The Devastation of Iraq's Past. "Since the looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad in April 2003, the international press has accorded considerable space to the country's imperiled ancient heritage. Much of this coverage, however, has been devoted to the museum, the impressive campaign to recover its stolen works, and the continued struggle to reopen its galleries. Only occasional, anecdotal reports—mostly from the first year of the conflict—have borne witness to large-scale plunder of archaeological sites, to which the damage is irreversible."
posted on Jul 23, 2008 - View this thread

Prvi svetski rat - Gritty and poignant Serbian postcards from the First World War. Just one of the seriously interesting (e.g. check out the collection of 78s) holdings at the Digital National Library of Serbia.
posted on Jul 20, 2008 - View this thread

Suspect Soldiers. "A Sacramento Bee investigation finds the military let in applicants with risky backgrounds -- with sometimes tragic results." Part 1: Troubled histories follow some troops to Iraq war. Part 2: Is there a link between postwar stress and crime? Part 3: Iraq doctor's shooter had long record. Part 4: Patriotic Texas city mirrors nation's recruiting troubles.
posted on Jul 16, 2008 - View this thread

For the former U.S. marine Michael Elliott the psychological impact of war is the latest and most challenging battle. Private Joseph Dwyer survived rocket-propelled grenades and shocking violence, made his way back to his family and friends, but couldn't escape the “demons” that followed him home. Experts say up to 30% of returning soldiers will require psychiatric help: a number not seen since the end of the Vietnam War. Today 60% of war veterans suffering from PTSD don't receive any help at all.
posted on Jul 16, 2008 - View this thread

Paris under the Occupation, in color.
posted on Jul 12, 2008 - View this thread

American-Dutch photographer Peter van Agtmael and English photographer Olivia Arthur are the two newest nominees recently welcomed into Magnum Photos. Agtmael's images of Afghanistan and Iraq are very powerful - he discusses his work in Conscientious. Arthur's recent work has focused on women's experiences in what she calls the Middle Distance.
posted on Jul 8, 2008 - View this thread

Rental Car Rally. (From the guys who brought Street Wars to NYC). That is all.
posted on Jul 8, 2008 - View this thread

New Zealand War Art showcases about 1,500 images of New Zealanders at war beginning with World War I. Lots and lots and lots and lots of images in a wide variety of media by a long list of artists.
posted on Jul 6, 2008 - View this thread

According to the photographer's daughter, "All photos in this collection were taken by then Lt. and later Capt. George S. White, my Father, while he was serving in the Pacific as a pilot. They are generally between 1945 and 1948 from what is documented." My favorites? The barmaid or postwar Tokyo or wrecked planes and airplane graveyards.
posted on Jul 5, 2008 - View this thread

Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
posted on Jun 29, 2008 - View this thread

Real Military Flix. Documentaries, combat clips, full-length movies. For all your warporn needs. Iraq/Afghanistan firefights. The Great War etc..
posted on Jun 26, 2008 - View this thread

Fables of the Reconstruction. According to a new GAO report [PDF of full report], the surge has resulted in security gains and reduced violence in Iraq, but the political goals the surge was supposed to buy time for mostly haven't happened.
posted on Jun 24, 2008 - View this thread

Pakistan’s Phantom Border. "Pakistan is often called the most dangerous country on earth. Increasingly, its people would agree. Despite nearly $6 billion in U.S. military aid for the border region since 9/11, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and homegrown terrorist groups have eroded the border with Afghanistan, inflicting a steady toll of suicide bombings. Going where few Westerners dare—from Taliban strongholds to undercover-police headquarters—the author sees what’s tearing the country apart."
posted on Jun 22, 2008 - View this thread

Wars around the world have killed three times more people over the past half-century than previously estimated, a new study suggests... The researchers estimate that 5.4 million people died from 1955 to 2002 as a result of wars in 13 countries. These deaths range from 7,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 3.8 million in Vietnam. According to Obermeyer, the estimates are three times higher than those of previous reports. Data from this new study also suggests that 378,000 people worldwide died a violent death in war each year between 1985 and 1994, compared with 137,000 estimated at the time.

