Thirteen essays contextualizing the new meanings around certain words and phrases in the post-9/11 discourseTerrorism, jihad, fundamentalism, blowback. These and other highly charged terms have saturated news broadcasts and everyday conversation since September 11th. But to keen ears their meanings change depending upon who's doing the talking. So what do these words really mean? And what are people trying to say when they use them?Each of the thirteen essa...

The Autumn of nineteen twenty-one treated Patrick McBride with heartbreak at the death of Shumate McBride, his father, but also treated him with heartfelt joy on board RMS Aquitania where he met Elizabeth and fell in love. She is married and loyal to her husband. But their love is so strong it tugs and sets them on a long three-year journey for love from Liverpool, England to Memphis, Tennessee. This is their story.

The “crackling exposé” (New York Times Book Review) of the shadowy mercenary army that perpetrated horrific war crimes in America's nameOn September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square, leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces, subcontract...

**A New York Times BestsellerThe world’s leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of U.S. policies post-9/11, and the perils of valuing power above democracy and human rights**In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky argues that the United States, through its military-first policies and its unstinting devotion to maintaining a world-spanning empire, is both risking cat...

They Must Be Stopped is New York Times bestselling author Brigitte Gabriel's warning to the world: We can no longer ignore the growth of radical Islam--we must act soon, and powerfully. Gabriel challenges our western and politically-correct notions about Islam, demonstrating why radical Islam is so deadly and how we can halt its progress.Brigitte Gabriel speaks her mind:*Fundamentalist Islam is a religion rooted in 7th century teachings that are fundamenta...

Award-winning combat journalist Sean Naylor reveals a firsthand account of the largest battle fought by American military forces in Afghanistan in an attempt to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces.At dawn on March 2, 2002, America's first major battle of the 21st century began. Over 200 soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Division flew into Afghanistan's Shah-i-Kot Valley—and into the mouth of a buzz saw. They were about to pay a bloody price for strat...

The search for a friend’s killer is a riveting lesson in the way war has changed.The EOD-explosive ordnance disposal-community is tight-knit, and when one of their own is hurt, an alarm goes out. When Brian Castner, an Iraq War vet, learns that his friend and EOD brother Matt has been killed by an IED in Afghanistan, he goes to console Matt's widow, but he also begins a personal investigation. Is the bomb maker who killed Matt the same man American forces have been...

Last year was a “blood year” in the Middle East – massacres and beheadings, fallen cities, collapsed and collapsing states, the unravelling of a decade of Western strategy. We saw the rise of ISIS, the splintering of government in Iraq, and foreign fighters – many from Europe, Australia and Africa – flowing into Syria at a rate ten times that during the height of the Iraq War. What went wrong?In Blood Year, David Kilcullen calls on twenty-five years’ experience to answer t...

Robert Young Pelton first became aware of the phenomenon of hired guns in the War on Terror when he met a covert team of contractors on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in the fall of 2003. Pelton soon embarked on a globe-spanning odyssey to penetrate and understand this shadowy world, ultimately delivering stunning insights into the way private soldiers are used.Enter a blood-soaked world of South African mercenaries and tribal fighters backed by ruthless financiers. Drop into Bagh...

In the dark days immediately after 9/11, the CIA turned to Dr. James Mitchell to help craft an interrogation program designed to elicit intelligence from just-captured top al-Qa'ida leaders and terror suspects.A civilian contractor who had spent years training U.S. military members to resist interrogation should they be captured, Mitchell, aware of the urgent need to prevent impending catastrophic attacks, worked with the CIA to implement "enhanced interrogation te...

Economist and best-selling author Loretta Napoleoni traces the link between the finances of the war on terror and the global economic crisis, finding connections from Dubai to London to Las Vegas that politicians and the media have at best ignored. In launching military and propaganda wars in the Middle East, America overlooked the war of economic independence waged by Al-Qaeda. The Patriot Act boosted the black market economy, and the war on terror prompted a rise in oil prices that led t...

A commander's "compelling" behind-the-scenes view of the United States at war after 9/11, from high-level strategy to combat on the ground ( The Wall Street Journal).Over his thirty-five year career, Daniel P. Bolger rose through the ranks of the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps more than anyone else, he was witness to the full extent of these wars, from September 11th to withdrawal from the reg...