Spencer Ackerman

Author of REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA & PRODUCED TRUMP. Pulitzer/National Magazine Award/etc winning journalist. WALLER VS WILDSTORM for DC Comics, IRON MAN for Marvel.

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The CIA Has Been Stealing Your Data For Years

We don't know much more than that, but thanks to a bulk-surveillance disclosure last week, we know that.

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How A Song About a Dog Toy Kept Me From Shitting Myself in Iraq

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When An Iraqi Traffic Cop Offers To Share The Porn on His Phone

I randomly came across a forgotten story I wrote on an embed in Baghdad during the 2007 surge. A real dudes-rock moment from across cultures.

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Teamwork

Matthew Cole's new book Code Over Country reveals what the War on Terror awoke within SEAL Team 6

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Iran, Sanctions and Inflation as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

In a new paper, an economist reconceives a pillar of U.S. foreign policy as an indiscriminate weapon that works by harming not regimes but their people.

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Marxist Dialectic of The Sewer People

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Build Back Better (Weapons Sales Only)

You wanted health care, affordable housing and a dignified wage? Best I can do is help the arms trade.

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U.S. Economic Strangulation Could Kill More Afghans Than 20 Years of U.S. War

So this is how we "end" Forever Wars: through inflicting by inflicting catastrophic economic damage as an American policy choice. Call it population-centric vengeance.

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Strawberry Fields Forever

The Guantanamo Bay detention facility, an atrocity, turns 20 years old on January 11. Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.

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The Onset of Normalization

January 6 was and is a political problem. Without political solutions, there will be more January 6ths.

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Today We’re Gonna Give It 35 Percent

You don’t want to work *and* you have no ideas.

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We Hope Yule Log Off Whenever Possible

My Christmas present to you is no newsletters until 2022. But first, here’s what Biden makes of his first year of Middle East policy and what I make of three great books/comics.

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A Murder Scheme Straight Out of Early Steely Dan

Edited by Sam Thielman EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS COMES FROM an indictment. The Justice Department will have to prove its accusations in court. People are innocent until proven guilty; cops lie; prosecutors lie; indictments are best understood as theories of a case. Imagine every sentence I write about this contains the

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CAIR Infiltrated by Islamophobic Organization; Alleges Israeli Connection

A stunning betrayal by a trusted senior official goes back at least 13 years, and likely longer, the Muslim civil rights group said Thursday. And he may not be the only mole

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The Bastard Children of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force

A first look at new research from the Brown University Costs of War Project. Plus: the global policeman turns off his body camera

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Behind The Guantanamo Theater

Technocracy can make some good points, but it’s no match for War on Terror politics. The Biden administration sat this one out. Scenes from a Senate judiciary committee hearing

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The Peril and the Promise of Biden’s Drone Review

The drone-strike reduction seems to be real. But so is the pull of the status quo, reflected in the Pentagon’s force-posture overview.

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Guantanamo Bay, From Cage To Threshold

Dick Durbin says Guantanamo “does not reflect who we are or should be.” He’s right about that second part.

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Who Must Be A Terrorist, And Who Can Never Be

If Ilhan Omar and Lauren Boebert are in an elevator together, the dangerous one isn’t Omar. Weird how the War on Terror instructs otherwise, huh

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Major General Despair

The wages of exalting generals and admirals come when we see them express open contempt for the people who exalted them.

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Never Mind Yemen, Biden OKs $1 Billion in Weapons Sales To Saudis

Once upon a time, an administration told a story about how it was going to end a war. Then it erased the distinction between peace and a Saudi victory.

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Another War on Terror Ghoul Enters The Biden Administration

Ken Wainstein will run the intelligence shop at the Department of Homeland Security. They tried to make me to go to his rehab and I said no, no, no

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Nihilistic Feelings Are Moving

If I try reading The Apocalypse and The End of History by Suzanne Schneider, I see right through them.

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Enough Human Misery, Let’s Talk about Some Recent Books

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‘I Was Raped By The CIA Medics,’ Says Black-Site Survivor

In his first-ever statement, Majid Khan detailed the vengeful reality of the post-9/11 CIA: “The more I cooperated and told them, the more I was tortured.”