Satellites Document War, Destruction From Outer Space. The AAAS's Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project uses high-resolution satellite photography to detect and call attention to human rights violations.
posted on Jun 15, 2008 - View this thread

"A venal, dysfunctional government." That is how the San Francisco Chronicle describes the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. Now an investigation by the BBC's respected Panorama TV program estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. But they are not allowed to report fully because of US gagging order.
posted on Jun 10, 2008 - View this thread

Attention Geeks and Hackers: Uncle Sam's Cyber Force Wants You!
posted on Jun 5, 2008 - View this thread

War is Boring.
posted on Jun 4, 2008 - View this thread

The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism.
posted on May 27, 2008 - View this thread

Child Soldiers Global Report 2008. "Despite progress, efforts to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers are too little and too late for many children, according to the 2008 Child Soldiers Global Report, launched today by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers."
posted on May 26, 2008 - View this thread

According to an audit released today by the DoD's IG, there has been virtually no oversight of over $8 billion paid by the Defense Department to contractors in Iraq. The report confirms a similar finding back in 2005 that over $9 billion in Iraq war funds were unaccounted for. As a factual and non-polemical matter, this spectacular waste of taxpayer money has undoubtedly lined the pockets of more than a few war profiteers. To say the Iraq war has been plagued with rampant corruption, fraud and fiscal mismanagement is not an editorial position or overstatement: even lawmakers have begun to acknowledge this.
posted on May 23, 2008 - View this thread

Decline of an Iraqi Hospital: War Takes Toll on Baghdad Psychiatric Hospital. [Via Mind Hacks]
posted on May 22, 2008 - View this thread

Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience - “massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland.” Here's a quick roundup of some commentary. (last link with concept design sketches)
posted on May 21, 2008 - View this thread

NewsFilter: Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID - Conn.) strikes a decisive blow against another Islamic terror front group: YouTube.
posted on May 19, 2008 - View this thread

PTSD: The War Within. A Marine writes about his PTSD experience. This article from the January issue of the Marine Corps Gazette was written by USMC Staff Sergeant Travis N. Twiggs. Twiggs killed himself and his brother after a long police chase in Arizona earlier this week.
posted on May 17, 2008 - View this thread

Iron Man, who represents an imperial America, can only win Pyrrhic victories. Spencer Ackerman of Tapped Online has a nice history of the Iron Man comics that reads the character's alcoholism, Civil-War overzealousness, and persistent blundering "into a hell of unintended consequences" as a symbol and subtle critique of American exceptionalism and what Jonathan Schell among others has called "impotent omnipotence".
posted on May 16, 2008 - View this thread

People can handle the truth about war. Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas reflects on how the media's willingness to show the horrors of war has changed since Vietnam.
posted on May 15, 2008 - View this thread

Bush interview with Politico: "For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf."
posted on May 13, 2008 - View this thread

The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree. "The occupation of Iraq will cost $3 trillion, America's most expensive conflict since WWII. Can YOU spend that money better? Here's your chance to go on a virtual $3 trillion shopping spree and prove it!" [Via Gristmill.]
posted on May 10, 2008 - View this thread

Killing by the numbers. "In 2007 elite U.S. snipers executed an unarmed Iraqi prisoner in cold blood. Have the insidious tactics that led to atrocities in Vietnam reemerged in Iraq?"
posted on May 8, 2008 - View this thread

An extraordinary piece of magazine writing by Chris Jones. Jones tells the story of how the body of Sergeant Joe Montgomery makes its way from a Baghdad suburb to its final resting place in a grave in Indiana. It's one of the finest pieces of journalism that I've read in years. It’s extremely moving without being saccharine or twee. It’s a military story, but utterly without jingoism or indictment. And it’s wonderfully observed. If I taught a first-year creative writing course, I'd make this required reading.
posted on Apr 30, 2008 - View this thread

"The United States Lacks a Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas" (PDF). A recent GAO report claims that the Bush administration has failed to prevent Al Qaeda's reemergence in Pakistan, and that we're basically right back where we started in 2001.
posted on Apr 30, 2008 - View this thread

