Notes from the Minefield

Notes from the Minefield
Author: Irene L. Gendzier
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780231140119

A wide-reaching analysis of post-World War II U.S. policy in Lebanon posits that the politics of oil and pipelines figured far more significantly in U.S. relations with Lebanon than previously believed. By reevaluating U.S.-Lebanese relations within the context of America's collaborative intervention with the Lebanese ruling elite, Gendzier aptly demonstrates how oil, power, and politics drove U.S. policy as well as influenced the development of the state and region of Lebanon.

Stepping Into A Minefield

Stepping Into A Minefield
Author: Ian Mansfield
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2015-09-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1925275531

Ian Mansfield was serving in the Australian Army when he was selected to command a team of Australian combat engineers to go to Pakistan to train Afghan refugees in mine-clearance procedures. With millions of refugees expected to return to Afghanistan, the United Nations saw a humanitarian crisis looming and requested help from Western countries to tackle the landmine problem. In September 1991, Ian, along with his wife and two young children, left Australia on a one-year assignment … and didn’t return home for 20 years. This highly personal account recalls Ian’s pioneering efforts to set up a civilian program in Afghanistan to clear landmines for humanitarian purposes, and then his decision to leave the Australian Army and join the United Nations. He continued to work in the mine-action sector, setting up programs in Laos and Bosnia, and then working at the policy level at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Stepping into a Minefield highlights the dangers and the tragedies involved in landmine clearance, but also reveals the great humanity, dedication and humour of the thousands of brave men and women clearing landmines today. It also outlines the political, cultural and security ‘minefields’ that Ian had to navigate along the way, which were often more difficult to deal with than the real minefields.

The Minefield Girl

The Minefield Girl
Author: Sofia Ek
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2017-03-30
Genre: Libya
ISBN: 9781543181357

Libya lived under the absolute rule of Muammar Gaddafi for more than four decades. He was the state, and to not worship him was to live in fear. Sofia, a naive but ambitious Swedish girl whose mission is to present Libya to the Western world of big business via the pages of the Wall Street Journal's magazine SmartMoney, finds herself facing one setback after another as she learns to navigate Gaddafi's Libya, where nothing is what it appears to be. She discovers that she is watched at every turn. A love affair proves to be both thrilling and dangerous, as Sofia gradually realizes that the country's most powerful men have ways to control even people's personal lives. Moving with determination through the corridors of power, consumed by her desire to succeed and to be part of something bigger than herself, Sofia remains blissfully unaware of the minefield she has walked into.

Blood and Oil

Blood and Oil
Author: Michael T. Klare
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2007-04-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1429900571

From the author of Resource Wars, a landmark assessment of the critical role of petroleum in America's actions abroad In his pathbreaking Resource Wars, world security expert Michael T. Klare alerted us to the role of resources in conflicts in the post-Cold War world. Now, in Blood and Oil, he concentrates on a single precious commodity, petroleum, while issuing a warning to the United States-its most powerful, and most dependent, global consumer. Since September 11th and the commencement of the "war on terror," the world's attention has been focused on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil. Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. He shows how America's own wells are drying up as our demand increases; by 2010, the United States will need to import 60 percent of its oil. And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American zones-the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America, and Africa-our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement. With clarity and urgency, Blood and Oil delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.

Handbook on German Military Forces

Handbook on German Military Forces
Author: Bob Carruthers
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 657
Release: 2013-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1781592152

The Handbook On German Military Forces is an indispensable primary reference source for historians and enthusiasts. In 1945 the Allies were still engaged in bitter fighting against stiff resistance from the German armies in the west. The US War Department was determined to do its best to equip the US forces fighting the Germans in the field with as much knowledge as possible. March 1945 saw the issue of an astonishing document entitled the Handbook On German Military Forces. This was a truly remarkable work of intelligence gathering which formed a vast compendium of all the relevant knowledge amassed on the German Wehrmacht.??Amazingly accurate and comprehensive, the Handbook ran to over six hundred pages and was designed to equip commanders in the field with everything they were likely to need to know about the German forces. The Handbook remained classified until 1953 and then slipped into obscurity.??This new paperback reprint rescues this great work from obscurity, covering the psychology, organisation, tactics and operational aspects of the German forces. The weapons, machines, aircraft and uniforms of the German forces are also documented within the Handbook.??The Handbook On German Military Forces is a fascinating primary reference source for historians and enthusiasts alike, providing an invaluable insight into the detail of the German Army which is still an unrivaled source of information today.

