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2023
War, truth, and denial in a post-fact
world
War
crimes, truth and denial
Is the era of "alternative facts" another legacy
of Vietnam? "How the trauma of the Vietnam
War led to the age of "alternative facts""
50 Years Later: Eyewitness
to the Last Day of US Military Command in
Vietnam Remembering March 29,
1973, at Saigon's Tansonnhut Air Base
"Reporting and Commentary
about the Vietnam War" (video)
I was a co-panelist with an old friend,
photographer Neal Ulevich, at Texas Tech
University's annual Vietnam conference. Neal's
presentation, showing a collection of his
wartime photos, shows why he was one of the most
respected photographers who covered Vietnam.
Reflections 50 years after the January 1973
Paris peace agreement on Vietnam:
In an essay for
the History News Network, "No
Golden
Anniversary for the Paris Peace Accords"
, I recalled that on the calendars in Washington
and Paris, the day the agreement was signed was
January 27, but in Vietnam, where I observed the
first hours of the failed truce, it was already
the next morning. Accordingly, I wrote, "the
date that remains etched in my memory 50 years
later is the 28th of January, not the 27th" -- a
difference, I added, that seems "not just
numerical but symbolic, a telling metaphor for
the wide gap between Washington’s vision of
reality and the true situation in Vietnam."
I also recalled
that day in a panel discussion (once again
together with Carolyn Eisenberg) titled "The
Paris Peace Accords: Lessons for Today?"
(video) presented -- on January 27, of course --
by the Quincy Institute.
"Ending the American War"
(video) A joint book talk organized
by the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee. I
appear along with Carolyn (Rusti) Eisenberg, a
Hofstra University historian and author of Fire
and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in
Southeast Asia
"The 'Christmas bombing' of
1972 — and why that misremembered Vietnam War
moment matters" The 11-day U.S. air
offensive in December 1972 is widely remembered
as decisive in forcing the Vietnamese Communists
to make concessions and sign the Paris Peace
agreement, thus supposedly showing that air
power was a crucial factor in ending the
American war on terms that would not otherwise
have been available. Irrefutable facts show that
that claim is provably false.
2022
"After 50 Years, the Truth About the Vietnam
Peace Agreement Remains Elusive" a piece
for the History News Network tagged to the 50th
anniversary of Henry Kissinger's notorious
"peace is at hand" statement on Oct. 26,
1972. It reminded readers of the
larger and seldom remembered story of what
actually happened that month that led to
Kissinger's pronouncement, and how those facts
contradict persistent myths about events in the
next three months and the peace agreement that
was eventually concluded in late January 1973.
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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