"Bush and God," Newsweek (March 10, 2003), by Howard Fineman.  A very provocative and powerful piece about the profound impact on September 11 on Bush, the role of religion, and becoming a type of born again "war president."

Russell Baker, “Condi and the Boys,” New York Review of Books (April 3, 2008)

"Cheney's Long Path to War," Newsweek (November 17, 2003), by Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas.  Investigative journalism on Cheney's  behind the scenes but critical role to war.

John P. Burke, “The Contemporary Presidency: Condeleezza Rice as NSC Advisor: A Case Study of the Honest Broker Role,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (September 2005), pp. 554-575

Abuse of Power a Byproduct of Empire," Washington Post (May 12, 9004), by George Will.  Very powerful and critical article on the Bush Administration's foreign policy toward Iraq and engaging in the business of empire from an unusual source, George Will, a highly visible conservative columnist.

Is Condi the Problem? As Critics accuse the Bush Team of Bungling the Fight Against Terrorism," Time takes an Inside Look at the Role Played by the President's National Security Adviser," Time (April 5, 2004), by Micheal Elliott and Massimo Calabresi. Condeleeza Rice continues to be an enigma and appears to have a very difficult time coordinating the national security process and the principal officials within the Bush Adm.  Although not much is known of her management role, it appears to be relatively incompetent compared to her mentor, Brent Scrowcroft.

Joseph Lelyveld, “The Good Soldier,” New York Review of Books (November 2, 2006)

"Blind Into Baghdad:The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle not because the government did no planning but because a vast amount of expert planning was willfully ignored by the people in charge.  The inside story of a historic failure.. The Atlantic Monthly (January/February 2004) by James Fallows.    More insightful, informative,  eye-opening, illustrative and devastating than the first or second Woodward books, the Clarke book, the Oneil Book or any other book or article that I am aware of (in my humble opinion). From one of the truly top American journalists, comes a fabulous and disturbing article, presented in Fallows' typically well-written and professional way.  Fallows demonstrates how little we know and how much we should know.  It sheds light on the administration, it's foreign policy process, it's general approach and attitude, and why post-war Iraq is turning into a quagmire.   To give you a little preview, as Fallows states:  "The Administration will be admired in retrospect for how much knowledge it created about the challenge it was taking on. . . . But the Administration will be condemned for what it did with what was known.  The problems the United States has encountered are precisely the ones its own expert agencies warned against. . . . What David Halberstam said of Robert McNamara in The Best and the Brightest is true of those at OSD (the Office of Secretary of Defense, such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitze, and including others civilians such as Cheney) as well: they were brilliant, and they were fools."  The article also has some links to some interesting relevant articles and cartoons.

P.W. Singer, “Outsourcing War,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2005), pp. 119–133

Doug Swanson, “All the Comforts of War,” Dallas Morning News (June 10, 2006)

Michael R. Gordon, “Army of Some,” New York Times Magazine (August 20, 2006)

"Acknowledging the Psychiatric Cost of War," New England Journal of Medicine (July 1, 2004), editorial.

Michael Massing, “Iraq: The Hidden Human Costs,” New York Review of Books (December 20, 2007)

"Bluebrint for a Mess," New York Times Magazine (November 2, 2003), by David Rieff.  An excellent earlier overview of the policymaking process that contributed to the postwar reconstruction mess.  Similar to Fallows but has some additional information.

“Iraq Needed a Benign Dictator,” interview with Kanan Makiya, Washington Post (March 19, 2006)

Karen Armstrong, Islam (Modern Library, 2002), (partI) pp. 3-31, 115-117, (part II) 141-175, 178-180, 184-187 

Joel Rayburn “The Last Exit from Iraq,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006), pp. 29-40

Robert F. Worth, “Al Queda’s Inner Circle,” The New York Review of Books (October 19, 2006), pp. 12-16

Ladan Boroumand and Roya Boroumand, “Terror, Islam, and Democracy,” Journal of Democracy (April 2002).

William Dalrymple, “Inside the Madrasas,” New York Review of Books (December 1, 2005), pp. 16-20

Max Rodenbeck, “The Time of the Shia,” New York Review of Books (August 16, 2006).

