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This book emphasises the extremely dire situations that many religious minorities suffer in Iraq and the steps the Commission recommends that the U.S. government should take to ensure safe and fair provincial elections and security and safety for all Iraqis. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access. ... Read more

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This book is a tale of two towers,two wars and two visions. The two towers are those of the World Trade Center in New York, destroyed by a terrorist attack on 11 September 2001. The two wars are the War Against Terrorism and the War on Iraq. The two visions are of the international legal and political order for the twenty-first century. The issues involved in the War Against Terrorism and the War on Iraq are of fundamental importance because they may define the shape of international order for the twenty-first century. The book has a number of themes. First, it considers the principal international law and international order issues involved in the War Against Terrorism and in the War on Iraq in 2003. Specific attention is given to the application of international humanitarian and international human rights law in the wars. Secondly it asks how the international debate on the Iraq War was conducted and why? Finally it questions whether the post-1945 system of international laws and organizations is capable of surviving, and in what form?Chapter one outlines how the relationship between war and the international legal order has evolved and introduces the idea of 'complexity theory' as a framework for understanding the events and issues considered in this book. Chapter two considers the pattern of events from the attacks on the US on 9-11 to the Iraq War 2003. Chapter three addresses the issues of law and morality involved in the War Against Terrorism and the War on Iraq. Chapter four focuses on the moral and legal debate around the War on Iraq and chapter five considers the systemic consequences for international law doctrine and practice, giving particular weight to US policy and approaches and how other states have responded to them. Chapter six appraises the post-war situation in Iraq in terms of political and economic organisation and human rights. It also assesses the consequences of the status of post-war Iraq for the wider region. Chapter seven concludes the book by examining the possible implications of the War Against Terrorism and the War on Iraq for world order in the twenty-first century. ... Read more

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Fine investigation of the legality of recent wars
Dominic McGoldrick, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Liverpool, has written a fascinating and thoughtful analysis of the wars on terrorism and Iraq. Chapter 1 studies the relationship between war and international law.Chapter 2 looks at the controversy over the Iraq War and concludes that there is `no evidence of any involvement by Iraq' in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Chapter 3 debates the issues of international law and morality raised by the two wars and their implications for human rights. He concludes, "Once prisoners of war were taken and other persons were detained then, in principle, the European Convention on Human Rights came into play on the basis that those persons were within the effective control of the detaining state (assuming it is a state party to the ECHR). The UK submission in Bankovic appeared to concede this point. In relation to a post-conflict situation in Iraq, this was covered by the reference to `effective control of the relevant territory and its inhabitants abroad as a consequence of military occupation'."

Chapter 4 investigates the legality of the Iraq War. McGoldrick cites Professor Vaughan Lowe, "It is simply unacceptable that a step as serious and important as a massive military attack upon a State should be launched on the basis of a legal argument dependent upon dubious inferences drawn from silences in Resolution 1441 and the muffled echoes of earlier resolutions, unsupported by any contemporary authorisation to use force. No domestic court or authority in the United States or the United Kingdom would tolerate governmental action based upon such flimsy arguments." McGoldrick adds, "On the evidence there was no justification under self-defence or humanitarian intervention." He concludes, "the US and the UK acted illegally."

Chapter 5 studies the consequences of the US-British attack for the international legal system. Chapter 6 looks at post-war Iraq's economy and politics and the war's effects on the Middle East. Chapter 7 surveys the two wars' effects worldwide. The book also includes documents from the US and British governments and selected Security Council Resolutions on Iraq.




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14-page booklet summarizing conference. ... Read more

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Fascinating and well written--especially for people who "get" numerical/statistical descriptions
Heavy on empirical data, a bit light on qualitative narrative. Al-Jawaheri makes her point strongly, but perhaps not compellingly, at least so far; her statistics and arguments will speak eloquently to some readers, and not at all to others.

