Killing machine
Subtitle: the American presidency in the age of drone warfare
By: Lloyd C. Gardner
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 289
ISBN-13: 9781595589187; 9781595589439
Subjects: Kriegfuhrung; USA; Iraq War (2003-2011) fast (OCoLC)fst01802311; War and emergency powers; Drohne; Afghan War (2001-) fast (OCoLC)fst01695175; HISTORY / United States / 21st Century; USA President; Aerial operations; Targeted killing; Aerial Military operations; Drone aircraft; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Leadership; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Executive power; Politics and government; Moral and ethical aspects; Government policy; Afghan War, 2001-; Military policy; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Government / Executive Branch
Description: With Obama's election to the presidency in 2008, many believed the United States had entered a new era: Obama came into office with high expectations that he would end the war in Iraq and initiate a new foreign policy that would reestablish American values and the United States' leadership role in the world. In this new assessment, historian Lloyd C. Gardner argues that, despite cosmetic changes, Obama has simply built on the expanding power base of presidential power that reaches back across decades and through multiple administrations. The new president ended the "enhanced interrogation" policy of the Bush administration but did not abandon the concept of preemption. Obama withdrew from Iraq but has institutionalized drone warfare -- including the White House's central role in selecting targets. What has come into view, Gardner argues, is the new face of American presidential power: high-tech, secretive, global, and lethal. Killing Machine narrates the drawdown in Iraq, the counterinsurgency warfare in Afghanistan, the rise of the use of drones, and targeted assassinations from al-Awlaki to Bin Laden -- drawing from the words of key players in these actions as well as their major public critics.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The dream candidate; title: Afghanistan shortchanged; title: A tale of two speeches; title: On to Maja!; title: The War of the Drones; title: The meaning of two deaths; title: A better war?; title: American hubris; title: The new normal?