KtBlog
Dear Cruelest Month: Spring Isn’t Arab
Once upon a time we lay in bed trying to imagine what shelling sounded like. We being me and the man I loved. Ah, those early days of my Orientalism and our naïvete. It was winter,2012, and I had started sleeping in the storage space above my kitchen. It was the only place in my…
The Songs of War
In the first years of the Iraq War, what distinguished Maj. Gen. David Petraeus’s success in the north from his fellow commanders’ difficulty in the south was his correct assessment of the “center of gravity.” The term, coined by Clausewitz, refers to the enemy’s source of strength. Petraeus understood that insurgents depend heavily on civilians—for…
Unspun
I join Chris Hedges and General Brent Scowcroft as a talking head for Al Jazeera’s new documentary news program, Faultlines, about religion in the military. I was invited to be on the show because of my recent Harper’s story on the subject, “Jesus Killed Mohammed,” in which I write about the growth of a militant…
U.S. Army Chaplain: “We hunt people for Jesus.”
“Special forces guys, they hunt men, basically. We do the same thing as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. Hunt ’em down.” That’s Lt. Colonel Gary Hensley, who at the time he said those words was the top Army chaplain in Afghanistan, giving a sermon at Bagram Air Base. I wrote about Ltc. Hensley and…
Klingenschmitt’s Revenge
My cover story for the May Harper’s, “Jesus Killed Mohammed” — subscription only, but an exclusive excerpt is available here on KtB and the hard copy’s on the newsstand tomorrow — has been Gawkerized, thanks to this heartwarming public prayer about one of the story’s subjects, Mikey Weinstein, by former Navy chaplain Gordon “Chaps” Klingondick:…
Prime Directive
This Halloween, how about wearing a truly monstrous costume? A haunting excerpt from A Good War is Hard to Find
Red Flags and Christian Soldiers
Operation Gospel – A primer from the last time the U.S. occupied foreign lands.
