Readers of Sunday’s New York Times were treated to an unusual full-page ad from a rival newspaper — the venerated satire periodical The Onion. Most of the available space was taken up by a mocking editorial piece with a headline that blared: “Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs …
Read More »Alex Garland and Veteran Ray Mendoza on the 'Emotional' Making of 'Warfare'
The take was too perfect. Ray Mendoza, the first-time director of Warfare, was watching D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai drag the limp, unconscious body of Cosmo Jarvis away from the wreckage of a massive explosion. Smoke, gunfire, screaming everywhere. And then there was the noise erupting from Woon-A-Tai as he struggled to pull …
Read More »One Photo From Abu Ghraib Lost the Iraq War. Kristi Noem Continues the Tradition
I remember returning from serving in support of the Iraq War, while my ship was undergoing a maintenance period, and seeing news of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal breaking on CNN. The scandal was the worst thing to happen to the U.S. Army since the Vietnam War. Sitting on my …
Read More »Pete Hegseth Is the Pentagon's Reckoning
When President-elect Donald Trump chose the television commentator Pete Hegseth as his nominee for secretary of defense, a panoply of national security stalwarts — retired generals and admirals, former appointees, and elected officials — evinced surprise. Some of us found the defense establishment getting caught off guard par for the …
Read More »How 'Spirited Away's' Oscar Win Exposed the Academy
The early years of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature promised a future that never came to pass. Its current state as a depressingly predictable category dominated by whatever Disney released that year is one that feels limited through intention rather than ignorance, and it was 2003’s awarding of …
Read More »The Iraq War Unleashed an Age of Grift. We're Still Living in It
T he quote that would secure Jim Mattis’ reputation as the most celebrated Marine general of his generation came during meetings he hadn’t wanted to attend. It was April 2004, a half-mile east of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which had exploded in an insurrection that threatened to doom the …
Read More »Pentagon Finally Stops Hiding Military Overdose Epidemic
The U.S. Army Special Forces, better known as the Green Berets, has a serious problem with substance abuse and fatal drug overdoses. The same is true of the Army’s two most important infantry divisions: the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division. That’s the takeaway of data released by …
Read More »16 Years Later, How the Press That Sold the Iraq War Got Away With It
Excerpted from Hate Inc., which can be found in serial form at Taibbi.substack.com. Sixteen years ago this week, the United States invaded Iraq. We went in on an unconvincing excuse, articulated by George W. Bush in a speech days before invasion: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no …
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