A History of the World Since 9/11: Disaster, Deception, and Destruction in the War on Terror

by Dominic Streatfeild

Overview

To understand why, you'll need to know how ...

1. - an Australian metals trader named Garry-with help from the CIA-inadvertently triggered the invasion of Iraq
   
2. - coalition troops were killed by bombs made with explosives that, according to the White House, never existed
   
3. - the United States Air Force bombed a wedding in Afghanistan by mistake
   
4. - the U.S. gave material support to the president of Uzbekistan, who, as it happens, boils people alive

These are not merely random disasters from an otherwise effective war. A History of the World Since 9/11shows us just why, a decade after the horrifying attacks on New York and Washington, we are no closer towinning the war on terror than we were on September 10, 2001. We failed to find Osama bin Laden or quellextremism. We sparked civil wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Around the world, innocents were incarcerated,tortured, and murdered-all in the name of justice.

Acclaimed author and journalist Dominic Streatfeild traveled across the world for years in pursuit ofanswers for this stunning collapse of international law. The results of his search form the most fully realized study of the war on terror yet written. Piercing reportage blends with sobering human drama, woven into eight narratives of how our world went wrong after 9/11.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608193868
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/15/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Dominic Streatfeild is the author of Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography and Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control, which was shortlisted forthe Samuel Johnson Prize. He lives in the UK with his family.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Rage 13

2 For Those Who Come across the Seas 45

3 The Wedding Party 83

4 Groupthink 7075-T6 123

5 Stuff Happens 169

6 The Egyptian 207

7 Friends in Low Places 251

8 The Muslim Disease 293

Epilogue 337

Suggested Reading 345

Notes 355

Acknowledgements 399

Index 403

Editorial Reviews

Marvellously engrossing...wonderfully detailed and cleverly told... Streatfeild's narrative control cannot be faulted ... His research is formidable” —Sunday Times (UK) on BRAINWASH

“A happy combination of page-turning pace and thought-provoking substance...an awesome survey” —Independent (UK) on COCAINE

“The most comprehensive and intelligent history of cocaine available today...Streatfeild supplies you with the real thing - the truth - rather than the adulterated commodity of cool” —Times (UK) on COCAINE

“A breezy history...often arresting, sometimes sobering.” —Washington Post on COCAINE

“That Streatfeild has managed to contain such a monster [as cocaine] between the covers of his book is an achievement in itself...[Streatfeild] is an excellent storyteller....This book is a great read.” —Seattle Times on COCAINE

From the Publisher

A History of the World Since 9/11 takes us on an eminently readable and conversational trip through the complicated world surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Dominic Streatfield reveals the tragedy and confusion of events before, during, and after that tragic day unlike any other author.

author of The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in John Kiriakou

A British journalist's tales of world-wide misery caused by America's blundering response to 9/11.

According to Streatfeild (Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control, 2007, etc.), when the shock and confusion of 9/11 subsided, cynical American leaders seized an opportunity to rearrange the world more to their liking. Relying on erroneous assumptions and their own good intentions, abandoning democratic ideals and the rule of law, America and her allies crafted crude certainties and substituted them for the truth. The author features eight stories designed to show how they made the world decidedly less safe. He begins his parade of disasters with an account of the redneck loser in Texas, who, thinking himself an avenging patriot, shot and killed an immigrant Indian gas station attendant. More horrors followed. To help ensure its own reelection, the Australian government adopted an outrageous lie to demonize a boatload of refugees as terrorists. Believing they were striking Taliban forces, U.S. helicopter gunships strafed a wedding celebration in Afghanistan, killing 48 civilians. With too few soldiers to secure Iraq, the U.S. forces exposed the largest explosives plant in the Middle East to looting. Misidentifying an Egyptian traveler as a member of al-Qaeda, Macedonian border guards arrested the man and permitted the CIA to snatch him; he was subjected to months of incarceration and harsh interrogation before the agency acknowledged the mistake. America also overlooked Uzbekistan's appalling human-rights record in return for access to a vital air base from which to launch strikes on Afghanistan. In Pakistan, the global polio-eradication campaign, tantalizingly close to solution, collapsed because of distrust for and rage against America. A tenacious reporter, Streatfeild packs the narrative with telling detail, instructive interviews and dramatic events, but he reaches conclusions too sweeping. Surely, for example, incidents of good-ol'-boy racism or Muslim paranoia cannot be wholly ascribed to the War on Terror, no matter how clumsily waged.

Colorfully reported, not so carefully reasoned.

Kirkus Reviews