The Intercept
Jan. 29, 2022
The Pentagon is not known for staging revivals of classic movies, but it just reenacted a famous scene from “Casablanca.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — after months of news ...
Category: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan
The U.S. Military Is a Machine of Impunity
The Intercept
Dec. 26, 2021
My education in wartime savagery started in Bosnia in the 1990s. Reporting on the war, I visited death camps, saw civilians get shot and beaten, interviewed torturers, and was arrested multiple times for being in the wrong place and asking too many questions. ...
Stanley McChrystal Accidentally Reveals the Dishonesty of U.S. Generals
The Intercept
Dec. 4, 2021
It is time to make a strange addition to the shortlist of essential documents on the dishonesty of America’s generals: a new book from retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal titled “Risk: A User’s Guide.”
McChrystal was removed from his command by President Barack Obama ...
After Afghanistan Disaster, the Pentagon Is on Track To Get Even More Money
The Intercept
Nov. 7, 2021
AROUND MIDDAY ON August 15, the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, was told by an adviser that Taliban fighters had entered the presidential palace and were looking for him room by room. This was not true, but Ghani, aware that ousted presidents ...
Colin Powell Was a Nice Man Who Helped Destroy Iraq
The Intercept
October 18, 2021
“I am saddened by the death of Colin Powell without being tried for his crimes in Iraq.” —Muntadher Alzaidi
Colin Powell is being hailed, at his death, as a trailblazer. He certainly was that.
Raised in the South Bronx by immigrant parents, Powell was a graduate ...
America’s Generals Are Cowards. Fire Them All.
The Intercept
Sept. 23, 2021
IF YOU ARE waiting for an American general to resign or be fired over the drone strike that killed seven children and three men in Kabul last month, you will likely experience the meaning of infinity.
You might think that the Pentagon would be scrambling to find ...
General Failure: How the U.S. Military Lied About the 9/11 Wars
The Intercept
September 8, 2011
Pretty much every day since 9/11, the U.S. military has disciplined soldiers who failed to do their jobs properly. They have been punished for minor offenses, like being late for duty, and for serious crimes, such as murder or assault. Since 2001, there have been more ...
Trump Built His Own Green Zone. He Got the Wall He Deserves.
The Intercept
June 5, 2020
An array of what might be described as the accessories and devices of dictatorship have expanded with infectious ruthlessness in American cities. The police swinging batons wildly, the paramilitary forces refusing to identify themselves, the hysterical president trying to ...
Max Boot Is Very Sorry for Backing the GOP and the Iraq Invasion. Why Is He Being Praised for This?
The Intercept
October 13, 2018
THERE IS AN unforgettable passage in Graham Greene’s classic “The Quiet American” in which the title character, a CIA agent named Alden Pyle, admits that Vietnam is much more complicated than he’d imagined. “I had not realized how tribal politics was and how ...
America’s War Narrative Focuses on Its Soldiers. Afghans and Iraqis Are Brushed Aside
The Intercept
September 2, 2018
The young newspaper reporter wanted to write a book about the war he was covering. But the editors who read his proposal turned it down, all of them. They said the book wouldn’t sell because Americans were tired of reading about these violent foreigners and their centuries-old ...