In "The Accidental Empire", Gershom Gorenberg examines the strange birth of the settler movement in the ten years following the Six-Day War and finds that it was as much the child of Labour Party socialism as of religious extremism. The giants of Israeli history - Dayan, Meir, Eshkol, Allon - all played major roles in this drama, as did more contemporary figures like Sharon, Rabin, and Peres. Gorenberg also shows how three American presidents turned a blind eye to what was happening in the territories, and reveals their strategic reasons for doing so. Drawing on newly opened archives and extensive interviews, Gorenberg calls into question much of what we think we know about this issue that continues to haunt the Middle East.

Within hours of the September 11 attacks, Sean M. Maloney deciphered that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were the aggressors behind the despicable act. A war in Afghanistan then was inevitable. As a military historian, Maloney was determined to go there to study and record the events for posterity, if for no other reason than the education of his future students at Canada's Royal Military College.What resulted is an in-depth and up-close look at the planning stages, deployment, and aftermath of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. In "Enduring the Freedom," Maloney presents a rare on-the-spot view from such important locations as Kabul, Bagram, and Kandahar. He describes the American-led intervention in Afghanistan and the conduct of the war through early 2003, then discusses the events of 2003 from the three locales in detail.Some critics contend that the war in Afghanistan is another Vietnam. Maloney rebuts that appraisal, pointing out that as opposed to the vague language of the Vietnam era, American objectives were clearly stated for Afghanistan. Those objectives were: to destroy al Qaeda's networks, training camps, resources, and communication systems; to destroy any governmental entity providing support or sanctuary to al Qaeda; and to undertake reconstruction efforts to ensure international terrorists can never again use the country as a base. The first objective has more or less been achieved. How to accomplish the last two is still widely debated, and Maloney offers some insightful thoughts and opinions. Finally, he offers educated advice going forward in the hopeful completion of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Proclamations lit up the sky when Romans or Greeks were born and made history. At Buddy's birth nothing appeared. He was a nice towheaded kid with a speech defect and a flair for surviving usually killing accidents. Sent to California for speech therapy, he played with Spencer Tracy's son and learned how Walt Disney made Mickey Mouse come to life. The 70th Tank Battalion became the most decorated battalion to come out of World War 2. Assigned to support The Armored School, the 70th had, for three years, been excused from training. Together, Buddy and the 70th struggled against the efforts of the communist crew of the USA Brewster to destroy the troops' morale and to keep the ship from reaching Korea.

The War on Truth investigates all aspects of the lead up to the war in Iraq, its execution, and its aftermath. Neil MacKay contends that the public was systematically fed untruths in a manner that questions what kind of democracy we really have. MacKay, award winning investigative journalist for Scotland's Sunday Herald newspaper has covered the West's intelligence agencies for many years.

In this book he questions why 'intelligence' missed 9/11 and why the best funded intelligence networks in history got things so badly wrong. The WMD debate is also covered. MacKay's extensive contacts in the intelligence community make a telling contribution to this investigation and we see an intimate picture of how intelligence is gathered, how it is interpreted and why things go wrong.

We also gain an insight to Neo-Cons, the radical think tank that surround George W. Bush and some of whom stated before 9/11, that the US "needed another Pearl Harbor" to condition the American people (and their allies) into supporting war against Saddam Hussein. Author Neil MacKay is a three-times finalist as British Reporter of tile Year in the British Press Awards, Britain's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. MacKay revealed the identity of the Omagh bomber, exposed the British Army colonel who used loyalist terrorists as proxy assassins throughout the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland and unmasked "Stakeknife," the highest-ranking British army spy inside the IRA.

His investigations into the war on terror and the invasion of lraq have won international acclaim. More than 200,000 US readers regularly turn to his stories on the internet every Sunday. In 1999, MacKay famously wrote an article based on briefingswith CIA operatives in Pakistan that reported that aI-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden planned to use planes to attack mainland America. He has appeared on TV and radio regularly as a commentator in the UK, France. Italy. Japan. America. Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and throughout the Middle East.

