"The authors and outlooks collected in this volume represent the clearest, most realistic, most penetrating thought about America's response to terrorist threats. The wider the audience is for views like these, the closer the country will come to an effective, sustainable policy for protecting its people and defending its values.---JAMES FALLOWS National Correspondent, Atlantic Monthly" --
Terrorizing Ourselves dismantles much of the flawed thinking that dominates U.S. counterterrorism policy today and lays out alternative approaches informed by experience, deliberation, and the well-established norms of a free society. Leading experts in the field contributed to this important new book, which shows that politicians use fear for political purposes and spend vast sums of money on dubious security measures. These experts explore the nature of modern terrorism, explain and decry our panicked responses to it, and offer sober alternatives. Beyond specific proposals for disrupting terror cells and improving homeland security efforts, Terrorizing Ourselves documents the many ways in which a climate of fear-mongering exacerbates the threat of terrorism. Terrorists, the authors note, get their name for a reason. Fear is their chief tactic. Political forces push U.S. policymakers to hype this fear, encouraging Americans to believe that terrorists are global super villains who can wreck American society unless we submit to their demands. This book shows that policies based on this fantasy are self-defeating and bring needless war, wasted wealth, and less freedom. The authors explore strategies to undermine support for these policies. They also sketch an alternative counterterrorism and homeland security strategy—one that makes us safer and plays to Americans’ confidence rather than our fears.
"Based on the author's many years as a medium, it includes step-by-step practicves for quieting the mind and creating a clear channel for spiritual communication, allowing you to discover, activate, trust, and to follow your own external voice while uncoveruing your soul's greatest purpose and passion."--Jacket.
The truth is we are all just a little bit crazy in some areas of our life to a whole lot of crazy. Being miss-directed is one of the things mankind has in common as the various forms of insanity work the same way in every one of us. We've all been programmed to unknowingly believe in a host of lies and it's our belief in the need to uphold the lies that do us in. There are laws that pertain to the universe. These laws cannot be broken without creating diverse consequences. With every action there is an opposite reaction of effect. And where do the decisions we make come from? They generally come from our minds. The question then becomes, "Who's controlling the mind?" If your mind is at work and in agreement with you then you would rightly say you are controlling your mind. But if you occasionally find that your mind is working against you then you should consider you are not solely in control. Jesus referred to Satan as, the father of lies. I intend to show how the workings of evil are constructed through the placement of lies and how these lies in combination are at work to disrupt our lives. I will show how the longest and greatest lie is packaged and how the six major steps that makes up a combined package works powerfully against you. Then I will show how the effects from the lies get all mixed in with the pain you experience and how the end results can be devastating. This book is about our need for revelation and offers the reader an opportunity to begin a personal journey with life as it truly is. This is a lifelong journey in Spirit and truth and it begins with your full recognition of the need for having God working continuously in your life.
Written by a man who is arguably the country’s most authoritative voice on counterterrorism, Crush the Cell demolishes, with simple logic, the edifice of false “terror punditry” that has been laid, brick by brick, since 9/11. A veteran of special ops, international diplomacy, and bruising clashes with federal law enforcement agencies, Michael Sheehan delivers in this book a two-part message: First, that we’ve wasted–and are continuing to waste–billions of dollars on the wrong protective measures, and second, that knowing the bad guys’ next move is paramount. Somewhere in America, Sheehan maintains, are a number of terrorist cells, their members’ heads filled with schemes of mayhem and destruction. Motivated not, as some believe, by feelings of disenfranchisement, disdain for freedom, or economic envy but by a compelling ideological hatred, these individuals plot not just terror but paralyzing terror–the kind that can shut down a country. Unwittingly aiding and abetting them are many (but not all) “terror experts” and members of the media who, for reasons that are partly self- serving, rate the bad guys’ capabilities far higher than they are, playing into terrorists’ hands with their hype. Spurred by the pundits’ inflated assessments, legislation follows that drains billions from taxpayers’ pockets and pours money into a bloated Washington bureaucracy championing needless programs. Here, Sheehan shows why defensive fortresses don’t work, but offensive operational intelligence does. He also peels back the mystery surrounding terrorist cells, portraying them as, typically, a group of bumblers searching for a charismatic leader who has what it takes to conduct a complex symphony of violence. Sharing time in the narrative spotlight are not just agents of al Qaeda, but also frighteningly destructive lone wolves, cults, and radical movements. In his career, Sheehan has operated in the mountain jungles of Central America, the back alleys of Mogadishu, and the teeming streets of New York City–but he has also participated at the highest levels of policy making at the White House, the State Department, and the United Nations. It’s his time protecting America’s most populous city as its counterterrorism czar, however, that yields this book’s most fascinating insights. As Sheehan reveals thwarted threats to New York’s bridges, subways, and landmarks, and recounts extraordinary simulations staged to gauge terrorists’ true abilities, we gain perhaps the clearest picture yet of what modern terror-fighting is all about.
