The FPA’s Must Reads (September 28-October 4)

[REUTERS/Jacquelyn Martin/Pool]

The Inside Story Of One Website’s Defense of Assad
By Rosie Gray and Jessica Testa
Buzzfeed

On August 29, Mint Press News broke the story that Syrian rebels were behind chemical attacks and Russia’s foreign minister, Syrian and Iranian state media, all catapulted it to international attention. Gray and Testa explore the murky political ties and shadowy funding of this small Minneapolis based internet news startup.

Enemy Inside the Wire: The Untold Story of the Battle of Bastion
By Matthieu Aikins
GQ

Mattheiu Aikins recreates with vivid detail the story of how fifteen Taliban fighters infiltrated one of the largest and most secure bases in Afghanistan one year ago. Despite multiple deaths, injuries, and hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, remarkably little has been done to address those day’s failures.

Diary
By Patrick Cockburn
London Review of Books

Patrick Cockburn details the increasingly prominent propaganda wars waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. With the aid of savvy Internet media use, both insurgents and government forces are able to instantly publicize any and all stories of atrocity without always checking their facts, thereby reinforcing hatred and terror on both sides.

The Shadow Commander
By Dexter Filkins
The New Yorker

Filkins offers insight into the Qassem Suleimani, Iranian Major General and leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force. Called “the most powerful operative in the Middle East,” Suleimani personally commands the Iranian intervention in Syria.

Think Again: American Nuclear Disarmament
By Mathew Kroenig
Foreign Policy

Despite more than twenty years since the end of the Cold War, nuclear superiority continues to be a critical priority for United States defense. Kroenig argues that efforts to reduce the U.S. arsenal have been misguided and that efforts should instead focus on modernizing and preserving it.

Blogs:

A Money Showdown, Moscow-Style, and Its Potential Consequences
What Shale Glass Could Mean for Southern Africa
Rise of the Far Right Unlikely to Stem EU Migration
Stalemates, Not Soulmates
Syria’s Chemical Weapons and the World’s “Red Line”