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How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq
Finding Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, had long been the U.S. military's top priority -- trumping even the search for Osama bin Laden. No brutality was spared in trying to squeeze intelligence from Zarqawi's suspected associates. But these "force on force" techniques yielded exactly nothing, and, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the military rushed a new breed of interrogator to Iraq. Matthew Alexander, a former criminal investigator and head of a handpicked interrogation team, gives us the first inside look at the U.S. military's attempt at more civilized interrogation techniques -- and their astounding success. The intelligence coup that enabled the June 7, 2006, air strike onZarqawi's rural safe house was the result of several keenly strategized interrogations, none of which involved torture or even "control" tactics. Matthew and his team decided instead to get to know their opponents. Who were these monsters? Who were they working for? What were they trying to protect? Every day the "'gators" matched wits with a rogues' gallery of suspects brought in by Special Forces ("door kickers"): egomaniacs, bloodthirsty adolescents, opportunistic stereo repairmen, Sunni clerics horrified by the sectarian bloodbath, Al Qaeda fanatics, and good people in the wrong place at the wrong time. With most prisoners, negotiation was possible and psychological manipulation stunningly effective. But Matthew's commitment to cracking the case with these methods sometimes isolated his superiors and put his own career at risk. This account is an unputdownable thriller -- more of a psychological suspense story than a war memoir. And indeed, the story reaches far past the current conflict in Iraq with a reminder that we don't have to become our enemy to defeat him. Matthew Alexander and his ilk, subtle enough and flexible enough to adapt to the challenges of modern, asymmetrical warfare, have proved to be our best weapons against terrorists all over the world..
Price: $14.89
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Once Were Cops: A Novel
Michael O'Shea is a member of Ireland's police force, known as The Guards. He's also a sociopath who walks a knife edge between sanity and all-out mayhem. When an exchange program is initiated and twenty Guards come to America and twenty cops from the States go to Ireland, Shay, as he's known, has his lifelong dream come true--he becomes a member of the NYPD. But Shay's dream is about to become New York's nightmare. Paired with an unstable cop nicknamed Kebar for his liberal use of a short, lethal metal stick called a K-bar, the two unlikely partners become a devastatingly effective force in the war against crime. But Kebar harbors a dangerous secret: he's sold out to the mob to help his sister. Her rape and beating leaves her in a coma and pushes an already unstable Kebar over the edge just as Shea’s dark secrets threaten boil over and into the streets of New York. Once Were Cops melds the street poetry of Brooklyn and Dublin into a fast-paced, incomparable hard-boiled novel. This is Ken Bruen at his best. .
Price: $12.49
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The Brutality of War: A Memoir of Vietnam
A gripping firsthand look at the true agonies of war, this hard-hitting memoir shares the combat experiences of Vietnam veteran Gene R. Dark, who served with one of the most decorated companies in the United States Marine Corps. Nineteen-year-old Dark joins the Marine Corps at the height of the Vietnam War and is immediately thrown into the stark reality of the battlefield. Quickly transformed into a hardened soldier and forced to endure the terror of firefight and the rigors of combat, Dark experiences shock and grief as he watches his closest friends fall. But it is Dark’s tremendous guilt after taking another human being’s life that leaves an indelible mark upon his soul. He was meritoriously combat promoted two times and eventually earned the Purple Heart, but nothing could ever erase his haunting memories. The Brutality of War is not only Dark’s recollections of an unpopular, rancorous conflict but his own private perspective on the nature of war itself as experienced in the murky jungles of Vietnam. .
Price: $7.78
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Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture
Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People is a riveting book that exposes the potential in each of us for acting unspeakably John Conroy sits down with torturers from several nations and comes to understand their motivations. His compelling narrative has the tension of a novel. He takes us into a Chicago police station, two villages in the West Bank, and a secret British interrogation center in Northern Ireland, and in the process we are exposed to the experience of the victim, the rationalizations of the torturer, and the seeming indifference of the bystander. The torture occurs in democracies that ostensibly value justice, due process, and human rights, and yet the perpetrators and their superiors escape without punishment, revealing much about the dynamics of torture..
Price: $11.45
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The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness
"A TIMELY BOOK THAT TOUCHES UPON GREAT ISSUES. . . . He contributes monumentally to our understanding of war and remembrance " --The Boston Globe Throughout his childhood Eric Lomax possessed a passion for trains. In an ironic twist of fate, he was captured by the Japanese during World War II and sent to Thailand to work on the infamous Burma-Siam railroad, the barbaric project that claimed the lives of 250,000 men. There he constructed a radio to bring news of the war and secretly drew a map of the railroad. For this, Lomax suffered brutal and incessant torture and interrogation. Standing by through it all was Nagase Takashi, a young Japanese soldier who translated the captor's questions and Lomax's replies. Fifty years later, Lomax sought out this Japanese tormentor, meeting him on a hillside overlooking the River Kwai Bridge. But Lomax's object in meeting Takashi again was not revenge. It was reconciliation. Here is a remarkable true story of forgiveness--a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. A classic war autobiography, The Railway Man is a powerful tale of survival and of the human capacity to understand even those who have done us unthinkable harm. "[Lomax] has a straightforward story and he tells it quietly and with dignity. But at the end one feels the old dramatic shock: an amazed, even fearful suspicion that the curtain on eternity was pulled back slightly, for a moment." --The New York Times Book Review "An extraordinary book." --People.
Price: $17.37
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Behind the Badge
Cop stories never meant to go public. A behind the scenes look at a quiet police chief who took back the streets with force, a homicide detective with a Dirty Harry attitude, cops at odds with civil rights feds and police brass, cops who die, cops at play and cops who become legends .
Price: $19.50
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