“The violence I have seen has left me feeling hollowed out, unable to gild all the agony with some beautiful meaning.”
Iraq
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Uncounted
A multi-media investigative report on the vast discrepancy between the actual number of Iraqi civilians killed by American-led coalition airstrikes against ISIS, and the number the coalition itself reports. In addition to uncovering likely truer math — for instance, while the coalition says 1 in 157 air strikes have killed civilians, reporters Azmat Khan and […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Mosul University Library: Reborn From the Ashes
The Mosul University Library, once home to centuries-old books and documents, is rebuilding after ISIS destroyed it.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Iraqi Special Forces Fight to Liberate Mosul
For The New Yorker, Luke Mogelson embeds himself with the Nineveh Province swat team.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
How Rival Gardens of Eden in Iraq Survived ISIS, Dwindling Tourists, And Each Other
Against all odds, Iraq’s religious tourism infrastructure has endured.
Posted inNonfiction
How Rival Gardens of Eden in Iraq Survived ISIS, Dwindling Tourists, And Each Other
Against all odds, Iraq’s religious tourism infrastructure has endured.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Signs of Change on the Streets of Baghdad
Indeed, for a city that only last summer feared it would be overrun by jihadis, Baghdad feels uncannily lacking in trauma. Perhaps Iraqis have learned how to live with their fears, but ISIS feels more threatening in European capitals than it does in Baghdad. Too complacently, Iraqis talk about ISIS in the past tense, as […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Did We Have the Sense that America Cared How We Were Doing? We Did Not’
In The Atlantic in 2014, James Fallows examined how Americans and political leaders became so disconnected from those who serve in the military—and the consequences of that disconnect: If I were writing such a history now, I would call it Chickenhawk Nation, based on the derisive term for those eager to go to war, as long […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Freelancing in War Zones: Serious Journalists Left with Little Protection
Syria is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. In the last three years at least 60 of them have been killed while covering the conflict there, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Missing from the statistics is anything about the kind of journalist who goes to Syria and why. After the […]
Posted inQuotes
The Last Living Recipient of VA Benefits from the Civil War
Ms. Triplett’s pension, small as it is, stands as a reminder that war’s bills don’t stop coming when the guns fall silent. The VA is still paying benefits to 16 widows and children of veterans from the 1898 Spanish-American War. The last U.S. World War I veteran died in 2011. But 4,038 widows, sons and […]