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    Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
    Unavailable
    Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
    Unavailable
    Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
    Audiobook14 hours

    Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone

    Written by Scott Shane

    Narrated by Fred Sanders

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Objective Troy tells the gripping and unsettling story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, a man who ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens. It follows Barack Obama's campaign against the excesses of the Bush counterterrorism programs and his eventual embrace of the targeted killing of suspected militants. And it recounts how the president directed the mammoth machinery of spy agencies to hunt Awlaki down in a frantic, multi-million-dollar pursuit that would end with the death of Awlaki by a bizarre, robotic technology that is changing warfare—the drone.

    Scott Shane, who has covered terrorism for The New York Times over the last decade, weaves the clash between president and terrorist into both a riveting narrative and a deeply human account of the defining conflict of our era. Awlaki, who directed a plot that almost derailed Obama's presidency, and then taunted him from his desert hideouts, will go down in history as the first United States citizen deliberately hunted and assassinated by his own government without trial. But his eloquent calls to jihad, amplified by YouTube, continue to lure young Westerners into terrorism—resulting in tragedies from the Boston marathon bombing to the murder of cartoonists at a Paris weekly. Awlaki's life and death show how profoundly America has been changed by the threat of terrorism and by our own fears.

    Illuminating and provocative, and based on years of in depth reporting, Objective Troy is a brilliant reckoning with the moral challenge of terrorism and a masterful chronicle of our times.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 15, 2015
    ISBN9781101926581
    Unavailable
    Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
    Author

    Scott Shane

    Scott Shane was a reporter for 15 years at The New York Times, where he was twice a member of teams that won Pulitzer Prizes, and before that for 21 years at The Baltimore Sun. His two previous books are Dismantling Utopia, a firsthand account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Objective Troy, the story of an American terrorist killed in a drone strike on orders of President Obama. In 2019-2020 he was a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, where he has taught courses on media and on the Russian attack on the 2016 American presidential election.

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    Reviews for Objective Troy

    4.5/5

    14 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      LibraryThing early reviewer copy. This is a well-sourced book exploring the rise of the drone as a weapon of war, and the evolution of the Obama administration in their use. Objective Troy was an American citizen, killed in Yemen after inciting numerous terror attacks on the United States. The author does a great job contrasting the American experiences of Barack Obama and Anwar al-Awlaki. This book whets the appetite for the inevitable Obama memoir. Five stars.
    • 4/5
      a little long but very interesting. give a nice historical perspective especially on drones. , obama, 9/11, bush, etc... I would semi recommend to right person
    • 5/5
      The author of Objective Troy is Scott Shane who has written about terrorism and national security for many years. In Objective Troy, Shane addresses the age of drones and their ability to hunt down and kill terrorists. This is also a well done biography of Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamic imam who started out as a peaceful man and ended up the number 2 terrorist in the world, behind Osama bin Laden. This is also a fascinating look at President Obama and the legal and moral issues of outright killing an American citizen (al Awlaki) without the due process of the law. It's an interesting and important read, well written.
    • 4/5
      Objective Troy is a review of the history of the drone, their use by President Obama, and the rise and fall of Anwar al-Awlaki, the first American targeted and killed by a drone. It explores the maturation of Obama's thought process, from his campaign promises to the real world problems of protecting the American public. It also delves deeply into al-Awlaki's history, covering him from a typical American youth to a hate spewing terrorist. Another, really thought provoking theme throughout the book is the question of the legality of the use of drones. And the question of the deliberate targeting of an American citizen in the camp of the enemy. Shane handles the subjects very thoughtfully. He covers all sides of the arguments fairly and thoroughly. I found myself leaning for the use of drones, then against their use, and back and forth several times. In the end, I don't really know where I stand on the use of drones, but I do know that this book gave me much to think about in the future to resolve the issue in my head. And that is what makes this book so good. It is a rare book that doesn't have an author who tries to get you to take his point of view. Shane manages to not do this very well. It was a very thought provoking book. Great job!
    • 5/5
      In this well written and thoroughly researched book Shane traces the path of Anwar al-Alwaki from his typical American youth to his death by drone strike in Yemen. The forces that shaped his religious worldview cannot be definitively identified but the author presents some of the factors that played a part in transforming Alwaki from a seemingly moderate imam to a role as a principal instigator of terror. Those factors include his increasingly strong reliance on the teaching of Islamic fundamentalist, Sayyid Qutb who argued for a violent establishment, or return to, an ideal Islamic world. Inferred by Alwaki’s choice of reading material while imprisoned in Yemen is a belief in an eminent apocalyptic end time. Shadowing the biographical story of Alwaki, Shane presents the dilemmas facing America in our struggle with terrorism; both moral and legal and the paradoxes that are created. Is it morally wrong to torture yet legally right to assassinate, for example. Strangely, the opinions supporting both positions were prepared by the same team of lawyers suggesting that conclusions already decided shaped the reasoning—that is not explicitly stated by Shane but readily derived. The execution of an American citizen without due process is another example. The author also deals with the increased reliance on drones to strike at the heads of leaders of Jihad in the belief that elimination of leaders will cause the collapse of the various groups one by one. As a journalist reporting facts, Shane avoids both personal opinions and offering advice about solutions to the terrorism threat to America but the overall scope of the book does show the complexity of the problem and ways forward. To back completely away from the issue as well as ramping up opposition both are likely to reinforce Islamic fundamentalist’s eschatological expectations. Doing nothing can be a sign that they are winning and doing more is likely to renew vigor. A middle road is hard to define. This book is a good provocative read.
    • 5/5
      Objective Troy is a hair raising story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni- American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, but gradually became radicalized, returned to Yemen and began to terrorize and murder Americans at every opportunity.. Barack Obama’s campaign to murder Awlaki stopped at nothing. In an attempt to murder an American citizen Obama exceeded the excesses of the Bush counterterrorism programs using our mammoth spy system and deadly drones to eventually locate Awlaki and murder him. The murder of an American citizen without the benefit of a trial and the court system is controversial to this day. To me it was unconstitutional and many also think so. The book is compelling and well worth a read.