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Descent into Chaos

Trying to find out what’s gone on in Afghanistan since 9/11, I read Ahmed Rashid’s Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Rashid is a journalist from Pakistan. He has previously published well-received books on the Taliban and on Jihad in Central Asia. Descent […]

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The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq

The first Schmierer-recommended book on Iraq I picked up was The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, by The New Yorker writer George Packer. The book starts of with a great job of explaining the political history of the neoconservatives (neocons) prior to the Iraq War and their involvement in the rationale behind the war, then […]

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Ghost Wars

An acquaintance who retired from the military and joined the Foreign Service recommended Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 to me when I asked him what I could read to learn more about Iraq and Afghanistan today (I have almost completed […]

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Power, Faith, and Fantasy

Michael B. Oren’s Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present documents the involvement of the U.S.A. in the Middle East from the first battles with Barbary pirates through our current war in Iraq. As Oren examines each period (demarcated by our wars), he describes the inter-connected roles of military […]

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