Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency

Daniel Klaidman

ISBN 10: 0547547897 / ISBN 13: 9780547547893

Verlag: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers G0547547897I4N00

Inhaltsangabe:

Is Barack Obama an idealist or a ruthless pragmatist? He vowed to close Guantánamo, put an end to coercive interrogation and military tribunals, and restore American principles of justice, yet in his first term he has backtracked on each of these promises, ramping up the secret war of drone strikes and covert operations. Behind the scenes, wrenching debates between hawks and doves—those who would kill versus those who would capture—have repeatedly tested the very core of the president’s identity.

Top investigative reporter Dan Klaidman has spoken to dozens of sources to piece together a riveting Washington story packed with revelations. As the president’s inner circle debated secret programs, new legal frontiers, and the disjuncture between principles and down-and-dirty politics, Obama vacillated, sometimes lashed out, and spoke in lofty tones while approving a mounting toll of assassinations and kinetic-war operations. Klaidman’s fly-on-the-wall reporting reveals who has his ear, how key national security decisions are really made, and whether or not President Obama has lived up to the promise of candidate Obama. Readers making up their minds about him during the 2012 election year will turn to Kill or Capture to decide.

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From Kill or Capture:

What emerged in early 2009 was an unusual alliance that would serve to guide Obama through the shadow wars: Hoss Cartwright would join John Brennan in advising the president about terrorist targets, the three forming a kind of holy trinity of targeted killings.

In the coming months and years, Brennan and Cartwright would find themselves pulling the president out of state dinners or tracking him down on a secure phone to discuss a proposed strike. Obama could be known to muster a little gallows humor when Cartwright or Brennan showed up at the Oval Office unannounced. Uh-oh, this can t be good, he would say, arching an eyebrow. One of Brennan s least favorite duties was pulling Obama away from family time with his wife and daughters for these grim calls . . . The three men were making life-and-death decisions, picking targets, rejecting or accepting names put forward by the military, feeling their way through a new kind of war Obama s war.

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the ...
Verlag: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
Einband: Hardcover
Zustand: Very Good
Zustand des Schutzumschlags: No Jacket