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This week the U.S. celebrates Independence Day, so you'll hear a lot of talk about "the flag". There are a lot of flags in the world; soldiers die for "their flag". Why flags? What do they MEAN? And how are they designed? Flags of the World is about vexillology -- the study of flags. The site has more than 28,000 pages about flags and images of more than 51,000 flags. If you have a question about flags, this is the place to get the answer. From This is True for 3 July 2005 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: James BradleyRon Powers List Price: $14.00 Amazon Price: $11.20 Editorial Review: The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers would die defending a patch of ground a third the size of Manhattan, while nearly 26,000 Americans fell taking it from them. The battle was a turning point in the war in the Pacific, and it produced one of World War II's enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point. One of those young Americans was John Bradley, a Navy corpsman who a few days before had braved enemy mortar and machine-gun fire to administer first aid to a wounded Marine and then drag him to safety. For this act of heroism Bradley would receive the Navy Cross, an award second only to the Medal of Honor. Bradley, who died in 1994, never mentioned his feat to his family. Only after his death did Bradley's son James begin to piece together the facts of his father's heroism, which was but one of countless acts of sacrifice made by the young men who fought at Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers recounts the sometimes tragic life stories of the six men who raised the flag that February day--one an Arizona Indian who would die following an alcohol-soaked brawl, another a Kentucky hillbilly, still another a Pennsylvania steel-mill worker--and who became reluctant heroes in the bargain. A strongly felt and well-written entry in a spate of recent books on World War II, Flags gives a you-are-there depiction of that conflict's horrible arenas--and a moving homage to the men whom fate brought there. --Gregory McNameeIn this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.  By: Webster Griffin Tarpley List Price: $17.95 Amazon Price: $12.03 Editorial Review: The thesis of Webster Tarpley's 911 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA has been enthusiastically received with its working model of the 9/11 plot: a covert network of moles, patsies, and a commando cell in the privatized intelligence services, backed by corrupt political and corporate media elites. Buttressed by historical examples like the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Gunpowder Plot, this model makes it clear how such a monstrous false-flag or self-terror exploit is possible even under a largely benign government. That paradox is the incredibility gap that has made most Americans reject the evidence about 9/11 as paranoid fantasy. Tarpley brings decades of expertise to the 9/11 issue. In 1978 he exposed the terrorist Red Brigades as patsies of Italy's fascist P2 shadow government, and 9/11 is on the same pattern. The forthright subtitle, Made in USA, is backed up by an analysis of key figures who behave like moles working for the insidious network. 9/11 Synthetic Terror highlights the salient points of sheer physical impossibility of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. It makes clear that figures like Osama bin Laden are patsies, dupes or double agents, selected for their ethnic coloring as the basis for launching a "Clash of Civilizations," and how absurd it is to imagine that such tools of US intelligence agencies could turn around and infiltrate or overwhelm US defenses unaided. Tarpley shows that the wars on the Islamic world, the Soviet-Afghan, Kosovo and Chechen conflicts, as well as US-UK-NATO synthetic terror incidents like 9/11, Beslan or 3/11 in Madrid, have been contrived to continue the Cold War, in pursuit of the centuries-long campaign for Anglo hegemony over Eurasia and the world. The preface to the second edition explains the significance and superiority of "MIHOP" vs "LIHOP," and the many drills on 9/11 and on 7/7, which were cover and conduit for those false-flag operations. The third edition preface makes clear that 9/11 is the only issue that can stop a new world war and the descent into a police state. It shows up the cowardice of the "left gatekeepers" on this score. The analysis of Moussaoui on trial as a classic weak-minded patsy -- part double agent, part fanatic -- again shows the unique power of Tarpley's mole-patsy model to debunk the lies put out by the war party. For a principled refutation of the 9/11 propaganda myth in all its parts, Tarpley'A bombshell, brilliant book - I strongly recommend 911 Synthetic Terror. Should be required reading for all honest truth seekers, s work is indispensable.  By: David Cordingly List Price: $15.00 Amazon Price: $10.50 Editorial Review: Though literature, films, and folklore have romanticized pirates as gallant seaman who hunted for treasure in exotic locales, David Cordingly, a former curator at the National Maritime Museum in England, reveals the facts behind the legends of such outlaws as Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, and Calico Jack. Even stories about buried treasure are fictitious, he says, yet still the myth remains. Though pirate captains were often sadistic villains and crews endured barbarous tortures, were constantly threatened with the possibility of death by hanging, drowning in a storm, or surviving a shipwreck on a hostile coast, pirates are still idealized. Cordingly examines why the myth of the romance of piratehood endures and why so few lived out their days in luxury on the riches they had plundered.For this rousing, revisionist history, the former head of exhibitions at England's National Maritime Museum has combed original documents and records to produce a most authoritative and definitive account of piracy's "Golden Age." As he explodes many accepted myths (i.e. "walking the plank" is pure fiction), Cordingly replaces them with a truth that is more complex and often bloodier. 16 pp. of photos. Maps. From the Hardcover edition.  By: Carolyn Hougan List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $10.46 Editorial Review: Hougan is half the team behind the best-selling thrillers by "John Case" Nicola Ward is a divorced schoolteacher living in Maine, when one day a mysterious trunk arrives, sent to her long ago from China. Inside are family papers, photographs . . . and a Russian diary. To translate the diary, Nicola hires Neil Walker, a burnt-out spy who turned to scholarly research after one too many missions went sour. Neil's past comes in handy, though, when Nicola starts receiving death threats clearly connected with the contents of the trunk. But what stirred up the hornets' nest? The diary, which appears to identify Nicola as the heir to the Romanov throne? Or could something else be pointing the way to a Soviet mole in the U.S. government?  By: Bernard Cornwell List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $10.17 Editorial Review: Distinguished at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Confederate Captain Nate Starbuck's career is jeopardized once again by the suspicion and hostility of his brigade commander, General Washington Faulconer. The outcome of this vicious fight drastically changes both men's fortunes and propels AX into the ghastly bloodletting at the Second Battle of Manassas. Evocative and historically accurate, Battle Flag continues Bernard Cornwell's powerful series of Nate's adventures on some of the most decisive battlefields of the American Civil War. |
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