Lucy Brown and David Romano, “Women in Post-Saddam Iraq: One Step Forward or Two Steps Back?” NWSA Journal (Fall 2006), pp. 1-21

Thomas L. McNaughter, “The Real Meaning of Military Transformation: Rethinking the Revolution,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2007)

Robert D. Kagan, “Hunting the Taliban in Las Vegas,” Atlantic Monthly (September 2006), pp. 81-84

"Global Security Firms Fill in as Private Armies: 15,000 agents Patrol Violent Streets of Iraq," San Francisco Chronocle (March 28, 2004), by Robert Collier.  Describes the rise of PRIVATE SECURITY FIRMS being used in Iraq and throughout the world, an important phenomena in U.S. foreign policy and global politics.

"Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq."  New York Times  (April 19, 2004), by David Barstow.

"Tikrit Dispatch: Uncivil Military," The New Republic (March 1, 2004), by Joshua Hammer.  Shows the tense relations and conflict on the ground in Iraq WITHIN the U.S. government, especially the civilians (through the Coaltion Provisional Authority) and the military.

"Multiple Combat Tours Strain a Third of Troops: Extended Duty Harms U.S. Recruitment," International Herald Tribune (November 27-28, 2004), by Bryan Bender.

George Packer, “The Lesson of Tal Afar: Is It too Late for the Administration to Correct Its Course in Iraq?” The New Yorker (April 10, 2006).

"Army Reserve Fast Becoming 'Broken' Force,' Baltimore Sun (January 5, 2005), by Tom Bowman.  

"The Rise of the Shadow Warriors," Foreign Affairs (March/April 2004), by Jennifer D. Kibbe.  Describes the increasing reliance and prominence of the U.S. military's special forces for various missions around the world and its involvement with covert operations.

"The Hollow Army," The Atlantic Monthly (March 2004), by James Fallows.  The military is stretched to the breaking point and one more crisis could break it.

"A Citizen Check on War" Washington Post (November 16, 2003), by Janine Davidson.  One of my current ph.d students just got an op ed piece in the Washington Post on the role of the Reserves and the National Guard as part of the military.  Check it out

Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care," New England Journal of Medicine (July 1, 2004), article.

Delusions in Baghdad," New York Review of Books (December 18, 2003), by Mark Danner.  On everyday life, the occupation, the growing war, , and future prospects in Iraq.  You feel like you're in Iraq and things are getting worse. 

Christian Carly, “What About the Iraqis?” New York Review of Books, (January 11, 2007), pp. 36-39

“Death on the road to Basra,” BBC News (June 28, 2003).  This article is a powerful piece by a BBC journalist on why the United States is having such a difficult time and inhospitable reception in Iraq, and why nation-building in general is not a strength of the U.S. government and, in particular, the military.  Tristana Moore makes a tragic discovery on the Basra to Baghdad motorway that destroys Iraqi trust in US troops.

 "Over 100,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom," Asheville Global News (November 4-10, 2004), compiled by Patrick Byrne.  Sources: Al-jazeera, AP, BBC, Independent(UK), New York Times, and Reuters.  Interesting and controversial study.  But even if the numbers are half-correct, . . .

Jeffrey Rosen, “Man-Made Disaster,” New Republic (December 24, 2008)

Raul R. Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006)

"Torture and Truth," New York Review of Books (June 10, 2004),by Mark Danner (staff writer of The New Yorker). Reviews Major General Taguba's report and the Report of the International Red Cross.  Not pretty.

"THE GRAY ZONE: How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib," by SEYMOUR M. HERSH The New Yorker  (May 24, 2004).  Beginning paragraph:  "The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focused on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror."

"Making Torture Legal," New York Review of Books (July 15, 2004), by Anthony Lewis.  The legalization of torture within the Bush administration in defiance of American civil liberties and rights, and international law, especially the Geneva conventions.  Scary.

Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 11, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004), prologue, chapter 30, chapter31, chapter32  [each is a separate adobe acrobat file]

"The Rise of bin Laden," By Ahmed Rashid New York Review of Books (May 27, 2004). Review of the Coll book.

"The Vanishing Case for War," New York Review of Books (December 4, 2003), by Thomas Powers.  One of the most prominent and respected experts on intelligence makes it clear that the case for war with Iraq was based on politicized and selective intelligence at the highest levels of government.  As Powers states, "The invasion and conquest of Iraq by the United States last spring was the result of what is probably the least ambiguous case of the misreading of secret intelligence in American history."  Powers explains what happened and why.

"The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty," The New Republic (June 30, 2003), by John Judis. Investigative journalism demonstrating that truth was the first casualty in the selling of the war by the Bush Adm, especially in the politicization and abuse of the intelligence community.

"Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong," The Atlantic Monthly  (January-February 2004), by Kenneth M. Pollack.  An inside account from a former intelligence analyst.  How could the U.S. government have been so far off in our estimates of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs?  A leading Iraq expert and intelligence analyst in the Clinton Administration--whose book The Threatening Storm proved deeply influential in the run-up to the war--gives a detailed account of how and why the U.S. erred.  Pollack emphasizes the failures in the intelligence community as well as the politicization of intelligence from above.

"Overselling the World On War: The Message was Plain: Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction Made War Unavoidable.  So Where are they?  Inside the Administration's Civil War over Intel," Newswwek (June 9, 2003), by Evan Thomas, Richard Wolffe and Michael Isikoff.  A mainstream look inside the intelligence community and the Bush Administration, and the critical role played by DCI George Tenet who was appointed by President Clinton (and the only Clinton appointee kept by Bush).

"Playing Defense: Bush's Disastrous Homeland Security Department," The New Republic (March 15, 2004), by Michael Crowley.  A devastating and realistic portrayal of a bureaucratic mess with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, despite public rhetoric to the contrary and little support by President Bush.  It's easier to change the organizational chart then it is to create a functional and efficient, new and improved bureaucracy, especially without strong and willing leadership at the top.

"Secret World of U.S. Interrogation: Long History of Tactics in Overseas Prisons Is Coming to Light," By Dana Priest and Joe Stephens, Washington Post (May 11, 2004), p. A01  Compares Iraq to U.S. prisons elsewhere in the world.  Obviously not just a function of a few rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel and not just limited to Iraq. 

"The Roots of Torture: The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to fight a new kind of war," Newsweek (May 24, 2004), by John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff.  A special report shows concerns, orders, and the general climate for increasing the intensity of the prison interrogations came from the top of the military and the civilian leadership, justified  because of the "war" on terrorism. 

"The New Pentagon Papers," Salon (March 10, 2004), by Karen Kwiatkowski.  A high-ranking military officer, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, reveals how high-level civilians within the Defense Department suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.

"Military lawyers advised Pentagon two years ago to protect prisoners: But JAGs say Pentagon political appointees had a harsher agenda," Christian Science Monitor (May 17, 2004), by Tom Regan.  A powerful piece that demonstrates that the military's JAG (Judge Advocate General's Corps) had been advising and warning about the prisoner situation in the war on terrorism, only to be ignored by the civilians within the Bush administration at the top.  A synthesizes from a variety of mainstream sources.

Robert Kuttner, The End of Laissez Faire (1992), introduction, chapter 1, chapter 2 & chapter 8

William Greider, The Soul of Capitalism (2004), chapter 1

Robert Skidelsky, “Can You Spare a Dime?” New York Review of Books (January 15, 2009)

Jonathan Kwitney, "The Bankers, the Business, and the Lawyers," in Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World (1984), pp. 8-30

Jonathan Cohn, “Auto Destruct,” New Republic (Dece,ber 31, 2008)

Christopher Hayes, “Free Traitors,” New Republic (October 8, 2008)

"Axis of Evil: America's Twisted Love Affair with Sociopathic Cars," The New Republic (January 20, 2003), by Greg Easterbrook.  A little long-winded, but a marvelous book review article on the rise and evils of SUVs.  By the way, 1 out of every 2 new vehicles bought by Americans is now a SUV or a truck.

James Thompson, "How Could Vietnam Happen," Atlantic Monthly (April 1968), pp. 47-53

Mark Hosenball, “The Odd Couple: How George Bush Helped Create Saddam Hussein,” chapter 22 in Rosati reader

Michelle Cottle, “Status Woe,” New Republic (December 24, 2008)

Cass R. Sunstein, “The 9/11 Constitution,” The New Republic (January 16, 2006)

Pamela Fessler, “Congress’s Record on Saddam: Decade of Talk,” Congressional Quarterly (1992)

Elizabeth Drew, “Democrats: The Big Surprise,” New York Review of Books (January 11, 2007)

Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, “When Congress Checks Out,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2006)

"The Misery of Being a House Democrat: Oppressed Minority," The New Republic (June 23, 2003), by Michael Crowley.  The article really shows how the Republicans run a tyrannical ship in Congress.

President John F. Kennedy's "Inaugural Address," (January 20, 1961).

President Bush, "West Point Address," (June 1, 2002).  An overview of the Bush Administration's global  war on terrorism and the Bush Doctrine.  A condensed version of The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.

Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, “Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq,” International Security 30 (Winter 2005/2006), pp. 7–46

Cass R. Sunstein, “The Case for Fear,” The New Republic (December 11, 2006)

J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (New York: Vintage, 1966), pp. 3-22.

"The Case for Bush Hatred," The New Republic (September 29, 2003), by Jonathan Chait
"The Case Against Bush Hatred," The New Republic (September 29, 2003), Ramesh Ponnuru

 "The Hispanic Challenge," Foreign Policy (March/April 2004), by Samuel P. Huntington.  From "modernization" to the "third way of democracy," to the "clash of civilizations," and now to the class within American civilization.  Is America doomed?  Huntington never fails to provoke.

http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html.  NEOCON 101 from The Christian Science Monitor, provides an overview of the basic views, figures, events, think tanks, documents and periodicals on neoconservatives.

"The Neocons in Power," The New York Review of Books  (June 12, 2003), by Elizabeth Drew.  Drew provides investigative and inside information on the rise of the neoconservatives to power and within the Bush Administration.

"Identity Crisis: Neocon v. Neocon in Iran,"  The New Republic (December 20, 2004), by Franklin Foer. 

"Tomorrow the World," New York Review of Books (March 11, 2004), by Thomas Powers.  Book review article on Richard Perle's new book and his view of the world.

"World of Difference: The Secrets of John Bolton's Success," The New Republic (March 29, 2004), by Lawrence Kaplan.  An inside look at the influence and ideas of John Bolton, the powerful Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.  Kaplan, who tends to be rather conservative himself, makes an interesting distinction between "neo-conservatives" (like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz) and a "nationalistic realist" (like Bolton).  Both conservative internationalist orientations, but also quite different.

James Bamford, “Big Brother is Listening,” The Atlantic Monthly (April 2006)

Andrew Rudalevige, “Civil Rights, Uncivil Wrongs: The War on Terrorism’s Toll on the U.S. Constitution,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2007)

"Patriotism Perverted: Sept. 11 and the Erosion of American Liberty," Free Times (July 3, 2002), by Dan Cook.  Excellent overview of superpatriotism, the patriot act, and a culture of permanent war.

"Protestor=Criminal?," The Progressive (February 2004), by Matthew Rothschild.  A powerful description of what is happening with the war at home and American democracy, especially to those who are politically active and speak out.

"Homeland Security Given Data on Arab-Americans," New York Times (July 30, 2004), by Lynette Clemetson.

               

Elilzabeth Drew, “The Truth About the Election,” New York Review of Books (December 18, 2008)

John B. Judis, “How the Dems Won: Blue’s Clues,” New Republic (November 20, 2006)

Thomas B. Edsall, “Party Hardy: Karl Rove’s Juggernaut,” New Republic (September 25, 2006)

"30 Years' War: How Bush Went Back to the 1970s," The New Republic (November 11, 2004), by John B. Judis

"Deep divisions unlikely to heal soon," by PAULINE ARRILLAGA,The Associated Press (November 7, 2004) .A great article on how much Americans are polarized, on why those who voted against Bush and those who voted for Bush are incredulous about "the other."  A taste:  "Blues don’t simply disagree with reds, and vice versa. Increasingly, it seems, each side sees the other as just plain wrong. Not like us. Impossible to be around. They use words like “scary” to describe one another’s vision of tomorrow."

"War Stories" Newsweek (February 23, 2004), by Evan Thomas.  Solid overview of the impact of background, education, and Vietnam on Bush and Kerry--two graduates from Yale two years apart and both members of "Skull and Bones."  Kind of eerie and weird that American's two viable nominees have so much in common given their past, and are also so different.

Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown, 2006), chapter 4 on “One Strange Theory,”

“The War Over Israeli’s Influence,” articles by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, Aaron Friedberg, Dennis Ross, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Foreign Policy (July/August 2006)

 

Michael Massing, “The End of News, The New York Review of Books (December 1, 2005), pp. 23-27

Michael Massing, “The Press: The Enemy Within,” New York Review of Books (December 15, 2005)

"Hard Times for Hard News: A Clinical Look at U.S. Foreign Coverage," World Policy Journal (Winter 2003/04), by John F. Stacks.  Self-explanatory from the title.  Really good overview of how the mainstream media covers and communicates a story, and why American are so poorly and selectively informed in general.

Orville Schell, “Baghdad: The Besieged Press,” New York Review of Books (April 6, 2006)

"The Unseen War," The New York Review of Books (May 29, 2003), by Michael Massing.  A fascinating portrait of how the American media covered the war early on and was dominated by the military, and provides a pro-American, sanitized perspective>  Massing compares this to European coverage, especially the BBC, and Arab coverage, especially Al-Jazeera.

