The Thistle and the Drone

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The United States declared war on terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. In The Thistle and the Drone, Akbar Ahmed reveals a tremendously important yet largely unrecognized adverse effect of these campaigns: they actually have exacerbated the already-broken relationship between central governments and the tribal societies on their periphery. Drawing on forty case studies, this groundbreaking analysis demonstrates that it is the conflict between the centre and the periphery and the involvement of the United States that has fuelled the war on terror. No one is immune to this violence neither school children, nor congregations in their houses of worship. Battered by military or drone strikes one day and suicide bombers the next, people on the periphery say, Every day is like 9/11 for us. About the Author Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. He was the former Pakistani high commissioner to the United Kingdom, the first Distinguished Chair of Middle East Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Among his previous books are Journey into Islam and Journey into America. He is also a published poet and playwright.