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Jeremy Scahill

Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield Hardcover – April 23, 2013

by Jeremy Scahill (Author)

4.4 925 ratings

Editors' pick Best History

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A New York Times bestseller
Now also an Oscar-nominated documentary

In Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater, takes us inside America's new covert wars. The foot soldiers in these battles operate globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture or kill individuals designated by the president as enemies.

Drawn from the ranks of the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, former Blackwater and other private security contractors, the CIA's Special Activities Division and the Joint Special Operations Command ( JSOC), these elite soldiers operate worldwide, with thousands of secret commandos working in more than one hundred countries. Funded through “black budgets,” Special Operations Forces conduct missions in denied areas, engage in targeted killings, snatch and grab individuals and direct drone, AC-130 and cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost militias, President Barack Obama has expanded their operations and given them new scope and legitimacy.

Dirty Wars follows the consequences of the declaration that “the world is a battlefield,” as Scahill uncovers the most important foreign policy story of our time. From Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond, Scahill reports from the frontlines in this high-stakes investigation and explores the depths of America's global killing machine. He goes beneath the surface of these covert wars, conducted in the shadows, outside the range of the press, without effective congressional oversight or public debate. And, based on unprecedented access, Scahill tells the chilling story of an American citizen marked for assassination by his own government.

As US leaders draw the country deeper into conflicts across the globe, setting the world stage for enormous destabilization and blowback, Americans are not only at greater risk—we are changing as a nation. Scahill unmasks the shadow warriors who prosecute these secret wars and puts a human face on the casualties of unaccountable violence that is now official policy: victims of night raids, secret prisons, cruise missile attacks and drone strikes, and whole classes of people branded as “suspected militants.” Through his brave reporting, Scahill exposes the true nature of the dirty wars the United States government struggles to keep hidden.

Print length

680 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Nation Books
Publication date

April 23, 2013
Dimensions

6.25 x 2 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

156858671X
ISBN-13

978-1568586717
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. America's hand is exposed in this sprawling investigation of autonomous US military operations and the abuse of executive privilege that escalated global war. New York Times bestselling author Scahill (Blackwater) pulls no punches from right or left in his exposure of governments that passively authorized the use of torture in interrogation, marked an American citizen for death without due process, and empowered a military branch to conduct warfare on their terms, turning at least four countries into warzones. Interviews with U.S. army colonels, former CIA officers, Somali warlords, and a Yemeni sheik are only a few focal points in Scahill's narrative prism. Years of ground investigation are chronicled in stock terms, creating an accessible and shuddering effect: congress "asleep at the wheel;" an enemy of the state "on a collision course with history;" government officials who "cut their teeth" in the White House. Even in Scahill's most frustrated moments fact supplants editorial, adding valiancy and devastation to his brutal portrayals. (Apr.)

From Booklist

With the war on terrorism as subterfuge, the U.S. since the George W. Bush administration has embarked on a perpetual state of war, beyond borders, beyond the scrutiny of Congress, and beyond the codes of the Geneva Convention, according to Scahill, national security correspondent and author of the best-selling Blackwater (2007). He offers a disturbing look at the secret forces, including the military and private security contractors, carrying out missions to capture and kill enemies designated by the president. Scahill details several operations, including covert wars and the targeting of two U.S. citizens for assassination, as well as Greystone, a secret global assassination and kidnapping operation. Navy SEALs, Delta Force, the CIA, Joint Special Operations Command, ghost militias, and drone attacks all feature in chilling operations in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Pakistan. Drawing on interviews with mercenaries, CIA agents, and warriors in elite forces as well as those caught in the middle, Scahill examines the dark side of dirty wars, from the private pain of sufferers to the public cost in rising suspicion of the intentions of U.S. foreign policy. --Vanessa Bush

Review

“Dirty Wars is the most thorough and authoritative history I've read yet of the causes and consequences of America's post 9/11 conflation of war and national security. I know of no other journalist who could have written it: For over a decade, Scahill has visited the war zones, overt and covert; interviewed the soldiers, spooks, jihadists, and victims; and seen with his own eyes the fruits of America's bipartisan war fever. He risked his life many times over to write this book, and the result is a masterpiece of insight, journalism, and true patriotism.”
Barry Eisler, novelist and former operative in the CIA's Directorate of Operations

