Center for Strategic Communication

New Book- The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House

[by Mark Safranski / a.k.a  “zen“] The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House […] by Zalmay Khalilzad Just received a courtesy review copy of The Envoy, the memoir of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, from Christine at St. Martin’s Press. Khalilzad...

Intellectuals and their Romance with Political Barbarism

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“] Martin Heidegger, Eric Hobsbawm and Ezra Pound A  meandering post inspired by Reason Magazine and Charles Cameron. Reason.com is best known for giving a scrappy libertarian take on current events, crime, technology and pop...

New Book: 13 Hours in Benghazi by Zuckoff

13 Hours in Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team I just received a courtesy review copy of 13 Hours in Benghazi from Tony at Twelve Books. 13 Hours tells the story of the terrorist attack in Benghazi from the perspective of the surviving CIA...

The Cockroaches of War. And of Jihad

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a “zen”] John Robb had a cool post on the ultra-radical takfiri insurgency ISIS/ISIL and their self-proclaimed Sunni “Caliphate“, the Islamic State, whom he gave as an example of “the cockroaches of war”:...