In any case, it's a fascinating book. I realized that, before reading this, I'd had no inkling of the kinds of changes Iraq had made during the 1970's, before their war with Iran began to stress what was shaping up to be a model economy. Realizing that what I'd pictured as a backwards, oppressive country was--not that long ago--a progressive society that passed legislation ensuring full equal rights for women when even the US failed to do this was a big surprise. Generous, fully-paid maternity leave, incentives for women to enter highly skilled professions (such as medicine), on-site free childcare, and much more ... these things created an environment in which Iraqi women could thrive both personally and professionally just a generation or so ago. Understanding this history makes seeing the changes wrought by a war with religious fundamentalists, an increasingly unstable dictator, and conflict with a major world power all the more poignant; many of the women living in Iraq today remember an earlier time when their society was a model of equality and opportunity for the Arab world.

By the end of the book, I had the point many times over: the upheaval in Iraq, particularly the international sanctions imposed on the country, has impacted women's lives differently from men's. If you're as much a fan of descriptive statistics as I am, you'll get a lot from this book--and would probably have fun playing with, say, statestats.com, too. If not, pick something with more narrative and less empirical analysis.

A cautionary tale of the utterly destructive and harmful effects of a supposedly nonviolent measure
Iraqi-born woman scholar and writer Yasmin Husein Al-Jawaheri, Ph.D. presents Women in Iraq: The Gender Impact of International Sanctions, an in-depth study of how the United Nations' sanctions of Iraq affected Iraqi women's lives. Beginning with a historical review of women in Iraq from 1970 through 1990, Women in Iraq draws heavily on research and statistics concerning Iraqi women's employment, the deleterious consequences for female education under the UN sanctions, how economic sanctions affected gender relations within the family, shifts in marriage trends (including a comeback for polygamy given the increasingly desperate times), the threat of crime against women who were alone for any reason, and much more. The ultimate conclusion is inescapable: "The UN's sanctions injured the very same people it claimed to help, but the suffering of the weakest - women and children - under these measures was unique." A cautionary tale of the utterly destructive and harmful effects of a supposedly nonviolent measure taken against a nation. ... Read more

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Pleased with Purchase
I was very pleased with my purchase and would recommend seller.I received my item good condition.

Iraq Since the Gulf War
An all-Iraqi cast of eighteen authors has combined to put together the single most informative book on today's Iraq.In outlook, the authors (all in exile, of course, except for a few in the Kurdish autonomous region) extend from Marxist to Kurdish nationalist, but all of them share a seriousness of purpose spawned by Saddam Husayn's horrors.Their subjects range from the abstract (Kanan Makiya on the need for tolerance) to the specific (Rend Rahim Francke on the makeup of the Iraqi opposition).

Two articles particularly stand out:Suha Omar argues that the improvement of women's rights in Iraq is a sham.The government insists on at least five children per mother and uses the General Federation of Iraqi Women to police women and to procure them for high officials.Omar concludes that, given the realities of Saddam's Iraq, "women's equality before the law and their right to vote and hold office are sources of pain and oppression rather than pleasure and liberation."Faleh `Abd al-Jabbar explains that the anti-Saddam revolt of March 1991 (called the intifada) failed because the exiled opposition leadership misjudged the mood in Iraq, "overestimating the strength of Saddam's appeal to Iraqi patriotism."Had the exiles been more bold, he writes, they could have led the Kurds and Shi`is to victory over the despot.

Middle East Quarterly, March 1995 ... Read more

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In A Switch in Time Kenneth M. Pollack and the Iraq Policy Working Group of The Saban Center for Middle East Policy seek to provide an alternative, comprehensive approach for American strategy in Iraq.They begin with the assumption that although the current U.S. approach in Iraq is encountering considerable difficulties and appears unlikely to produce a stable Iraq within the next two to five years, the alternative proposed by some Bush Administration critics—a rapid withdrawl—would also not serve U.S. interests.While many thoughtful experts and policymakers have attempted to offer a realistic third course of action, none have so far succeeded in doing so.This report poses such a strategy. ... Read more

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This book compiles the proceedings of the 18th Annual BERTRAND RUSSELL PEACE LECTURES delivered by international legal expert Francis A. Boyle at the Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University, in January, 2007. ... Read more

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Fine account of Palestine and US foreign policy
Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois, Champaign, gave the 18th Annual Bertrand Russell Peace Lectures in January 2007 at the Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. This fascinating book prints these talks - `Palestine, Palestinians and International Law' and `The National Campaign to Impeach President George W. Bush' - with an update to 17th October 2007 and reports of various campaigns to boycott Israel.

