U.S. Armed Forces

Latest Articles

You call this winning?

President Barack Obama scored.
Afghanistan complications multiply. Plus, Congress is heading for a weak wrap-up.
By EDITORIAL | July 02, 2010

Front lines

Sebastian Junger gets up close and personal with Restrepo
Sebastian Junger gets up close and personal with Restrepo
By PETER KEOUGH | June 26, 2010

It seems but a moment ago that the sound of Dylan and Baez, the Beatles and the Stones reverberated through a world bent on catastrophe. Has it been almost 20 years?
The legacy of Willie Morris and Lewis H. Lapham
By MARCO TRBOVICH | June 25, 2010

Open service

By KEGAN ZEMA | May 29, 2010

Are doctors complicit in prison torture?

In the past few years an outcry has arisen over the involvement of military and CIA medical professionals and psychologists in torture. Some critics have even suggested criminal prosecution of the medical staff involved or, at least, revocation of their
The Maine medical community looks at solitary confinement
By LANCE TAPLEY | April 23, 2010

In the land of the stoner cops

Major Jim Contreras was awaiting his marching orders. Literally.
On the front lines of Obama's campaign in Afghanistan
By NIR ROSEN | February 26, 2010

Romney's new character: Macho man

Few things are more predictable than a GOP presidential candidate posturing as a he-man protector of America, and depicting his Democratic counterpart as an effete, appeasing girlie-man on the dangerous world stage.
In his new book, Mitt makes himself over as a muscular defender of America
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 12, 2010

Rocky Mountain low

Ever since Steven Soderbergh put what was a grade-Z resort town on the film-business map with sex, lies, and videotape in 1989, the Indies and foreigners essentially hijacked the Oscars.
A little frayed, the Sundance brand endures
By HARLAN JACOBSON | February 12, 2010

Ransom Notes

While reporting from Afghanistan two years ago, David Rohde became, for the second time in his career, an unwilling participant rather than an observer. On October 29, 1995, Rohde had been arrested by Bosnian Serbs. And then in November 2008, Rohde and
Was the NY Times being hypocritical when it suppressed coverage of its journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban?
By ADAM REILLY | February 12, 2010

Review: The Most Dangerous Man in America

At age 79, Daniel Ellsberg is getting the last guffaw.
Hail to Daniel Ellsberg
By GERALD PEARY | February 12, 2010

Department of conjecture

The Haiti disaster will not serve to turn a state from toss-up to safely Republican as the George W. Bush Administration's calculated response to Hurricane Katrina did in Louisiana.
Letters to the Portland Editor, January 29, 2010
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | January 29, 2010

Idiot wind

Last spring, after the state Legislature rejected a bill that could have resulted in a wind farm being constructed on two undeveloped mountains in Redington Township, a lot of people in western Maine, figuring the controversial project was finally dead,
Airship of fools
By AL DIAMON | December 04, 2009

Holy terror?

On the afternoon of November 5, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan walked into a building at Fort Hood, the sprawling military base in central Texas; sat briefly in solitary silence; and then opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol, shooting roughly a hundred
Cutting through the muddled thinking about Nidal Malik Hasan's faith and its role in the Fort Hood shootings
By ADAM REILLY | November 13, 2009

Narrative truth

For the majority of us Americans, Iraq and Afghanistan are a series of news-data points — number of Americans killed today, number of car bombs, spending tallies, estimates of civilian deaths.
Krzysztof Wodiczko’s war story at the ICA
By GREG COOK | November 13, 2009

Human rights watch

Last week, on the heels of anti-torture panels and protests in Portland, Washington DC, and elsewhere, the Justice Department told the nation that it would have to wait a few more days before information about American torture policies and practices is
Acknowledging, and punishing, torture
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 26, 2009

Debating the Middle East muddle

US military aid to Pakistan and Afghanistan is being wasted and should be redirected to the police and moderate non-violent groups working for education and the rule of law, according to two Middle East experts who spoke Sunday at the Community Church
Global Politics
By STEVEN STYCOS | June 19, 2009

