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Noteable Quotes

“The situation in Iraq is dire. The stakes are high.  There are no easy choices.  The way ahead will be very hard…But hard is not hopeless.”-General David Petraeus

Hughes' Recommended Reading

The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate
David Freddoso

REALITY CHECK THE UNREPORTED GOOD NEWS ABOUT AMERICA - Dennis Keegan

Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World - Ralph Peters

John A. Nagl (Foreword), David H. Petraeus (Foreword), James F. Amos (Foreword), Sarah Sewall (Introduction)

order from Amazon.com

The Counterinsurgency Manual-Headquarters Department of the Army

Counterinsurgency Warfare; Theory and Practice.Galula, David. New York: Praeger, 1964. Classic summary of lessons derived form Galula’s experience of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Greece, China, and Algeria.

Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a KnifeNagl, John A..Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2002.  How to learn to defeat an insurgency.

Insurgency & Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse.O'Neill, Bard E Washington, D.C: Potomac Books, 2005.  A framework for analyzing insurgency operations and a good first book in insurgency studies.

The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West.Kepel, Gilles Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004 An excellent overview of the broader radical Islamic insurgency.

The Evolution of a Revolt.Lawrence, T. E., U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and Combat Studies Institute. Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: Combat Studies Institute, 1989.
URL: http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/lawrence.pdf
Lawrence's key observations on the difference between conventional and insurgency warfare.

A History of Iraq.Tripp, Charles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. A solid single volume history of modern Iraq prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Last Reflections On a War. Bernard B. Fall. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1967.

The Village. Bing West. New York, N.Y. Pocket Books, 2003. A first- person account of military advisors embedded with Vietnamese units.

Inside TerrorismHoffman, Bruce.. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. (revised edition to be published in early 2006).   From Rand’s senior researcher in Terrorism, this book is a lean and information-filled analysis of terrorism, one that combines purposeful theoretical investigation with good use of history and empirical evidence. It summarizes all the significant facts about terrorism in the last decade. This book is scheduled to be issued in a new edition, incorporating much more information on militant Islamic terrorists, early in 2006.

Cultural Heritage of Arabs, Islam, and the Middle East.Baker, William G., and Jerry M. Long. 2003. The Dallas, TX: Brown Books Pub. Group, 2003. 

On Point The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Gregory Fontenot, E.J. Degen, and David Tohn., 2003.

The Assasins Gate: America in Iraq.  George Packer, 2006.

War Footing, Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World.  Frank J. Gaffney and colleagues. Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.  Michael K. Gordon, 2006.

The Foreigners Gift,The Americans, The Arabs, and the Iraqi’s in Iraq.  Fouad Ajami. Free Press, 2006.

Understanding Islamism, Middle East/North African Report no. 37. International Crisis GroupCairo; Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2005. URL:http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3300&1=1
This report serves as a highly informative and understandable primer on the movement and ideology of Islamism. It distinguishes between Shiite and Sunni Islamism, but concentrates on the latter, on which most Western emphasis is today placed, and about which most fears are held.

Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.Gunaratna, Rohan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.The story behind the rise of the global insurgency.

The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st CenturyHammes, Thomas X..St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2004.  An excellent overview of what the authorH describes as "fourth generation warfare".

Low-intensity Operations; Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keepingKitson, Frank..Harrisburg: Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1971. 
Classic explanation of the British school of counterinsurgency.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a Triumph. Lawrence, T. E..Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1935.  Autobiographical account of Lawrence's attempts to organize Arab nationalism during WW I.

Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror.Lewis, Bernard. The New York: Modern Library, 2003. 
A controversial but important analysis of the philosophical origins of the global insurgency.

Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress.Huntington, Samuel P., and Lawrence E. Harrison, eds. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

 
Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor. Landes, David S. The New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.

 
Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern TimesNydell, Margaret K. Yarmouth, Me; London: Intercultural; Nicholas Brealey [distributor], 2005. 

The Arab Mind. Patai, Raphael. New York: Hatherleigh Press, 2002.

