U.S. Armed Forces

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Debating the Middle East muddle

Global Politics
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 of Providence.
By STEVEN STYCOS | June 17, 2009

Review: Tokyo Sonata

An unexpectedly moving J-horror film
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.
By BRETT MICHEL | May 06, 2009

Culture wars

The Army's controversial anthropology program
American anthropologist Paula Loyd was in Afghanistan, discussing living costs with a local man when suddenly he doused her with fuel from a jug he was carrying and set her on fire.
By PETER PIATETSKY | March 16, 2009

Soldiers committing suicide

US troops are killing themselves in record numbers
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.
By JASON NOTTE | March 17, 2009

More sex, more Lincoln

A hefty reading season, from Jayne Anne Phillips and T.C. Boyle to Pablo Neruda
The subject of Lincoln is like catnip to publishers (and readers), but the only things missing from our winter list are actual cat books.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | December 30, 2008

Wallowing

Lockerbie overdoes the melodrama
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 22).
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 19, 2008

Two many Americas

Could an Obama administration mean an end to the red-state/blue-state divide?
It's worth reminding ourselves that when the Republicans are out of power, they go apeshit.
By MIKE MILIARD | November 14, 2008

Scars & stripes

American vets discover that their military uniforms — like their service — look better on paper
“Dude, that shit right there? That’s Iraq.”
By JULIA RAPPAPORT | September 25, 2008

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

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

In harm's way

The tragedy of Rakan Hassan and the impossibility of a Hippocratic Oath for journalists
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.
By ADAM REILLY | August 06, 2008

Trying out an anti-demonstration ‘sonic cannon’

Non-lethal weapons
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.
By JEFF INGLIS | July 16, 2008

Torture for the hostage-taker?

Prison watch
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?
By LANCE TAPLEY | July 09, 2008

Reality bites

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

A night in Guantánamo

Staying in a replica cell, with no waterboarding included
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.
By JEFF INGLIS | June 18, 2008

Hulk sulk

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

March to war

Why isn’t the press paying more attention to a possible attack on Iran?
During the course of two weeks in May, America’s top-ranking military officer went from warning that war with Iran could cripple the US military to rattling his saber at Tehran.
By ADAM REILLY | June 04, 2008

Rage against the machines!

Could robots take over the world? In many ways, they already have.
We’re on the cusp of a perilous era. Our pitiful carbon bodies are evolving much slower than the silicon and steel gizmos we’re inventing. And the guys in the lab coats and pocket protectors are starting to worry we’ve opened Pandora’s hard drive.
By MIKE MILIARD | May 28, 2008

Twenty years pass, RI stays the same

Acclaim for dubious deeds is an Ocean State mainstay
Phillipe + Jorge were graciously asked to recall Rhode Island’s Monthly’s first dubious achievement-style Rhode Island Red Awards, as chosen in 1988 by your superior correspondents, during the mag’s 20th anniversary gala last week.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | May 07, 2008

War games

Army of Two fights the good fight — mostly
September 11 has featured prominently in books, movies, and TV shows, but video games have danced around the subject — until now.
By MITCH KRPATA | March 24, 2008

Reignite your rage

Bush’s War almost tells the whole story
It’s tempting, five years into the Iraq War, to regard that conflict with fatalistic resignation.
By ADAM REILLY | March 18, 2008

Defending the universally loathed

The Phoenix looks with loving eyes at some of the worst people, places, and things in the world — and gives them a big hug
Forsaken entities deserve a second chance.
By PHOENIX STAFF | January 14, 2008

Iranian chick

An interview with Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi
At 38, Marjane Satrapi still resembles the kid in Persepolis , her autobiographical graphic-novel-turned-animated-film of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
By ROB NELSON | January 10, 2008

The dictator slayer

East Boston's Gene Sharp is soft-spoken, but he makes bad guys from Caracas to Beijing cringe
According to some people — including at least one sitting head of state — East Boston’s Gene Sharp is a dangerous dude.
By ADAM REILLY | December 05, 2007

Heavy casualties

History repeats in De Palma’s Redacted
In 1989, filmmaker Brian De Palma directed the potent Hollywood feature Casualties of War , taking his audience back in time to a vile true-life incident from Vietnam.
By GERALD PEARY | November 13, 2007

Denis Johnson’s war

Vietnam in Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson has given us so many maimed and suffering souls in the past 25 years, he could fill a trauma ward.
By JOHN FREEMAN | November 06, 2007

Cutting off your taxes to spite Uncle Sam

W-4 Peace
Take Larry Dansinger, who lives in Monroe, and who has withheld some or all of his owed taxes for years in opposition to US military action and policy.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | October 31, 2007

Rent a war

The real significance of hired guns in Iraq. Plus, combating Ann Coulter.
Wonder why the Iraq government changed its mind about expelling Blackwater, the rent-a-soldier company whose employees killed 17 civilians this past month?
By EDITORIAL | October 17, 2007

The problem with heroes

Lessons from the build-them-up, tear-them-down Boston firefighter backlash
Even the hardest-hearted news consumer had to wince this past week when the private autopsy results of Paul Cahill and Warren Payne were leaked to some of the press.
By ADAM REILLY | October 10, 2007

Enjoy the air show — you paid for it

Sky-high taxes
Let’s move beyond the $320 million in aircraft you have bought that will be performing at this weekend’s Great State of Maine Air Show at Brunswick Naval Air Station.
By JEFF INGLIS | September 12, 2007

War, peace, and Robert Pinsky

The season's fiction, non-fiction, and poetry
Every few years, a fall publishing season emerges that should remind us that Boston could be the literary epicenter of America.
By JOHN FREEMAN | September 12, 2007

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[MUSIC] The Wooden Birds + Other Lives + Hatcham Social

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