John Pilger: "Neil's masterly and prodigious scoops are the stuff of newspaper legend"

Truthout.org: "the gold standard of investigative journalists"

REVIEWS

John Pilger: "Neil's masterly and prodigious scoops are the stuff of newspaper legend" British Press Awards: "the cool journalist - the guy who's first with the news."Truthout.org: "the gold standard of investigative journalists"

With the 1st Marine Division in Iraq, 2003, is a unit history written by the participants in the same vein as its predecessors-The Old Breed-written at the end of World War II and- The New Breed-authored during Korea. It is a narrative describing the actions of Marines in combat during the liberation of Iraq. Portions of the story have been told by embedded journalists-but this full account is told by those who made it happen. The 1st Marine Division, in concert with the U.S. Army's 3d Infantry Division, captured Baghdad and toppled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. The division's 28-day "march up" from Kuwait to Baghdad, a distance of 250 road miles, was a remarkable achievement. It represented a validation of the Corps' maneuver warfare strategy, particularly the seamless integration of air into the ground scheme of maneuver and the Marine logistics command's innovative support. "Blue Diamond," the 1st Division's Operation Iraqi Freedom nom de guerre, consisted of some 20,000 Marines and sailors and 8,000 vehicles organized into three regimental combat teams. Designed to be light and self-sufficient, the regiments "conducted the longest sequence of coordinated overland attacks in the history of the Corps," according to Lieutenant General Wallace C. Gregson, then commander of Marine Forces Pacific. The authors of this account were somewhat more colloquial, preferring to state that it "focuses on the collective action of Marines who served as part of the 'Blue Diamond.' It is not a story of each of them, but the story of all of them." Their story is an authentic documentation of the feel, concerns, triumphs and tragedy of the campaign in Iraq.

Matthew Currier Burden founded www.blackfive.net, one of the most popular military blogs on the Internet. His blog began as an homage to a friend killed on duty in Iraq and quickly became a source of information about what was really happening in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In "The Blog of War" Burden presents selections from some of the best of the military blogs, the purest account of the many voices of this war. This is the first real-time history of a war, a history written even as the war continues. It offers a glimpse into the full range of military experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, from the decision to enlist right through to homecoming. There are powerful stories of soldiers in combat, touching reflections on helping local victims of terror and war, pulse-racing accounts of med-evac units and hospitals, and heartbreaking chronicles of spouses who must cope when a loved one has paid the ultimate price. "The Blog of War" provides an uncensored, intimate, and authentic version of life in the war zone. Dozens of voices come together in a wartime choir that conveys better than any second-hand account possibly can what it is like to serve on the front lines.

March 23, 2003: U.S. Marines from the Task Force Tarawa are caught up in one of the most unexpected battles of the Iraq War. What started off as a routine maneuver to secure two key bridges in the town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq degenerated into a nightmarish twenty-four-hour urban clash in which eighteen young Marines lost their lives and more than thirty-five others were wounded. It was the single heaviest loss suffered by the U.S. military during the initial combat phase of the war.
On that fateful day, Marines came across the burned-out remains of a U.S. Army convoy that had been ambushed by Saddam Hussein's forces outside Nasiriyah. In an attempt to rescue the missing soldiers and seize the bridges before the Iraqis could destroy them, the Marines decided to advance their attack on the city by twenty-four hours. What happened next is a gripping and gruesome tale of military blunders, tragedy, and heroism.
Huge M1 tanks leading the attack were rendered ineffective when they became mired in an open sewer. Then a company of Marines took a wrong turn and ended up on a deadly stretch of road where their armored personal carriers were hit by devastating rocket-propelled grenade fire. USAF planes called in for fire support play their own part in the unfolding cataclysm when they accidentally strafed the vehicles. The attempt to rescue the dead and dying stranded in "ambush alley" only drew more Marines into the slaughter.
This was not a battle of modern technology, but a brutal close-quarter urban knife fight that tested the Marines' resolve and training to the limit. At the heart of the drama were the fifty or so young Marines, most of whom had never been to war, who were embroiled in a battle of epic proportions from which neither their commanders nor the technological might of the U.S. military could save them.
With a novelist's gift for pace and tension, Tim Pritchard brilliantly captures the chaos, panic, and courage of the fight for Nasiriyah, bringing back in full force the day that a perfunctory task turned into a battle for survival.
""Ambush Alley" is a gut-wrenching account of unadulterated terror that's hard to read yet impossible to put down. London-based journalist and filmmaker Tim Pritchard, who was embedded with US troops during the initial stages of the American-led invasion of Iraq, paints a compelling picture of one of the costliest battles of the Iraq war that will at turns anger, horrify, and sadden, regardless of one's political views.""
--The Boston Globe

"From the Hardcover edition."

In the late 1970s, just as China was embarking on a sweeping program of post-Mao reforms, it also launched a one-child campaign. This campaign, which cut against the grain of rural reforms and childbearing preferences, was the culmination of a decade-long effort to subject reproduction to state planning. Tyrene White here analyzes this great social engineering experiment, drawing on more than twenty years of research, including fieldwork and interviews with a wide range of family-planning officials and rural cadres.

