International Books - Page 15

Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond

Don Cheadle, John Prendergast

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An Academy Award-nominated actor and a renowned human rights activist team up to change the tragic course of history in the Sudan -- with readers' help

While Don Cheadle was filming Hotel Rwanda, a new crisis had already erupted in Darfur, in nearby Sudan. In September 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell termed the atrocities being committed there "genocide" -- and yet two years later things have only gotten worse. 3.5 million Sudanese are going hungry, 2.5 million have been displaced by violence, and 400,000 have died in Darfur to date.

Both shocked and energized by this ongoing tragedy, Cheadle teamed up with leading activist John Prendergast to focus the world's attention. Not on Our Watch, their empowering book, offers six strategies readers themselves can implement: Raise Awareness, Raise Funds, Write a Letter, Call for Divestment, Start an Organization, and Lobby the Government. Each of these small actions can make a huge difference in the fate of a nation, and a people -- not only in Darfur, but in other crisis zones such as Somalia, Congo, and northern Uganda.

The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century

George Friedman, Meredith Friedman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Future of War makes a brilliant case that the twenty-first century, even more than the twentieth, will be the American century, and that America's global dominance will be associated with a revolution in weaponry and warfare as basic as the one that arose with the development of gunpowder five hundred years ago. From the era of flintlocks and cannons to the day of automatic weapons and heavy artillery, the waging of war-while undeniably changing in many aspects-has continued to rely on the technology that began with the use of black powder to expel a projectile through a tube.

In The Future of War, the authors argue that this Age of Ballistics is ending and we are entering a fundamentally new period, the Age of Precision-Guided Munitions (PGMs), the so-called smart weapons that will antiquate the traditional way of making war. Where guns and artillery are inherently inaccurate and need to be fired thousands of times to hit one target, these new projectiles are precise and lethally efficient; while ballistic weapons platforms must be brought within range of the battlefield, PGMs can devastate from any distance.

The authors show how the innovations in weapons technology will affect America's defense strategies on land and sea, in air and in space, reshaping our military forces, while confronting us with new strategic challenges as America enters the twenty-first century as the dominant power on the globe.

Madam Secretary: A Memoir

Madeleine Albright

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

If you want to learn more about her as a person fine but lacking insights into important issues of her time 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This tape provides a very good personal history of her as a person but, unfortunately, very little with respect to analysis of policies and issues when she was foreign secretary. There is very little discussion as to how and why major foreign policy decisions were made, interaction of the main players in these decisions, what goals (short and long term) were and other aspects involving foreign policy decisions and strategies. All these should have been discussed. Is this not why someone buys a book like this to begin with? It's as if the book defeats its purpose.

Madam Secretary! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

An admireable lady with lots of guts! She has accomplished some feats that would be nearly impossible for most of us. Learn the real facts about Madam Secretary!

Editorial Review:

In this outspoken and much-praised memoir, the highest-ranking woman in American history shares her remarkable story and provides an insider's view of world affairs during a period of unprecedented turbulence. A national bestseller on its first publication in 2003, Madam Secretary combines warm humor with profound insights and personal testament with fascinating additions to the historical record.

Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States

Trita Parsi

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this era of superheated rhetoric and vitriolic exchanges between the leaders of Iran and Israel, the threat of nuclear violence looms. But the real roots of the enmity between the two nations mystify Washington policymakers, and no promising pathways to peace have emerged. This book traces the shifting relations among Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present, uncovering for the first time the details of secret alliances, treacherous acts, and unsavory political maneuverings that have undermined Middle Eastern stability and disrupted U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the region.

 

Trita Parsi, a U.S. foreign policy expert with more than a decade of experience, is the only writer who has had access to senior American, Iranian, and Israeli decision makers. He dissects the complicated triangular relations of their countries, arguing that America’s hope for stability in Iraq and for peace in Israel is futile without a correct understanding of the Israeli-Iranian rivalry.

 

Parsi’s behind-the-scenes revelations about Middle East events will surprise even the most knowledgeable readers: Iran’s prime minister asks Israel to assassinate Khomeini, Israel reaches out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, the United States foils Iran’s plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah, and more. This book not only revises our understanding of the Middle East’s recent past, it also spells out a course for the future. In today’s belligerent world, few topics, if any, could be more important.

