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Author: Stephen Huggins
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 070062855X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
From the first, America has considered itself a “shining city on a hill”—uniquely lighting the right way for the world. But it is hard to reconcile this picture, the very image of American exceptionalism, with what America’s Use of Terror shows us: that the United States has frequently resorted to acts of terror to solve its most challenging problems. Any “war on terror,” Stephen Huggins suggests, will fail unless we take a long, hard look at ourselves—and it is this discerning, informed perspective that his book provides. Terrorism, as Huggins defines it, is an act of violence against noncombatants intended to change their political will or support. The United States government adds a qualifier to this definition: only if the instigator is a “subnational group.” On the contrary, Huggins tells us, terrorism is indeed used by the state—a politically organized body of people occupying a definite territory—in this case, the government of the United States, as well as by such predecessors as the Continental Congress and early European colonists in America. In this light, America’s Use of Terror re-examines key historical moments and processes, many of them events praised in American history but actually acts of terror directed at noncombatants. The targeting of women and children in Native American villages, for instance, was a use of terror, as were the means used to sustain slavery and then to further subjugate freed slaves under Jim Crow laws and practices. The placing of Philippine peasants in concentration camps during the Philippine-American War; the firebombing of families in Dresden and Tokyo; the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—all are last resort measures to conclude wars, and these too are among the instances of American terrorism that Huggins explores. Terrorism, in short, is not only terrorism when they do it to us, as many Americans like to think. And only when we recognize this, and thus the dissonance between the ideal and the real America, will we be able to truly understand and confront modern terrorism.
Author: Stephen Huggins
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 070062855X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Get Book Here
Book Description
From the first, America has considered itself a “shining city on a hill”—uniquely lighting the right way for the world. But it is hard to reconcile this picture, the very image of American exceptionalism, with what America’s Use of Terror shows us: that the United States has frequently resorted to acts of terror to solve its most challenging problems. Any “war on terror,” Stephen Huggins suggests, will fail unless we take a long, hard look at ourselves—and it is this discerning, informed perspective that his book provides. Terrorism, as Huggins defines it, is an act of violence against noncombatants intended to change their political will or support. The United States government adds a qualifier to this definition: only if the instigator is a “subnational group.” On the contrary, Huggins tells us, terrorism is indeed used by the state—a politically organized body of people occupying a definite territory—in this case, the government of the United States, as well as by such predecessors as the Continental Congress and early European colonists in America. In this light, America’s Use of Terror re-examines key historical moments and processes, many of them events praised in American history but actually acts of terror directed at noncombatants. The targeting of women and children in Native American villages, for instance, was a use of terror, as were the means used to sustain slavery and then to further subjugate freed slaves under Jim Crow laws and practices. The placing of Philippine peasants in concentration camps during the Philippine-American War; the firebombing of families in Dresden and Tokyo; the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—all are last resort measures to conclude wars, and these too are among the instances of American terrorism that Huggins explores. Terrorism, in short, is not only terrorism when they do it to us, as many Americans like to think. And only when we recognize this, and thus the dissonance between the ideal and the real America, will we be able to truly understand and confront modern terrorism.
Author: Jeffory A. Clymer
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807861510
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 295
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Book Description
Although the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 shocked the world, America has confronted terrorism at home for well over a century. With the invention of dynamite in 1866, Americans began to worry about anonymous acts of mass violence in a way that differed from previous generations' fears of urban riots, slave uprisings, and mob violence. Focusing on the volatile period between the 1886 Haymarket bombing and the 1920 bombing outside J. P. Morgan's Wall Street office, Jeffory Clymer argues that economic and cultural displacements caused by the expansion of industrial capitalism directly influenced evolving ideas about terrorism. In America's Culture of Terrorism, Clymer uncovers the roots of American terrorism and its impact on American identity by exploring the literary works of Henry James, Ida B. Wells, Jack London, Thomas Dixon, and Covington Hall, as well as trial transcripts, media reports, and the cultural rhetoric surrounding terrorist acts of the day. He demonstrates that the rise of mass media and the pressures of the industrial wage-labor economy both fueled the development of terrorism and shaped society's response to it. His analysis not only sheds new light on American literature and culture a century ago but also offers insights into the contemporary understanding of terrorism.
