Here’s how I met Nick Turse. I have a friend who’s a professor of public health and one day in 2003 he asked me if I’d be willing to spend a little time with one of his graduate students who was doing some curious work on the Vietnam War. This student had read my book The …
Continue reading “How to Tell War Stories”
A series of bombings and other attacks, apparently timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, rocked the country today. The violence focused on government buildings and gathering places in Shi’ite neighborhoods. The toll could have been far worse, however, as security forces claimed to have arrested dozens of militants and confiscated numerous bombs. Overall, at least 98 people were killed. Over 240 were also wounded.
On a plane circling Baghdad in gray dawn light, a little Iraqi girl quietly sang to herself in the next row. "When I start to wonder why I’m making this trip," Sean Penn murmured to me, "I see that child and I remember what it’s about." After the plane landed at Saddam International Airport, we …
Continue reading “Ten Years Ago and Today: A Warfare State of Mind”
Ten years ago today, U.S. air, sea and land forces attacked Iraq. And the great goals of Operation Iraqi Freedom? Destroy the chemical and biological weapons Saddam Hussein had amassed to use on us or transfer to al-Qaida for use against the U.S. homeland. Exact retribution for Saddam’s complicity in 9/11 after we learned his …
Continue reading “Was Iraq Worth It?”
For most Americans the death squads and torture chambers that killed thousands in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua in the 1980’s are difficult to understand and easy to forget because, aside for an apology by President Bill Clinton in 1999 – the United States has never fully acknowledged nor taken responsibility for its role …
Continue reading “Trained Killers, from the Americas to Afghanistan”
Ten years after reaching the height of their influence with the invasion of Iraq, the neo-conservatives and other right-wing hawks are fighting hard to retain their control of the Republican Party. That fight was on vivid display last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) here where, as the New York Times observed in …
Continue reading “Ten Years After Iraq War, Neo-Cons Struggle to Hold Republicans”
At least 18 Iraqis were killed and 37 more were killed in attacks focused mostly near Baghdad.
Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, the war criminals are still at large. Saddam Hussein is dead and buried, but the cabal that lied us into war is still around – and not only that, they are mocking us from their podiums in the media, justifying and obscuring their crimes. Here is former Bush …
Continue reading “Ten Years Later: When is the Reckoning?”
Although there were few reported attacks, at least 13 Iraqis were killed and 26 more were wounded. Rare bomb attacks struck the southern, port city of Basra.
Scattered violence left 12 dead and 36 wounded, mostly in the north regions of Iraq.