 

 

The Translator: A Memoir

Daoud Hari

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

I am the translator who has taken journalists into dangerous Darfur. It is my intention now to take you there in this book, if you have the courage to come with me.

The young life of Daoud Hari–his friends call him David–has been one of bravery and mesmerizing adventure. He is a living witness to the brutal genocide under way in Darfur.

The Translator is a suspenseful, harrowing, and deeply moving memoir of how one person has made a difference in the world–an on-the-ground account of one of the biggest stories of our time. Using his high school knowledge of languages as his weapon–while others around him were taking up arms–Daoud Hari has helped inform the world about Darfur.

Hari, a Zaghawa tribesman, grew up in a village in the Darfur region of Sudan. As a child he saw colorful weddings, raced his camels across the desert, and played games in the moonlight after his work was done. In 2003, this traditional life was shattered when helicopter gunships appeared over Darfur’s villages, followed by Sudanese-government-backed militia groups attacking on horseback, raping and murdering citizens and burning villages. Ancient hatreds and greed for natural resources had collided, and the conflagration spread.

Though Hari’s village was attacked and destroyedhis family decimated and dispersed, he himself escaped. Roaming the battlefield deserts on camels, he and a group of his friends helped survivors find food, water, and the way to safety. When international aid groups and reporters arrived, Hari offered his services as a translator and guide. In doing so, he risked his life again and again, for the government of Sudan had outlawed journalists in the region, and death was the punishment for those who aided the “foreign spies.” And then, inevitably, his luck ran out and he was captured. . . .

The Translator tells the remarkable story of a man who came face-to-face with genocide– time and again risking his own life to fight injustice and save his people.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (Vintage)

Rupert Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

One Major Recommendation 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 13 people found this review helpful.

Edit of 20 May 2007 to drop one link (reduntant to Master Gray) and add instead General Zinni's book on waging peace, our counterpart to the author of this book in terms of intellect, morality, and strategic gravitas.

I defer to the other reviewers on the bulk of the book. It can and should be required reading for some time to come.

Here is the one recommendation in the conclusion that really matters, and I paraphrase:

FROM THE BEGINNING, the national interests and desired outcomes must be considered by a fully integrated team of military and civilian experts with deep strategic, historical, cultural, geographic, and related knowledge, and the use of force must be planned in the context of the desired OUTCOME. The same and related teams must plan for the peace and see the entire program through to the desired END.

This is of course sensible, and not what the Americans did. General Shinseki's correct appreciation was over-turned by Paul Wolfowitz, a world-class liar living in a fantasy world. General Zinni was called a traitor. General Gavin was dismissed early because Haliburton was not done looting, and preppie Paul Bremer sent in to lose another $20 billion.

Here are other books I recommend, beginning with those from British authors that I consider as remarkable as this one:
Modern Strategy
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose
Intelligence Power in Peace and War
Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre 1939-1945
The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century

I imagine General Patraeus will have his own book one day. It's a pity all the flag officers (both US and UK) drank the kool-aid and let Cheney and his merry band of liars and dim-wits destroy the US Army first--for the price of a good tea, any one of us could have told them the lesson the British Army and other Armies have learned since time immemorial: it takes a big war force two years (for slow learners, five years) to re-learn counter-insurgency--by the time they do so, they have been hollowed out and neither the force nor its equipment is suitable for big war absent a complete re-build--but then, that would be the logical "end state" for Dick Cheney and the military-industrial complex: the White House has gotten the outcome it wanted, never mind blood, treasure, and spirit nor international legitimacy, the insolvency of the nation, and the deepening recession. For those that "matter," the profits have been properly banked in Dubai and elsewhere. So the final lesson from General Smith's book is this one: the planning must be open, public, and endorsed by national referendum. The utility of force, in my view, can no longer be entrusted to elites--the case must be made to the public, and only the public may validate the utlity of force. Mind the gap....

Editorial Review:

From a highly decorated general, a brilliant new way of understanding war and its role in the twenty-first century.

Drawing on his vast experience as a commander during the first Gulf War, and in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Northern Ireland, General Rupert Smith gives us a probing analysis of modern war. He demonstrates why today’s conflicts must be understood as intertwined political and military events, and makes clear why the current model of total war has failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other recent campaigns. Smith offers a compelling contemporary vision for how to secure our world and the consequences of ignoring the new, shifting face of war.