White explores the origins of China's "birth-planning" approach to population control, the implementation of the campaign in rural China, strategies of resistance employed by villagers, and policy consequences (among them infanticide, infant abandonment, and sex-ratio imbalances). She also provides the first extensive political analysis of China's massive 1983 sterilization drive. The birth-planning project was the last and longest of the great mobilization campaigns, surviving long after the Deng regime had officially abandoned mass campaigns as instruments of political control.

Arguing that the campaign had become an indispensable institution of rural governance, White shows how the one-child campaign mimicked the organizational style and rhythms both of political campaigns and economic production campaigns. Against the backdrop of unfolding rural reforms, only the campaign method could override obstacles to rural enforcement. As reform gradually eroded and transformed patterns of power and authority, however, even campaigns grew increasingly ineffective, paving the way for long-overdue reform of the birth-planning program.

Years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a loosely organized insurgency continues to target American and Coalition soldiers, as well as Iraqi security forces and civilians, with devastating results. In this sobering account of the ongoing violence, Ahmed Hashim, a specialist on Middle Eastern strategic issues and on irregular warfare, reveals the insurgents behind the widespread revolt, their motives, and their tactics. The insurgency, he shows, is not a united movement directed by a leadership with a single ideological vision. Instead, it involves former regime loyalists, Iraqis resentful of foreign occupation, foreign and domestic Islamist extremists, and elements of organized crime. These groups have cooperated with one another in the past and coordinated their attacks; but the alliance between nationalist Iraqi insurgents on the one hand and religious extremists has frayed considerably. The U.S.-led offensive to retake Fallujah in November 2004 and the success of the elections for the Iraqi National Assembly in January 2005 have led more "mainstream" insurgent groups to begin thinking of reinforcing the political arm of their opposition movement and to seek political guarantees for the Sunni Arab community in the new Iraq.Hashim begins by placing the Iraqi revolt in its historical context. He next profiles the various insurgent groups, detailing their origins, aims, and operational and tactical modi operandi. He concludes with an unusually candid assessment of the successes and failures of the Coalition's counter-insurgency campaign. Looking ahead, Hashim warns that ethnic and sectarian groups may soon be pitted against one another in what will be a fiercely contested fight over who gets what in the new Iraq. Evidence that such a conflict is already developing does not augur well for Iraq's future stability. Both Iraq and the United States must work hard to ensure that slow but steady success over the insurgency is not overshadowed by growing ethno-sectarian animosities as various groups fight one another for the biggest slice of the political and economic pie. In place of sensational headlines, official triumphalism, and hand-wringing, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq offers a clear-eyed analysis of the increasingly complex violence that threatens the very future of Iraq.

This is the last of the Three book series from Steve Tataii's Liberation of Iraq War memoirs, focusing on the Independent South Kurdistan news developments, which has been his ongoing contribution with spontaneous, critical and emotional writings in defense of the rights of over 5-7 million Kurds of South Kurdistan the North of the defunct Iraq] in the past 3 years. He has written his responses in a decisive, intense, and prolific style as the events unfold and seen in the most recent, and fresh News developments in his contributing articles published throughout the world for News Websites such as www.KurdistanObserver.com, www.Klawrojna.com, www.eKurd.net, www.Kurdishmedia.com, and many others, including print media. On May, 22, 2004, Tataii nominated Mr. Talabani to become the president of "Arabistan" South of Kurdish region], and President Massoud Barzani as the president of the Independent South Kurdistan in his famous article published in this book. In his DEC 5, 2003 article Tataii called for Iraq to choose its original form of nationhood the way it used to be before 1920s; one state for Kurds in the North, and the other for Arabs in the South as you'll read in this book under the title: "The best solution is to divide Iraq into two Nations based on ethnicity: The Republic of South Kurdistan, and the Republic of Arabistan."

