3 books I'd recommend....
If you only read three books ever, here they are....
Charlie Rose suggested fiction was the best way to tell the truth. He maybe correct.
I'm reading The Shack: Where Tragedy confronts Eternity by Wm. Paul Young.
http://www.amazon.com/Shack-William-...0451204&sr=1-1
On the non-fiction side, I'd suggest two must reads for anyone that desires to be a COIN practisioner.
1. How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
David Bornstein
http://www.amazon.com/How-Change-Wor.../dp/0195138058
2. Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas
Dr. James Adams
http://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Blo.../dp/0738205370
For military personnel, tread carefully, they will unnerve you at times. Recon, raids, dismounted/mounted patrolling, and airmobile ops are easy...This stuff is hard.
v/r
Mike
In the welter of on-going media spin ...
about "secret prisons" and "torture", it seems well to keep in mind, some of the characters who appear in the BBC clip:
Quote:
Through a series of contacts he found his way to Peshawar where he met Abu Zubaydah, the gatekeeper of the Afghan training camps who would be captured soon after 9/11 and was recently transferred from a secret CIA prison to Guantanamo Bay.
His first stop was Khalden, one of al-Qaeda's key training camps. Amongst those who attended were Mohammed Atta - the ringleader of the 9-11 attacks - and Richard Reid, the so called "shoe bomber" who tried to detonate explosives on a transatlantic flight.
...
Recruits were also trained how to resist interrogation and provide false information - Nasiri's mentor at the camps, Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, would go on to provide false evidence of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq after he was captured by the US.
....
From Khalden, Nasiri was sent to Darunta, the "graduate" school which focused on training individuals for operations.
There, recruits learnt how to make explosives and detonators from scratch.
Nasiri also witnessed chemical weapons experiments - including the use of gases and poisons on rabbits, evidence of an organised WMD programme far earlier than had previously been reported.
With his training complete, Abu Zubaydah despatched Nasiri back to Europe with instructions to set up a "sleeper" cell and to remain in contact.
The danger in the current spin cycle is that the overwhelming evidence (obtained prior to and independently of their interrogations) against these characters will be lost sight of.
Roger Trinquier had a quasi-religious theory that terrorists' souls could be redeemed by torture. What may occur is that these characters will be redeemed as victims - and their guilt for 1000s of murders will become submerged under allegations of assaults done to them.
Not a problem, digression I mean...
As a 15 year old ArNG Cannoneer and 16 year old Marine Tanker, I resembled that. (Do not try this at home. Professional on closed course) :D