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Why does the United States go to war?—a leading Harper’s commentator on U.S. foreign affairs searches for answers. A withering exposé of runaway military spending and the private economic interests funding the U.S. war machine—for fans of Rachel Maddow and Democracy Now! America has a long tradition of justifying war as the defense of democracy. The War on Terror was waged to protect the West from the dangers of Islamists. The US soldiers stationed in over 800 locations across the world are meant to be the righteous arbiters of justice. Against this background, Andrew Cockburn brilliantly dissects the true intentions behind Washington’s martial appetites. The American war machine ca...
Assassination by drone is a subject of deep and enduring fascination. Yet few understand how and why this has become our principal way of waging war. 'Kill Chain' uncovers the real and extraordinary story; its origins in long-buried secret programmes, the breakthroughs that made drone operations possible, the ways in which the technology works and, despite official claims, does not work. Taking the reader inside the well-guarded world of national security, the book reveals the powerful interests - military, CIA and corporate - that have led the drive to kill individuals by remote control.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld-the mesmerizing figure who oversaw the US Army, Navy, Airforce, and Marines-has been widely blamed for the catastrophic state of Iraq. In October 2006 Rumsfeld was sacked, his disastrous running of the war in Iraq being held responsible for the American public's loss of faith in the Bush administration. In this groundbreaking book, Washington insider Andrew Cockburn reveals that Rumsfeld's political legacy stretches back decades and speculates as to where his career might take him now. Drawing on sources that include Rumsfeld's inner circle as well as high-ranking officials in the Pentagon and White House, Rumsfeld, going far beyond previous accounts, ...
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In 2010, two small SUV’s and a four-door pickup truck headed down a dirt road in the mountains of southern Afghanistan. They had set out soon after midnight, traveling cross-country to reach Highway 1, which would lead them to Kandahar and north to Kabul. #2 The video was being watched at Hurlburt Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle by a dedicated team of young men and women, who were in charge of sending the videos out to their various destinations. #3 The ultimate beneficiary of all these complex arrangements was a sergeant attached to the raiding party. He was responsible for communicating via radio with any air support, and relaying orders and intelligence to and from the young captain commanding the party. #4 The video received by the troops on the ground that night in Uruzgan was even poorer. It was described as crap, full of static and crackling.
.The idea of direct invasion is the greatest threat to Saddam. It avoids the problems of securing local allies, inside and outside Iraq, which bedevil any indirect approach to get rid of him. But it has one immense disadvantage from the US point of view . if the US invades Iraq to install its own government it will be taking direct physical control of an area containing more than half the world.s oil reserves. It will look like the founding of a new American empire based on physical force and will be deeply resented . It would outrage the Arabs at a moment when the Israel-Palestine conflict is in a particularly bloody phase. America could find that it has overplayed its hand, just as Saddam ...
An expose of the internal feuds in the CIA that doomed the secret operations to bring down Saddam Hussein. The authors are investigative journalists who covered the story from inside Iraq. They offer insights into the psyche of Saddam and his family, bodyguards and extended tribal family, as well as his weapons of mass destruction.
When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, it exposed a crumbling empire littered with hundreds of tonnes of nuclear material and thousands of nuclear weapons. Across Russia and the former Soviet Union, stocks of plutonium and bomb-grade uranium, as well as a wide variety of nuclear landmines, artillery shells and missile warheads were portable enough to be carried by just three people. The short-range missile warheads, small nuclear bombs, landmines and torpedo warheads could be lifted and carried by a single person and were small enough to fit into a backpack or trunk. In this account, journalists Andrew and Leslie Cockburn show that prospect criminals, extremists or terrorists might easily obtain these weapons, and that the threat from nuclear materials is dangerously real.
Narrated by both Henry Cockburn and his father Patrick, this is the extraordinary story of the eight years since Henry's descent into schizophrenia- years he has spent almost entirely in hospitals- and his family's struggle to help him recover.
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