Thomas Ricks is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter that used to work for the Wall Street Journal. He now blogs for Foreign Policy and is a fellow scholar at the Center for a New American Security, a defense policy and military think tank. Recently, on NPR's Forum with Michael Krasny, he picked his top 5 books about the war in Iraq, and listed the author Rajiv Chandrasekaran and his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City as his favorite. Now, the business and marketing around these interesting books or book is odd. The Kindle version of the book is marketed as the Green Zone, while the original hardcover of course retains its original title (just in case that throws you off at the bookstore; check for both titles). Author Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes and edits for the Washington Post, and recently wrote "The Longest War: Afghan Strategy's Proving Ground." Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone [DECKLE EDGE] (Hardcover) won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2007 and was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Awards for non-fiction. Other interesting books about the war in Iraq: Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, House to House: An Epic Memoir of War.
In 2009, the author wrote "The dark side of Dubai's success" for The Guardian, in which he said this: You underestimate Dubai at your own risk. Its concoctions look ridiculous to rational-minded people. It is difficult to believe the city can succeed. But it does. Over and over, for decades, Dubai has humiliated its naysayers. This time, though, Dubai's mistake could inflict lasting damage. The projects behind the city's debts may have been flights of fancy – artificial islands larger than Hong Kong, water-sucking golf courses, and an amusement zone bigger than Orlando – but the debts behind them are not. The damage could take years to live down. Dubai, with all of its excess, is the biggest thing to happen in the Arab world for 700 years. Its rise is part of an eastward shift in the Middle East's centre of gravity, from the old Mediterranean capitals to the brash new ones on the Gulf. Dubai's success is important for the region, and for the rest of us who would like to see more stability in this roiled part of the world, where the conflicts often spill into our streets.Read that piece for The Guardian here.
Michael Scheuer, a former CIA head of the that monitored Bin Laden, recent opined on the distribution of Al Qaeda media: However, Scheuer said it is unlikely there is much hand-carrying of tapes anymore. For the first few years following the 9/11 attacks, tapes from al-Zawahiri and bin Laden were physically delivered to Al-Jazeera TV or other Mideast broadcast outlets, but more recently the tapes have been seen mostly on the Al-Shabab website. Scheuer said the electronic transmission of messages makes it much more secure for the al Qaeda leaders. "A tape made in Peshawar (Pakistan) can be sent electronically through Sweden and onto Bolivia before appearing on a website," said Scheuer. This was from a feature on CNN in November of 2010; you can find that full story here. See also: Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror.
WNYC recently reported on Hezbolah, and asked Cambanis to opine on the subject. The following is a podcast summary: Veteran Middle East correspondent Thanassis Cambanis discusses the cross section of people that make up Hezbollah—part standing army, part political party, and part theological movement. >A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel looks at the organization and the people it includes, and Cambanis follows a few Hezbollah families through the 2006 war with Israel in order to get a fuller understanding of the ideological and religious roots of the conflict in the Middle East.. See the WNYC webpage on this feature here.Download the podcast here. See also: Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics), Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies Table Our Journey Through the Middle East, Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Cambanis recently wrote in the Boston Globe: There's an increasingly assertive group of “engagement hawks” — a group of professional diplomats, military officers, and academics — is arguing that a mindless, macho refusal to engage might be causing as much harm as terrorism itself. Brushing off dialogue with killers might look tough, they say, but it is dangerously naive, and betrays an alarming ignorance of how, historically, intractable conflicts have actually been resolved. And today, after a decade of war against stateless terrorists that has claimed thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of foreign lives, and cost trillions of dollars, it’s all the more important that we choose the most effective methods over the ones that play on easy emotions.See that Boston Globe article by Cambanis here.
won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2007 and was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Awards for non-fiction. Other interesting books about the war in Iraq: Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army
, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer
, House to House: An Epic Memoir of War
.
, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
.
, Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies Table Our Journey Through the Middle East
, Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
. Cambanis recently wrote in the Boston Globe: There's an increasingly assertive group of “engagement hawks” — a group of professional diplomats, military officers, and academics — is arguing that a mindless, macho refusal to engage might be causing as much harm as terrorism itself. Brushing off dialogue with killers might look tough, they say, but it is dangerously naive, and betrays an alarming ignorance of how, historically, intractable conflicts have actually been resolved. And today, after a decade of war against stateless terrorists that has claimed thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of foreign lives, and cost trillions of dollars, it’s all the more important that we choose the most effective methods over the ones that play on easy emotions. See that Boston Globe article by Cambanis here.