 
Islam: The Straight PathEsposito, John L..New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

 
What Everyone Needs to Know About IslamEsposito, John LOxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

 
The Future of Political IslamFuller, Graham E..New York: Palgrave, 2003.

 
A Concise History of the Middle East.Goldschmidt, Arthur. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 2002.

 
From Beirut to Jerusalem: Updated with a New ChapterFriedman, Thomas L.. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1995.

The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right.Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. New York: Times Books, 2005.  The authors of the award-winning Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America, do not mince words: America's foreign policy vis-à-vis the Muslim world is bankrupt and has "cleared the way for the next attack-and those that will come after." The authors also explore terror's philosophical roots, analyzing how salafism dominates jihadist beliefs, as well as how the Internet helps facilitate global dissemination of its tenets, strategies and tactics. The latter subject is among its major strengths. To counter this threat, they propose focusing on independent cell-based terrorist units like the group responsible for the 3/11 train bombers in Spain, not state sponsors, as the backbone of the movement; dispensing with reflexive use of military solutions; improving links with foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies; and recognizing the limitations of democracy in solving developing nations' problems. This book focuses on strategic courses of action across the DIME instruments in the global war on terror.

Holy War,Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. Bergen, Peter L. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002 This study was rushed into publication with final editing in the wake of 9/11, and thus lacks some editorial smoothness. It provides a balanced description of bin Laden's background; a concise summary of the organization of the al-Qaeda terrorist network as it developed in the Middle East, Europe, and America; and a brief narrative of terrorist events through 9/11/01. This is an important glimpse of bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the associated Taliban of Afghanistan.

Unholy War: Terror in the Name of IslamEsposito, John L.. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 
Esposito, the Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, methodically leads the reader through the complicated history of Islam, explaining the various conceptions of jihad, or holy war, ranging from internal movements for community reform to the modern explosive threat to all things external to Islam. This book's strength lies in Esposito's vast knowledge and his ability to render it in an understandable format for the non-specialist.

The Future of Political IslamFuller, Graham E.. New York: Palgrave, 2003.  Fuller, frmr. vice-chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, sets out to make sense of the dangerous, changing and complex relationships between the West and the world of Islam in this broad survey of Islamic political movements. Fuller’s prognosis -- of increased tensions between international Islam and the U.S.; a focus on revenge rather than growth; the potential obsolescence of more liberal Islamic political movements, among other predictions – is sobering. A valuable book for understanding the broader political Islam milieu from which radical Jihadism springs.

Al Qaeda Now: Understanding Today’s TerroristsGreenberg, Karen J, ed.. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005.  This book collects two dozen presentations from a seminal conference in late 2004 on counterterrorism. It constitutes a valuable synopsis of current knowledge on al Qaeda and its evolution and the policies in place to counter threats of future attacks. The articles contribute to understanding how al Qaeda has evolved from a movement to an ideology, what influence it has on Middle East stability, and what continued threat it is to the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world.

Jihad: The Trail of Political IslamKepel, Gilles.. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.  One of France’s leading specialists in modern Islam, Kepel presents an intense, detailed examination of the militant Islamist movement over the last quarter-century. He explains Islamism’s attractions, and outlines its severe shortcomings: a deeply authoritative context for the seemingly inexplicable events of the recent past.

Globalized Islam: The Search for a New UmmahRoy, Olivier.. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.   Roy discusses the historical movement of Islam beyond its traditional borders and its unwitting westernization. He concludes that contemporary Islamic fundamentalism is a product and agent of globalization.

Understanding Terror Networks. Sageman, Marc. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.  A psychiatrist and former CIA case officer, Sageman studies the biographies of 172 jihadist terrorists in this work. He focuses on why young men join jihadi groups.

Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West Wiktorowicz, Quintan.. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005This work examines Jihadist movements, emphasizing their influence on Muslims living in the West. He provides a case study of al-Muhajiroun, a transnational movement based in London.