The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End

Peter W Galbraith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 59 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

"War remains the decisive human failure." 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

The last words in the acknowledgement, written by Peter Galbraith's father, John Kenneth Galbraith, serves as an admirable summation of the central message of this book, and that traditional human failure has been exacerbated in this case by the egregious ignorance and arrogance of the current American administration. Galbraith's book proves to be an excellent confirmation of numerous points made by Thomas Ricks' in his outstanding book on Iraq, entitled "Fiasco."

Ricks made the point that one of the chief concerns of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was to remove those individuals with actual knowledge of the Iraqi situation from the American governing process, and replace them with ideologically pure neocons. Galbraith fleshes out this contention with numerous sad examples: per Ambassador Tim Carney, the State Department's professional Arabist "weren't welcome because they didn't think Iraq could be democratic." (p 95); during a Pentagon planning meeting on Kirkuk, no one knew the ethic composition of the local police (p94); Margaret Tutwiler, a former State Department chief spokesperson had never heard of the Anfal (Hussain's ethnic cleansing of the Kurds), and told her Kurdish hosts this (p115); the hiring of six young people, with no experience to manage a $13 billion budget in Iraq solely because they had placed their resumes on the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation's, website (p127-128); and how President Bush, in 2003, did not know there were two major sects in Islam, Sunnis and Shiites (p83). Even sadder, the above is just a sample of Galbraith's examples.

Unlike the neocon neophytes, Galbraith has been actively involved in the region for over 25 years, and personally knows many of the key political players in Iraq. Clearly his sympathies are with the Kurds, with whom he has been most deeply involved, and he is an effective advocate for their independence.

"Defer to the peoples of Iraq" (p206) is Galbraith's unsurprising, save to the Washington administration, solution to the Iraq situation. He makes the point on several occasions that trying to force the three disparate former provinces of the Ottoman Empire to function as one country, "Iraq", has been the destabilizing force in the region for 80 years. The people in the area have already established at least two highly autonomous regions, Kurdistan and "Shiastan" in the south, and dissolution of unworkable countries can be a peaceful and optimal solution, citing both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union as examples. Although it is not a point that Galbraith made, for almost 23 years the United States would not recognize the reality of one billion people in "Red China." The solution to better relations was to recognize this basic fact "on the ground." Similarly, the solution for the United States policy in Iraq is to recognize the reality and the wishes of the people in the area, and forget the ideology, that even included a "flat tax" enacted into law by Viceroy Bremmer.

The book is somewhat marred by redundancy, which could be defended as necessary in order to make the case with the current political leadership. It remains an essential read.

Editorial Review:

The End of Iraq, definitive, tough-minded, clear-eyed, describes America's failed strategy toward that country and what must be done now.

Londonistan

Melanie Phillips

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Total reviews: 119 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Eye opener for most Americans. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The cult of death called Islam is spreading like the plague across the globe and only because it is allowed by the myopic, historically ignorant, illogical, naive and morally rudderless Western civilization. This book attempts to wake up the dozing Westerners who are more obsessed with saving the whales, trees, caribou and spotted owls while ignoring the danger growing right under their very noses. Westerners who are more concerned about multiculturalism and political correctness, and not offending anyone than with real nighmare sneaking in diguised as exotic "religion of peace".

Editorial Review:

When London was hit by suicide bombers in July 2005, the dirty little secret was finally out. Great Britain had been the European hub of Islamist extremism for more than a decade. Under the noses of British intelligence, a network of terrorists and their sympathizers had used Britain to plot, finance, recruit and train for atrocities in the United States and around the world. The scale of this activity was so large that exasperated European security agencies dubbed Britain's capital city Londonistan.

Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas

John S. Burnett

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Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The romance of the high seas is gone 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The thrill of the high sea has new meaning today. The romance is gone and the adventure is more ominous. In Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas the author, John S. Burnett, has thrown a damper on what was once every boy's dream and every man's secret longing. In startling detail and tight-knit writing, Burnett has presented a new danger that is real, threatening, and not easily set aside by some sentimental vision of wind and water.

