Last Friday, the U.S. military formally handed over its largest base in Iraq, the ill-named “Camp Victory,” to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The next morning, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius officially declared counterinsurgency wars in...
He was 22, a corporal in the Marines from Preston, Iowa, a "city" incorporated in 1890 with a present population of 949. He died in a hospital in Germany of "wounds received from an explosive device while on patrol in Helmand province...
When I arrived at Zuccotti Prison one afternoon last week, the “park” was in its now-usual lockdown mode. No more tents. No library. No kitchen. No medical area. Just about 30 leftover protesters and perhaps 100 of New York’s finest as well as private-security types...
Every childhood has its own geography and every child is an explorer, as daring as any Peary or Amundsen or Scott. I was the mildest of children, such a picky eater that my parents called me a “quince” (a fruit sour enough, they insisted, to make your face pucker, as...
Sometimes, just when you least expect it, symbolism steps right up and coldcocks you. So how about this headline for — in the spirit of our last president — ushering America’s withdrawal from Iraq right over the nearest symbolic cliff: “U.S. empties biggest Iraq base,...
How about a moment of silence for the passing of the American Dream? M.R.I.C. (May it rest in carnage.) No, I’m not talking about the old dream of opportunity that involved home ownership, a better job than your parents had, a decent pension, and all the rest of the...
The big war news on the front page of the New York Times last weekend was headlined: "U.S. Is Planning Buildup in Gulf After Iraq Exit." Its first sentence: "The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf...
These last weeks, there have been two “occupations” in lower Manhattan, one of which has been getting almost all the coverage — that of the demonstrators camping out in Zuccotti Park. The other, in the shadows, has been hardly less massive, sustained, or in its own...
Usually it’s the giant stories that catch your eye. The wars, the uproars, the Arab Spring — the things you can’t miss. But every now and then, news stories about easily overlooked subjects somehow manage to shine the strongest light on a changing world. The Cohn...
