The Assassination Complex

Author: Jeremy Scahill
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
ISBN: 1782833226
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
In this shocking exposé of the US government's drone programme, bestselling author Jeremy Scahill and his colleagues at the investigative website The Intercept expose stunning new details about the secret assassination policy being carried out by America and her allies. When the US government discusses drone strikes publicly, it offers assurances that such operations are a more precise alternative to troops on the ground and are authorised only when an "imminent" threat is present and there is "near certainty" that the intended target will be killed. The implicit message on drone strikes from the Obama administration has been trust, but don't verify. The online magazine The Intercept exploded this secrecy when it obtained an extraordinary cache of secret documents, the most shocking of which are included in this book, that reveal how Washington's fourteen-year targeted killing campaign suffers from an overreliance on flawed intelligence, an apparently incalculable civilian toll, and an inability to extract potentially valuable intelligence from terror suspects. The Assassination Complex is a vital, urgent book which allows us to understand at last the circumstances under which the US government and her allies have granted themselves the right to sentence individuals to death without the established checks and balances of arrest, trial, and appeal.

The Assassination Complex

Author: Jeremy Scahill
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501144146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
A reveal of the government's secret drone warfare program.

Dirty Wars

Author: Jeremy Scahill
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568587279
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 682

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller Now also an Oscar-nominated documentary In Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater, takes us inside America's new covert wars. The foot soldiers in these battles operate globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture or kill individuals designated by the president as enemies. Drawn from the ranks of the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, former Blackwater and other private security contractors, the CIA's Special Activities Division and the Joint Special Operations Command ( JSOC), these elite soldiers operate worldwide, with thousands of secret commandos working in more than one hundred countries. Funded through "black budgets," Special Operations Forces conduct missions in denied areas, engage in targeted killings, snatch and grab individuals and direct drone, AC-130 and cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost militias, President Barack Obama has expanded their operations and given them new scope and legitimacy. Dirty Wars follows the consequences of the declaration that "the world is a battlefield," as Scahill uncovers the most important foreign policy story of our time. From Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond, Scahill reports from the frontlines in this high-stakes investigation and explores the depths of America's global killing machine. He goes beneath the surface of these covert wars, conducted in the shadows, outside the range of the press, without effective congressional oversight or public debate. And, based on unprecedented access, Scahill tells the chilling story of an American citizen marked for assassination by his own government. As US leaders draw the country deeper into conflicts across the globe, setting the world stage for enormous destabilization and blowback, Americans are not only at greater risk -- we are changing as a nation. Scahill unmasks the shadow warriors who prosecute these secret wars and puts a human face on the casualties of unaccountable violence that is now official policy: victims of night raids, secret prisons, cruise missile attacks and drone strikes, and whole classes of people branded as "suspected militants." Through his brave reporting, Scahill exposes the true nature of the dirty wars the United States government struggles to keep hidden.

The Drone Wars

Author: Seth J. Frantzman
Publisher: Bombardier Books
ISBN: 1642936766
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
In the battle for the streets of Mosul in Iraq, drones in the hands of ISIS terrorists made life hell for the Iraq army and civilians. Today, defense companies are racing to develop the lasers, microwave weapons, and technology necessary for confronting the next drone threat. Seth J. Frantzman takes the reader from the midnight exercises with Israel’s elite drone warriors, to the CIA headquarters where new drone technology was once adopted in the 1990s to hunt Osama bin Laden. This rapidly expanding technology could be used to target nuclear power plants and pose a threat to civilian airports. In the Middle East, the US used a drone to kill Iranian arch-terrorist Qasem Soleimani, a key Iranian commander. Drones are transforming the battlefield from Syria to Libya and Yemen. For militaries and security agencies—the main users of expensive drones—the UAV market is expanding as well; there were more than 20,000 military drones in use by 2020. Once the province of only a few militaries, drones now being built in Turkey, China, Russia, and smaller countries like Taiwan may be joining the military drone market. It’s big business, too—$100 billion will be spent over the next decade on drones. Militaries may soon be spending more on drones than tanks, much as navies transitioned away from giant vulnerable battleships to more agile ships. The future wars will be fought with drones and won by whoever has the most sophisticated technology.