Boyle quotes Lord Russell's last message, of 31st January 1970, "For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to `reason' and has suggested `negotiations'. This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression."

Boyle shows how the US state assists Israel's efforts to maintain its illegal occupation. He notes that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said in 1991 that his strategy was to stall negotiations for the next ten years, to arrange countless meetings to prevent a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement. The Israeli state still follows this strategy, witness its participation in Sarkozy's fraudulent `Mediterranean Union'.

Bit the strategy of forcible intervention continues too. For example, in June 2007 the US and Israeli states organised General Dahlan's attempted coup against the democratically-elected government in Gaza.

Boyle also shows how the illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq and its threats against Iran are jeopardising world peace. He demonstrates how the US state is promoting civil war in Iraq, so that Iraqis kill each other not Americans. Bush senior encouraged the Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north to rise against Saddam, to split the state into three parts and the US-written Constitution continues this effort.

Boyle urges the American people to impeach Bush and also to stop the Democrat-controlled Congress from voting more hundreds of billions of dollars enabling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recent polls showed that both these are popular demands: most Americans want to end the war and impeach Bush.
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Saddam Hussein's execution for his crimes against Iraq's Shia not only brought an end to his reign of oppression, but also to the justice that was to be served to the Iraqi Kurds. The unspeakable atrocities visited by Saddam upon the Kurds of Iraq are explored here, together with the trials of Saddam by the Iraqi High Tribunal. However, this work is more than a litigation history. It is also an exploration of the motivations behind and the depths of organized evil in the context of a single, brutal despot at the helm of an artificially created multi-ethno/religious state lying atop massive oil wealth. Saddam's background and the context of his rule explain much about his actions, but not all. He remained an unpredictable tyrant to the end of his reign.

The Kurds have continually been subject to adversity since the end of World War I, when they were denied their own homeland, splitting them among three countries: Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. During Saddam's 24-year reign, the Kurds of Iraq were frequently under the knife of injustice. Between 1987 and 1989, Saddam unleashed genocide, razing over 2,000 villages and murdering at least 50,000 Kurds. As his dictatorship came to an end, the Kurds long-awaited opportunity to hold Saddam responsible for the atrocities against them seemed to have come, only to be sidetracked by the Iraqi High Tribunal, the Iraqi government, and the U.S. government. While the Shia rejoiced in their victory, the Kurds continued to be left behind. Saddam's death freed him of the charges against him by the Kurds. The world had turned its back on the Kurds in their age of genocide, and now appeared to turn a blind eye to the justice that was denied.

The unspeakable atrocities visited by Saddam upon the Kurds of Iraq are explored here together with the trials of Saddam by the Iraqi High Tribunal—both the completed prosecution for the Dujail massacre against the Shites and the incomplete one for the Anfal Campaigns against the Kurds. However, this work is more than a litigation history. It is also an exploration of the motivations behind and the depths of organized evil in the context of a single, brutal despot at the helm of an artificially created multi-ethno/religious state lying atop massive oil wealth, but situated in the most dangerous part of the world. Saddam's background and the context of his rule explain much about his actions, but not all. He remained an unpredictable tyrant to the end of his reign.

