Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib
Download The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis The Sutras of Abu Ghraib by : Aidan Delgado
Download or read book The Sutras of Abu Ghraib written by Aidan Delgado and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young man's transformation from Army Reserve volunteer to Buddhist conscientious objector and critic of the war in Iraq The Sutras of Abu Ghraib is the story of a soldier who refused to succumb to violence. In chronicling the struggles of military life and the dehumanizing effects of war, Aidan Delgado examines the attitudes that make prisoner abuse possible and explores his own developing Buddhist beliefs against a brutal backdrop. It is a tale of physical bravery, moral courage, and the cost of holding on to your identity while everyone around you is losing theirs. The son of a diplomat, Delgado grew up in various countries, including Thailand, where he was introduced to Buddhism, and Egypt, where he learned Arabic. In 2001, after his first year of college, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, and in 2003 he was deployed as a specialist in Nasiriyah and at Abu Ghraib. When his colleagues learned that he spoke some Arabic and enjoyed meeting Iraqis, they made use of him but also began to mistrust him. As Delgado witnessed more and more American racism, arrogance, and abuse of unarmed Iraqis, his opposition mounted. Concluding that war ran counter to his Buddhist principles, he sought conscientious objector status and, after finishing his tour of duty, was honorably discharged. The following year, Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times, "The public at large and especially the many soldiers who have behaved honorably in Iraq deserve an honest answer . . . Mr. Delgado's complaints and the entire conduct of this wretched war should be thoroughly investigated."
Download or read book Torture and Truth written by Mark Danner and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2004-10-31 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes the torture photographs in color and the full texts of the secret administration memos on torture and the investigative reports on the abuses at Abu Ghraib. In the spring of 2004, graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison flashed around the world, provoking outraged debate. Did they depict the rogue behavior of "a few bad apples"? Or did they in fact reveal that the US government had decided to use brutal tactics in the "war on terror"? The images are shocking, but they do not tell the whole story. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents but the result of a chain of deliberate decisions and failures of command. To understand how "Hooded Man" and "Leashed Man" could have happened, Mark Danner turns to the documents that are collected for the first time in this book. These documents include secret government memos, some never before published, that portray a fierce argument within the Bush administration over whether al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and how far the US could go in interrogating them. There are also official reports on abuses at Abu Ghraib by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by US Army investigators, and by an independent panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. In sifting this evidence, Danner traces the path by which harsh methods of interrogation approved for suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Guant‡namo "migrated" to Iraq as resistance to the US occupation grew and US casualties mounted. Yet as Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it "is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act." For once we know the story the photos and documents tell, we are left with the questions they pose for our democratic society: Does fighting a "new kind of war" on terror justify torture? Who will we hold responsible for deciding to pursue such a policy, and what will be the moral and political costs to the country?
Book Synopsis The Ballad of Abu Ghraib by : Philip Gourevitch
Download or read book The Ballad of Abu Ghraib written by Philip Gourevitch and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full reckoning of what actually happened at Abu Ghraib prison-"one of the most devastating of the many books on Iraq" (The New York Times Book Review) A relentlesly surprising and perceptive account of the front lines of the war on terror, Standard Operating Procedure is a war story that takes its place among the classics. Acclaimed author Philip Gourevitch presents the story behind a defining moment in the war, and a defining moment in our understanding of ourselves- the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs of prisoner abuse. Drawing on Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris's astonishing interviews with the Americans who took and appeared in the pictures, Standard Operating Procedure is an utterly original book that stands to endure as essential reading long after the current war in Iraq passes from the headlines.
Book Synopsis Reframing 9/11 by : Jeff Birkenstein
Download or read book Reframing 9/11 written by Jeff Birkenstein and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-05-13 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of analyses focusing on popular culture as a profound discursive site of anxiety and discussion about 9/11 and demystifies the day's events.
