There’s a very naïve theory of language at work here, roughly: “if people speak nicely, they’ll act nicely” — with the fatuous corollary, “If people mention bad things, they must like bad things.”

The simplest refutation of that is two words: Victorian Britain.

Victorian Britain carried out several of the biggest genocides in human history. It was also a high point of virtuous literature…

Republished from the Radio War Nerd subscriber newsletter. Subscribe to Radio War Nerd for podcasts, newsletters and more! The headline here is not a joke, unfortunately. It’s a question you can’t help asking if you’ve followed the war in Yemen. You probably…

Limonov & Marignac, early 1980s Paris Again, damnit! I’ve been doing this forever. Most of my friends kicked the bucket before I reached the ripe old age of 30. Addicts don’t live that long, heroin isn’t a nurturing mother, no…

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Mark Ames is the co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast. Subscribe to Radio War Nerd on Patreon. Who remembers @ShamiWitness? At the peak of ISIS’s power, @ShamiWitness stood out as the genocidal militia group’s “most influential Twitter account” according…

We’re living through a massive artificial famine, right now. In NW Yemen, home of the Yemeni Shia who’ve fought off a Saudi-financed invasion, the “coalition” of invaders has settled on a slower, more effective strategy: artificial famine and blockade. This is how you kill off a troublesome population, not with bombs and guns alone. Hunger and disease are much better mass killers than firearms and bombs.

I was able to obtain via FOIA roughly 2,500 pages of correspondence — including strategy sessions and contracts and budgets and status updates — between the Tor Project and its main funder, a CIA spinoff.