Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield

Jeremy Scahill

Apr 2013 · Sold by Bold Type Books

About this eBook

A New York Times bestseller
Now also an Oscar-nominated documentary

In Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater, takes us inside America's new covert wars. The foot soldiers in these battles operate globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture or kill individuals designated by the president as enemies.

Drawn from the ranks of the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, former Blackwater and other private security contractors, the CIA's Special Activities Division and the Joint Special Operations Command ( JSOC), these elite soldiers operate worldwide, with thousands of secret commandos working in more than one hundred countries. Funded through "black budgets," Special Operations Forces conduct missions in denied areas, engage in targeted killings, snatch and grab individuals and direct drone, AC-130 and cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost militias, President Barack Obama has expanded their operations and given them new scope and legitimacy.

Dirty Wars follows the consequences of the declaration that "the world is a battlefield," as Scahill uncovers the most important foreign policy story of our time. From Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond, Scahill reports from the frontlines in this high-stakes investigation and explores the depths of America's global killing machine. He goes beneath the surface of these covert wars, conducted in the shadows, outside the range of the press, without effective congressional oversight or public debate. And, based on unprecedented access, Scahill tells the chilling story of an American citizen marked for assassination by his own government.

As US leaders draw the country deeper into conflicts across the globe, setting the world stage for enormous destabilization and blowback, Americans are not only at greater risk -- we are changing as a nation. Scahill unmasks the shadow warriors who prosecute these secret wars and puts a human face on the casualties of unaccountable violence that is now official policy: victims of night raids, secret prisons, cruise missile attacks and drone strikes, and whole classes of people branded as "suspected militants." Through his brave reporting, Scahill exposes the true nature of the dirty wars the United States government struggles to keep hidden.

Ratings and reviews

Has so many glaring inconsistencies it was difficult to make it through the first chapter. The US government and JSOC tried so hard to keep secrets that they cleared him for embeds multiple times? Yeah, okay. People like Scahill always have trouble accepting new, troubling realities that have no easy answers. They also often seek to make money and careers off them, while also offering no competing answers. And so they ultimately are just critics of a new reality, while pretending to be critics of their government.

Book is too wordy and distracts from the stories at hand. Too many acronyms are used and expected to remember.. Book spends countless paragraphs defining laws and titles that are relevant but can be simplified for layman's terms.. Some neat stories inside and insightful information, but book is too dense and offers a dry and mundane look at terrorism. Pick up an old college text book if you want to bored out of your mind. ..maybe this book should have been offered to the prisoners held in torture camps!

I do not understand this. I've purchased this book, but I can't download it. It keeps saying that there is no internet connection which there is. Google company is a fraud. I want my money back. Why are you selling a book that can not be downloaded?

About the author

Jeremy Scahill is an investigative reporter, war correspondent, and author of the international bestsellers Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. He has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere across the globe. He is a co-founder of The Intercept and has served as the National Security Correspondent for the Nation magazine and Democracy Now! Scahill is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award. He is a producer and writer of the award-winning film Dirty Wars, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.