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The end of World War I marked the collapse of Ottoman power and the decision by Britain to carve out the new, artificial state of Iraq from part of the Empire's ruins. The Kurds who found themselves within Iraq have been in an almost permanent state of revolt ever since. For its part, the Iraqi government has always feared Kurdish separatism, not only for itself, but because of the precedent it would set for the Shiites, some 55 percent of the population, and thus the very future of the Iraqi state. This book briefly reviews the background of the Kurdish national movement in Iraq, and then devotes the bulk of its analysis to the uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War, the subsequent negotiations, the UN peacekeeping operation, the creation of a de facto Kurdish state and the important policies of Turkey. The analysis concludes that despite many remaining difficulties, there is now reason to hope that the long nightmare of the Kurds in Iraq might perhaps be nearing its end. ... Read more

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In this book, four experts explore the causes and consequences of contemporary migration. They devote separate chapters to immigration challenges in Canada and the United States, in European Community countries, and in Japan. It is in European Community countries in particular that immigration has become an issue of high politics. According to the authors, the core difficulty is that Europe has become chosen to be one of the favourite places to which people wish to come. These chapters are followed by a chapter on changing approaches to refugees, using the cases of Iraq, Cambodia, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia. ... Read more

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This book asks whether human rights, since the 9/11 attacks and the 'war on terror,' are a luxury we can no longer afford, or rights that must always remain a fundamental part of democratic politics, in order to determine the boundary between individual freedom and government tyranny. This volume brings together leading international lawyers, policy-makers, scholars and activists in the field of human rights to evaluate the impact of the 'war on terror' on human rights, as well as to develop a counter-terror strategy which takes human rights seriously. While some contributors argue that war is necessary in defense of liberal democracy, others assert that it is time to move away from the war model towards a new paradigm based upon respect for human rights, an internationally-coordinated anti-terror justice strategy, and a long-term political vision that can reduce the global tensions that generate a political constituency for terrorists. ... Read more

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A mixed bag, revealing some liberals to be warmongers

This collection of seventeen essays arose from 2004's Inaugural Conference of the Human Rights Institute of the University of Connecticut, of which the editor is Director. Eighteen lawyers, policy-makers, activists and scholars (thirteen from the USA, two from Britain, one from South Africa, one from Latvia, and Ireland's former president Mary Robinson) assess the wars and policies adopted since 9/11, and try to create a counter-terror strategy that takes seriously both human rights and the security threat from Islamic terrorism.

In his introduction, Wilson points out that the British state's repressive policies in Northern Ireland in the 1970s - special courts, detention without trial, suspension of habeas corpus, torture of prisoners - were all wrong, ineffective and counter-productive. They strengthened the terrorists' popular support and recruitment base, and damaged democracy in Britain.

Now the US state, with the Labour government's support, uses the same policies. As Lord Steyn warned, "the purpose of holding the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay was and is to put them beyond the rule of law, beyond the protection of any courts, and at the mercy of the victors. The procedural rules do not prohibit the use of force to coerce prisoners to confess." The US example has led other states to use the `war on terror' to destroy human rights, attack human rights defenders and militarise conflicts.

Several contributors - Wilson himself, US sociology professor Thomas Cushman and Mary Robinson - echo Senator John McCain's call for US-British `humanitarian' intervention in Sudan. Cushman even calls the Iraq war a humanitarian intervention. Clearly, some people's liberalism is just a cover for warmongering.

The US and British states ask us, `how much liberty would you sacrifice for security?' But the question should be, `how much of our own protection against government errors or malice would we sacrifice for minute security gains?'
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Unfortunately tainted with the authors red ideology
Sometimes, you feel there is a topic that is vastly under reported that deserves more attention and study, and the fate of Iraq's cultural and historic inheritance under the US occupation is certainly a issue that deserves a exhaustive account. However, there is a small line between a informed work of scholarship and a raving polemic. Unfortunately, large parts of this book displays the characteristics of thelatter. It is all to clear that this has been written by authors belonging to the extreme left-wing, as all the cliches are here( US&Israel involved in a dastardly and nefarious plot to exploit/destroy hapless third world countries). Its almost as if the majority of the authors took a field trip to the bazaar in Sadr City, tape recorded every perceivable conspiracy theory around, assembled it into a book and published it as fact.