“There is no journalist in America who has exposed the truth about US government militarism more bravely, more relentlessly and more valuably than Jeremy Scahill. Dirty Wars is highly gripping and dramatic, and of unparalleled importance in understanding the destruction being sown in our name.”
Glenn Greenwald, New York Times best-selling author and Guardian columnist

“A surefire hit for fans of Blackwater and studded with intriguing, occasionally damning material.”
Kirkus Reviews

"[A] courageous and exhaustive examination of the way a number of clandestine campaigns-full of crimes, coverups, and assassinations-became the United States's main strategy for combating terrorism. It's about drones, but also, more profoundly, about what our government does on our behalf, without our consent, and arguably to our disadvantage."
Teju Cole, The New Yorker's 'Best Books of 2013'

"[A] fantastic piece of investigative reporting..."
Noam Chomsky

"Dirty Wars shows you why geography shouldn't join penmanship on the list of obsolete American school disciplines before you even read a single page - in the maps at the front of the book: the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Mogadishu, Somalia - every one an American theater of war, no matter how few Americans realize it. For the next 500 pages, Scahill demonstrates how what we don't know can hurt us - and hurt lots of other people we don't know."
Los Angeles Review of Books

"There is no journalist in America, in the world, who has reported on what the war on terror actually looks like under the Obama administration better than [Scahill]. This book is an unbelievable accomplishment. [W]hatever your politics, you should read this book. It is incredibly carefully reported. People who come to this book expecting a polemic, I think will be surprised to a find a book that really...lets the facts speak for themselves. What this book does is show a side of our unending wars that we haven't seen... I think every member of Congress should read this book."
Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes

"Dirty Wars will earn its place in history as one of the most important pieces of literature related to over a decade of failed American foreign policy strategy that continues to exist to this day. It's also one of the most grounded and thoroughly researched books I've read on the subject of covert U.S. operations in the 21st Century. A must read for anyone that cares about this country and the direction we are heading."
Brandon Webb, retired member of Navy SEAL Team Three, former lead sniper instructor at the US Naval Special Warfare Command and author of the New York Times bestseller The Red Circle

“Dirty Wars is not politically correct. It is not a history of the last decade as seen from inside the White House, or from the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. Scahill's book takes us inside Dick Cheney's famed "dark side" and tells us, with convincing detail and much new information, what has been done in the name of America since 9/11."
Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

“[One] of the best intelligence reporters on the planet...Scahill has covered the worldwide wanderings of JSOC task forces and their intersection for years, and he takes a deeper look at their expanded post 9/11 mission set. He has incredible sources...”
Marc Ambinder, editor-at-large of The Week

About the Author

Jeremy Scahill is National Security Correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the New York Times best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. He has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill is a frequent guest on a wide array of programs, appearing regularly on The Rachel Maddow Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Democracy Now! He has also appeared on Fresh Air, ABC World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and Bill Moyers Journal. Scahill's work has sparked several Congressional investigations and won some of journalism's highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for his book Blackwater. He is also a producer and writer of the film Dirty Wars, which won the cinematography prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Nation Books; 1st edition (April 23, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 680 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 156858671X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1568586717
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 2 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #912,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #792 in Intelligence & Espionage History
- #1,311 in National & International Security (Books)

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Philip B Wood

It's difficult sometimes to love the truth particulary when it is so Ugly.

