On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush declared victory in Iraq while preening in a flight suit in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner. Three years later, the country he had invaded descended into a bloody civil war. Eight years after that, the northwest of Iraq was...
Where Does ISIS Get Those Wonderful Toys?
In the 1989 film Batman, after the caped crusader rescues a damsel in distress from the Joker using a fancy zipline gun, the clown prince of crime, played by Jack Nicholson, asks in bewilderment: “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Especially upon seeing...
Iraq Collapse Shows Bankruptcy of Interventionism
May was Iraq’s deadliest month in nearly five years, with more than 1,000 dead — both civilians and security personnel — in a rash of bombings, shootings, and other violence. As we read each day of new horrors in Iraq, it becomes more obvious that the U.S. invasion...
Iraq’s Generation Hell
WASHINGTON -- In a burst of springtime whimsy, the principle of a private Christian school in Seattle last week looked at the bright, warm forecast and decided to call off school for a ‘Sun Day.” Principal Bob Sampson said he wanted to give students some time to...
People Vanishing from Iraq War History
Ten years and the scripted media narrative of the Iraq War -- now receding into the rear-view of our embarrassingly short American memory -- is about as satisfying as the obligatory drum solo at your standard 1980’s rock concert. In other words, a milquetoast,...
Failed by the Fourth Estate
In a recent op-ed entitled "Blunders to Remember" David Ignatius of the Washington Post apologized for his shortcomings in "being wrong on the overriding question of whether the [Iraq] war made sense." The op-ed’s recognition of the media frenzy...
The Intrepid Donna Mulhearn
Donna Mulhearn in Fallujah While the media was gearing up last month for the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, Donna Mulhearn was getting off a plane, the memory of six Iraqi cities still clinging to her like dust and ashes. You see, among the din of talking heads and...
American Anniversaries from Hell
It’s true that, last week, few in Congress cared to discuss, no less memorialize, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Nonetheless, two anniversaries of American disasters and crimes abroad -- the “mission...
As Iraq Anniversary Fades, ‘Strategic Narcissism’ Stands out
After a week of retrospectives on the tenth anniversary of Washington’s ill-fated invasion of Iraq, the most compelling consisted of a retrospective of the retrospectives. It came from Marc Lynch, an expert on Arab public opinion at George Washington University and...
Ten Years Ago and Today: A Warfare State of Mind
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...