Listen my children and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Sybil Ludington - While most Americans have heard of Paul Revere, many have not heard of Sybil Ludington and her midnight ride. 231 years ago today, she rode 40 miles at night to warn the colonial militia that the British were burning Danbury, Connecticut.
posted on Apr 26, 2008 - View this thread

With the grounds it was built on having hosted the first demonstration of airplane flight in 1909, Tempelhof International Airport, the world's second-oldest working commercial airport, was officially opened in 1923. Also known as City Airport, it takes its official name from the Tempelhof neighborhood of Berlin, itself named for the Knights Templar who owned its land in the Middle Ages.
posted on Apr 25, 2008 - View this thread

Today is ANZAC day in Australia and New Zealand, the commemorating the abortive Gallipoli landings of 1915. It is a solemn day, marked by a dawn service and parade in every town across the two countries.
posted on Apr 24, 2008 - View this thread

Vengeance Is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?
posted on Apr 24, 2008 - View this thread

Television military analysts are wooed, courted, and privileged by the Pentagon. An in-depth investigative report by the New York Times uncovers logrolling, shilling, touting, back-scratching, and just plain bias on the part of the experts that television networks put on the air to talk about the war. Some of them appear to be as good as owned by the Defense Department. "The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves."
posted on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

The Pentagon's $1 Trillion Problem. Even as the Defense Department prepares to send Congress its $481.4B FY2008 budget request, it also prepares to admit -- for the 18th year in a row -- that its finances are in such poor shape that it is effectively impossible to audit or account for over a trillion dollars in past expenses.
posted on Apr 16, 2008 - View this thread

... I served my time I can speak on it. Fuck this War. American soldiers' latrine graffiti in Kuwait and Afghanistan. A photo essay. [Note: most text and one drawing NSFW]
posted on Apr 15, 2008 - View this thread

The Boneyard. I’ve come to bear witness to American folly, to rest my eyes on the flying machines that flattened the forests of Southeast Asia, poisoned its people, and changed my life. A personal essay about the long-reaching effects of Agent Orange.
posted on Apr 5, 2008 - View this thread

In honor of the 5-year anniversary of the Iraq War, PBS' Frontline presented a fantastic 2- part special on the issue this past Monday and Tuesday. It is now available in it's entirety online along with interview transcripts from senior officials, a video timeline of the war, and battlefield stories from soldiers. Bush's War
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - View this thread

25 years ago, Ronald Reagan announced the birth of the missile defense system. A quarter-century and $120 billion later, was it worth it?
posted on Mar 24, 2008 - View this thread

Four Thousand.
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

What'll you find at rum.com, van.com, war.com or cat.com? A more-fun-than-most web quiz from the Mental Flossers about some of the best domain names and who owns them.
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

Very recently the Kalenjin and Kisii peoples of Kenya's Olmelil valley began skirmishing over land disputes. Over 20 people have died so far. This type of inter-tribal unrest is nothing new in Eastern Africa. What makes this particular conflict most jarring to western eyes is that it's being fought with bows and arrows (Time Magazine Slideshow, a forum post with many large images inline, [coral cache of same]). You get the feeling that somewhere in Fresno, California Gary Brechter might be pretty wound-up at the moment...
posted on Mar 18, 2008 - View this thread

Two new reports on our progress in Iraq were released today:
"Five years after the war started, the humanitarian situation in Iraq is among the most critical in the world..." - International Committee of the Red Cross.
"Five years of carnage and despair in Iraq" - Amnesty International.
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - View this thread

Mario outside of his usual context is often weird and disturbing.
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - View this thread

The U.S. Military's Assassination Problem: "Software like 'Bugsplat' is supposed to keep decapitation attacks precise. So why do we keep blowing up Iraqi wedding parties?"
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - View this thread

Dueling Human Rights Reports: The United States vs. China.
posted on Mar 15, 2008 - View this thread

40 years ago tomorrow, more than 500 villagers were raped, tortured, and slaughtered (disturbing images) by American soldiers in a hamlet nicknamed Pinkville. Four Hours in My Lai tells the story. Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
posted on Mar 15, 2008 - View this thread