This reference work is an ideal resource for anyone interested in better understanding the controversial Iraq War. It treats the war in its entirety, covering politics, religion, and history, as well as military issues. The Iraq War started in 2003 in a quest to rid the nation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that were never found. It lasted over 8 years, during which more than 30,000 U.S. service members were wounded and almost 4,500 American lives lost. Comprised of some 275 entries, this comprehensive encyclopedia examines the war from multiple points of view. Each article is written by an expert with specialized knowledge of the topic. The reference covers every aspect of the Iraq War, from the U.S. invasion (Operation IRAQI FREEDOM) through the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the surge, and the U.S. withdrawal. Other significant aspects of the conflict are addressed as well, including Abu Ghraib, WMDs, the controversial use of private military contractors, and Britain's role in the war. The book also features an overview essay, a "causes and consequences" essay, maps, photos, a chronology, and a bibliography.

In 2003, Major William Edwards and Lt. Colonel Robert P. Walters of the 165th Military Intelligence Battalion were given the near-impossible task of improving the U.S. Army's security posture at Abu Ghraib prison under unfathomable conditions. With input from officers who served with them, their candid firsthand accounts of life at the notorious prison reveal unpublished details of the human devastation that took place there, along with unexpected glimpses of humanity.

Behind-enemy-lines stories of elite Marines in Vietnam Force Recon companies were the eyes and ears of the Marine Corps in Vietnam. Classified as special operations capable, Force Recon Marines ventured into the enemy's backyard to conduct reconnaissance and launched deliberate strikes against the enemy. Lanning and Stubbe blend analysis and you-are-there stories of Force Recon in action to create the definitive account of Recon Marines.

This book is an intimate account of an ordinary individual's extraordinary life journey that transcends both cultural and social boundaries. Th e author was born and lived in Korea during his formative years, and has been living in the United States for the following 47 years. Th is individual's unique story of his environment is informative and his approach to his life time challenges highlights every passage of the book. Th e book is thoughtprovoking as well as enlightening...a rare gem in its subject, style, and exposition. This book enlightens and entertains its readers at the same time eff ortlessly.

Since the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has been at war with Al-Qaida. Over the past 10 years, counterterrorism efforts have disrupted its main training facilities and eliminated much of the core leadership structure, including the mastermind Usama Bin Ladin. Despite this, Al-Qaida has proved resilient. While the core leadership has been compromised, regional Al-Qaida offshoots and affiliated Islamist terrorist groups have formed, developed, and become prominent in their own right. To aid in examining and explaining Al-Qaida's trajectory, the Minerva Initiative at Marine Corps University hosted a conference in the spring of 2011, just days before Bin Ladin's demise. The panels at this conference addressed diverse issues such as Al-Qaida's overarching strategy; the degree of control that central Al-Qaida leadership maintains over regional franchises; and the strategies, tactics, successes, and failures in each theater of operation. The resulting papers in Al-Qaida after Ten Years of War contribute to the ongoing and ever-evolving net assessment of Al-Qaida and its future prospects, and they help inform the crafting of a war termination phase with Al-Qaida.

Waite provides an honest and raw perspective on the Iraq War from that of a citizen-soldier. He describes the effects war has on the extraordinary people who fight in it, and the families left behind.

Represents one of the earliest efforts to chronicle Marine Corps operations in Iraq between 2004-2005. Commissioned and written while U.S. forces were still engaged in combat operations in Iraq. Contains maps to help orientate and familiarize readers to Iraq, al-Anbar Province, and the two battles for Fallujah. Contains photographs of commanders, combat operations, equipment, and civil-military operations.

The Korean War occupies a unique place in American history and foreign policy. Because it followed closely after World War II and ushered in a new era of military action as the first hot conflict of the cold war, the Korean War was marketed as an entirely new kind of military campaign. But how were the war-weary American people convinced that the limited objectives of the Korean War were of paramount importance to the nation?
In this ground-breaking book, Steven Casey deftly analyzes the Truman and Eisenhower administrations' determined efforts to shape public discourse about the war, influence media coverage of the conflict, and gain political support for their overall approach to waging the Cold War, while also trying to avoid inciting a hysteria that would make it difficult to localize the conflict. The first in-depth study of Truman's and Eisenhower's efforts to garner and sustain support for the war, Selling the Korean War weaves a lucid tale of the interactions between the president and government officials, journalists, and public opinion that ultimately produced the twentieth century concept of limited war.
It has been popularly thought that the public is instinctively hostile towards any war fought for less than total victory, but Casey shows that limited wars place major constraints on what the government can say and do. He also demonstrates how the Truman administration skillfully rededicated and redefined the war as it dragged on with mounting casualties. Using a rich array of previously untapped archival resources--including official government documents, and the papers of leading congressmen, newspaper editors, and war correspondents--Casey's work promises to bethe definitive word on the relationship between presidents and public opinion during America's "forgotten war."

Largely overshadowed by World War II's "greatest generation" and the more vocal veterans of the Vietnam era, Korean War veterans remain relatively invisible in the narratives of both war and its aftermath. Yet, just as the beaches of Normandy and the jungles of Vietnam worked profound changes on conflict participants, the Korean Peninsula chipped away at the beliefs, physical and mental well-being, and fortitude of Americans completing wartime tours of duty there. Upon returning home, Korean War veterans struggled with home front attitudes toward the war, faced employment and family dilemmas, and wrestled with readjustment. Not unlike other wars, Korea proved a formative and defining influence on the men and women stationed in theater, on their loved ones, and in some measure on American culture. In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation not only gives voice to those Americans who served in the "forgotten war" but chronicles the larger personal and collective consequences of waging war the American way.

Using the 2003 war in Iraq as an illustrative tool for highlighting the impact which advances in communication systems have had on message relays, this book comes as a useful tool kit for enabling a critical evaluation of the way language is used in the news.In a world in which advanced communication technologies have made the reporting of disasters and conflicts (also in the form of breaking news) a familiar and 'normalised' activity, the information presented here about television news reporting of the 2003 war in Iraq has implications that go beyond this particular conflict."Evaluation and Stance in War News" functions as a tool kit for the critical evaluation of language in the news, both as raw data in need of interpretation and as carefully packaged products of 'information management' in need of 'unpacking'. The chapters offer an array of theoretical and empirical instruments for revealing, identifying, sifting, weighing and connecting patterns of language use that construct messages. These messages carry with them world views and value systems that can either create an ever wider divide or serve to build bridges between peoples and countries.The Editorial Board includes: Paul Baker (Lancaster), Frantisek Cermak (Prague), Susan Conrad (Portland), Geoffrey Leech (Lancaster), Dominique Maingueneau (Paris XII), Christian Mair (Freiburg), Alan Partington (Bologna), Elena Tognini-Bonelli (Lecce and TWC), Ruth Wodak (Lancaster and Vienna), and Feng Zhiwei (Beijing). "The Corpus and Discourse" series consists of two strands. The first, Research in Corpus and Discourse, features innovative contributions to various aspects of corpus linguistics and a wide range of applications, from language technology via the teaching of a second language to a history of mentalities. The second strand, Studies in Corpus and Discourse, is comprised of key texts bridging the gap between social studies and linguistics. Although equally academically rigorous, this strand will be aimed at a wider audience of academics and postgraduate students working in both disciplines.

This book is the first extensive research on the role of poetry during the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). How can poetry, especially peaceful medieval Sufi poems, be applied to exalt violence, to present death as martyrdom, and to process war traumas? Examining poetry by both Islamic revolutionary and established dissident poets, it demonstrates how poetry spurs people to action, even leading them to sacrifice their lives. The book's originality lies in fresh analyses of how themes such as martyrdom and violence, and mystical themes such as love and wine, are integrated in a vehemently political context, while showing how Shiite ritual such as the pilgrimage to Mecca clash with Saudi Wahhabi appreciations. A distinguishing quality of the book is its examination of how martyrdom was instilled in the minds of Iranians through poetry, employing Sufi themes, motifs and doctrines to justify death. Such inculcation proved effective in mobilising people to the front, ready to sacrifice their lives. As such, the book is a must for readers interested in Iranian culture and history, in Sufi poetry, in martyrdom and war poetry. Those involved with Middle Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies, Literary Studies, Political Philosophy and Religious Studies will benefit from this book. "From his own memories and expert research, the author gives us a ravishing account of 'a poetry stained with blood, violence and death'. His brilliantly layered analysis of modern Persian poetry shows how it integrates political and religious ideology and motivational propaganda with age-old mystical themes for the most traumatic of times for Iran." (Alan Williams, Research Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Manchester) "When Asghar Seyed Gohrab, a highly prolific academician, publishes a new book, you can be certain he has paid attention to an exciting and largely unexplored subject. Martyrdom, Mysticism and Dissent: The Poetry of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) is no exception in the sense that he combines a few different cultural, religious, mystic, and political aspects of Iranian life to present a vivid picture and thorough analysis of the development and effect of what became known as the revolutionary poetry of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This time, he has even enriched his narrative by inserting his voice into his analysis. It is a thoughtful book and a fantastic read." (Professor Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona)

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the Marine Corps was ordered to deploy an air-ground brigade in less than ten days, even though no such brigade existed at the time. Assembled from the woefully understrength 1st Marine Division and 1st Marine Air Wing units, the Brigade shipped out only six days after activation, sailed directly to Korea, was in combat within ninety-six hours of landing and, despite these enormous handicaps and numerically superior enemy forces, won every one of its engagements and helped secure the Pusan Perimeter. Despite its remarkable achievements, the Brigade's history has largely been lost amid accounts of the sweeping operations that followed. Its real history has been replaced by myths that attribute its success to tough training, great conditioning, unit cohesion, and combat-experienced officers. None of which were true. T. X. Hammes now reveals the real story of the Brigade's success, prominently citing the Corps' crucial ability to maintain its ethos, culture, and combat effectiveness during the period between World War II and Korea, when its very existence was being challenged. By studying the Corps from 1945 to 1950, Hammes shows that it was indeed the culture of the Corps-a culture based on remembering its storied history and learning to face modern challenges-that was responsible for the Brigade's success. The Corps remembered the human factors that made it so successful in past wars, notably the ethos of never leaving another marine behind. At the same time, the Corps demonstrated commendable flexibility in adapting its doctrine and operations to evolutions in modern warfare. In particular, the Corps overcame the air-ground schism that marked the end of World War II to excel at close air support. Despite massive budget and manpower cuts, the Corps continued to experiment and learn even at it clung to its historical lodestones. This approach was validated during the Brigade's trial by fire. More than a mere battle history, Forgotten Warriors gets to the heart of marine culture to show fighting forces have to both remember and learn. As today's armed forces face similar challenges, this book confirms that culture as much as technology prepares America's fighting men and women to answer their country's call.