Space and time dont allow me to address every point, but if i had to choose 3 of the major faults it would be:

1. The obsessive Israel fixation in the book. What was particular revealing was Glenn E Perry's chapter about "Cultural cleansing in Comparative perspective", where he gives the usual lecture about Israeli cleansings a whooping 5 pages(in a 12 page chapter), while the cleansings in Bosnia barely gets a measly page, almost a token inclusion and figleaf to make it not look as onesided. We also see this tendency in the dealings of foreign meddlers inside Iraq. Nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, who have each played a major part in inciting and orchestrating the calamity in Iraq is barely mentioned and possible Iranian involvement is casually brushed aside, instead the authors focus on flimsy and limited Kurdish-Israeli cooperation. I know the authors need to pay lip service to the anti-Zionist readership, but give me a break. Guess there is a reason why some of the readers who have bought this have also bought Henry Fords "The International Jew"

2. Portraying the killings of Iraqi academics as similar to US assasination programs in Vietnam and the Americas is also flawed. The Leftist professors were actively symphatizers and supporters of communist movements, thus it made sense eliminating them as an ideological force. No such corrolation exist today in Iraq between the academics and professors and to the ideology that is the most serious threat to Iraqi democracy, namely Islamism. As is quite obvious, the higher the education degree of a individual, the more secular is he likely to be. And yet, the authors try to convince us that the US would deliberately remove such a secular bulwark, people that should by all circumstances been potential allies! Neither does linking the professors to Baathism make sense, as those with higher party roles were largely canned in the Bremer purge of 2003-2004. How does this square the fact that the targetting of academics really started to sky rocket in 2005 and beyond?

3. They fail to offer a convincing arguement as to the motives of US supposed wanton and deliberate destruction of Iraqi society. Why would the Bush administration dole out billions for reconstruction in that case? How would the declared policy of letting Iraq become a "democratic domino piece in the Middle East", a project that was supposed to be a shining example of democracy, square off with the claim that the US seeked total fragmentation of the state? Why does the authors believe that the US sinisterly and cunningly from the start calculated this plot, while they were apparently too stupid to realize it would serve Iranian interests? And even so, why should attempts to democratize a political culture that was for all purposes built on authoriatarianism, corruption, militarism, xenophobia and rank Anti-Semitism and has plagued Iraq's people for 40 years be considered a bad thing? All these logical pitfalls and inconsistencies severly denigrate the books overall message.

The reason i do not give this a one star is the fact that a few of the criticisms are valid(such as US military building bases in archeological sites and the clumsy handling of the rioting immediatedly following the invasion). Chapters 4, 5 8 and 10 are chapters that are both informative and useful. However, the majority of the book delves into conspiracy theories and unwarranted assumptions.

Sober appraisal of a taboo subject
There is ample evidence that the US deliberately dismantled the Iraqi state to return it to a pre-national, primordial condition where Iraqis would be forced to fall back upon their sectarian identities to ride out the American occupation.

In this respect, the Iraq war has been an enormous success for the Americans. The only Arab state which was bold enough to think that it was master of its own house lies broken, its multi-ethnic fabric torn, and nationhood, national identity and sovereignty elusive, very distant dreams.

This book lays out the processes employed to dismantle not only the state but its culture, in effect wiping out the shared identity of Arab, Christian, Kurd, Shia and Sunni Iraqis. All notably, until a few years before the invasion, fought as one against the Iranians.

The larger significance of this book, I think, is in what is implied. Iraq is hardly unique in being a multi-ethnic, multi-faith nation. After reading it, I was left thinking about how fragile the pluralistic nation state is, how fungible national identity is and how easily both are subverted from within or without.

The US, culturally still a predominantly Christian and Protestant nation, had serious issues with John F. Kennedy running on the Democratic ticket for president in 1960.

His Catholic faith was held against him; a Catholic would take orders from the Vatican, it was said, and his fealty would be to the Pope not the wonderful document that is the American constitution.

JFK addressed this issue head on in his speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant pastors. The speech can be found here
[...]

At that time, what would have happened to E Pluribus Unum if the US were occupied by a foreign power, 200 years after its inception, and Catholics were disenfranchised en masse as the Sunnis were in Iraq?

