Yes, there are dozens of books on the Afghan wars. Most of them are all about firefights and heroics. But this is the first to take the events of the war Bush and Blair started and put them in the context of the Soviet war and even the British imperial wars that preceded them, and draw the lessons out, and make a sharp summary of what should happen next. Ghosts of Afghanistan stands out for the combination of its calm clarity and comprehensibility, the firmness of its arguments, Steele's stature as an analyst of the region of 30 years standing, his position as the one UK journalist who had first access to the WikiLeaks cache on Afghanistan, and his interpretation of what he found there.

Michael Pawlowskie is an ex-FBI agent who spent the last fifteen years of his career working for a giant corporation. That corporation, like many others, ended up in bankruptcy. It left behind rich unemployed executives, and destitute former employees. With the bankruptcy, Michael, like many others, lost nearly everything he had. In the weeks and months that followed he suffered greatly from shame and depression. And then one day he decides to fight back. Along the way he encounters help, from beautiful twin sisters. He didn't know it at the time but he would have been much better off without their help. Before he knows it, this ultra straight ex-law enforcement officer, becomes a rich and powerful man; who gets caught up in a web of deceit, extortion, and murder. Makika Walsh and Makiala Johnson are very rich and beautiful twins, with a very sad past. They have different last names, for a very deadly reason. Not long into their relationship with Michael, they had him having to choose between turning them in for murder or give back 750 million to the deceased man's family. To continue to work with them meant he could give the 750 million to his newly formed organization VOCA (Victims of Corporate Abuse), and ultimately the victims he represented. The justice department assigns Eric Hislop to solve their case. In his relentless effort to solve the case he follows the path of a former Police Detective, who had suddenly died. Pretty soon Michael finds himself having to choose which side of the law he is really on. On the one side, he feels he must do the just and right thing. On the other, he needs to continue helping all who have been wronged by crooked Corporate Executives. And of course, he would have to give up his newfound friends, money, and power. It would be a very difficult choice for any man. For Michael the choice was worse, he had spent his life 'being' the law. Over time he would no longer recognizes the man he once was.

Tremendous changes have occurred over the past decade in the provision of services to students with disabilities. Federal mandates continue to define requirements for a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment. Additionally, there has been an increase in the number of lawsuits filed against school districts regarding the provision of educational services for students with disabilities. Case studies are a helpful way to understand these difficult issues. The case studies presented here are actual students eligible for special education and related services. The case studies are represented not to tell districts and parents that this is the only way questions about special education law can be answered, but to provide likely answers along with commentary for analysis. The cases were developed to help new (and experienced) special education leaders and supervisors survive the pressures of working with students with disabilities while working to provide appropriate services and prevent litigation.

Tremendous changes have occurred over the past decade in the provision of services to students with disabilities. Federal mandates continue to define requirements for a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment. Additionally, there has been an increase in the number of lawsuits filed against school districts regarding the provision of educational services for students with disabilities. Case studies are a helpful way to understand these difficult issues. The case studies presented here are actual students eligible for special education and related services. The case studies are represented not to tell districts and parents that this is the only way questions about special education law can be answered, but to provide likely answers along with commentary for analysis. The cases were developed to help new (and experienced) special education leaders and supervisors survive the pressures of working with students with disabilities while working to provide appropriate services and prevent litigation.

Here is an eyewitness account of the six years of turbulent change from the Soviet Union to Russia. Jonathan Steele's three decades as a journalist covering that eternal nation have given him a keen and deeply informed perspective on the democratic revolution and the issues still threatening the new nation. What does the future hold for Russian democracy under Yeltsin? Can market reform work? Under all the news and confusion, how much has the country really changed? "Eternal Russia" draws on Steele's interviews with key figures, including Gorbachev and the former Communist Party Politburo, as well as senior members of the Yeltsin inner circle.

This excellent book is a painfully honest account of successive unwinnable wars. It is the text book Mr. Obama and others will need if Afghanistan is ever to be left to find its own peace and prosperity. --Jon Snow, Channel 4 News (UK) Jonathan Steele, an award-winning journalist and commentator, has covered the country since his first visit there as a reporter in 1981. He tracked the Soviet occupation and the communist regime of Najibullah, which held the Western-backed resistance at bay for three years after the Soviets left. He covered the arrival of the Taliban to power in Kabul in 1996, and their retreat from Kandahar under the weight of U.S. bombing in 2001. Most recently Steele has reported from the epicenter of the Taliban resurgence in Helmand. Ghosts of Afghanistan turns a spotlight on the numerous myths about Afghanistan that have bedeviled foreign policy-makers and driven them to repeat earlier mistakes. Steele has conducted numerous interviews with ordinary Afghans, two of the country's Communist presidents, senior Soviet occupation officials, as well as Taliban leaders, Western diplomats, NATO advisers, and United Nations negotiators. Comparing the challenges facing the Obama administration as it seeks to find an exit strategy with those the Kremlin faced in the 1980s, Steele cautions that military victory will elude the West just as it eluded the Kremlin. Showing how and why Soviet efforts to negotiate an end to the war came to nothing, he explains how negotiations today could put a stop to the tragedies of civil war and foreign intervention that have afflicted Afghanistan for three decades.