2021
Leaving Saigon: I wrote this in 2005, 30
years after the end of the Vietnam war and my last
flight to a Navy ship in the South China Sea. In
the summer of 2021, as another failed war came to
its chaotic end, this essay sounds hauntingly
resonant.
Missing Voices from the Vietnam
War: unpublished, originally written in
2018. I have no doubt that similar voices have
been similarly missing in Afghanistan.
Three
last letters (all unanswered) to my Republican
representatives about Trump's stolen-election
lie.
2020
A
post-election email discussion: For weeks after
Election Day 2020, my Republican representatives
in the state and county legislatures studiously
avoided expressing an opinion on voter fraud or
on President Trump's campaign to overturn the
election result.
Remembering Timmie: The woman
whose chronic anxiety made me a reporter. First
of two unpublished essays reminiscing about my
early days in journalism.
Mr. Dorsey's World: Second reminiscence, about
my first managing editor.
An
Open Letter to My Old Tribe: Suggestions for
journalists covering the final weeks of the 2020
presidential election campaign.
"A very
small close-up from a very big picture": a
report on a Black Lives Matter protest in very
white, very Republican, Pasadena, Maryland
2019
"A new
type of wound in a new type of war": some musings
on Moral Injury
Review
of The Education of an Idealist, by
Samantha Power
President
Trump's latest anti-refugee, anti-immigrant
actions reach a new low of inhumanity
Remembering Vietnam
Veterans
Whatever the Democrats are
having in Miami, it's not a debate. What should
we call it?
Echoes
from 100 Years ago: On immigration and other
issues, some surprisingly strong
similarities between 1919 and 2019
A
Catalog of Heartlessness: Trump's inhumane
policies on refugees and other immigration
issues are cruel to large numbers of legal
immigrants and those seeking to enter the
U.S. lawfully
2018
Making America's Wars
Great Again: The Pentagon whitewashes a
troubling past
Review of Anatomy
of Victory: Why the United States Triumphed
in World War II, Fought to a Stalemate in
Korea, Lost in Vietnam, and Failed in Iraq,
by John D. Caldwell
Moments
of Truth About Truth: Old lessons on the power
of lies, and reflections on facts vs
falsehoods in the Trump era
A remembrance of John McCain
Real
Facts About the Islamophobes' False Facts
Review of 1947: Where Now
Begins, by Elisabeth Åsbrink,
In America, anti-Muslim
bigotry is more acceptable than other
prejudices
In Present Wars, Repeating
Past Mistakes -- Reading about Iraq and
Afghanistan, remembering Vietnam
Review of The Violent
American Century -- War and Terror Since
World War II, by John W. Dower
Excerpts
from Frederick Douglass's last published essay
before his death in 1895, "Why Is the Negro
Lynched?" These
quotes were prepared for a program on Douglass's
bicentennial, organized by the local chapter of
the Fulbright Association. The essay gives a
remarkable view of the post-Reconstruction era,
which restored white supremacy rule in the South
and largely nullified the emancipation -- a
period in America's racial history that is
usually overlooked in our customary celebratory
narrative. The full text is available
online.
Podcast interview 3/15:
"calling out BS" about immigration and
terrorism (ARI segment begins at minute
17:00; follows an earlier segment on a college
course called -- really! -- "Calling Out
Bullshit," which is worth a listen too)
Using Fake Facts to Make Us
Afraid: On Immigration and Terrorism, the
Trump Administration misleads about its own
misleading data
Review of The Ghosts of
Langley: Into the CIA’s Heart of Darkness,
by John Prados
2017
Fact-checking the Pentagon's
misleading Vietnam War 50th Anniversary
Commemoration website
A
video accompanying "Remembering Vietnam"
I am one of several talking heads appearing in
this video, which accompanies an exhibition of
Vietnam war documents at the U.S. National
Archives in Washington (third of three segments,
arranged chronologically; this one covers the
years 1970-1975)
Review
of Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses
Every War It Starts, by Harlan K. Ullman
Review
of Bringing
Vincent Home, a very unusual Vietnam war
novel by Madeleine Mysko
"Facts
About the Vietnam War," 5-part series in advance
of Ken Burns-Lynn Novick Vietnam documentary: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
Podcast interview, 9/7:
separating myth from facts about the Vietnam
War
Review of A Rift in the
Earth, by James Reston Jr., on the
creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
In shaping Trump's immigration
policies, Jeff Sessions misrepresented his own
data on refugees and terrorism
Lies have power even when we
know they're lies
Remembering
a long-ago encounter with John McCain --
reprise (originally published in 2000)
Podcast interview 7/24:
telling the truth in the Trump era, and whom
do you trust on the facts? (go to minute
30:55)
The
Real Danger of Fake News
Are David Daleiden and Sandra
Merritt (Planned Parenthood sting videotapers)
really journalists?
Review of Generation
Revolution, by Rachel Aspden
Podcast interview 3/7: more
perspective on American fears of terrorism and
the roots of Islamophobia (go to minute 22:25)
Fact
Sheet 1: Refugees and the Risk of Terrorism
Fact
Sheet 2: Real Facts About Islamophobia Fake
Facts
Podcast interview 2/24:
Trump's fear-mongering on refugees (go to
minute 7:00)
How
scared should we be of refugees? Jeff Sessions
claimed to make the case, but didn't.
Podcast interview 1/31:
Trump's travel ban, false fear of refugees,
and anti-Muslim hysteria (go to minute 21:20)
Are We Safer Yet? Part 1: Some
facts on refugees and terrorism -- an
imaginary danger
Are We Safer Yet? Part 2:
Islamophobic influence in Trump's White House
and why it is dangerous
Review
of A Great Place to Have a War: America in
Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA, by
Joshua Kurlantzick
Review of Debriefing the
President: The Interrogation of Saddam
Hussein, by John Nixon
2016
Review of Retire the
Colors: Veterans & Civilians on Iraq and
Afghanistan, Dario DiBattista, ed.
Remembering two friends whose
lives were upended by the Vietnam war
Is
Islamophobia a blind spot in American
journalism?
A
look back at the reporting of Vietnam
Review
of Children of Paradise, by Laura
Secor
Review of McNamara's Folly,
by Hamilton Gregory
Donald
Trump's call to bar Muslims from entering the
country got all the attention, but an even
uglier thread of anti-Muslim bigotry exists
inside Ted Cruz's campaign
2015
Who
lost the Vietnam war? Forty years after the
event, the facts on that question have been
increasingly challenged by a series of myths
(first of a four-part series)
CICERO
ARCHIVE: Writings originally in Cicero
Magazine.com
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