If anyone asks you why this is a great country, tell them this story. Yesterday the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, opened its annual conference on international strategy with a speech from the Navy Secretary in a vast…
I said I’d follow up on the report that Coalition forces in Iraq can’t watch the World Cup on TV. My friend Maria sent me this exchange with her brother in Baghdad: I asked about his coalition friends, if they’d…
In the cable-news battle over the al-Zarqawi death, CNN has been tops today, by demonstrating real journalistic values—i.e., a little honest detachment and analysis. To its great credit, the network aired an interview with Nir Rosen, author of In the…
A friend who attended the Times Magazine panel on Iraq coverage last Sunday (which was reported in the Observer) tells me she was stunned to hear Times Baghdad correspondent Dexter Filkins describe how few reporters from countries beside the U.K….
On CNN just now, Fawaz Gerges, author of Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy, said that 90-95 percent of the insurgents in Iraq do not answer to Al Qaeda, but are homegrown.
“By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, training ground, and operational base for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at. The tenuous prewar connection between the…
Ten days ago I praised Richard Engel’s beautiful and amazing story on NBC Nightly News about a Baghdad orphanage for girls whose parents had died because of the war we started. I was hardly alone. Last night Brian Williams said…
Today CBS News reports that Kimberly Dozier is headed home, talking “animatedly.” CBS has regularly covered the correspondent’s injury in Iraq, and the death of her two crew-members. I’m a little surprised by the silence surrounding anchor Bob Woodruff’s injuries…