Download or read book Useful Captives written by Daniel Krebs and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts is a wide-ranging investigation of the integral role prisoners of war (POWs) have played in the economic, cultural, political, and military aspects of American warfare. In Useful Captives volume editors Daniel Krebs and Lorien Foote and their contributors explore the wide range of roles that captives play in times of conflict: hostages used to negotiate vital points of contention between combatants, consumers, laborers, propaganda tools, objects of indoctrination, proof of military success, symbols, political instruments, exemplars of manhood ideals, loyal and disloyal soldiers, and agents of change in society. The book’s eleven chapters cover conflicts involving Americans, ranging from colonial warfare on the Creek-Georgia border in the late eighteenth century, the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great War, World War II, to twenty-first century U.S. drone warfare. This long historical horizon enables the reader to go beyond the prison camp experience of POWs to better understand the many ways they influence the nature and course of military conflict. Useful Captives shows the vital role that prisoners of war play in American warfare and reveals the cultural contexts of warfare, the shaping and altering of military policies, the process of state-building, the impacts upon the economy and environment of the conflict zone, their special place in propaganda and political symbolism, and the importance of public history in shaping national memory.
Book Synopsis How Do I Save My Honor? by : William F. Felice
Download or read book How Do I Save My Honor? written by William F. Felice and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2009 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Books on Einstein and his theories abound. However, this book is uniquely different. It presents key concepts in Special and General Relativity, in verse form. The aim is to make Einstein's insights more "fun" to learn. It uses rhyme and rhythm to render reading memorable and thus pleasurable. Moreover, what is pleasurable may foster a better understanding, as well as retention, of ideas. Use of verse apparently worked effectively in ancient times: in the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer among the Greeks; in the Vedas and Upanishads of ancient India; both rhyme, in the form of alliteration, and rhythm in Beowulf among the Anglo-Saxons, etc. The target reader is college-educated, or college student in third year, or anyone willing to "puzzle" it out, who desires to understand why time slows down and lengths contract when objects are in relative motion; how Science, Einstein's theories in particular, can contribute to answering the perennial question: what it is to be human; how to time travel to the future by staying "young"; etc. Relativity has a reputation of being "difficult." For example, "curvature of spacetime" seems so abstruse, so forbidding a concept. But, do not disarm yourself prematurely. Do not be intimidated. As it turns out, curvature of spacetime is tidal gravity, the cause of familiar ocean tides. You may even have a "gut" feel for it. This book will not teach you how to solve problems in Relativity. Nor will it teach you how to prove "The shortest distance takes the longest time." No, we will spend our time grasping Einstein's insights, their implications on Reality and on mind; and amid our quest, on what it means to be human. More "fun" to learn does not mean that verse form is the "lazy" road to learning. It does not mean that verse form makes the difficult easy, or, the rough, plain. No, the difficult remains difficult; the rough remains rough. And to grasp it, you have to exert a determined, sustained effort and be willing to stretch your mind to accommodate the "wild" notions in Relativity. The idea motivating this book is to make the "stretching" more enjoyable relative to prose by using the rhyme-rhythm features of verse. But, "stretch" your mind, you have to. There is no "royal, poetic" road to learning There is a feature in our history, that stands out in view of our concerns in conveying knowledge-a feature that the ancients aptly used. It is the oral tradition. Since the first humans appeared, oral tradition was the sole means in transmitting knowledge for a very long time, indeed. If we fit the whole time since the first humans lived into a year, then writing started only about the morning of 30th of December. That is a huge time in which oral tradition operated, i.e. about 99.5% of our time as humans. What does this imply? We transmitted information orally; and we received information aurally This "oral-aural" conveyance was the way for all information, including that of knowledge. In addition, during the five hundred thousand years or so, oral tradition honed our brains to receive knowledge "aurally." To me, this implies that our brains have a natural "deep resonance" to features of language in the oral tradition. The key language features in the oral tradition are the rhymes and rhythms of verse. I wrote this book in verse, inspired by this thought: to make the most out of the "resonant structures" in our brains engendered by oral tradition, to convey the deep insights of Einstein on Reality. It is my sincere wish that Einstein's ideas will find recognition in the public understanding and thus inform the public outlook. I invite you, everyone: Hop in with me, a time machine we ride, Intent on chasing space-time concepts wild; To fathom Einstein's insights into Reality, In his Special and General Relativity. Like Wordsworth, a lonely cloud wandering, Through space and time we will be winging, Not to appreciate the "daffodils" of Nature; But to understand Nature's Architecture
Book Synopsis The Best Buddhist Writing 2008 by : Melvin McLeod
Download or read book The Best Buddhist Writing 2008 written by Melvin McLeod and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features a collection of Buddhist-inspired writings on a wide range of issues by talented contributors, including the Dalai Lama, Pema Chödrön, and Thich Nhat Hanh.
