People Sure Do Feel Sorry for George W. Bush
Here's the curious thing about the defenses of Bush during his legacy tour: rather than saying he did a good job as president, his allies are emphasizing that he had a really hard job.
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American troops may have finally left Iraq, but for that nation's citizens the war is only getting worse.
Here's the curious thing about the defenses of Bush during his legacy tour: rather than saying he did a good job as president, his allies are emphasizing that he had a really hard job.
What happened at the Boston Marathon was inconceivable, horrific, shocking to most who have seen the videos and photos, but there are lots of Americans for whom the scene was appallingly familiar: veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Secretary of State John Kerry made a surprise trip to Iraq on Sunday to urge Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to at the very least do something about the continued Iranian flights to Syria that go right through Iraq's airspace. Right now they're not doing very much.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Crusty old reporters like to complain that the Internet, Twitter, memes, GIFs, and whatever are ruining journalism and America. But when you look back at, say, the invasion of Iraq, it's hard not to think the country could have benefitted from a little mass mockery to puncture the madness.
The South Carolina senator called for U.S. troops to secure weapons of mass destruction sites in Syria on Tuesday, the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion he supported.
The Iraq War did not go as planned — not for Iraq, not for the United States, and not for the careers of the people who told us it'd be such a great idea to go. Let's catch up with the folks who brought us there a decade ago today.
The Guardian and BBC Arabic just released a blockbuster story, linking David Petraeus to two veteran advisors of El Salvadorean paramilitary squads who ran Iraqi interrogation centers that exacerbated the country's sectarian violence.
"Ultimately," the final report from Stuart Bowen, the Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction, suggests, "we estimate that the Iraq program wasted at least $8 billion." Over ten years, that's about $1,500 a minute. Here's where it went.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
As has been feared for months, violence from the Syrian civil war has spilled across the border into Iraq, threatening an already unstable balance of power in the neighboring country.
Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing to become the next Secretary of Defense did not go well, but if he fails to get the job, it won't be because of some deeply held foreign-policy principle. And the best evidence rests with one man: John McCain.
A series of three car bombs situated around the city of Baghdad exploded one right after another on Tuesday—right on the heels of a string of suicide attacks claiming 30 lives last week. This isn't going to make people feel better either: al Qaeda may be involved.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is in a Baghdad hospital after apparently suffering a stroke.
Gunmen stormed a prison in the Iraqi city of Tikrit this morning, killing 12 guards and freeing more than 90 prisoners.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Iraq was originally so trusting when a New York Times report accused Iran of flying military equipment through Iraq to aid Bashar al-Assad's government forces, but now it looks like they're a bit more suspicious.
It never lived up to the renown of the Iraq War troop surge, and now it's officially over.
Iraq said on Wednesday there was no evidence to support the report in The New York Times that it was allowing Iran to fly military supplies to Syria through its airspace, but that depends on your interpretation of military supplies.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
He's had to deal with the worst conflict zones in the world, but now former U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker has a headache to deal with at home: Hit-and-run and intoxicated driving charges.
America's least favorite mercenary firm got another black eye on Tuesday when it admitted to key facts behind 17 federal criminal charges.
A feature that ran Tuesday on The Associated Press, in which combat veterans share their impressions of the war in Iraq now that the U.S. mission there is over, does exactly what that wire service is best at: Collect interesting information and present it simply and directly, without editorial comment.
Syria's admission Monday that it has chemical weapons has revived a counter-theory to one of the biggest intelligence failures in American history: The non-existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
A series of bombings and gun assaults across Iraq has made Monday one of deadliest days of the year in Iraq, with at 82 people dead and more than 130 injured, and those numbers are likely to rise.
Earlier today, the Pentagon released a declassified document from September 2002 justifying the Iraq War, and boy is it a doozy.
We won't call it cosmic justice but it does make you wonder: On Wednesday, an Egyptian journalist died on live TV while defending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Baghdad might not be able to get power to all its residents, but its PR machine has an hit upon an effective way to sooth some people's frustrations about their powerless, hot, summer misery: Katie Couric.
A wave of coordinated car bombings across Iraq have killed more than 60 people, most of them pilgrims gathering to mark an important religious festival.
Dear future journalists of America: If you're sleeping with the next ambassador to Iraq, it's not a good idea to use your company email to discuss "blue balls," masturbation, and sexual favors.
In a Friday memo that trumps all other Friday memos, President Obama has told Congress that there are still threats in Iraq and has renewed the executive order of "national emergency with respect to Iraq for one more year."
Iraqi insurgents killed more than 30 people with a series of bombings across the country on Thursday morning.
Search warrants in the case of Iraqi-American woman who was beaten to death last month suggest that there may be more to the story than just a case of anti-Muslim violence.
In some flea markets and T-shirt stores you occasionally see the image of George W. Bush above a caption that reads, "Miss me yet?"
U.S. officials are calling it "humanitarian support," but a new push to directly intervene in the fighting in Syria sounds a lot like the opening of a proxy war.
A series of bomb attacks in eight cities have killed more than 40 people and wounded more than 200 in Iraq on Tuesday, targeting police officials, government buildings, and Shiite pilgrims.
No one will be able to pinpoint exactly what made an American staff sergeant massacre 16 Afghan civilians, but the facts surrounding the senseless killing spree will loom large in his prosecution.
A chilling story out of Iraq claims close to 100 Iraqi teens have been murdered for being perceived to be either "emo" or gay. It looks to be at least partly true.
Several attacks and car bombings across Iraq today have killed at least 55 people and injured hundreds more. The Iraqi Interior Ministry called it a "frantic race" by insurgents to undermine the nation's stability.
A wave of early-morning bombings and attacks by gunmen all across Iraq have killed more than 50 people and injured well over one hundred.
The prospect of a nuclear-armed Tehran has loomed over discussions about a military intervention in Iran for years, but only recently have the country's ties to Al Qaeda crept into the mainstream.
One thing we learned from conflicting reports about the United States' plan to shrink its diplomatic presence in Iraq was the sheer size of the "country within a country," as The Washington Post calls it.
Joe Biden prides himself on his foreign policy experience, but one can't help but look at the scoreboard of foreign policy decisions Biden has gotten utterly wrong over the last 20 years.
The lead story in The New York Times today concerns U.S. surveillance drones, operated not by the Pentagon or the CIA, but by the State Department, that are patrolling the skies over Iraq even after our combat troops have gone home.
The complicated case of the Haditha massacre in which American Marines killed two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians on November 19, 2005 isn't getting any simpler.
Nine years of ill will built up toward American contractors working in Iraq is finally (and unsurprisingly) coming to head now that the U.S. military is officially withdrawn from the country.
An Iranian-backed Shiite militia in Iraq says it will lay down its arms and join the political process, a move that could tilt Iraqi politics to a more pro-Iran bent.
A series of bombings struck across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing 24 people in the latest round of sectarian violence since the departure of American soldiers.
The only bar in the Green Zone sounds like a hell of a place to run, but as a destination outside a war zone it seems like it would be nothing special.
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