The two battles for the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 were turning points in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Elements of the US Marine Corps began an offensive in April to destroy enemy forces in the town, but the battle ended prematurely with the Marines being replaced by the "Fallujah Brigade," followed soon after by a complete enemy takeover of the city. Some units of the new Iraqi Army were also committed to the first battle; they were found wanting and the entire Iraqi training program significantly changed in response. In November 2004, a combined USMC, US Army, and Iraqi Army offensive succeeded in eliminating the enemy in Fallujah in a destructive urban battle. In Operation AL FAJR: A Study in Army and Marine Corp Joint Operations, Mr. Matt Matthews focuses on the ways in which Army and Marine forces operated together in the second Battle of Fallujah. Among the many Army units that participated, Task Force 2-2 Infantry and Task Force 2-7 Cavalry spearheaded the attacks of two Marine regimental combat teams into and through the city. Matthews' gripping narrative de-scribes their role in the battle from notification, to planning, and through the fighting to the conclusion of their role in the battle. With access to first-person accounts and unit histories from both task forces, Matthews' monograph illuminates many aspects of the battle which have been missing from popular journalistic accounts. Army - Marine interoperability is the theme around which Matthews bases his account. Well-educated and professional Army and Marine leaders at the Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel levels overcame many ingrained cultural differences to synchronize operations. Army senior NCOs and junior officers displayed tremendous initiative, flexibility, and courage in fighting alongside their Marine counterparts. They skillfully exploited the incredible firepower, survivability and urban mobility of Army heavy forces to destroy enemy resistance in some of the most brutal urban combat of the war. Matthews also addresses areas in which the Army and Marines must continue to improve their ability to fight side by side. Operation AL FAJR is a compelling case study of combat at the tactical level in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Army - Marine relations have improved greatly since the acrimony that sometimes plagued the WWII era. As Matthews makes clear, there is more work to be done.

During the Iraq War, coauthor Capt. Jason Conroy commanded Charlie Company, which was part of Task Force 1-64, 2d Brigade Combat Team, part of the U.S. Army’s 3d Infantry Division. A tank unit equipped with mammoth M1A1 Abrams tanks, Conroy’s company was literally at the tip of the U.S. Army’s spear and one of the first elements into Baghdad. Veteran journalist Ron Martz was embedded in Charlie Company. Together, from the unique perspective of an armor unit that was in nearly continuous combat for four straight weeks, Conroy and Martz tell the unvarnished story of what went right and what went deadly wrong in Iraq. Conroy and his soldiers were able to overcome supply shortages, intelligence failures, and miserable weather to battle their way into downtown Baghdad, a place where they were told they would never have to fight. Heavy Metal evaluates the Army’s performance, including its use of tactics that were developed during the war but for which the soldiers had never trained. Through the exciting personal stories of the young troopers of Charlie Company - who experienced a very different war from what was seen back home on TV - Heavy Metal tells us much about the qualities of today’s American soldier, about twenty-first-century desert and urban warfare, and about how the Army should prepare to fight future wars.

On March 21, 2003, while leading a rifle platoon into combat, Marine Lieutenant Shane Childers became the first combat fatality of the Iraq War. In this gripping, beautifully written personal history, award-winning writer Rinker Buck chronicles Shane's death and his life, exploring its meaning for his family, his fellow soldiers, and the country itself. It is the story of an intelligent, gifted soldier who embodied the soul of today's all-volunteer warrior class; of the town of Powell, Wyoming, which had taken Shane into its heart; and of the Marine detail sent to deliver the news to the Childers family and the extraordinary connection that formed between them.

At once an inspiring account of commitment to the military and a moving story of family and devotion, "Shane Comes Home" rises above politics to capture the life of a remarkable young man who came to symbolize the heart of America during a difficult time.

The Bush Chronicles addresses the entry and process that led to the tragic decision to begin the second war with Iraq in 2002.

"Fasten your seatbelts, Bubba, you're going to Saudi Arabia." Thus began a four-year, family adventure for the author and her family when her husband's military assignment took them to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This story gives the perspective of adjusting to a new culture, experiencing the changes of Desert Shield, and surviving the days and nights of Desert Storm. This story is presented through the journal lenses of the author, her sister and her mother.

For every great historical event, there is seemingly always one reporter whose eyewitness accounts are infused with such power and literary impact that they become joined with the subject in our minds. Widely considered the on-the-ground authority by both journalists and news sources, Jon Lee Anderson's dispatches out of Baghdad for the "New Yorker" were hailed as the best writing published anywhere on the war. "The Fall of Baghdad" is a masterpiece of literary reportage about the experience of ordinary Iraqis living through the endgame of the Saddam Hussein regime, its violent fall, and the troubled American occupation. In channeling a tragedy of epic dimensions through the stories of real people caught up in the whirlwind of history, Jon Lee Anderson has written a book of timeless significance.