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

I am Amazed that Jeremy is still alive, he displays far more intelligence, intellect, spine and humanity than the vast majority of those in the White House, Halls of Congress, the Senate, The Pentagon and the so called Halls of justice. I can think of no one whom I have more respect and admiration for. He is a TRUE PATRIOT, a TRUE AMERICAN, cut from the same cloth that the founders of our once great Nation came from. After reading his previous book "Blackwater" I bought "Dirty Wars" as soon as it became available. Having finished it I had no choice but to come to the conclusion that while my assessment of the last 50 years of America's direction has been disturbingly accurate the United States has slide even further into the pit of a sickening blend of Fascism, Feudalism and Plutocracy.
In November of 1963 I was only 15 years old but even then I knew that Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy and that JFK's assassination was motivated by something far more sinister than the insanity of a lone gunman. It was the result of insane greed for power and wealth. In 1980 when Reagan was shooed into the oval office I knew that the murder's of JFK and Bobby Kennedy had been necessary precursors to the Elite's positioning of Reagan and papa Bush (an ex CIA character) in place to further their agenda. Clinton, while appearing to be a leftist took down Glass-Steagall as he was supposed to and the Elite's movement to transform American democracy into something more to their liking marched onward. When GW Bush appeared on the scene from day one I saw him for what he is. My surprise was never at his actions for they were logical moves toward fascism. My shock was that the American people were so blind to what was so obvious. George Washington Bush (what irony) was the first President to be appointed rather than elected. Over the years in preparation for such an opportunity the Elite had stacked the deck. They had seen to it that Supreme Court appointments were shills, right wing biased Elite sympathizers who like their masters viewed the middle class as Serfs/Peons. Their purpose was to further the Elite, Multinational Corporate goal of dismantling The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the aftermath of GW's appointment to the office of President (rather than election) by a right wing Supreme Court of so called justices, carefully placed there over the years in preparation to further the goal of the dismantling of the Constitution. I was shocked and dismayed. How could the American people have fallen into such a stupor? Even the obviously homegrown act of 9/11 (which would never have happened if the American people had not complacently accepted the finding of the Warren Commission but forced the truth to the light of day) failed to register as pure bull crap. After over a year of the Bush White House doing it's damnedest to squash all attempts at any investigation a group of the family's of the victims via the use of the media brought enough pressure to bear that the Oval office gave in. The result of course was another fiasco like the Warren commission that obviously did far more to cover than uncover the truth. It has been the domino effect, which began probably even before the DuPonts and their kind attempted to overthrow FDR militarily.
When Obama first reared his head, I saw him for exactly what he was (I thought) a black GW clone with a better vocabulary. Up until this year nothing he did came as a surprise. Now after reading "Dirty Wars" exposing J.S.O.C. and Obama's use of it I can no longer look at the man as just another bought and paid for politician but as the EVIL being he most certainly is. J.S.O.C. is essentially a Rouge agency operating with no oversight from Congress, the Justice Department or even the Pentagon. It is the Presidents private hit squad, carrying out his commands to kidnap, torture, murder and disappear innocents including women and even babies as well as an American Citizen without charge or trial. I must now consider that the fact that he has had people incarcerated and tortured without charge and held indefinably that he has surpassed his predecessor's crimes against humanity. Obama has had and continues to have people including an American killed for less reason than for what I write here. The fact that the T.S.A. has become so sure of it's power that it is threatening to arrest people for making jokes about its agents gives me some concern that I may leave this world even sooner than my Doctors expect. I am certain that there are hundreds, probably thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of others who for what ever reason know far more than I about the horrendous crimes being committed by those in control of what was once our country that say nothing due to fear for their careers. Perhaps even terror, for what they must surly know could happen to their families their own lives. This is the stuff that the Iron Curtain, Gestapo, KGB and SAVAK etc were made of. As for any real concern for my own safety I am an insignificant with a nonexistent audience. Then to I really don't want to be around to see the horrors of the end result of what America is bringing down upon itself and the world. No matter how great a Nation may rise to become the greed of EVIL MEN for power and money always bring it down in the end. Everyone who cares one iota about America, Truth and Justice should be required to read this book, but I would have to warn them that the truth exposed here is extremely painful to deal with.

3 people found this helpful

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wsmrer

The twisted tale of America's demise: Playing at Empire Poorly

Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2013

Verified Purchase

There may be a general acceptance that G. W. Bush's "War on Terror" and the invasion of Iraq was a misdirected wandering off after neo-con goals, especially those of the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon led by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith that had little to do with suppressing the motive cause of Islamic extremism. The current news on Iraq shows a mounting strength of al Qaeda that did not exist before and a spreading of extremism in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere.

Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars shows well that while the terminology has been changed under President Obama the technique and effect has not changed but has become a momentum-gathering exercise in military might directed at the refined `kill/capture' directive, but of questionable content with regard to the stated purpose of containing and diminishing terrorism. His analysis and research point to the opposite effect of spreading and strengthening hatred of the West, often through ignorance of the people, their cultures and politics*.

There are many points in his story where Scahill quotes individuals well versed in the security issue who note the misdirection resulting from military intervention, but perhaps these two make the point.
A report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee concluded in early 2010. "Al Qaeda is now a more sophisticated and dangerous organization in Africa," noting that al Qaeda's "foothold in Somalia has probably been facilitated by the involvement of Western powers and their allies." Scahill argues effectively that this is at best an understatement.

And this by Colonel Patrick Lang, who spent his entire career leading sensitive missions in covert operations: "This is going to go on for a long time The Global War on Terror has acquired a life of its own. It's a self-licking ice cream cone. And the fact that this counterterrorism/ counterinsurgency industry evolved into this kind of thing, involving all these people, the foundations, and the journalists and the book writers, and the generals, and the guys doing the shooting-- all of that together has a great, tremendous amount of inertia that tends to keep it going in the same direction." Lang added: "It continues to roll. It will take a conscious decision, on the part of civilian policy makers, somebody like the president, for example, to decide that `OK, boys, the show's over.'"

Behind the veil.
Scahill raises the departure of any countervailing legal constraints on the US government as it pursues its "Dirty Wars". In January 2013, a federal judge ruled on the request regarding the Freedom of Information Act. She could only rule the government's refusal of transparency was legal. Judge Colleen McMahon stated "the Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me; but after careful and extensive consideration, I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules -- a veritable Catch-22. I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.'

What has evolved out of the War on Terror is an unconstrained menace that has circumvented all the slowly won constraints on governmental power. A paid informant declares any person a potential threat to American security anywhere in the world and that person, citizen or not, may be assassinated when convenient, or captured and interned without legal protections.

Jeremy Scahill's (and associates) Dirty Wars is a masterful journalist work that documents these developments well.
Whoever we thought we were, we are no more.

* Michael Boyle, a former adviser in the Obama campaign's counterterrorism experts group and a professor at LaSalle University, said that one of the reasons the administration was "so successful in spinning the number of civilian casualties" was the use of signature strikes and other systems for categorizing military-aged males as legitimate targets, even if their specific identities were unknown. "The result of the `guilt by association' approach has been a gradual loosening of the standards by which the US selects targets for drone strikes," Boyle charged. "The consequences can be seen in the targeting of mosques or funeral processions that kill non-combatants and tear at the social fabric of the regions where they occur." No one, he added, "really knows the number of deaths caused by drones in these distant, sometimes ungoverned, lands." Using drones, cruise missiles and Special Ops raids, the United States has embarked on a mission to kill its way to victory. There is strong evidence that the opposite effect is occurring from these actions; strengthening rather than diminishing our enemies across the world.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Hugh Claffey

The need for accountability in the War on Terror

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is an astonishing well written book of reportage, and I think a must-read about the Obama version of the war on terror (or whatever words cover it now). Scahill also has a particular viewpoint, which I disagree with, but the reportage seems first rate.

First the excellent stuff - there are reports of special forces and CIA operations in Somalia and Yemen, which I had not been aware of. Scahill updates our usual view that the war on Terror involves operations in Afghanistan or Pakistan, though these are covered also. He covers the operation which killed Osama Bin Laden, but he also highlights other operations which went disastrously wrong - the shooting dead of seven people, including two pregnant women in Gardez in 2009; the bombing of al Majalah in Yemen which stirred great local resentment of the US; the killing of Anwar al Awlaki's sixteen year-old son, a week after this father was killed. By taking us through eye witness accounts, Scahill forces us to recognize that the drone war on terror is not the clinical, decisive strike imagined.