Would it have taken very long for blood to flow on the streets? That is the haunting question this book has left me with, and it as apposite today as it was then.

Siddhartha Banerjee
USA ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Army Lawyer, published by Judge Advocate General's School on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 10394 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Courts, confidence, and claims commissions: the case for remitting to Iraqi civil courts the tasks and jurisdiction of the Iraqi Property Claims Commission (IPCC).
Author: Dan E. Stigall
Publication: Army Lawyer (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: Judge Advocate General's School
Page: 28(15)

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SHOCK AND LAW!!
Explosive!This is military law the way it was meant to be written: powerful, eloquent, speaking to an inner voice we didn't even know we had.Stigall's genius is in the way he takes ordinary words, like "remitting" and "dispossessed," and makes them dance in your mind like enchanted pixies with bedazzled legal briefcases.Shazam, this is one fine summer read! ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Multinational Monitor, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2005. The length of the article is 2621 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Between soldiers and bombs: Iraq's fledgling labor movement.(IRAQ'S FLEDGLING LABOR MOVEMENT)
Author: David Bacon
Publication: Multinational Monitor (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 26Issue: 9-10Page: 37(4)

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Caught up in a terrifying war, facing choices of life and death, two Iraqi sisters take us into the hidden world of women’s lives under U.S. occupation. Through their powerful story of love and betrayal, interwoven with the stories of a Palestinian American women’s rights activist and a U.S. soldier, journalist Christina Asquith explores one of the great untold sagas of the Iraq war: the attempt to bring women’s rights to Iraq, and the consequences for all those involved.

On the heels of the invasion, twenty-two-year-old Zia accepts a job inside the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, trusting that democracy will shield her burgeoning romance with an American contractor from the disapproval of her fellow Iraqis. But as resistance to the U.S. occupation intensifies, Zia and her sister, Nunu, a university student, are targeted by Islamic insurgents and find themselves trapped between their hopes for a new country and the violent reality of a misguided war.

Asquith sets their struggle against the broader U.S. efforts to bring women’s rights to Iraq, weaving the sisters’ story with those of Manal, a Palestinian American women’s rights activist, and Heather, a U.S. army reservist, who work together to found Iraq’s first women’s center. After one of their female colleagues is gunned down on a highway, Manal and Heather must decide whether they can keep fighting for Iraqi women if it means risking their own lives.

In Sisters in War, Christina Asquith introduces the reader to four women who dare to stand up for their rights in the most desperate circumstances. With compassion and grace, she vividly reveals the plight of women living and serving in Iraq and offers us a vision of how women’s rights and Islam might be reconciled. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Engaging Story of Women in Iraq
Asquith follows the stories of 4 different women from different backgrounds in Baghdad: Shia sisters Zia and Nunu; Heather, the white US Army reservist; and Manal, a devoutly Muslim feminist Arab-American aid worker. We begin following the sisters' story before the invasion happens, and their hope for their future after Saddam is absolutely heart breaking.

I really don't want to say too much about what these women experience. Obviously it is no secret what has been happening with the Iraq War ("Sisters in War" spans from 2003 to 2006), but it is something completely different to experience it through the eyes of these four women.

I was so completely invested in these women's lives, I didn't want to stop reading until I found out what happened to them! Asquith completely made all of them real to me. Of course they are real, but sometimes nonfiction writers don't bring their subjects to life in the same way that authors of fiction do - not the case with "Sisters in War." I also appreciated that Asquith did not include herself in the story she was telling. That seems to be quite the fad in narrative nonfiction right now and it often works quite well, but I think this story packed a much greater emotional punch for not including her, it read somewhat like a documentary, I felt as if I was simply a fly on the wall with all of these women.

Not always emotionally easy read, but endlessly compelling storytelling, great writing, and a fascinating subject make me highly recommend this book.

new perspective
This was a great book, which gives a new perspective on the Iraqi war.I really enjoyed the stories of the individual women and the way Asquith used the story to educate the reader on the greater issues in Iraq, especially the treatment of women and the incompetence of the US rebuilding operation.

