Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq as a State Department Foreign Service Officer serving as Team Leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). Now in Washington, he writes about Iraq and the Middle East at his blog, We Meant Well. His book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books), will be published this September and can be preordered by clicking here.
Left Behind: What We Lost in Iraq and Washington, 2009-2012
People ask the question in various ways, sometimes hesitantly, often via a long digression, but my answer is always the same: no regrets. In some 24 years of government service, I experienced my share of dissonance when it came to what was said in public and what the government did ...
Crossposted from TomDispatchOn January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects. His is just the latest prosecution in an unprecedented assault on government whistleblowers and leakers of every sort. Kiriakou’s plight ...
No Free Speech at Mr. Jefferson’s Library
Here’s the First Amendment, in full: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of ...
Crossposted from TomDispatchWho doesn’t like roasted chicken? Fresh, crispy with a little salt, it falls off the bone into your mouth. It’s a great thing, unless the price is $2.5 million of your tax dollars. As a Foreign Service Officer with a 20-year career in the State Department, and as ...
Freedom Isn’t Free at the State Department
Crossposted from TomDispatchOn the same day that more than 250,000 unredacted State Department cables hemorrhaged out onto the Internet, I was interrogated for the first time in my 23-year State Department career by State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) and told I was under investigation for allegedly disclosing classified information. ...
Occupying Iraq, State Department-Style
Way out on the edge of Forward Operating Base Hammer, where I lived for much of my year in Iraq as a Provincial Reconstruction Team leader for the U.S. Department of State, there were several small hills, lumps of raised dirt on the otherwise frying-pan-flat desert. These were “tells,” ancient ...
Crossposted from TomDispatchObjective reporting on the SEAL team that killed bin Laden was as easy to find as a Prius at a Michele Bachmann rally. The media simply couldn’t help themselves. They couldn’t stop spooning out man-sized helpings of testosterone -- the SEALs’ phallic weapons, their frat-house, haze-worthy training, their ...
Click here to suggest an article
April 9th, 2012
Left Behind: What We Lost in Iraq and Washington, 2009-2012
People ask the question in various ways, sometimes hesitantly, often via a long digression, but my answer is always the same: no regrets. In some ...
February 9th, 2012
Crossposted from TomDispatchOn January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about ...
November 28th, 2011
No Free Speech at Mr. Jefferson’s Library
Here’s the First Amendment, in full: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the ...
October 3rd, 2011
Crossposted from TomDispatchWho doesn’t like roasted chicken? Fresh, crispy with a little salt, it falls off the bone into your mouth. It’s a great thing, ...
September 27th, 2011
Freedom Isn’t Free at the State Department
Crossposted from TomDispatchOn the same day that more than 250,000 unredacted State Department cables hemorrhaged out onto the Internet, I was interrogated for the first ...
June 7th, 2011
Occupying Iraq, State Department-Style
Way out on the edge of Forward Operating Base Hammer, where I lived for much of my year in Iraq as a Provincial Reconstruction Team ...
May 17th, 2011
Crossposted from TomDispatchObjective reporting on the SEAL team that killed bin Laden was as easy to find as a Prius at a Michele Bachmann rally. ...
February 9th, 2012
Crossposted from TomDispatchOn January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about ...
April 9th, 2012
Left Behind: What We Lost in Iraq and Washington, 2009-2012
People ask the question in various ways, sometimes hesitantly, often via a long digression, but my answer is always the same: no regrets. In some ...
November 28th, 2011
No Free Speech at Mr. Jefferson’s Library
Here’s the First Amendment, in full: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the ...
June 7th, 2011
Occupying Iraq, State Department-Style
Way out on the edge of Forward Operating Base Hammer, where I lived for much of my year in Iraq as a Provincial Reconstruction Team ...
October 3rd, 2011
Crossposted from TomDispatchWho doesn’t like roasted chicken? Fresh, crispy with a little salt, it falls off the bone into your mouth. It’s a great thing, ...
May 17th, 2011
Crossposted from TomDispatchObjective reporting on the SEAL team that killed bin Laden was as easy to find as a Prius at a Michele Bachmann rally. ...
September 27th, 2011
Freedom Isn’t Free at the State Department
Crossposted from TomDispatchOn the same day that more than 250,000 unredacted State Department cables hemorrhaged out onto the Internet, I was interrogated for the first ...
'The Rich & the Rest of Us' by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West and 'Drift' by Rachel Maddow
Mike, was the triple overtime Outback Bowl come-from-behind win the greatest Spartans game ever?
Yes -- or at least it will be until their appearance in next year's Rose Bowl, a game which... Continue Reading
Michael Moore on MSNBC, Super Tuesday, 3/6/12
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Michael Moore on the Rachel Maddow Show, 2/27/12
Michael Moore on the Rachel Maddow Show, 2/20/12
Michael Moore on Conan, 12/8/11