Scahill's message is that the drone strikes, targeted killings etc are spreading more disaffection and recruiting more terrorists than they are removing. It seems that some of the Yemeni and Somali strikes were based on information from one rival wishing to destroy another rival - in particular the Yemeni president wishing to dispose of people who might displace him. There is reportage of the justification fro the al Majalah bombing being rushed through whatever (non-accountable) White House targeting process in just 45 minutes, based on the need to use the `actionable intelligence'. The book also mentions, via un-attributable sources, that the President was unhappy with and called for a review of the targeting information that led to the death of Al-Awaki's son and three of his teenage cousins.

What I definitely take from the book is that there needs to be accountability for these mistakes - which officially are not happening, up to quite recently the President did not acknowledge US responsibility for some drone strikes. This is incredible power the US is taking to itself - for instance if you take the sentence "US kills Al Queda terrorist cell in village in remote Yeman" and substitute China, Tibetan, India in the sentence, I'm sure there would be international outrage.

Scahill charts the course of Anwar Al Awlaki's progression from moderate, US based muslim cleric - even invited to a Pentagon focus group, post 9-11, to supported (maybe leader) of Al Queda in Yeman through the decade. Scahill asserts that Al Awlaki had not case made against him, had no way of answering any charges that US might put to him and, as a US citizen was executed by the executive branch of the US government without due process. Scahill makes a big deal about Al Awlaki's US citizenship. I don't really buy any of this, the citizenship issue, to me, neither makes Al Awlaki more or less special. I can only presume there was clear intelligence linking him to terrorism, and there was no reliable way to apprehend him without risking US lives.

One point on style, which may be revealing. From my reading, I think Scahill uses the word `bold' only to describe insurgent attacks in the various countries he visits. I think this might reveal a worrying lack of objectivity.
Nonetheless an excellent read.

3 people found this helpful

Nigel Marshall

a blizzard of quasi military acronyms

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book charts how after 9/11 American policy makers decided that they did not want to be "all lawyered up" and declared 'the world a battlefield' that thereby 'legitimized' them unleashing a blizzard of quasi military acronyms against their Islamist enemies and anyone else who was in the vicinity or might 'usefully' be declared complicit.

The controversies of Guantanamo Bay under George Bush are well known - he wanted to detain people without legalistic oversight - but less well understood is how Nobel Peace Prize winning president Barack Obama decided to extend the policy direction to killing people without legal oversight. So let's spell it out. A new covert military organisation was formed (JSOC: Joint Special Operations Command) whose primary job was to draw up kill lists that were pursued with the might and coordination facilities of American power - on 'terror Tuesdays' Obama personally over saw the authorizations to kill. Moreover, this has created a streamlined process by which future American presidents can - in case you have a soft spot for Obama - personally authorise the non-judicial killing of America's perceived enemies.

Reading this book entails trying to get your head round over 100 acronyms as American bureaucracy confronts Islamist factions that are spreading virus like across parts of the developing (or disintegrating) world. The chosen Islamacists weapons are IED's and suicide bombers, the chosen American weapons are drone strikes and covert assassination/renditions. America is successfully killing those on its 'list' (with attendant 'collateral damage') but it is also appears to be alienating and radicalising many more. The pertinent question the author asks is "how does a war like this ever end?"

5 people found this helpful

James 'error' Campbell

A Serious Contribution

Reviewed in Canada on June 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

First off, I doubt many serious intellectually proficient persons, will read through this offering of Scahill and conclude with downplay of his accomplishment. I am not very familiar with Scahill, apart from the fact that he has significant courage, and apparently, no fear of discussing actions of the extremely powerful. I read through this book in just a few days (it being on a reading list of my purchases made from Amazon). I recommend, on the basis of the synopsis, this book to anyone seeking answers to questions pertaining to this field or genre.

