The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Leading commentators examine the Afghan debacle and its parallels with previous British and Soviet occupations.
Known as the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan has now been singled out as Obama’s “just war,” the destination for an additional thirty thousand US troops in an effort to shore up an increasingly desperate occupation. Nick Turse brings together a range of leading analysts—including Andrew Bacevich, Anand Gopal, Chalmers Johnson and Ann Jones—to analyze America’s real motives and likely prospects. Through on-the-spot reporting, clear-headed analysis and historical comparisons with Afghanistan’s previous occupiers—Britain and the Soviet Union, who also argued that they were fighting a just and winnable war—The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan carefully examines the current US strategy and offers sobering conclusions. This timely and focused collection aims at the heart of Obama’s foreign policy and shows why it is so unlikely to succeed.

The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives

A mind-boggling investigation of the all-pervasive, constantly morphing presence of the Pentagon in daily life-a real-world Matrix come alive.  Here is the new, hip, high-tech military-industrial complex-an omnipresent, hidden-in-plain-sight system of systems that penetrates all our lives. From iPods to Starbucks to Oakley sunglasses, Nick Turse explores the Pentagon's little-noticed contacts (and contracts) with the products and companies that now form the fabric of America. Turse investigates the remarkable range of military incursions into the civilian world: the Pentagon's collaborations with Hollywood filmmakers; its outlandish schemes to weaponize the wild kingdom; its joint ventures with Marvel Comics and NASCAR. He shows the inventive ways the military, desperate for new recruits, now targets children and young adults, tapping into the 'culture of cool' by making 'friends' on MySpace. A striking vision of this brave new world of remote-controlled rats and super-soldiers who need no sleep, The Complex will change our understanding of the militarization of America. We are a long way from Eisenhower's military-industrial complex: this is the essential book for understanding its twenty-first-century progeny.