The first major surprise of the post World War II years came into play when in late June 1950, the United States found itself responding in crisis fashion to the North Korean invasion of the new republic of South Korea, just four years and nine months after VJ-Day. The nation became involved in Korea as a result of the Cairo and Yalta conferences in which the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to the concept of a free and independent post-war Korea. Included in the agreement was a joint occupation of the country by the two powers, with the Soviets north of the 38th Parallel and the United States south. The concept of the occupation had a general objective of settling down Korea for a period so that it could learn to govern itself as a nation after many decades of Japanese rule. As the United States was painfully learning, however, it soon became apparent that what the Soviets said was one thing and what they intended was quite another with respect to a free, independent, and democratic Korea. When in 1948, they refused to participate in elections, supervised by the United Nations to form the first National Assembly, the hopes for a united Korea died. The Soviets formed a separate Communist state in their sector, the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. With the elections completed for the National Assembly in the south, the Republic of Korea (ROK) was established and the United States trusteeship in the country came to an end. The main text of this manuscript is derived from Major General John P. Condon's original draft of a history of Marine Corps aviation, an edited version of which appeared as US. Marine Corps Aviation, the fifth pamphlet of the series commemorating 75 years of Naval Aviation, published by the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare) and Commander, Naval Air Systems Command in 1987. This manuscript is one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the Korean War era, and is published for the education and training of Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance of the 50th anniversary of that war.

On Sunday, 25 June 1950, Communist North Korea unexpectedly invaded its southern neighbor, the American-backed Republic of Korea (ROK). The poorly equipped ROK Army was no match for the well prepared North Korean People's Army (NKPA) whose armored spearheads quickly thrust across the 38th Parallel. The stunned world helplessly looked on as the out-numbered and outgunned South Koreans were quickly routed. With the fall of the capital city of Seoul imminent, President Harry S. Truman ordered General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief, Far East, in Tokyo, to immediately pull all American nationals in South Korea out of harm's way. During the course of the resultant noncombatant evacuation operations an unmanned American transport plane was destroyed on the ground and a flight of U.S. Air Force aircraft were buzzed by a North Korean Air Force plane over the Yellow Sea without any shots being fired. On 27 July, an American combat air patrol protecting Kimpo Airfield near the South Korean capital actively engaged menacing North Korean planes and promptly downed three of the five Soviet-built Yak fighters. Soon thereafter American military forces operating under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC) were committed to thwart a Communist takeover of South Korea. Thus, only four years and nine months after V-J Day marked the end of World War II, the United States was once again involved in a shooting war in Asia.

The story of the 24th Infantry Regiment in Korea is a difficult one, both for the veterans of the unit and for the Army. In the early weeks of the Korean War, most American military units experienced problems as the U.S. Army attempted to transform understrength, ill-equipped, and inadequately trained forces into an effective combat team while at the same time holding back the fierce attacks of an aggressive and well-prepared opponent. In addition to the problems other regiments faced in Korea, the 24th Infantry also had to overcome the effects of racial prejudice. Ultimately the soldiers of the regiment, despite steadfast courage on the part of many, paid the price on the battlefield for the attitudes and misguided policies of the Army and their nation. Several previously published histories have discussed what happened to the 24th Infantry. This book tells why it happened. In doing so, it offers important lessons for today's Army. The Army and the nation must be aware of the corrosive effects of segregation and the racial prejudices that accompanied it. The consequences of that system crippled the trust and mutual confidence so necessary among the soldiers and leaders of combat units and weakened the bonds that held the 24th together, producing profound effects on the battlefield. I urge the reader to study and reflect on the insights provided in the chapters that follow. We must ensure that the injustices and misfortunes that befell the 24th never occur again.

In "Wild Grass" Pulitzer Prize-winning Ian Johnson describes a China caught between the desire for change percolating up from below and the ossified political structure above. He recounts the stories of three ordinary people who find themselves finding oppression and government corruption, risking imprisonment and even death. A young architecture student, a bereaved daughter, and a peasant legal clerk are the unlikely heroes of these stories, private citizens cast by unexpected circumstances into surprising roles.

Chronicles the role of the Combat Cargo Command during the Korean War under the command of Major General William H. Tunner. The lessons of the Korean War reinforced what Tunner had learned during World War II and the Berlin airlift.

Rashid Khalidi's powerful book examines the record of Western involvement in the Middle East and analyzes the likely outcome of our most recent incursions into the area. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the political and cultural history of the entire region, Khalidi paints a chilling scenario of our present situation and yet offers a tangible alternative that can help us find the path to peace rather than Empire. Additionally, Professor Khalidi contributes a new introduction to this paperback edition, covering recent developments in Iraq and the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election.