Books › Dirty Wars
Dirty Wars
872 pages
A gripping, dread-soaked descent into the hidden machinery of modern American warfare.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like stepping into a geopolitical thriller, only to realize with mounting dread that every shadowy operation and unchecked executive order is entirely real. The narrative moves with a propulsive, urgent energy, pulling you from the dusty frontlines of Afghanistan and Yemen into the sterile, closed-door briefing rooms of Washington. It is a deeply sobering experience, steeped in a tense, chilling atmosphere that leaves you questioning the moral foundations of modern statecraft. The prose is unsparing and meticulously detailed, anchoring sweeping policy critiques in devastating human realities. It will thoroughly grip readers who crave hard-hitting investigative journalism, leaving them with a lingering sense of outrage and a permanently altered view of the global battlefield.
- Mood
- chilling
- tense
- shadowy
- dread-soaked
- sobering
- Tone
- urgent
- unsparing
- critical
- authoritative
- indignant
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- unchecked executive power · the human cost of empire · erosion of civil liberties · shadows of modern warfare · moral compromise
- The writing
- Meticulously detailed and hard-hitting, blending boots-on-the-ground narrative reporting with sharp, unyielding political analysis.
- The arc
- Begins with shocking, isolated revelations that slowly coalesce into a sustained, chilling outrage at the scale of systemic violence.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave uncompromising investigative journalism and want to pull back the curtain on the post-9/11 military-industrial complex.
Content notes
- graphic violence
- war crimes
- torture
- civilian casualties
- assassination
About the book
In this book the author of "Blackwater," takes us inside America's new covert wars. As he reveals, the foot soldiers in these battles operate daily across the globe 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 of America. 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 cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost militias, President Obama has expanded their operations and given them new scope and legitimacy. This book follows the consequences of the declaraion that "the world is a battlefield", as the author uncovers this important foreign policy story. From Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond the author 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. He unmasks the shadow warriors who execute these secret wars and puts a human face on the casualties of violence that is now official policy as he tells the story of an American citizen marked for assassination by his own government. -- From book jacket.
Description from Open Library.
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