Author: Tom Lansford
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780754677857
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
Developing ideas established in the successful first edition, this new version of America's War on Terror updates and expands the original collection of essays, allowing the reader to fully understand how the causes of the war on terror, both the domestic and foreign policy implications, and the future challenges faced by the United States have moved on since 2003.
Author: Stephen Tankel
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154734X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush drew a line in the sand, saying, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Since 9/11, many counterterrorism partners have been both “with” and “against” the United States, helping it in some areas and hindering it in others. This has been especially true in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, where the terrorist groups that threaten America are most concentrated. Because so many aspects of U.S. counterterrorism strategy are dependent on international cooperation, the United States has little choice but to work with other countries. Making the most of these partnerships is fundamental to the success of the War on Terror. Yet what the United States can reasonably expect from its counterterrorism partners—and how to get more out of them—remain too little understood. In With Us and Against Us, Stephen Tankel analyzes the factors that shape counterterrorism cooperation, examining the ways partner nations aid international efforts, as well as the ways they encumber and impede effective action. He considers the changing nature of counterterrorism, exploring how counterterrorism efforts after 9/11 critically differ both from those that existed beforehand and from traditional alliances. Focusing on U.S. partnerships with Algeria, Egypt, Mali, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen against al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations, Tankel offers nuanced propositions about what the U.S. can expect from its counterterrorism partners depending on their political and security interests, threat perceptions, and their relationships with the United States and with the terrorists in question. With Us and Against Us offers a theoretically rich and policy-relevant toolkit for assessing and improving counterterrorism cooperation, devising strategies for mitigating risks, and getting the most out of difficult partnerships.
Author: Cecilia Menjívar
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292778503
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389
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Book Description
Since the early twentieth century, technological transfers from the United States to Latin American countries have involved technologies of violence for social control. As the chapters in this book illustrate, these technological transfers have taken various forms, including the training of Latin American military personnel in surveillance and torture and the provision of political and logistic support for campaigns of state terror. The human cost for Latin America has been enormous—thousands of Latin Americans have been murdered, disappeared, or tortured, and whole communities have been terrorized into silence. Organized by region, the essays in this book address the topic of state-sponsored terrorism in a variety of ways. Most take the perspective that state-directed political violence is a modern development of a regional political structure in which U.S. political interests weigh heavily. Others acknowledge that Latin American states enthusiastically received U.S. support for their campaigns of terror. A few see local culture and history as key factors in the implementation of state campaigns of political violence. Together, all the essays exemplify how technologies of terror have been transferred among various Latin American countries, with particular attention to the role that the United States, as a "strong" state, has played in such transfers.
Author: Spencer Ackerman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984879790
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2021 "An impressive combination of diligence and verve, deploying Ackerman’s deep stores of knowledge as a national security journalist to full effect. The result is a narrative of the last 20 years that is upsetting, discerning and brilliantly argued." —The New York Times "One of the most illuminating books to come out of the Trump era." —New York Magazine An examination of the profound impact that the War on Terror had in pushing American politics and society in an authoritarian direction For an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has waged an endless conflict known as the War on Terror. In addition to multiple ground wars, the era pioneered drone strikes and industrial-scale digital surveillance; weakened the rule of law through indefinite detentions; sanctioned torture; and manipulated the truth about it all. These conflicts have yielded neither peace nor victory, but they have transformed America. What began as the persecution of Muslims and immigrants has become a normalized feature of American politics and national security, expanding the possibilities for applying similar or worse measures against other targets at home, as the summer of 2020 showed. A politically divided and economically destabilized country turned the War on Terror into a cultural—and then a tribal—struggle. It began on the ideological frontiers of the Republican Party before expanding to conquer the GOP, often with the acquiescence of the Democratic Party. Today’s nativist resurgence walked through a door opened by the 9/11 era. And that door remains open. Reign of Terror shows how these developments created an opportunity for American authoritarianism and gave rise to Donald Trump. It shows that Barack Obama squandered an opportunity to dismantle the War on Terror after killing Osama bin Laden. By the end of his tenure, the war had metastasized into a bitter, broader cultural struggle in search of a demagogue like Trump to lead it. Reign of Terror is a pathbreaking and definitive union of journalism and intellectual history with the power to transform how America understands its national security policies and their catastrophic impact on civic life.
