Blowback

When a plague works its way through the United States and Europe, Navy SEAL turned Homeland Security operative Scot Harvath is chosen by the president to find out who is responsible.

In the mid-1950s, Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese politicians began outbidding one another on who could provide the greatest advantages for their community, using the Sinhala language as their instrument. The appeal to Sinhalese linguistic nationalism precipitated a situation in which the movement to replace English as the country’s official language with Sinhala and Tamil (the language of Sri Lanka’s principal minority) was abandoned and Sinhala alone became the official language in 1956. The Tamils’ subsequent protests led to anti-Tamil riots and institutional decay, which meant that supposedly representative agencies of government catered to Sinhalese preferences and blatantly disregarded minority interests. This in turn led to the Tamils’ mobilizing, first politically then militarily, and by the mid-1970s Tamil youth were bent on creating a separate state.

The author behind the “eye-popping” (CNN) #1 New York Times bestseller A Warning presents an urgent look at how our deeply divided nation is setting the stage for “The Next Trump.” Donald Trump will be president again, whether he is on the ballot or not. That is because Trumpism is overtaking the Republican Party and will mount a vigorous comeback, potentially in the hands of a savvier successor. This prophecy will come true, according to Miles Taylor, if we do not learn the lessons of the recent past. With the 2024 election approaching, the formerly “Anonymous” official is back with bombshell revelations and a sobering national forecast. Through interviews with dozens of ex-Trump aides and government leaders, Taylor predicts what could happen inside “Trump 2.0,” the White House of a more competent and more formidable copycat. What sounds like a political thriller—from shadowy presidential powers and CIA betrayals to angry henchmen and assassination plots—is instead America’s political reality, as Taylor uses untold stories to shed light on the ex-President’s unfulfilled plans, the dark forces haunting our lives, and how we can thwart the rise of extremism in the United States.\ Blowback is also a surprisingly emotional and self-critical portrait of a dissenter, whose own unmasking provides a vivid warning about what happens when we hide the truth from others and, most importantly, ourselves.

An explosive account of the resentments American policies are sowing around the world and of the payback that will be our harvest in the twenty-first century. Blowback, a term invented by the CIA, refers to the uninted consequences of American policies. In this sure-to-be-controversial book, Chalmers Johnson lays out in vivid detail the dangers faced by our overextended empire, which insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From a case of rape by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa to our role in Asia's financial crisis, from our early support for Saddam Hussein to our actions in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the ways in which our misguided policies are planting the seeds of future disaster. In the wake of the Cold War, the United States has imprudently expanded the commitments it made over the previous forty years, argues Johnson. In Blowback, he issues a warning we would do well to consider: it is time for our empire to demobilize before our bills come due.

A searing account of a dark “chapter in U.S. Cold War history . . . to help the anti-Soviet aims of American intelligence and national security agencies” (Library Journal). Even before the final shots of World War II were fired, another war began—a cold war that pitted the United States against its former ally, the Soviet Union. As the Soviets consolidated power in Eastern Europe, the CIA scrambled to gain the upper hand against new enemies worldwide. To this end, senior officials at the CIA, National Security Council, and other elements of the emerging US national security state turned to thousands of former Nazis, Waffen Secret Service, and Nazi collaborators for propaganda, psychological warfare, and military operations. Many new recruits were clearly responsible for the deaths of countless innocents as part of Adolph Hitler’s “Final Solution,” yet were whitewashed and claimed to be valuable intelligence assets. Unrepentant mass murderers were secretly accepted into the American fold, their crimes forgotten and forgiven with the willing complicity of the US government. Blowback is the first thorough, scholarly study of the US government’s extensive recruitment of Nazis and fascist collaborators right after the war. Although others have approached the topic since, Simpson’s book remains the essential starting point. The author demonstrates how this secret policy of collaboration only served to intensify the Cold War and has had lasting detrimental effects on the American government and society that endure to this day.

He's just gotten some bad news, and its impact has made him immobile and fearful. He's always known that the racking cough was not just something that was going to go away, that the ache in his chest was indicative of something more serious. And now he's found out that he has a lesion on his lung which could be malignant. He's set to sit and wait and do nothing else until he gets the results, but is swayed into action by a call from an old buddy of his from the service, Harry Burroughs.Harry has an isolated fishing camp in Northern California. Currently, he has several people in residence. Recent events have convinced him that the place is a powderkeg waiting to erupt into violence. Therefore, the call to Nameless. What Nameless finds on his arrival is a simmering situation, mostly caused by the presence of a very erotic woman by the name of Angela who is there with her extremely jealous husband, Ray, who is even more combustible because he's a heavy drinker. Angela is a woman who plays sweet but gets deep underneath a man's skin and is nowhere near as innocent as she would have folks believe.And then the murders start. The first doesn't seem to have anything to do with the situation when a rug dealer is killed in his van. But then the inhabitants of the camp become targets, including Nameless. He faces more than the usual share of danger as he is entombed in a cave. The book has a little bit of everything-sexual intrigue, theft, murder, violence-all leavened by Nameless searching for the truth in a high tension environment.

At a time when crime scene television shows are all the rage amongst the civilian population, knowledge of firearm forensics is of paramount importance to crime scene analysts, police detectives, and attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense. Cartridges and Firearm Identification brings together a unique, multidisciplined approach to questions that arise regarding ammunition and firearms within the context of investigation. Supplying essential practical information about firearms and ammunition in a clear, easy-to-follow format, this volume: Defines and depicts photographically all varieties of firearms Presents investigative concerns of firearms evidence from the perspectives of evidence preservation and safe handling procedures Introduces readers to the standards of measurement used to classify ammunition, including the significance of names, adjectives, and other descriptors used in conjunction with ammunition cartridges Categorizes and identifies ammunition head stamps from cartridges produced around the world Provides ammunition manufacturing practices for dozens of nations The text offers a methodology for the identification of unknown firearms as well as ammunition of questioned identity. The author explains the terminology and describes each group of firearms and the aspects that identify the weaponry—including property marks, proof marks, and patent dates. Lavishly illustrated, this comprehensive reference includes case studies to support the text, making it a premier reference for all those responsible for the complicated task of investigating firearms and cartridges.

This edited collection offers a broad consideration of contemporary rhetorical scholarship, tied to political, ethical, and spiritual themes. Originating from the 2004 conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, the contents of this volume reflects the conference themes of rhetorical agendas in current theory and research. The volume starts off with transcripts of the talks presented by the conference's featured speakers. The essays that follow are organized around five key topics: history, theory, pedagogy, publics, and gender. These chapters address subjects ranging from religious identity to civil rights; from weapons of mass destruction to literacy testing and electronic texts, reflecting the wide array of areas under study across the rhetoric discipline. With contributions from well-known scholars as well as newcomers, the breadth and diversity of this collection make a significant contribution to rhetorical scholarship, and will stimulate additional work. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students in rhetoric studies in speech communication, English, and related disciplines.