Obama's Wars PDF Download

Author: Bob Woodward
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439172501
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Woodward shows Obama making the critical decisions on the Afghanistan War, the secret war in Pakistan and the worldwide fight against terrorism.

Author: Daniel Klaidman
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547547781
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
“Divulge[s] the details of top-level deliberations—details that were almost certainly known only to the administration’s inner circle” (The Wall Street Journal). When he was elected in 2008, Barack Obama had vowed to close Guantánamo, put an end to coercive interrogation and military tribunals, and restore American principles of justice. Yet by the end of his first term he had backtracked on each of these promises, ramping up the secret war of drone strikes and covert operations. Behind the scenes, wrenching debates between hawks and doves—those who would kill versus those who would capture—repeatedly tested the very core of the president’s identity, leading many to wonder whether he was at heart an idealist or a ruthless pragmatist. Digging deep into this period of recent history, investigative reporter Daniel Klaidman spoke to dozens of sources to piece together a riveting Washington story packed with revelations. As the president’s inner circle debated secret programs, new legal frontiers, and the disjuncture between principles and down-and-dirty politics, Obama vacillated, sometimes lashed out, and spoke in lofty tones while approving a mounting toll of assassinations and kinetic-war operations. Klaidman’s fly-on-the-wall reporting reveals who had his ear, how key national security decisions are really made, and whether or not President Obama lived up to the promise of candidate Obama. “Fascinating . . . Lays bare the human dimension of the wrenching national security decisions that have to be made.” —Tina Brown, NPR “An important book.” —Steve Coll, The New Yorker

Author: Craig Whitlock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982159014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 ​The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.

Author: Bob Woodward
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471133877
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 614

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Based on 18 months of reporting, Woodward's 17th book is an intimate, documented examination of how President Obama and the highest profile Republican and Democratic leaders in the United States Congress attempted to restore the American economy and improve the federal government's fiscal condition over three and one half years. Drawn from memos, contemporaneous meeting notes, emails and in-depth interviews with the central players, THE PRICE OF POLITICS addresses the key issue of the presidential and congressional campaigns: the condition of the American economy and how and why we got there. Providing verbatim, day-by-day, even hour-by-hour accounts, the book shows what really happened, what drove the debates, negotiations and struggles that define, and will continue to define, the American future.

Author: David Cortright
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317260465
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
Now in its tenth year, the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan continues with no foreseeable end in sight. Ending Obama's War is intended to help and hold President Obama to his policy of beginning military withdrawals in July 2011 - and sooner if possible. Renowned peace scholar David Cortright offers realistic alternatives for ending the war whilst continuing to help the Afghan people, especially women, with development and human rights. Ending Obama's War outlines a responsible military disengagement strategy and links it to agreements on security cooperation, political power sharing, and a regional diplomatic compact. This is a timely, informed study which offers a way forward for one of the world's worst conflict zones.

Author: Charlie Savage
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316286605
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1161

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Book Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage's penetrating investigation of the Obama presidency and the national security state. Barack Obama campaigned on changing George W. Bush's "global war on terror" but ended up entrenching extraordinary executive powers, from warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention to military commissions and targeted killings. Then Obama found himself bequeathing those authorities to Donald Trump. How did the United States get here? In Power Wars, Charlie Savage reveals high-level national security legal and policy deliberations in a way no one has done before. He tells inside stories of how Obama came to order the drone killing of an American citizen, preside over an unprecendented crackdown on leaks, and keep a then-secret program that logged every American's phone calls. Encompassing the first comprehensive history of NSA surveillance over the past forty years as well as new information about the Osama bin Laden raid, Power Wars equips readers to understand the legacy of Bush's and Obama's post-9/11 presidencies in the Trump era.

