Iraq & Afganistan wars

Sarah Chayes has been living and working in Afghanistan since she covered the fall of the Taliban government for NPR. She joins Fresh Air to explain how the hard-line religious movement is using both fear and persuasion as it works to once again expand its power in Afghanistan.

Robot soldiers are no longer just the stuff of sci-fi fantasy. As technological warfare expert P.W. Singer explains in his new book, Wired For War, some military tasks previously assigned to humans are now being handled by machines.

In his 2008 book, Torture Team, British lawyer Philippe Sands accuses the Bush administration of condoning harsh interrogation techniques.

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid discusses the Bush Administration's policies concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan and speculates about the changes President-elect Barack Obama may bring to the area.

Iranian-American journalist Farnaz Fassihi was stationed in the Middle East from 2002 until 2006, where she covered the Iraq war and the daily struggles of the Iraqi people. She recounts her experiences in her memoir, Waiting for an Ordinary Day.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and a retired Army colonel, discusses his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.

The surge in Iraq is one of the issues that divides the presidential candidates, but Bob Woodward's new book, The War Within, reveals that it also divided the Bush administration and the military.

Journalist Steve Coll discusses "The General's Dilemma," his profile of General David Petraeus, which appears in the Sept. 8, 2008 issue The New Yorker.

There are 100,000 private military contractors in Iraq. Mercenary John Geddes explains why he thinks this is a good thing. His new book Highway to Hell is an account of his experiences in Iraq as a soldier for hire.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind says that the war in Iraq was based not simply on blunders but on lies. His book, The Way of the World, accuses the Bush administration of burying critical information and forging a letter that linked Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks.