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A painting of a desolated, ruined street.
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Defeating Death Only with Death

On civilians’ opinion of killing civilians by air during World War II.
by Cormac Ó Gráda via HNN on September 10, 2024
A soldier walking an old woman through a destroyed city.

D-Day’s Forgotten Victims Speak Out

Eighty years after D-Day, few know one of its darkest stories: the thousands of civilians killed by a carpet-bombing campaign of little military purpose.
by Ed Vulliamy via New York Review of Books on June 10, 2024
US Marines marching in Da Nang, Vietnam, 1965.

How Israel Is Borrowing From the US Playbook in Vietnam

Justifying civilian casualties has a long history.
by Branko Marcetic via The Nation on November 14, 2023
Outline of Henry Kissinger with his face made of skulls.

Blood on His Hands

Survivors of Kissinger's secret war in Cambodia reveal unreported mass killings.
by Nick Turse via The Intercept on May 24, 2023
Exhibit

Crimes of War

Stories about the civilian victims of past wars, and the extent to which Americans have acknowledged and accounted for atrocities committed in their name.
illustration including "Napalm Girl" photo and photo of the photographer

The View from Here

Fifty years on, Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, “Napalm Girl,” still has the power to shock. But can a picture change the world?
by Errol Morris via Air Mail on June 4, 2022
An aerial view of a firebombed area in Tokyo in 1945.

When Tokyo Burned

“Paper City” explores the forgotten firebombing of Japan’s capital.
by Spencer Cohen via Foreign Policy on May 29, 2022
The First Hague Conference in 1899: A meeting in the Orange Hall of Huis ten Bosch palace – collections of the Imperial War Museums.

Oh, the Humanity

Yale's John Fabian Witt pens a review of Samuel Moyn's new book, Humane.
by John Fabian Witt via Just Security on September 8, 2021

A 'Purely Military' Target? Truman’s Changing Language about Hiroshima

A set of speech drafts suggests that Truman may not have fully understood the implications of dropping an atomic bomb on the city.
by Alex Wellerstein via Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog on January 19, 2018

Wrath of the Centurions

A new book about the My Lai massacre raises the question: how much of an aberration was the infamous wartime episode?
by Max Hastings via London Review of Books on January 17, 2018

The Ghosts of My Lai

In the hamlet where U.S. troops killed hundreds of civilians, survivors are ready to forgive the most infamous American soldier.
by Shaun Raviv via Smithsonian on January 6, 2018

The Ken Burns Vietnam War Documentary Glosses Over Devastating Civilian Toll

The PBS series by Burns focuses on soldiers' stories, with scant attention to the immense number of Vietnamese civilians who suffered and died.
by Nick Turse via The Intercept on September 28, 2017

Photographer Who Took Iconic Vietnam Photo Looks Back, 40 Years After the War Ended

His photo of Kim Phuc was a transformative moment in a horrible conflict.
by Mark Edward Harris, Nick Ut via The Hive on April 3, 2015

Hiroshima

A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these six were among the survivors.
by John Hersey via The New Yorker on August 31, 1946
Art piece of W.E.B. DuBois and people with outstretched arms.

Solidarity and Gaza

Black people see what is happening to Palestinians, and many feel the tug of the familiar in their heart.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on October 29, 2024
Lieutenant William Calley walking alongside his civilian attorney, with two other men following behind.

Was William Calley MAGA’s Founding Father?

He committed mass murder at My Lai. He was also its fall guy.
by Timothy Noah via The New Republic on July 31, 2024
Human figures colored either blue or green.

Mortality Wars

Estimating life and death in Iraq and Gaza.
by Shaan Sachdev via The Drift on July 8, 2024
A photograph of the massacre perpetrated by Americans taken on the morning of March 8, 1906, on the eastern crest of Bud Dajo.

A Notorious Photo From a US Massacre in the Philippines Reveals an Ugly Truth

A shocking image of the 1906 atrocity survived but failed to become a humanitarian touchstone.
by Kim A. Wagner via New Lines on June 17, 2024
A Taliban soldier standing on the ruins of the Bala Hissar fortress, Kabul, Afghanistan, 2021.

The Price of American ‘Safety’

New books on the War in Afghanistan endeavor to tell the realities of occupation and the "war on terror."
by Suzy Hansen via New York Review of Books on February 20, 2024
Illustration of Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu.

How Joe Biden Became America's Top Israel Hawk

The president once said “Israel could get into a fistfight with this country and we’d still defend” it. That is now clearer than ever.
by Noah Lanard via Mother Jones on December 22, 2023
Sera Koulabdara and four members of a Laos demining team scanning the ground in grassy area.

Fifty Years of Living with America’s Unexploded Bombs

Laos was collateral damage in the U.S.' secret war. The wounds are visible in the land and in generations still waiting on justice.
by Sera Koulabdara via Zócalo Public Square on December 21, 2023
Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies

In a demonstration of why he was able to kill so many people and get away with it, the day of his passage will be a solemn one in Congress and newsrooms.
by Spencer Ackerman via Rolling Stone on November 30, 2023
Henry Kissinger in his office, standing behind a desk and reading a folder

The People Who Didn’t Matter to Henry Kissinger

Lauded for his strategic insights, the former secretary of state is better remembered for his callousness toward the victims of global conflict.
by Gary J. Bass via The Atlantic on November 29, 2023
Rubble in the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Big Six v. Little Boy: The Unnecessary Bomb

A new book's insistence that the bomb was necessary to bring about Japan’s surrender is largely contradicted by its own evidence.
by Andrew Cockburn via London Review of Books on November 15, 2023
Senator Joe Biden

In the ’80s, Joe Biden Speculated to Israel’s PM About Wiping Out Canadians

He expressed support for Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon, saying the US would be similarly justified retaliating against Canadian cities for militant attacks.
by Ben Burgis via Jacobin on October 22, 2023

Have We Learned Nothing?

The comparison between last weekend's Hamas attack and 9/11 is apt.
by David Klion via n+1 on October 10, 2023
A woman touches a Vietnamese name on a memorial.

The Biggest Vietnam War Story that Americans Don’t Talk About

South Korea is finally being held to account for the carnage its mercenary troops inflicted on Vietnamese civilians. No one seems to be reckoning with our complicity.
by John Summers via Boston Globe on August 11, 2023
Cillian Murphy in the movie "Oppenheimer."

‘Oppenheimer’ Doesn’t Show us Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's an Act of Rigor, Not Erasure

The movie has no interest in reducing the atomic bombings to a trivializing, exploitative spectacle, despite what some would want.
by Justin Chang via Los Angeles Times on August 11, 2023
The nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945.

The Atomic Bombings of Japan Were Based on Lies

On the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan, we should remember that deploying the bomb wasn’t necessary to win the war.
by Taylor C. Noakes via Jacobin on August 9, 2023
Nagaski after the atomic bomb.

Did We Really Need to Drop the Bomb?

American leaders called the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki our 'least abhorrent choice,' but there were alternatives to the nuclear attacks.
by Paul Ham via American Heritage on August 6, 2023
George w. Bush delivers a speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished."

The Worst Crime of the 21st Century

The United States’ destruction of Iraq remains the worst international crime of our time. Its perpetrators remain free and its horrors are buried.
by Noam Chomsky, Nathan J. Robinson via Current Affairs on May 12, 2023
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