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Author: Vincent Bugliosi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393045253
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1714

Book Description
Bugliosi, brilliant prosecutor and bestselling author, is perhaps the only man in America capable of "prosecuting" Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of John F. Kennedy. His book is a narrative compendium of fact, ballistic evidence, and, above all, common sense.

The Fifth Assassin

Author: Brad Meltzer
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 0446554006
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 423

Book Description
From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, there have been more than two dozen assassination attempts on the President of the United States. Four have been successful. But now, Beecher White--the hero of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Inner Circle--discovers a killer in Washington, D.C., who's meticulously re-creating the crimes of these four men. Historians have branded them as four lone wolves. But what if they were wrong? Beecher is about to discover the truth: that during the course of a hundred years, all four assassins were secretly working together. What was their purpose? For whom do they really work? And why are they planning to kill the current President? Beecher's about to find out. And most terrifyingly, he's about to come face-to-face with the fifth assassin.

Taking Aim at the President

Author: Geri Spieler
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 0230621848
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
Winner of the 2009 San Francisco Book Festival Award (Wild Card category) "I'm not sorry I tried...if successful, the assassination...just might have triggered the kind of chaos that could have started the upheaval of change." --Sara Jane Moore in 1976 Journalist Geri Spieler met would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore while she was in prison; Taking Aim at the President is based on over two decades of interviews as well as independant research. Spieler follows Moore's actions from her childhood in a small West Virginia town to her release from prison in December 2007. Moore's life was never conventional, and along the way she entered and dropped out of the military, was married five times, and was both a political radical and an FBI informant. Focusing on the complex psychology and motivations of a quintessentially desperate housewife and the only woman to ever fire a bullet at an American president, Spieler delivers a nuanced portrait of an elusive person and a fascinating glimpse back at a turbulent period in American history.

Digital Assassination

Author: Richard Torrenzano
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429989386
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Book Description
Two leading reputation experts reveal how the internet is being used to destroy brands, reputations and even lives, and how to fight back. From false Wikipedia entries, to fake YouTube videos, to Facebook lynch mobs, everyone from CEOs to fashion models, journalists to politicians, restaurateurs to doctors, is open to character assassination in the burgeoning realm of digital media. Two top media experts recount vivid tales of character attacks, provide specific advice on how to counter them, and how to turn the tables on the attackers. Having spent decades preparing for and coping with these issues, Richard Torrenzano and Mark Davis share their secrets on dealing with problems at the top of today's news. Torrenzano and Davis also take a step back to look at how the past might inform our future thinking about character assassination, from the slander wars between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, to predictions on what the end of privacy will mean for civilization.

Kill Chain

Author: Andrew Cockburn
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805099263
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Assassination by drone is a subject of deep and enduring fascination. Yet few understand how and why this has become our principal way of waging war. 'Kill Chain' uncovers the real and extraordinary story; its origins in long-buried secret programmes, the breakthroughs that made drone operations possible, the ways in which the technology works and, despite official claims, does not work. Taking the reader inside the well-guarded world of national security, the book reveals the powerful interests - military, CIA and corporate - that have led the drive to kill individuals by remote control.

Drones and the Ethics of Targeted Killing

Author: Kenneth R. Himes, OFM
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442231572
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
Drones have become an essential part of U.S. national security strategy, but most Americans know little about how they are used, and we receive conflicting reports about their outcomes. In Drones and the Ethics of Targeted Killing, ethicist Kenneth R. Himes provides not only an overview of the role of drones in national security but also an important exploration of the ethical implications of drone warfare—from the impact on terrorist organizations and civilians to how piloting drones shapes soldiers. Targeted killings have played a role in politics from ancient times through today, so the ethical challenges around how to protect against threats are not new. Himes leads readers through the ethics of targeted killings in history from ancient times to the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then looks specifically at the new issues raised through the use of drones. This book is a powerful look at a pressing topic today.