The For the War Yet to Come

The For the War Yet to Come
Author: Hiba Bou Akar
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2018-09-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1503605612

“Through elegant ethnography and nuanced theorization . . . gives us a new way of thinking about violence, development, modernity, and ultimately, the city.” —Ananya Roy, University of California, Los Angeles Beirut is a city divided. Following the Green Line of the civil war, dividing the Christian east and the Muslim west, today hundreds of such lines dissect the city. For the residents of Beirut, urban planning could hold promise: a new spatial order could bring a peaceful future. But with unclear state structures and outsourced public processes, urban planning has instead become a contest between religious-political organizations and profit-seeking developers. Neighborhoods reproduce poverty, displacement, and urban violence. For the War Yet to Come examines urban planning in three neighborhoods of Beirut’s southeastern peripheries, revealing how these areas have been developed into frontiers of a continuing sectarian order. Hiba Bou Akar argues these neighborhoods are arranged, not in the expectation of a bright future, but according to the logic of “the war yet to come”: urban planning plays on fears and differences, rumors of war, and paramilitary strategies to organize everyday life. As she shows, war in times of peace is not fought with tanks, artillery, and rifles, but involves a more mundane territorial contest for land and apartment sales, zoning and planning regulations, and infrastructure projects. Winner of the Anthony Leeds Prize “Upends our conventional notions of center and periphery, of local and transnational, even of war and peace.” —AbdouMaliq Simone, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity “Fascinating, theoretically astute, and empirically rich.” —Asef Bayat, University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign “An important contribution.” —Christine Mady, International Journal of Middle East Studies

Knowing Too Much

Knowing Too Much
Author: Norman G. Finkelstein
Publisher: OR Books
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 1935928775

Traditionally, American Jews have been broadly liberal in their political outlook; indeed African-Americans are the only ethnic group more likely to vote Democratic in US elections. Over the past half century, however, attitudes on one topic have stood in sharp contrast to this group's generally progressive stance: support for Israel. Despite Israel's record of militarism, illegal settlements and human rights violations, American Jews have, stretching back to the 1960s, remained largely steadfast supporters of the Jewish "homeland". But, as Norman Finkelstein explains in an elegantly-argued and richly-textured new book, this is now beginning to change. Reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations, and books by commentators as prominent as President Jimmy Carter and as well-respected in the scholarly community as Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Peter Beinart, have increasingly pinpointed the fundamental illiberalism of the Israeli state. In the light of these exposes, the support of America Jews for Israel has begun to fray. This erosion has been particularly marked among younger members of the community. A 2010 Brandeis University poll found that only about one quarter of Jews aged under 40 today feel "very much" connected to Israel. In successive chapters that combine Finkelstein's customary meticulous research with polemical brio, Knowing Too Much sets the work of defenders of Israel such as Jeffrey Goldberg, Michael Oren, Dennis Ross and Benny Morris against the historical record, showing their claims to be increasingly tendentious. As growing numbers of American Jews come to see the speciousness of the arguments behind such apologias and recognize Israel's record as simply indefensible, Finkelstein points to the opening of new possibilities for political advancement in a region that for decades has been stuck fast in a gridlock of injustice and suffering.

War, Violence, Terrorism, and Our Present World

War, Violence, Terrorism, and Our Present World
Author: Hares Sayed
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2017-05-30
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1543419011

Why Are We Facing Never Ending Terrorism? Political violence and terrorism have been, literally, bleeding humanity throughout the world. This book sheds light on terrorism, highlighting the causes of this evil, including religion, wealth disparity, poverty, dysfunctional government, and the crippling lending policies of international financial institutions. In particular, it highlights one major gray area not discussed by conventional writers - theColonial Legacy. This book highlights every aspect of political development from the birth of new nations to the race for supremacy. The impact of scarce mineral resources, the role of religions, the Shia-Sunni turmoil in the Middle East, and last but not least, the militarization processes are all discussed. Greed allows terrorism to take root and to be nurtured. It leads the religious to be abused and innocent people to be victimized by war's profiteers.