In terms of delicate criticism (though very light in my own willingness to level any) I assert that Jeremy finds himself inconsistent in his approach for a small portion of this book (which he admits to from the beginning). The first half of this book is quite informative, though it seems to -at times- sink into redundancy; stating repeatedly things like 'Cheney and Rumsfeld resented' this and that, and their willingness to consistently expand programs. Due to the 'continuing resentments' of Cheney and Rumsfeld and the expansion of extra judicial killing mechanism; mentioned again and again and again, it begins (though not for long) to sink into delirium. In addition, I find the system of annotation that Scahill chooses to employ inside Dirty Wars (leaving all sources and annotative substantiation to the back of the book), adding to its length of more than a hundred pages of supporting documentation less than appealing.

Apart from those (hopefully constructive observations), Scahills work is quite paramount and of extremely authoritative substance. It comes off as exceedingly well researched and impressive. Scahill is a master of his art. He concocts a very compelling and educational approach to the issues raised in this book. I must admit, I am more moderate in my criticisms of the programs/policies described in 'Dirty Wars' after finishing this book. I don't know why, but even in his vast exposure of terrifying infrastructure and apparatus, everything begins to make sense and you're (the reader) just like, aha!

Thanks Jeremy - I give you 9.3/10 (but its not 100% so I had to feed Amazon a 4/5 to solve their system- Id prefer to understate than overstate). Jeremy you are a friend of the world.

4 people found this helpful

John D. Andrews

blood-curdling

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2013

Verified Purchase

I think of myself as pretty clued-up on how the world really works. But every now and then I read something that is not only quite eye-opening, it's also seriously important. Dirty Wars is an important book, and it should be mandatory reading in every high school in the world.

Most of the narrative is set in two parts of the world which, apart from those who live there, few people know anything about: Yemen and Somalia. For that reason alone, this is an important read, because these are not a couple of countries that exist under the radar because they tick along very nicely and never cause any ripples, they exist under the radar because that's what the masters of the universe decree. Everyone should know what's going on there, but almost no one does.

Just over a week ago there was an horrendous incident in a shopping mall in Nairobi that resulted in more than sixty deaths. That event was covered by most news organisations around the world. Here in the UK the BBC explained it as a dispute between the al Shabab, the Somali-based attackers, and the Kenyan government. On a superficial level, typical of most BBC "news", that was correct. But it goes much, much deeper than that.

Dirty Wars informs the world about JSOC. I'd never before heard of JSOC, and haven't yet come across anyone else who has. JSOC is effectively a new secret army that makes the CIA look like choirboys. It is effectively under the direct control of the US president and can and does operate anywhere in the world. It can and does murder countless numbers of defenceless civilians anywhere it likes - even US citizens.

The world changed with the creation of JSOC, just over ten years ago - not for the better. Dirty Wars explains how.

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wezg

Jeremy Scahill delves into the Dirty Wars of the Bush and Obama era in the ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2015

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Following on from his book on the mercenary force Blackwater, Jeremy Scahill delves into the Dirty Wars of the Bush and Obama era in the War on Terror. The main theatres covered include Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Scahill writes about the excesses of the Bush administration, in particular the detainee programs and he deals with how Obama has ratcheted up the campaign against terrorists with the heavy use of drones and targetted killings. There is a focus on American citizen Anwar Awlaki and his rise within the terrorist ranks and how his targetting by the US raised all kinds of legal dilemmas in terms of assassination by his own government. The Osama Bin Laden death is covered in detail, and perhaps extremely relevant, in light of the Kenya bombings this week, the book analyses the rise of Al Shebab in Somalia and also Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. The book is very well researched, although I feel that the author is somewhat sympathetic towards the Jihadists and critical of the US government measures to contain them. Obviously, the killing of civilians is wrong from whatever side, and some of the US actions can be compared with those of the terrorists. It is frightening to witness how clandestine operations are from the White House down and the way in which the JSOC has been totally unleashed over the years to a status where it has virtually no oversight, is a scary fact. Since September 11th 2001, the War On Terror has been a real issue to most citizens of the world. Dirty Wars is a book which details this struggle in a very readable, interesting and enlightening manner. I highly recommend this book and believe it is a step up from the Blackwater predecessor. I look forward to future work from the author. https://wezgbooks.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/dirty-wars-by-jeremy-scahill/

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