Download or read book Soldiers and Citizens written by C. Mirra and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-12-08 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive oral history of the Iraq War. It presents the raw and vivid testimonies and recollections from combat veterans, family members, conscientious objectors, Bush administration officials, Iraqi leaders, and many others, forming a gripping and moving portrait of the war.
Book Synopsis Soul Repair by : Rita Nakashima Brock
Download or read book Soul Repair written by Rita Nakashima Brock and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to explore the idea and effect of moral injury on veterans, their families, and their communities Although veterans make up only 7 percent of the U.S. population, they account for an alarming 20 percent of all suicides. And though treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder has undoubtedly alleviated suffering and allowed many service members returning from combat to transition to civilian life, the suicide rate for veterans under thirty has been increasing. Research by Veterans Administration health professionals and veterans’ own experiences now suggest an ancient but unaddressed wound of war may be a factor: moral injury. This deep-seated sense of transgression includes feelings of shame, grief, meaninglessness, and remorse from having violated core moral beliefs. Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini, who both grew up in families deeply affected by war, have been working closely with vets on what moral injury looks like, how vets cope with it, and what can be done to heal the damage inflicted on soldiers’ consciences. In Soul Repair, the authors tell the stories of four veterans of wars from Vietnam to our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan—Camillo “Mac” Bica, Herman Keizer Jr., Pamela Lightsey, and Camilo Mejía—who reveal their experiences of moral injury from war and how they have learned to live with it. Brock and Lettini also explore its effect on families and communities, and the community processes that have gradually helped soldiers with their moral injuries. Soul Repair will help veterans, their families, members of their communities, and clergy understand the impact of war on the consciences of healthy people, support the recovery of moral conscience in society, and restore veterans to civilian life. When a society sends people off to war, it must accept responsibility for returning them home to peace.
Book Synopsis Blood on Our Hands by : Nicolas J. S. Davies
Download or read book Blood on Our Hands written by Nicolas J. S. Davies and published by Nimble Books LLC. This book was released on 2010 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's crimes against the people of Iraq were shielded from public scrutiny by what senior U.S. military officers called the quiet, disguised, media-free approach developed in Central America in the 1980s. The echo chamber of the Western corporate media fleshed out the Pentagon's propaganda to create a virtual Iraq in the minds of the public, feeding a political discourse that bore no relation to the real war it was waging, the country it was destroying or the lives of its inhabitants. Davies takes apart the wall of propaganda surrounding one of history's most significant military disasters and most serious international crimes: non-existent WMDs; the equally fictitious centuries-old sectarian blood feud in Iraq; and the secrecy of the dirty war waged by American-led death squads. He places each aspect of the war within a context of illegal aggression, hostile military occupation and popular resistance, to uncover the brutal reality of a war that has probably killed at least a million people. From publisher description.
Book Synopsis I Ain’t Marching Anymore by : Chris Lombardi
Download or read book I Ain’t Marching Anymore written by Chris Lombardi and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of the passionate men and women in uniform who have bravely and courageously exercised the power of dissent Before the U.S. Constitution had even been signed, soldiers and new veterans protested. Dissent, the hallowed expression of disagreement and refusal to comply with the government’s wishes, has a long history in the United States. Soldier dissenters, outraged by the country’s wars or egregious violations in conduct, speak out and change U.S. politics, social welfare systems, and histories. I Ain’t Marching Anymore carefully traces soldier dissent from the early days of the republic through the wars that followed, including the genocidal “Indian Wars,” the Civil War, long battles against slavery and racism that continue today, both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and contemporary military imbroglios. Acclaimed journalist Chris Lombardi presents a soaring history valorizing the brave men and women who spoke up, spoke out, and talked back to national power. Inviting readers to understand the texture of dissent and its evolving and ongoing meaning, I Ain’t Marching Anymore profiles conscientious objectors including Frederick Douglass’s son Lewis, Evan Thomas, Howard Zinn, William Kunstler, and Chelsea Manning, adding human dimensions to debates about war and peace. Meticulously researched, rich in characters, and vivid in storytelling, I Ain’t Marching Anymore celebrates the sweeping spirit of dissent in the American tradition and invigorates its meaning for new risk-taking dissenters.