Excellent
I learned about this book after hearing a recent interview with the author on NPR. I've read several books on the Iraqi conflict, most of them falling under the "what went wrong" category, and I'd have to say that this is probably the most heartfelt and emotionally wrenching one I've read. The author basically relates the experiences of four women who lived in Iraq during the post-invasion period and throughout the insurgency.

Two of these women, Zia and Nunu, are Iraqi sisters of Shiite background. The other two women are Americans who went to Iraq to aid in the reconstruction process. Heather joins the army and goes to Iraq out of a conviction that, whatever the merits of the invasion, the U.S. can and should play a positive role in spreading democracy. Manal is an American Muslim who staunchly opposed the U.S. invasion but nevertheless goes to Iraq to run a women's rights center. Manal and Heather eventually come to collaborate together on the construction and operation of a women's center, and the book recounts their struggles in overcoming bureaucratic inertia, interference by the Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, cultural resistance, and the constant threat to their security.

Zia, the older of the two Iraqi sisters, is the undisputed "star" of this story. She is fluent in English, independent-minded, and confident, characteristics which help her land a job with the CPA in the Green Zone. The book traces her initial naïve optimism in the capacity of the U.S. administration to fundamentally reshape Iraqi society and build democracy, to her eventual disillusionment with many of the policies pursued by the CPA. Her job working with the Americans also makes her a special target of the insurgents, who made a special point of targeting Iraqis who collaborated with the Americans.

Nunu, the younger sister, lacks her sister's confidence and self-assertiveness, and for much of the first part of the book she remains in the background. In many ways, however, her story is much easier for many of us to relate to. As the insurgency spirals out of control and her neighbors and friends are threatened and murdered, she withdraws into a shell. The author deserves credit for portraying these women so candidly that the reader is drawn into their universe. The narrative almost feels like a novel, as the reader is compelled to keep turning the pages to find out how these women's stories were turned out.

These women's stories occur, of course, in a context of carnage and an overall diminution of women's freedom. Many women's rights activists and female politicians, including people that these women know personally, were murdered during this period. If I had to think of one shortcoming, the author might have followed a second family, perhaps from a Sunni background, or from a less privileged economic background, to provide a fuller account of women's experiences during this time. Nevertheless, I really can't recommend this book enough for those interested in how the insurgency was experienced by everyday Iraqis and U.S. aid workers, or for those interested in a more gender-focused account of the Iraqi conflict.

Terrific Book
I've read a fair (not a huge) amount on Middle Eastern society, sometimes in book form, sometimes in other media.Like most Americans, I've followed our Iraqi endeavor through news reports and blogs, but this was the first account I'd read in book form.(I usually prefer to read my history a little bit further after the fact.Why?It takes time to effectively sort out historical events; documents need to be un-earthed, perspective gets better with time as more sources come forward, and, frankly, it helps to know how it's going to end.We're obviously not there yet with Iraq.)

All that said, I learned a great deal from Sisters in War - about American operations, about Islamic society, about Iraqi history and current events, about nation building, and of course, about women's experiences. Just as importantly, though, I enjoyed it!Dark as the realities of Iraq were from 2003 to 2007, the characters' strength, passion, courage, and devotion to their various causes were inspiring. To bring all this together into a compelling narrative is quite an achievement.For the most part, this book flows like a novel.

The American experience in Iraq is, of course, a sensitive, politically-charged topic.It should be noted that, while the book's four main characters represent a spectrum of political points of view, the book itself manages not to be too political.

So, I'm thankful to Ms. Asquith for writing it and for bringing such strong and beautiful characters as Zia, Nunu, Heather, and Manal to our bookshelves.It gives one comfort and faith in humanity to know that these women are very much real and out there making the world a better place.

Great book
I won this book on Goodreads.
My favorite story in this book was Zia's story. It made me feel so many emotions while reading it. Happiness, sadness, fright and even anger. All the womens stories did. I loved hearing about what it was like being from Iraq or being inside the warzone by women. I recommend this book to absolutely everyone. You will not regret it. The story is well written also, not boring in any way. ... Read more