John S. Burnett and his family actually survived being attacked by pirates in the South China Sea south of Singapore. Knives and guns were brandished, money was demanded and, because he didn't have much money aboard, Burnett had his head gun-butted before the motley crew sailed away with a meager haul of a set of binoculars and some cigarettes. The incident prompted Burnett's interest and closer investigation of piracy.

Through research, interviews, and personal travel in some of the most set-upon waters in the world, the author has presented a riveting study of the fear of pirates felt by the crews of the ships who pass through every day - and night. One might wonder how a tanker that is larger than three football fields could be compromised by a ragtag crew of four or five hijackers but it happens regularly. Sometimes the crew members escape any real harm, sometimes they don't.

I always assumed that my friends Smith & Wesson could ward off trouble but ship owners are advised not to allow firearms on board. Cooperation and compliance with the terrorists' demands are believed to be a better way to escape harm. That may be true but entire crews still disappear and ships are turned into ghosts, never to be seen again. I understand the principle behind the no firearms policy, but it would take a steely will to face machetes, knives, attack rifles, and even rocket-propelled grenades, be shoved around and threatened, and then trust in the goodwill of the attackers to leave docilely after their mission is accomplished.

Some of the protection techniques outlined by John S. Burnett seem to be effective. The larger shipping companies have resorted to patrols, mercenary protection placed on board, negotiation, and even payoffs to the main forces behind the attacks. Ships no longer carry much money but now the cargoes themselves have become the targets. However, in spite of best efforts, piracy seems to be escalating. As Burnett points out, it's probable that some accident caused by piracy will cause a major environmental and economic disaster. We know that terrorists could intentionally cause enough damage to a Very Large Crude Container (VLCC) ship to spill nearly two million barrels of petroleum product into these vital waterways. But pirates could cause the same damage by taking over a ship and crew while allowing the tanker to continue out of control down a narrow, heavily trafficked corridor only to collide with another heavily loader tanker or to break up on the shoreline rocks.

Burnett leaves you with a lot to think about. There aren't any satisfactory answers as to how to handle the ever increasing threat. I strongly recommend this book as an early warning about a problem that must be solved.

Editorial Review:

While sailing alone one night in the shipping lanes across one of the busiest waterways in the world, John Burnett was attacked by pirates. Through sheer ingenuity and a little bit of luck, he survived, and his shocking firsthand experience became the inspiration for Dangerous Waters.

Today's breed of pirates are not the colorful cutthroats painted by the history books. Unlike the romantic images from yesteryear of Captain Hook, Long John Silver, and Blackbeard, modern pirates can be local seamen looking for a quick score, highly trained guerrillas, rogue military units, or former seafarers recruited by sophisticated crime organizations.

Including new, up-to-date information for the paperback edition, Dangerous Waters is both a dauntless investigation and an epic, breathtaking modern tale of the sea.

Witness

Whittaker Chambers

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Haunting 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Witness is among the most haunting books that I have ever read. The reader who picks it up expecting only a combination spy story and courtroom drama is likely to be as profoundly surprised as was I.

I had somewhat absent-mindedly placed Witness on my birthday gift list, in deference to the frequency with which it is cited as one of the indispensable political books of the 20th century. Upon receipt, I assigned it to the "to-read" stack, failing to note that it was a daunting 800 pages long. Shortly after I began it and realized its length, I feared it would prove too dense for me to enjoy. How wrong I was: when I at last closed the book a couple of weeks later, I knew that it would haunt me, possibly for all the years I have left.

Many conservatives regard this book as a seminal founding charter, a characterization that not only underrates its literary quality, but which also erects a needless barrier before others who would appreciate it. This book is must-reading, regardless of political persuasion. I myself differ from Chambers in several fundamental ways: I am as predisposed to optimism as he was to pessimism; I relished elementary school as greatly as he was tormented by it; and I do not share his religious faith. But these and other differences do not inhibit a reader from appreciating this magnificent book.

This book not only tells a riveting story, it does so with a poetic, melancholy beauty reminiscent of a great Russian novelist. Something about his writing reminded me of Nabokov (an inexact comparison, given that the style exhibits none of Nabokov's exuberant, puckish wordplay). But Chambers's fluid, graceful sentences, and his gift for reconstruction of sensory and emotional states, are comparable to those of the brilliant Russian emigre. Suffice it so say that this book does not read like a bestselling memoir, but rather as a great work of literature.

