Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq
Author: Jason Christopher Hartley
This is not your father's war
This is Iraq, where a soldier's first duty is reinforcing his Humvee with sheet metal and sand bags. Or, in the absence of plumbing, burning barrels of human waste. Where any dead dog on the side of the road might be concealing an insurgent's bomb and anyone could be the enemy.
At age 17, Jason Christopher Hartley joined the Army National Guard. Thirteen years later, he is called to active duty, to serve in Iraq. Sent to a town called Ad Dujayl, made notorious by Saddam Hussein's 1982 massacre, Hartley is thrust into the center of America's war against terrorism. This is his story.
"If you are distrustful of the media and want to know exactly what's going on in Iraq, you'll have to pray for divine enlightenment, because only god knows what the hell is going on over here. However, if you want to know how it feels to be a soldier in Iraq, to hear something honest and raw, that I can help you with."
Sometimes profane, often poignant, and always nakedly candid, Just Another Soldier takes the reader past the images seen on CNN and the nightly news, into the day to day reality of life on the ground as an infantryman, attached to the 1st Division, in the first war of the 21st century. From the adrenaline rush of storming a suspected insurgent's house, to the sheer boredom of down time on the base, to the horror of dead civilians, Hartley examines his role as a man, as a soldier and as an American on foreign soil. His quest to discover the balance between his compassionate side and his baser instincts, results in a searing portrait of today's Army and a remarkable personal narrative written in a fresh and excitingnew voice. Just Another Soldier is more than a war story; it delivers an intimate look at a generation of young men and women on the front lines of American policy.
Whether you're for or against the war in Iraq, this is essential reading.
Interesting textbook: The Lost Children of Wilder or Robert Moses and the Modern City
The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book
Author: Michael Ratner
The evidence that the Bush administration is guilty of war crimes, presented in the form of a court case brought by one of the premier civil rights organizations in the United States.
"He won't be tried in the United States. He can't be tried by an international tribunal. So Donald Rumsfeld will have to be prosecuted by book."—from The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld
The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld lays out the evidence that high-level officials of the Bush administration ordered, authorized, implemented, and permitted war crimes, in particular the crimes of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Using primary source documents ranging from Rumsfeld's "techniques chart" and Iraqi plaintiffs' statements to the testimony of whistleblowers and key pieces of reportage, the book sets forth evidence of a torture program that took place throughout the world: in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, secret CIA prisons, and other places unknown.
The accused are accorded a defense drawn from their memos and public statements. Readers are allowed to judge whether the Bush administration has engaged in torture and whom among the administration to hold responsible.
Reminiscent of Christopher Hitchens's bestselling The Trial of Henry Kissinger, The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld constitutes one of the only attempts to hold high-ranking Bush administration officials criminally responsible for their actions.
Includes excerpts from:
• testimony from Abu Ghraib victims and the Tipton Three
• the interrogation log from Mohammed al Qahtani's detainment at Guantánamo
• the Gonzales, Yoo, andBybee memos
• the U.S. Army's Fay/Jones Report on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib
• the August 2004 Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations
• testimony from the former head of Abu Ghraib, Janis Karpinski
• and analyses by Peter Weiss, Wolfgang Kaleck, Vincent Warren, and others
Publishers Weekly
The Bush administration's security and intelligence-gathering policies have inspired few critiques as thorough as Ratner's. The president of the progressive Center for Constitutional Rights presents a mock trial of 14 U.S. government and military officials, Donald Rumsfeld chief among them; with immunity from criminal prosecution while in office, Bush and Cheney are named as unindicted co-conspirators. The charge is torture and war crimes. The opening statement describes the Bush administration's alleged "torture program" in detail and the role the "defendants" played. The "prosecution evidence" includes statements of former Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo detainees describing tortures such as sleep deprivation, water-boarding and stress positions. Ratner presents the defense primarily through government documents, such as the infamous John Yoo memo rejecting the application of the Geneva Accords to detainees. This "defense" is followed by a rebuttal based on international law that systematically rejects the government's arguments. Of course, a real trial would give the defense an opening and closing statement, and books don't allow for cross-examination. Though his case appears strong, Ratner's conceit will appeal primarily to those who have already voted "guilty." Photos. (Sept.)
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