"What You See vs. What They See," Time (February 3, 2003), by James Poniewozik.  An interesting article comparing the media views of the war most Arabs get from what Americans get. 

"Now They Tell Us," New York Review of Books (February 26, 2004), by Michael Messing.  A superb description of how the mainstream media, focusing on The New York Times, missed (or buried) the story about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction BEFORE the attack, and only has begun to get it right recently.

"Iraq: Now They Tell Us: An Exchange" New York Review of Books (April 8, 2004).  A spirited response to the article above from a number of journalists, with a response from Massing. 

Read Leslie Gelb and Richard Betts, “We’re Fighting Not to Lose,” Washington Post (January 14, 2007)

Read Robert Kaiser, “Trapped by Hubris, Again,” Washington Post (January 14, 2007)

Alexander L. George, “The Two Cultures of Academia and Policy-Making: Bridging the Gap,” Political Psychology 15 (1994), pp. 143-172

Max Rodenbeck, “How Terrible Is It?” The New York Review of Books (November 30, 2006), pp. 33-38

George Packer, “Knowing the Enemy: Can Social Scientists Redefine the “War on Terror”? The New Yorker (December 18, 2006), pp. 61-69

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED SOURCES FOR INFORMATION: ALSO GO TO RECOMMENDED SOURCES

The New York Review of Books    http://www.nybooks.com/
The American journal that has the greatest breadth of coverage concerning politics, culture and the arts, including book review essays and much, much more.  For those who really enjoy intellectual stimulation, thinking, and learning.

The New Republic    www.tnr.com 
liberal-lefties call TNR conservative.  conservative-righties call it liberal.  they must be doing something right.  TNR is one of my favorite weeklies and i have been subscribing to them for over 30 years.  they have definitely evolved over the years in terms of their ideological center--sometimes moving left, and more recently moving right.  but i would categorize them as relatively centrist and diverse.  the main articles traverse the liberal-to-conservative spectrum (with the exception of martin peretz, the owner, who if he ever writes an article or editorial on Israel is always fervently pro-Israeli and neo-con, otherwise he's usually relatively centrist-liberal). the book review section, in my opinion, is only second to THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS--the quality is as good, but there are fewer and they are usually shorter.  TNR is a great place to get diverse perspectives from a single source. 

  Superb collection of articles on the war in iraq and terrorism. Go to http://www.newyorker.com/archive/

THOUGHT PROVOKING JOURNALISM
ON AIR AND ONLINE
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/  Frontline is television's best investigative reporting show for contemporary affairs.  It is usually one hour and usually comes on during Thursday night at 9 or 10 pm (check your local listing).  It's modeled on CBS's 60 Minutes, but focuses on one story in great depth (in fact, the main person responsible for Frontline quit 60 Minutes as a result of its CBS's and Mike Wallace's failure to broadcast a story on the tobacco industry (as depicted in the powerful movie The Insiders with Al Pacino).




The Asheville Global Report  www.agr.org  I also would like to recommend a weekly alternative news site called the Asheville Global Report. Our own litle Asheville--our gem and baby San Francisco in the Blue Ridge--puts out a really interesting and informative alternative weekly.  they put out about 2000 hardcopies in the asheville area a week.  and they have a really good website.  all free.  and they have a staff of about 10 people.  they take donations, naturally, and you can subscribe to the hardcopy which they will mail you (which i am in the process of doing).  but it's a neat little alternative liberal-left (naturally) newspaper on world affairs and the U.S.  even have a section in espanol.  very impressive. they will email you a weekly update--and being a weekly it probably won't overwhelm you.  check out the site.  I highly recommend it.

World Press Review  www.worldpress.org/  Terrific and unique source of global news, sources, and links. Worldpress.org was founded in 1997 and we are committed to offering our readers a first-hand look at the issues and debates that occupy the world's newspapers and magazines. As the space devoted to thoughtful, incisive reporting of foreign news shrinks in the U.S. media, many subjects and perspectives of vital international importance are increasingly obscured or invisible to Americans. Drawing upon publications around the globe, and a network of correspondents in dozens of countries, worldpress.org illuminates the issues that barely see the light of day in the mainstream press, translating, reprinting, analyzing, and contextualizing the best of the international press from more than 20 languages.

    
www.free-times.com/  Free Times is the alternative print media for Columbia, the midlands, and South Carolina.