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Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield Hardcover – April 23, 2013
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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 riskwe 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 length680 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNation Books
- Publication dateApril 23, 2013
- Dimensions6.25 x 2 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-10156858671X
- ISBN-13978-1568586717
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Editorial Reviews
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Review
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
Product details
- Publisher : Nation Books; 1st edition (April 23, 2013)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 680 pages
- ISBN-10 : 156858671X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1568586717
- Item Weight : 2.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 2 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,055,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,014 in Intelligence & Espionage History
- #1,210 in National & International Security (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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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.
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.
Top reviews from other countries
秘密主義のオバマが無人機という最強の秘密兵器を手に入れた結果、ますます「テロ」といわれる行為が鼓舞されていく様子が描かれています。
どなたか翻訳される方はおられないのでしょうか?本国では映画も有名ですが。
おられなければ、私が翻訳しても構わないのですが、なにぶんページ数がナニですので、出版のころには古くなっているという可能性あり。
I highly recommend. 5 Stars
A long read that you can pick up and put down. Thank goodness for investigative journalism. We tend to accept the news as it is spoon fed to us. Always challenge the dominant paradigm and question further. This book puts meat onto the bones of a conflict that should be grasped beyond the headlines.




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