The story of Witness is of a man originally alienated from his society, and of his struggle to find good and meaning in his world. Chambers's account of his early life is deeply saddening. One suspects that the entire family was genetically predisposed to depression, considering his brother's suicide, the narrator's own similar attempts, and his parents' many self-destructive actions.

Attending school only accentuated young Vivian's (later Whittaker's) sense of isolation. One story he relates is hard to forget: on one of his first school days, he witnessed three boys urinating on a lollipop, and then tricking a later-arriving fourth boy into putting it into his mouth. (The incident itself is gloomy enough; equally so is the fact that Chambers later remembered it as emblematic of his school experience.) Young Chambers is traumatized by the pervasive cruelty around him. He struggles through the ordeal of school - the mockery of his name Vivian, the taunts of being a "sissy," and being compelled to fight.

One is hardly surprised that such an alienated, secretly intelligent, unappreciated youth, convinced of the intractable injustice of the world, would be seduced by communism. In the central section of the book, Chambers details his gradual descent into that world, first as an open party communist, later as a practitioner in espionage. It is in this section that he meets Alger Hiss, and collaborates with him in betraying his country.

This middle section of the book is probably the most arduous reading. At points, many of the figures and spy escapades seem to all run together. But stick with it, because the final 300 pages or so, detailing the Hiss case, are among the most gripping you will ever read.

Chambers at some point realizes that the actions and amorality of communist agitation offend his still-living conscience. He finally responds to that conscience, and begins a further personal journey to where he locates the spiritual comfort he previously lacked: in truth, in family, in working the land, and in religious faith.

Ultimately, Chambers's break with the party compels him to inform on Alger Hiss and others during a Congressional investigation of communist infiltration of the executive branch. Chambers chooses his title of "Witness" advisedly, meaning "witness" in quite the literal, religious sense - a moral compulsion to testify to what he knows, in spite of the danger to himself, in order to help save the world around him. Indeed, Chambers is convinced that he is defecting from the winning to the losing side when he makes his break, but feels he cannot rightly do otherwise.

Popular memory of this period in American history has been, unfortunately, blurred by the excesses of Joe McCarthy. McCarthy's crude and reckless actions have made him a convenient whipping boy for subsequent Hollywood treatments of the Cold War. It is too little remembered that prior to the McCarthy debacle, it was revealed that in fact, there were many communists who had ensconced themselves in the highest levels of the American government, where they practiced a treasonous espionage. The Chambers-Hiss case, much more than the buffoonery of McCarthy, is the truly dramatic and relevant parable of the age.

Much of the final chapters of Witness is told through transcripts of the Congressional hearings. Reading them, one can only wish for a skilled Hollywood treatment of these scenes. The events included every dramatic turn one could hope for - the steady unraveling of a senior State Department official as his lies are exposed on the witness stand, the relentless and skilled probing of Congressional investigators, dramatic personal confrontations, the discovery of critical evidence midway through the proceedings, and even the secreting of classified material in a hollowed-out pumpkin.

What is sobering to realize is that the case would be likely to play out in much the same way today: the press reflexively sided with the urbane, politically-approved Hiss, while the slovenly, seemingly-shady Chambers was subjected to every calumny imaginable. But it turned out that it was the schlub who was actually the man of intelligence and integrity. Appearances are often deceiving.

One thing that leaps out from these pages after the fact is just how pathetically incompetent a liar was Alger Hiss. You follow him weaving and revising and hedging, and not very convincingly. But so blinding were the ascendant political assumptions of the time that he was the one who was initially believed.

One needn't share Chambers's views on politics, religion, or even of the mind of the typical communist subversive, to find his memoir to be a story of surpassing poetry and haunting resonance. Few people have had such an important story to tell in their memoirs, and almost none have told them so lyrically. Few are the books that are virtually impossible to forget. This is one.

Editorial Review:

An autobiographical memoir, written just after Chambers confessed to his earlier affiliation with the Communist Party and testified against his former friend and comrade, Alger Hiss, in perhaps the most celebrated espionage trial of the century. 11 cassettes.