“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through …But we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military.” www.archchicago.org/en/statement...

“The war with Iran is little more than the joint targeting process unleashed. The Frankenstein’s monster that is the operational level of war, unsatiated after eating strategy, is now feasting on policy”. @bafriedman.bsky.social

“Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of military violence, they for a long while preserved the sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their freeborn ancestors.” —Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“It is becoming increasingly hard to avoid the conclusion that the Trump administration has embarked on this operation without a plan, and is making it up as it goes along, as if they killed enough of the right people and destroyed enough Iranian assets everything would fall into place.”

“This is the world Trump tries to disavow — complex and interconnected, resiliently interwoven and yet vulnerable to disruption…More than anything, it shows up — in its grounded flights, shuttered refineries and intercepted missiles — the fallacy of Fortress America” www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/o...

The restrictions Miller and Hegseth railed against were designed to prevent us from doing things like slaughtering children en masse.

“Democracy allows people the freedom to make stupid decisions, so long as they make them collectively. But a system that allows a country to be dragged into war at the whims of a single person is not much of a democracy at all.” @qjurecic.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Why this war is illegal, and how the Constitution's checks on war powers broke down

“A lot of good people got killed, and for what?” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1990. “And when we left, we left with our tail between our legs.” www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/u...

Lastly, they are for the soul of your nation and your cause. Limits on war preserve humanity. Mercy transcends violence. After the fighting, there has to be something more. Rules of engagement and the laws of armed conflict protect you; abandoning them is dire.

I know that the people who need to read this aren’t here, but here goes: Rules of engagement aren’t for the enemy. They’re for you. They’re for your soldiers when they’re captured or wounded. They’re for your civilians when they’re in range of the enemy. They’re for your allies, to reassure.

Last night, I spoke to former Army Pfc. Jeremy Watson who said this about Capt. Cody Khork: “[he] enjoyed being in the service…and was a great coach,” who taught him “Compassion, friendship, loyalty…[and] to always try to stay positive when you can.”

“Republican lawmakers blocked a measure Wednesday that would have limited President Trump’s power to continue waging war against Iran without congressional authorization, even as the conflict expanded into a wider international crisis” www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

January 31st, 2012. We called in A-10s. Killed four Taliban. I remember the bodies. Teenagers. Twisted wrecked flesh Making killing a video game isn’t just obscene. It’s a lie. It papers over what violence is and what it does to the human body, and to our soul. Truth is always the first casualty.

“By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.” —Moby Dick

Hegseth has offered more clarity on his war on the Boy Scouts than on the current war with Iran.

Hegseth has offered more clarity on his war on the Boy Scouts than on the current war with Iran.

Hegseth has offered more clarity on his war on the Boy Scouts than on the current war with Iran.

“Hard power alone can depose a regime, but it is notoriously incapable of cultivating a better successor.” www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Ironic that one of the legacies of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a presidency that can initiate wars on whim, without even the pretense of building a case to the American people first.

"Whatever happens, though, one thing is clear – that this use of force by the US and Israel is manifestly illegal. It is as plain a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter as one could possibly have." @ejiltalk.bsky.social www.ejiltalk.org/the-american...

What a great opportunity to learn from two of our best veteran writers! Best writers full stop, also.

Texas people! The great Matt Gallagher and I are headed your way next weekend to run a free day of writing workshops! Come join us on Saturday, March 7, courtesy of the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing. www.fairfield.edu/news/press-r...

Tonight in BK! Come to a chat where I’ll ask Chris Beha about God, atheism, Montaigne, and mysticism.

“If Russian troops ever return to Bucha, Katya doesn’t want to be scared. She intends to be ready. The teacher asks for volunteers to try loading a rifle. Katya’s hand shoots up.” www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

Congrats to my wonderful colleague Carol Ann Davis whose extraordinary collection SONGBIRD is out today from Wesleyan University Press! www.weslpress.org/978081950222...

What are the best pieces of writing from the perspective of tourists? Geoff Dyers’ Yoga for People That Can’t Be Bothered to Do It and especially the Italy scenes in Crossing to Safety come to mind.

Weird when Trump’s overt corruption intersects with the old-school corruption none of us ever blinked at. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/b...

I was on Twitter for the writers and the book recommendations, the essays, the poetry, the community. I am here now for the same. I’m a nerd. Please reply with a favorite recent essay or poem or story or book recommendation, and thank you.

“from face to foot  He was a thing of blood, whose every motion  Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered  The mortal gate o’ th’ city, which he painted  With shunless destiny; aidless came off  And with a sudden reinforcement struck  Corioles like a planet.” tfana.org/events/the-t...

Honored to judge the Commonweal Prize for Short Fiction. @commonweal.bsky.social has been a critical part of my intellectual life for decades. They’ve published writers from Graham Greene and Alice McDermott to Andre Dubus and Mary Gordon. Looking forward to reading the submissions.

Delighted to be read this way, and alongside Salinger and Matt Gallagher’s wonderful DAYBREAK! Also, very cool that @warontherocks is doing this as a series (info for submitting pitches in the link).

“To a skeptical believer, the great mark of sincerity is the extent to which you attempt to live out your beliefs in your own life despite your own doubts, not the extent to which you silence those doubts or the doubts of others.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...

Wish I was in DC for this. Feb 21 at 5pm @politicsprose.bsky.social will honor the Washington Post’s Book World section, with reflections from former editors, critics and contributors. politics-prose.com/tribute-book...

@philklay.bsky.social saw this coming in his amazing novel Missionaries — which also has the scariest scene not written by Cormac McCarthy.

February 26, I’ll be in conversation with Chris Beha about his fantastic new book, WHY I AM NOT AN ATHEIST

“Education is for the student’s benefit, not for the benefit of their future employer…students go to school not merely to acquire skills but to develop an entire social and intellectual life: to have something good and to have it forever” @thepointmag.bsky.social thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

This is an important, credible, and damning article about the IDF in Gaza by Andy Milburn, a retired US Marine Raider colonel with combat experience from Fallujah and Mosul who maintained close contact with IDF officers during the war (while keeping a low public profile). Read the whole thing.

"I was in Afghanistan after 13 years of war—long after the exciting newness wore off and as domestic political opposition raged—and we still had Czech, Lithuanian, and Polish special forces, as well as conventional Australian, British, Bulgarian, Canadian, and Romanian units with us in Kandahar."

Tonight!

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

It is remarkable how much of the Trump administration’s case to justify their actions depends on lying about stuff every American can see with their own eyes www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VBJ...

I know what the actual trouble with men is, but I’ll only reveal it next week, at the @92ndstreety.bsky.social

“Security agencies staffed by dumb thugs are typically inept at identifying genuine subversive threats.” Extraordinary piece

At 19, I thought, “the Iraqi people were suffering under a brutal dictator…in the worst-case scenario, removing him would be a net good. What followed was civil war, mass death, swelling ranks of terror groups, genocide, mass rape, and slavery. “ I wrote about Venezuela reason.com/2026/01/07/i...

A note on the Venezuela attack. When I began thinking about joining the military, in the lead up to Iraq in 2003, I thought that even in the worse case scenario, Iraq would be better off without a dictator.

“Our country has—through presidential aggrandizement accompanied by congressional authorization, delegation, and acquiescence—given one person, the president, a sprawling military and enormous discretion to use it in ways that can easily lead to a massive war. That is our system: One person decides”

"And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart." —Luke 2:19 A line I’ve always loved, from today’s readings.

He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; My woods—the young fir balsams like a place Where houses all are churches and have spires. I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57834/...