These problems have been here so long that the only way I’ve been able to function at all is by learning to ignore them. Else I would be in a constant state of panic, unable to think or act constructi...
The United States had a long bipartisan tradition of negotiating with even its worst enemies, from John Kennedy--'Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate--to Richard Nix...
Osama bin Laden’s ideas were neither new nor compelling outside his relatively small circle of followers. They belonged to an ugly cul-de-sac of history, an era where witches and heretics were burned...
Hot vit lon, a local favorite, a duck embryo boiled and served inside the shell—
Excited. In a good way. I've been training my whole life for this.
Beware of men with theories that explain everything.
If there was one ideological rationale that had broad appeal, it was nationalism, which for many boiled down to a fervent desire to be left alone.
He was convinced that men lost their nerve in combat when they allowed themselves to think too much. The part movies never got right about war was all the waiting, and all the effort it took not to th...
From the perspective of nearly half a century, the Battle of Hue and the entire Vietnam War seem a tragic and meaningless waste. So much heroism and slaughter for a cause that now seems dated and near...
He was not the first general to welcome statistics he wanted to hear—but the numbers emerged from an intricate origami of war bureaucracy: South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, and American. The truth w...
Vivá Colombia! We have just killed Pablo Escobar!
The river’s name, Huong, evokes the pleasing scent of incense or the pink and white petals that float downstream in autumn from orchards to the north. The Americans called it the Perfume River.
The Internet promised a truly global egalitarian age. That was the idea, anyway. The international and unstructured nature of the thing was vital to these early Internet idealists. If knowledge is pow...
One of its analysts was Daniel Ellsberg, who at the time was back in the States compiling the report that—after he leaked it to the press in 1971—would become known as The Pentagon Papers. The study s...
Never had a general so effectively willed away the facts.
Do me a favor, okay? Tell my parents that I fought well today. And tell them that I... that I... that I fought hard.
A CIA report completed in 1968 found similarly: The war and the bombing have eroded the North Vietnamese economy, making the country increasingly dependent on foreign aid. However, because the country...
His days were reduced to trying to stay alive and not to disgrace himself.
They had traveled the world, to Korea, Thailand, Central America ... they knew each other better than most brothers did.
The city was shredding them block by block. No place was safe. The air was alive with hurtling chunks of hot metal. They heard the awful slap of bullets into flesh and heard the screams and saw the in...