Author: Ryan C. Hendrickson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813160960
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
During President Barack Obama's first term in office, the United States expanded its military presence in Afghanistan and increased drone missile strikes across Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The administration also deployed the military to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean, engaged in a sustained bombing operation in Libya, and deployed U.S. Special Forces in Central Africa to capture or kill Joseph Kony. In these cases, President Obama decided to use force without congressional approval. Yet, this increased executive power has not been achieved simply by the presidential assertion of such powers. It has also been supported by a group of senators and representatives who, for political reasons that stem from constant campaigning, seek to avoid responsibility for military action abroad. In this revealing book, Ryan C. Hendrickson examines President Obama's use of force in his first term with four major case studies. He demonstrates that, much like his predecessors, Obama has protected the executive branch's right not only to command, but also to determine when and where American forces are deployed. He also considers the voting records of Democrat John Kerry and Republican John McCain in the Senate, detailing how both men have played leading roles in empowering the commander-in-chief while limiting Congress's influence on military decision-making. Obama at War establishes that the imperial presidency poses significant foreign policy risks, and concludes with possible solutions to restore a more meaningful balance of power. The first book on the constitutional and political relationship between President Obama and the U.S. Congress and the use of military force, this timely reassessment of war powers provides a lucid examination of executive privilege and legislative deference in the modern American republic.

Author: Tariq Ali
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844677575
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Written early in 2010 and initially published in September 2010, The Obama Syndrome predicted the Obama administration’s historic midterm defeat. But unlike myriad commentators who have since pinned responsibility for that Democratic Party collapse on the “reform” president’s lack of firm resolve, Ali’s critique located the problem in Obama’s notion of reform itself. Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency by promising to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and his economic team brought the architects of the financial crisis into the White House. Small wonder then that the “War on Terror”—torture in Bagram, occupation in Iraq, appeasement in Israel, and escalation in Pakistan—continues. And that Wall Street and the country’s biggest corporations have all profited at the expense of America’s working class and poor. Now a thoroughly updated paperback continues the story through the midterms, including a trenchant analysis of the Tea Party, and Obama’s decision to continue with his predecessor’s tax cuts for the rich. Ali asks whether—in the absence of a progressive upheaval from below—US politics is permanently mired in moderate Republicanism. Already called “a comprehensive account” of the problems with Obama (The Huffington Post), this new edition is sure to provide a more “powerful boost to Obama dissenters on the left” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

Author: Stephen L. Carter
Publisher: Beast Books
ISBN: 098429516X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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"The man who many considered the peace candidate in the last election was transformed into a war president," writes bestselling author and leading academic Stephen l. Carter in The Violence of Peace, his new book decoding what President Barack Obama's views on war mean for America and its role in military conflict, now and going forward. As America winds down a war in Iraq, ratchets up another in Afghanistan, and continues a global war on terrorism, Carter delves into the implications of the military philosophy Obama has adopted through his first two years in office. Responding to the invitation that Obama himself issued in his Nobel address, Carter uses the tools of the Western tradition of just and unjust war to evaluate Obama's actions and words about military conflict, offering insight into how the president will handle existing and future wars, and into how his judgment will shape America's fate. Carter also explores war as a way to defend others from tyrannical regimes, which Obama has endorsed but not yet tested, and reveals the surprising ways in which some of the tactics Obama has used or authorized are more extreme than those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. "Keeping the nation at peace," Carter writes, "often requires battle," and this book lays bare exactly how America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are shaping the way Obama views the country's role in conflict and peace, ultimately determining the fate of the nation.

Author: Lewis Sorley
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547417454
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 547

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“A comprehensive and long-overdue examination of the immediate post–Tet offensive years [from a] first-rate historian.” —The New York Times Book Review Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing from thousands of hours of previously unavailable (and still classified) tape-recorded meetings between the highest levels of the American military command in Vietnam, A Better War is an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these final years. Through his exclusive access to authoritative materials, award-winning historian Lewis Sorley highlights the dramatic differences in conception, conduct, and—at least for a time—results between the early and later years of the war. Among his most important findings is that while the war was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress, the soldiers were winning on the ground. Meticulously researched and movingly told, A Better War sheds new light on the Vietnam War.