She went to Guantánamo, met Taliban in Quetta, visited jihadi camps in Pakistan and saw bin Laden’s house just after he was killed. Saddest of all, she met women who had been made role models by the West and had then been shot, raped or forced to flee the country.This deeply personal book not only shows the human cost of political failure but explains how short-sighted encouragement of jihadis to fight the Russians, followed by prosecution of ill-thought-out wars, has resulted in the spread of terrorism throughout the Islamic world.
The Spiritual Strength in Our Scars
Liyana Musfirah - 2020
Are we considered strong if we do not fall when life pushes us to the ground? Do our faith and belief tell us that we cannot let our misery affect us because as the saying goes, “we must bear patience”?In this book, author Liyana Musfirah takes readers on a reflective journey of discovering the strength that emerges from each of our painful and scarring episodes. This is the book that celebrates what God has given women — the resilience to withstand emotional, spiritual, or even physical hardships.
ISIS: A History
Fawaz A. Gerges - 2016
What explains the rise of ISIS and what does it portend for the future of the Middle East? In this book, one of the world's leading authorities on political Islam and jihadism sheds new light on these questions as he provides a unique history of the rise and growth of ISIS. Moving beyond journalistic accounts, Fawaz Gerges provides a clear and compelling account of the deeper conditions that fuel ISIS.The book describes how ISIS emerged in the chaos of Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion, how the group was strengthened by the suppression of the Arab Spring and by the war in Syria, and how ISIS seized leadership of the jihadist movement from Al Qaeda. Part of a militant Sunni revival, ISIS claims its goals are to resurrect a caliphate and rid "Islamic lands" of all Shia and other minorities. In contrast to Al Qaeda, ISIS initially focused on the "near enemy"--Shia, the Iraqi and Syrian regimes, and secular, pro-western states in the Middle East. But in a tactical shift ISIS has now taken responsibility for spectacular attacks in Europe and other places beyond the Middle East, making it clear that the group is increasingly interested in targeting the "far enemy" as well. Ultimately, the book shows how decades of dictatorship, poverty, and rising sectarianism in the Middle East, exacerbated by foreign intervention, led to the rise of ISIS--and why addressing those problems is the only way to ensure its end.An authoritative introduction to arguably the most important conflict in the world today, this is an essential book for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the social turmoil and political violence ravaging the Arab-Islamic world.
The IF Diet
Robert Skinner - 2013
There are super clear explanations of the science that will make you a slimmer and healthier human being, with over 90 scientific references should you want to know even more. Additional areas covered include: - cellulite and skin - protein - going low carb - detoxing - skipping breakfast - cardio - high intensity interval training - psychology and mood - strength training - sleep - hydration - brain health - cancer - eating junk food - addiction - insulin - fructose - diabetes - energy drinks - leptin and ghrelin (your hunger hormones) Specifically designed to make you an expert fast, The IF Diet will inspire you to take action and get the results you want. No nonsense, no hype, just highly achievable jaw-dropping results. Read a free sample today and see for yourself.