The Least Retraumatizing Read on Childhood Sexual Abuse. For Survivors, by a Survivor. Healing Honestly is a candid, poignant, and often funny survivor-to-survivor guide to navigating the salty waters of untrue stories and victim-blaming narratives that survivors of child sex abuse hear every day. Survivors of child sex abuse (CSA) are inundated with untrue stories of their abuse, the aftermath, and what their healing journey should look like. The truth is those stories are a bunch of hot garbage. Healing Honestly is a guide for survivors, written by a survivor, helping to break through the negative self-talk and debunk the myths that impact victims of CSA, such as: There is a real survivor out there, and we are not it. It happened so long ago that we should be over it by now. We are having too much sex because of our trauma, and also, we are having too little sex because of our trauma. With an approachable style that makes heavy topics not so damn scary, this book shows how trauma survivors can learn to identify these untrue stories that often come up in dating, in friendships, in families, at work, and more. Readers will discover strategies for turning down the volume on the bullshit so that they can hear their own wisdom and inner truth more clearly. Full of wit and humor, Healing Honestly offers practical strategies for survivors of sex abuse to support themselves in living full and vibrant lives.
Chasing Ghosts exposes the ill-founded paranoia that has allowed the national security state to both feed at the public trough and undermine America's civil liberties tradition.
This publication is part of the Constructions of Terrorism Research Project being carried out through a partnership between TRENDS Research & Advisory, Abu Dhabi, UAE, and the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.
What should states do with the bodies of suicide bombers and other jihadists who die while perpetrating terrorist attacks? This original and unsettling book explores the host of ethical and political questions raised by this dilemma, from (non-)legitimization of the 'enemy' and their cause to the non-territorial identity of individuals who identified in life with a global community of believers. Because states do not recognize suicide bombers as enemy combatants, governments must decide individually what to do with their remains. Riva Kastoryano offers a window onto this challenging predicament through the responses of the American, Spanish, British and French governments after the Al-Qaeda suicide attacks in New York, Madrid and London, and Islamic State's attacks on Paris in 2015. Interviewing officials, religious and local leaders and jihadists' families, both in their countries of origin and in the target nations, she has traced the terrorists' travel history, discovering unexpected connections between their itineraries and the handling of their burials. This fascinating book reveals how states' approaches to a seemingly practical issue are closely shaped by territory, culture, globalization and identity.
How is your life working out so far? Is it what you wanted, or not? Have your experiences consisted of ongoing circumstances over which you had no control? Therefore, the only choices you could possibly have made were the ones you made because you had to; they were all that were available to you. We will even verbalize, "I had to do it, I had no choice." Our having no choice is just not true. Everything happening to us is the result of our choices. If we choose to be victims of circumstances--it's our choice. You see, circumstances happen to all of us; it's what you do with them that makes all the difference. You see, it's within every one of our present abilities to choose different paths for our lives. Even Jesus said, "Open your minds." We must become aware, each of things working out in our life is the result of a decision to choose a different path. So what will yours be? It's your choice to be victimized by your circumstance of life, or not. What will you do?