Author: Douglas Valentine
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497620201
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
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Book Description
“This shocking expose of the CIA operation aimed at destroying the Vietcong infrastructure thoroughly conveys the hideousness of the Vietnam War” (Publishers Weekly). In the darkest days of the Vietnam War, America’s Central Intelligence Agency secretly initiated a sweeping program of kidnap, torture, and assassination devised to destabilize the infrastructure of the National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam, commonly known as the “Viet Cong.” The victims of the Phoenix Program were Vietnamese civilians, male and female, suspected of harboring information about the enemy—though many on the blacklist were targeted by corrupt South Vietnamese security personnel looking to extort money or remove a rival. Between 1965 and 1972, more than eighty thousand noncombatants were “neutralized,” as men and women alike were subjected to extended imprisonment without trial, horrific torture, brutal rape, and in many cases execution, all under the watchful eyes of US government agencies. Based on extensive research and in-depth interviews with former participants and observers, Douglas Valentine’s startling exposé blows the lid off of what was possibly the bloodiest and most inhumane covert operation in the CIA’s history. The ebook edition includes “The Phoenix Has Landed,” a new introduction that addresses the “Phoenix-style network” that constitutes America’s internal security apparatus today. Residents on American soil are routinely targeted under the guise of protecting us from terrorism—which is why, more than ever, people need to understand what Phoenix is all about.
Author: Alex Lubin
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520297415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152
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Book Description
An entire generation of young adults has never known an America without the War on Terror. This book contends with the pervasive effects of post-9/11 policy and myth-making in every corner of American life. Never-Ending War on Terror is organized around five keywords that have come to define the cultural and political moment: homeland, security, privacy, torture, and drone. Alex Lubin synthesizes nearly two decades of United States war-making against terrorism by asking how the War on Terror has changed American politics and society, and how the War on Terror draws on historical myths about American national and imperial identity. From the PATRIOT Act to the hit show Homeland, from Edward Snowden to Guantanamo Bay, and from 9/11 memorials to Trumpism, this succinct book connects America's political economy and international relations to our contemporary culture at every turn.
Author: John W. Dower
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608467260
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 141
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Book Description
“Tells how America, since the end of World War II, has turned away from its ideals and goodness to become a match setting the world on fire” (Seymour Hersh, investigative journalist and national security correspondent). World War II marked the apogee of industrialized “total war.” Great powers savaged one another. Hostilities engulfed the globe. Mobilization extended to virtually every sector of every nation. Air war, including the terror bombing of civilians, emerged as a central strategy of the victorious Anglo-American powers. The devastation was catastrophic almost everywhere, with the notable exception of the United States, which exited the strife unmatched in power and influence. The death toll of fighting forces plus civilians worldwide was staggering. The Violent American Century addresses the US-led transformations in war conduct and strategizing that followed 1945—beginning with brutal localized hostilities, proxy wars, and the nuclear terror of the Cold War, and ending with the asymmetrical conflicts of the present day. The military playbook now meshes brute force with a focus on non-state terrorism, counterinsurgency, clandestine operations, a vast web of overseas American military bases, and—most touted of all—a revolutionary new era of computerized “precision” warfare. In contrast to World War II, postwar death and destruction has been comparatively small. By any other measure, it has been appalling—and shows no sign of abating. The author, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, draws heavily on hard data and internal US planning and pronouncements in this concise analysis of war and terror in our time. In doing so, he places US policy and practice firmly within the broader context of global mayhem, havoc, and slaughter since World War II—always with bottom-line attentiveness to the human costs of this legacy of unceasing violence. “Dower delivers a convincing blow to publisher Henry Luce’s benign ‘American Century’ thesis.” —Publishers Weekly
Author: Richard A. Clarke
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 184737588X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Richard Clarke has been one of America's foremost experts on counterterrorism measures for more than two decades. He has served under four presidents from both parties, beginning in Ronald Reagan's State Department becoming America's first Counter-terrorism Czar under Bill Clinton and remaining for the first two years of George W. Bush's administration. He has seen every piece of intelligence on Al-Qaeda from the beginning; he was in the Situation Room on September 11th and he knows exactly what has taken place under the United State's new Department of Homeland Security. Through gripping, thriller-like scenes, he tells the full story for the first time and explains what the Bush Administration are doing.
