The Infectious Myth – Greg Lovett on the Burn Pits – Delay, Deny, Hope you Die – 10.31.17

David interview Greg Lovett, maker of a documentary on the burn pits, “Delay, Deny, Hope you Die”, so named because they were where garbage from US military bases in Iraq and elsewhere was burned using jet fuel, generating a putrid cloud of black, toxic smoke from incomplete combustion. This was particularly bad on bases sited on former Iraqi chemical weapon …

Story of cities #3: the birth of Baghdad was a landmark for world civilisation

If Baghdad today is a byword for inner-city decay and violence on an unspeakable scale, its foundation 1,250 years ago was a glorious milestone in the history of urban design. More than that, it was a landmark for civilisation, the birth of a city that would quickly become the cultural lodestar of the world. Contrary to popular belief, Baghdad is …

ISIS Is The Child Of Chaos, Not Religion By Justin Podur

In the third week of May, ISIS took the city of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria, in two, big, high-profile victories. Though ISIS has constantly been in the news for years now, these two cities seem to return the sense of an unstoppable march of Islamist forces across the Middle East. As the beheadings began almost immediately in …

Life Under ISIS: One of the Strangest States Ever Created

It is one of the strangest states ever created. The Islamic State wants to force all humanity to believe in its vision of a religious and social utopia existing in the first days of Islam. Women are to be treated as chattels, forbidden to leave the house unless they are accompanied by a male relative. People deemed to be pagans, …