Review: Tokyo Sonata

J-horror maestro Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) begins his timely, if atypical, tale with the downsizing of Japanese patriarch Ryuhei Sasaki from his administrative post.
An unexpectedly moving J-horror film
By BRETT MICHEL | May 08, 2009

Culture wars

IN A CONTROVERSIAL PROGRAM, THE US ARMY IS USING ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN TO BRIDGE CULTURAL DIVIDES AND LIMIT AMERICAN CASUALTIES. BUT IS THE DATA THEY COLLECT USED TO TARGET AND KILL FOREIGNERS?
IN A CONTROVERSIAL PROGRAM, THE US ARMY IS USING ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN TO BRIDGE CULTURAL DIVIDES AND LIMIT AMERICAN CASUALTIES. BUT IS THE DATA THEY COLLECT USED TO TARGET AND KILL FOREIGNERS?
By PETER PIATETSKY | March 11, 2009

Soldiers committing suicide

On July 22, 2004, unable to handle the intensity anymore — the daily vomiting, the feeling that he was a murderer — Lucey wrapped a garden hose around his neck and hanged himself.
US troops are killing themselves in record numbers
By JASON NOTTE | March 11, 2009

More sex, more Lincoln

The subject of Lincoln is like catnip to publishers (and readers), but the only things missing from our winter list are actual cat books.
A hefty reading season, from Jayne Anne Phillips and T.C. Boyle to Pablo Neruda
By BARBARA HOFFERT | December 29, 2008

Wallowing

Playwright Deborah Brevoort looked at the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, shook her head, and reduced the tragedy to its effect on one family and one town in The Women of Lockerbie , being staged by Roger Williams University Theatre (through November 2
Lockerbie overdoes the melodrama
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 19, 2008

Two many Americas

It's worth reminding ourselves that when the Republicans are out of power, they go apeshit.
Could an Obama administration mean an end to the red-state/blue-state divide?
By BY MIKE MILIARD | November 12, 2008

Scars & stripes

“Dude, that shit right there? That’s Iraq.”
American vets discover that their military uniforms — like their service — look better on paper
By JULIA RAPPAPORT | September 24, 2008

Critics say bill co-sponsored by Langevin and Kennedy heightens tensions

Rhode Island peace activists say a resolution co-sponsored by US Representatives James Langevin and Patrick Kennedy could lead to war with Iran.
Iran
By STEVEN STYCOS | August 13, 2008

In harm's way

Most of the job-related fears that keep journalists up at night are relatively mundane, but on rare occasions, a more ominous scenario presents itself.
The tragedy of Rakan Hassan and the impossibility of a Hippocratic Oath for journalists
By ADAM REILLY | August 06, 2008

Trying out an anti-demonstration ‘sonic cannon’

The Maine Marine Patrol is considering purchasing a “sonic cannon” capable of broadcasting earsplitting, “disorienting” sounds, like those that have been used to break up peaceful demonstrations in public spaces in Iraq and the country of Georgia.
Non-lethal weapons
By JEFF INGLIS | July 16, 2008

Torture for the hostage-taker?

Will Michael Chasse, the inmate who allegedly held two people hostage on June 30 at the Maine State Prison, now be tortured by Governor John Baldacci’s administration?
Prison watch
By LANCE TAPLEY | July 09, 2008

Reality bites

The war in Iraq has been on the back burner of the American political scene for some time.
Will Obama make good on his plan to exit Iraq by 2010? Don’t bet on it.
By EDITORIAL | July 09, 2008

A night in Guantánamo

I’d volunteered to spend the night in the replica cell (which is modeled on the ones at Gitmo) because we’ve all heard stories about unlivable conditions at Gitmo but can’t come close to imagining what it must be like.
Staying in a replica cell, with no waterboarding included
By JEFF INGLIS | June 11, 2008

Hulk sulk

After two hugely budgeted adaptations in five years, my biggest question about the Hulk remains: what’s with the pants?
The new version keeps his pants on
By PETER KEOUGH | June 10, 2008

Friends' Activity

Popular