Book Synopsis Rules of Disengagement by : Marjorie Cohn
Download or read book Rules of Disengagement written by Marjorie Cohn and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rules of Disengagement examines the reasons men and women in the military have disobeyed orders and resisted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It takes readers into the courtroom where sailors, soldiers, and Marines have argued that these wars are illegal under international law and unconstitutional under U.S. law. Through the voices of active duty service members and veterans, it explores the growing conviction among our troops that the wars are wrong. While the Obama Administration’s pledge to remove all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 is encouraging – and in no small way likely attributable to resistance by our armed forces – it continues to fight in Afghanistan, and the military may soon have a heightened presence elsewhere in the Middle East and in Africa. As such, Rules of Disengagement provides inspiration and lessons for anyone who opposes an interventionist U.S. military policy.
Download or read book Violentologies written by B. V. Olguín and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violentologies explores how different forms of violence shape identity and political vision in both familiar and unexpected ways using Latina/o writers and performers as case-studies.
Download or read book The Will to Resist written by Dahr Jamail and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning journalist tells the hidden story of American soldiers turning against an unjust war.
Book Synopsis The Paradox of Citizenship in American Politics by : Mehnaaz Momen
Download or read book The Paradox of Citizenship in American Politics written by Mehnaaz Momen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This remarkable book does the unusual: it embeds its focus in a larger complex operational space. The migrant, the refugee, the citizen, all emerge from that larger context. The focus is not the usual detailed examination of the subject herself, but that larger world of wars, grabs, contestations, and, importantly, the claimers and resisters.”— Saskia Sassen, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, USA This thought-provoking book begins by looking at the incredible complexities of “American identity” and ends with the threats to civil liberties with the vast expansion of state power through technology. A must-read for anyone interested in the future of the promise and realities of citizenship in the modern global landscape.— Kevin R. Johnson, Dean, UC Davis School of Law, USA Momen focuses on the basic paradox that has long marked national identity: the divide between liberal egalitarian self-conception and persistent practices of exclusion and subordination. The result is a thought-provoking text that is sure to be of interest to scholars and students of the American experience. — Aziz Rana, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School, USA This book is an exploration of American citizenship, emphasizing the paradoxes that are contained, normalized, and strengthened by the gaps existing between proposed policies and real-life practices in multiple arenas of a citizen’s life. The book considers the evolution of citizenship through the journey of the American nation and its identity, its complexities of racial exclusion, its transformations in response to domestic demands and geopolitical challenges, its changing values captured in immigration policies and practices, and finally its dynamics in terms of the shift in state power vis-à-vis citizens. While it aspires to analyze the meaning of citizenship in America from the multiple perspectives of history, politics, and policy, it pays special attention to the critical junctures where rhetoric and reality clash, allowing for the production of certain paradoxes that define citizenship rights and shape political discourse.
Book Synopsis Popular Memories by : Ekaterina V. Haskins
Download or read book Popular Memories written by Ekaterina V. Haskins and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2015-03-11 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last three decades ordinary Americans launched numerous grassroots commemorations and official historical institutions became more open to popular participation. In this first book-length study of participatory memory practices, Ekaterina V. Haskins critically examines this trend by asking how and with what consequences participatory forms of commemoration have reshaped the rhetoric of democratic citizenship. Approaching commemorations as both representations of civic identity and politically consequential sites of stranger interaction, Popular Memories investigates four distinct examples of participatory commemoration: the United States Postal Service's "Celebrate the Century" stamp and education program, the September 11 Digital Archive, the first post-Katrina Carnival in New Orleans, and a traveling memorial to the human cost of the Iraq War. Despite differences in sponsorship, genre, historical scope, and political purpose, all of these commemorations relied on voluntary participation of ordinary citizens in selecting, producing, or performing interpretations of distant or recent historical events. These collectively produced interpretations—or popular memories—in turn prompted interactions between people, inviting them to celebrate, to mourn, or to bear witness. The book's comparison of the four case studies suggests that popular memories make for stronger or weaker sites of civic engagement depending on whether or not they allow for public affirmation of the individual citizen's contribution and for experiencing alternative identities and perspectives. By systematically accounting for grassroots memory practices, consumerism, tourism, and rituals of popular identity, Haskins's study enriches our understanding of contemporary memory culture and citizenship.
Book Synopsis Explaining U.S. Imprisonment by : Mary Bosworth
Download or read book Explaining U.S. Imprisonment written by Mary Bosworth and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2010 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explaining U.S. Imprisonment builds on and extends some of the contemporary issues of women in prison, minorities, and the historical path to modern prisons as well as the social influences on prison reform.
