The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam - Softcover

Akbar Ahmed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9351160009 ISBN 13: 9789351160007

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2013

Synopsis

The United States declared war on terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. In The Thistle and the Drone, Akbar Ahmed reveals a tremendously important yet largely unrecognized adverse effect of these campaigns: they actually have exacerbated the already-broken relationship between central governments and the tribal societies on their periphery. Drawing on forty case studies, this groundbreaking analysis demonstrates that it is the conflict between the centre and the periphery and the involvement of the United States that has fuelled the war on terror. No one is immune to this violence neither school children, nor congregations in their houses of worship. Battered by military or drone strikes one day and suicide bombers the next, people on the periphery say, Every day is like 9/11 for us.

About this title

About the Author:

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. He was the former Pakistani high commissioner to the United Kingdom, the first Distinguished Chair of Middle East Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Among his previous books are Journey into Islam and Journey into America. He is also a published poet and playwright.

Review:

"In the end, I was close to tears. Lagrimas caudales or "flowing tears," to use the apposite phrase of Blas de Otero, seems to be what the book's conclusions lead to.... Thus lagrimas for the tribes, for the soldiers, and for the United States.... Akbar Ahmed gives us the only way out of this dangerous dilemma, a way to coexist with the thistle without the drone."

--Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, professor of government and public policy at the College of William and Mary

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 9351160009
• ISBN 13: 9789351160007
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432