This book brings together many of the world's leading experts, both academic and practitioner, in a single handbook that examines key international issues in the field of hate crime. Collectively, this represents the first single text to provide a detailed picture of the hate crime ‘problem’ around the world and will serve as the definitive publication in this area.
Broken into four parts, this book covers theory, concepts and history; the international geography of hate; key issues in hate crime; and international efforts to combat hate and hate crime.
Although the two superpowers managed to avoid a cataclysmic disaster during the almost 40 years of the Cold War, the same could not be said of the many states “standing-in” as their ideological proxies. The list of nations suffering various degrees of irreparable damage as a result of the “Cold War” is almost unending. Among them, one would be remiss not to include Cuba, Angola, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Chile, Guatemala, just to name the ones that come immediately to mind. Two other such nations were India, a Russian ally; and Pakistan, a U.S. ally. Both suffered immeasurably in the genocide exposed here.
As the author tells the story, Pakistan just happened fortuitously to get tripped into a genocide that cost more than a million (mostly Hindu) lives, merely by being in the path of destruction that rippled across the geopolitical landscape called Nixon-Kissinger Cold War realpolitik.
5.0 out of 5 starsSeminal Work for the Middle Period of Intelligence, September 28, 2013
The history of national intelligence in terms of spies, satellites, and secrets can be concisely separated into three eras: the era of secret wars, the era of strategic analysis, and the era of open source intelligence.
Sherman Kent was without question the dean and the prophet for the second era, and this gem of a book remains a standard in the field and required reading for any intelligence professional (collector, analyst, or other). He did not realize his vision because the clandestine service (of which I was a member) took over the CIA and subordinated the analysts, and because in so doing, the CIA lost touch with most of the open source world.
Today Kent is succeeded by Jack Davis, whose term “analytic tradecraft” can be used to find his collection of memos on the web, and by the CIA University. However, the secret world is now under attack by the emergent World Brain, in which Collective (Public) Intelligence utilizes open sources of information to create Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) that is better than secret information, cheaper than secret information, and more useful than secret information because it can be shared broadly.
Those whose sense of self is defined by the secret world will have difficulty adjusting to this, witness the continued references in the secret world to “Open Sources.” Max nix. The war is over, and Kent's vision will ultimately be realized in the third era, the era of open sources.
Since early 2007 a new breed of combatants has appeared on the streets of Mogadishu and other towns in Somalia: the ‘Shabaab', or youth, the only self-proclaimed branch of al-Qaeda to have gained acceptance (and praise) from Ayman al-Zawahiri and ‘AQ centre' in Afghanistan. Itself an offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, which split in 2006, Shabaab has imposed Sharia law and is also heavily influenced by local clan structures within Somalia itself. It remains an infamous and widely discussed, yet little-researched and understood, Islamist group.
Amazon Page
Hansen's remarkable book attempts to go beyond the media headlines and simplistic analyses based on alarmist or localist narratives and, by employing intensive field research conducted within Somalia, as well as on the ground interviews with Shabaab leaders themselves, explores the history of a remarkable organisation, one that has survived predictions of its collapse on several occasions. Hansen portrays al-Shabaab as a hybrid Islamist organization that combines a strong streak of Somali nationalism with the rhetorical obligations of international jihadism, thereby attracting a not insignificant number of foreign fighters to its ranks. Both these strands of Shabaab have been inadvertently boosted by Ethiopian, American and African Union attempts to defeat it militarily, all of which have come to nought.
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic, publisher needs to present it properly, September 12, 2013
This book was strongly recommended to me by Chuck Spinney, the top defense critic since he made the cover of TIME in the 1980's. I am in Afghanistan and focused on other matters, but I am so disappointed in the failure of the publisher to properly present the book (e.g. providing Look Inside the Book data to Amazon), and the three star review that provides so little detail and a questionable low rating, that I am moved to simply give this book, sight unseen five stars on the strength of Chuck's recommendation, and also list some other books below.
The bottom line is that the US lacks intelligence with integrity. Secret intelligence is too easy to ignore, and in the absence of public intelligence in the public interest, the politicians do what others pay them to do, not what is in the best interests of the public. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria are all examples of wars based on lies, wars that cost the public blood, treasure, and spirit, while enriching the few that have bought the politicians.
Other books supporting this book, whose main theme is the moral and intellectual vacuum of US foreign policy, include the following, a selection from my broader reading and reviewing here at Amazon (to see many more books lined up in 98 reading categories, visit Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog).
5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneeding, Deep, Essential, Needs 21st Century Follow-Up September 5, 2013
I borrowed this book from another officer, and have been quite delighted to spend time with it.
This is a much older book than most realize (1969) and its examples and case studies stop with the Six-Day War in 1967 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. It is certain a book that is worthy of being brought up to date through to the varied wars of the 21st Century; it is also a book that would merit a deeper look at the ethics, efficacy, and frequent perversion of deception operations, by which I mean both the mission and the mind-set creep from focused deception to what has been called “Strategic Communication,” or lies so broad and deep we believe them ourselves and want everyone else to believe them also. Apart from being dated, this is the books more important oversight – it does not offer the reader a balanced appraisal of when transparency, truth, and trust are a better investment than pervasive and pernicious deception of one's own public, global leaders, and global publics. The latter may be asking too much, I will soften it by strongly endorsing this book as a reader for war colleges around the world, with my own monographs (free online) from the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), as the counterfoil.
Now for the good of this book, this is considerable. This book merits vastly more attention than it has been getting, in part because the US marketplace is dumbed down and drugged up, and the US military still has a “hey-diddle-diddle up the middle mind-set.” “Keep it simple” is often actually “keep it stupid.” In that context, this book could be used to teach both ethics and nuanced thinking at the war colleges. The book offers – and the author points out this is the least visible part of the book – “an original exercise in methodology – a method designed to unmask deception when it is present.”
The author's introduction to the 2007 reprint is BRILLIANT. I can do no better and therefore I keep the book at five stars and suggest that the introduction, and my extractive summary of the book provided here at Amazon, be used as handouts across the war colleges.
Anabel Hernández, journalist and author, accuses the Mexican state of complicity with the cartels, and says the ‘war on drugs' is a sham. She's had headless animals left at her door and her family have been threatened by gunmen. Now her courageous bestseller, extracted below, is to be published in the UK
Book to be Released 10 September 2013 — Can Pre-Order Now
Amazon Page
The product of five years’ investigative reporting, the subject of intense national controversy, and the source of death threats that forced the National Human Rights Commission to assign two full-time bodyguards to its author, Anabel Hernández, Narcoland has been a publishing and political sensation in Mexico. The definitive history of the drug cartels, Narcoland takes readers to the front lines of the “war on drugs,” which has so far cost more than 60,000 lives in just six years. Hernández explains in riveting detail how Mexico became a base for the mega-cartels of Latin America and one of the most violent places on the planet. At every turn, Hernández names names—not just the narcos, but also the politicians, functionaries, judges and entrepreneurs who have collaborated with them. In doing so, she reveals the mind-boggling depth of corruption in Mexico’s government and business elite.
Hernández became a journalist after her father was kidnapped and killed and the police refused to investigate without a bribe. She gained national prominence in 2001 with her exposure of excess and misconduct at the presidential palace, and previous books have focused on criminality at the summit of power, under presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón. In awarding Hernández the 2012 Golden Pen of Freedom, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers noted, “Mexico has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with violence and impunity remaining major challenges in terms of press freedom. In making this award, we recognize the strong stance Ms. Hernández has taken, at great personal risk, against drug cartels.”
