Peter Maass @maassp Twitter profile | Pikagi

Pikagi

Peter Maass

@maassp

24,568

Followers

1,622

Following

1,663

Media

12,608

Statuses

Editor and writer. Author of “Love Thy Neighbor” and “Crude World.” Done time at the NYT, Wash Post, and Intercept.

https://t.co/qfoWRTBf0i

Joined September 2009

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

Pinned Tweet

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

1) I'm not sure how to make people remember or care that 15 years ago the United States invaded Iraq, setting off a war that continues to this day, with several hundred thousand Iraqis dead, millions turned into refugees. I covered the invasion for the New York Times Magazine.

259

6K

14K

Last Seen Profiles

@JMartFazio

@Suhngmin

@ErinMcCreary

@bluemeteor4

@7333Z

@DortjolA

@guspaz

@RhystleMania

@iikyeomburuu

@hoeforjemily

@Mkzangado

@C4Tsunami_

@1marty41

@torucphan

@JaroChurat50859

@TongeCC

@SkyNewsAust

@NguyenNamKun

@Mou__tang

@PetersYuri18936

@perdonasimerio

@loveynwjns

@qpbU4130NteeWO2

@HoyPillas

@Bunny73856624

@PencintaKandung

@ApriliaBelka

@GoddessRenat

@taerryeon

@Mkzangado

@paullawriefound

@cafepodre

@dptig

@CassidyPer33469

@1Rjpt

@KasihLudah

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

The Iraq war is passing from America's memory but not mine. I don't know whether we'll ever accept moral & legal responsibility but until a reckoning comes, the truth must be kept alive. Here's what I witnessed 20 years ago today at the Diyala Canal outside Baghdad. (Thread)

Tweet media one

288

5K

16K

@maassp

Peter Maass

2 years

High school senior who just defeated a far-right candidate in Idaho: “We used to have climate strikes, like back in ninth grade, and they would come with AR-15s,” he said, bringing rifles to intimidate “a bunch of kids protesting for a livable future.”

Tweet card media

Idaho’s Far Right Suffers Election Loss to 18-Year-Old Climate Activist

Shiva Rajbhandari, a high school senior, won elected office in Boise, Idaho, defeating an incumbent school board trustee backed by local extremists.

theintercept.com

39

2K

10K

@maassp

Peter Maass

2 years

The biggest advocates of white replacement theory are the Murdoch family, owners of Fox News. Tucker Carlson is their employee. My story on this from 2018:

Tweet card media

Fox News Is Poisoning America. Rupert Murdoch and His Heirs Should Be Shunned.

The Murdoch family is warmly received in the hallways of power and money. But they should be ostracized in the same way that Steve Bannon has.

theintercept.com

295

4K

8K

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

We remember things so we don't forget them. On this day, the 16th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we should remember the so-called experts who urged on the war. They have not withered away. They are still with us, still telling us what we should do.

85

2K

6K

@maassp

Peter Maass

29 days

A genocide ago…

Tweet media one

@BarakRavid

Barak Ravid

29 days

Israeli right wing activists blocked aid trucks which were on their way to Gaza today at the Tarqumiya crossing in the West Bank

3K

7K

11K

33

2K

6K

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Twenty years ago today I stood in Baghdad's Firdos Square and watched U.S. Marines tear down a statue of Saddam Hussein. The toppling was portrayed by the American media as a symbol of Iraq's joyous liberation but the reality of what happened was quite different. (Thread)

Tweet media one

85

2K

5K

@maassp

Peter Maass

7 years

As Aleppo falls to Assad and Russia, amid reports of civilian massacres, this is what cable news offers to America.

@CNN

CNN

7 years

"We've been friends for a long time": Kanye West and President-elect Trump appear together at Trump Tower

1K

10K

14K

109

5K

3K

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

Fox News has poisoned, with its far-right conspiracy theories, far more Americans than Breitbart, Gab, 4chan, Alex Jones, etc. But Rupert Murdoch and his heirs -- who control Fox -- have not been held responsible. My latest story is about them.

Tweet card media

Fox News Is Poisoning America. Rupert Murdoch and His Heirs Should Be Shunned.

The Murdoch family is warmly received in the hallways of power and money. But they should be ostracized in the same way that Steve Bannon has.

theintercept.com

101

1K

3K

@maassp

Peter Maass

9 months

A huge Pakistan-U.S. scoop from @ryangrim and @MazMHussain on Pakistan's democracy being undermined by the U.S. for the sake of getting more weapons to Ukraine.

Tweet card media

U.S. Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal for Ukraine, Leaked Documents Reveal

The U.S.-brokered IMF loan let Pakistan’s military postpone elections, deepen a brutal crackdown, and jail former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

theintercept.com

90

1K

2K

@maassp

Peter Maass

4 years

It might be easy for some people to laugh at these losers but if you were in the Balkans in the early 1990s you would have a hard time not worrying about this.

@miguelmarquez

Miguel Marquez

4 years

Contingent of heavily armed individuals in back of an old military vehicle just showed up. They said they’re all independent. No affiliation.

5K

4K

8K

77

523

2K

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

It was 20 years ago that America invaded Iraq on the false pretense that it possessed weapons of mass destruction (it did not). At least several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians were killed in the invasion and its long aftermath of occupation and war.

16

343

2K

@maassp

Peter Maass

3 years

1) I was Glenn Greenwald’s colleague at The Intercept until he resigned last year and accused me and other editors of censoring him. That was ridiculous, so I let it pass. But Glenn is now attacking and imperiling my workmates. It’s time to say a few words.

85

467

2K

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

Christine Blasey Ford said that a few weeks after Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her, she encountered Mark Judge at the Potomac Village Safeway where he worked. Judge had laughed during the assault, Ford said. In his memoir, "Wasted," Judge writes about working at the market in 1982.

Tweet media one

59

867

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

In war, soldiers who just lost their own can be particularly aggressive; they are determined it won't happen again, and they want the enemy to pay a price. (Note: the shell that killed those Marines was almost certainly fired by U.S. forces and fell short). Photo: Gary Knight

Tweet media one

4

166

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

America is fighting a war that is older than the troops fighting it.

@WSJPolitics

WSJ Politics

5 years

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has been going on for so long that the newest troops weren't alive when it started. Meet Marine Pvt. Juan Tellez, born Nov. 6, 2001.

Tweet media one

217

5K

7K

16

606

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

More than a quarter century ago, I covered the war in Bosnia for the Washington Post and wrote a book about it. I saw a once-stable country torn apart by a violent consortium of nationalists, bigots, and opportunists. What I learned is unfortunately relevant to America now.

33

653

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

8 years

Note to Obama: leakers and whistleblowers will be essential in Trump era. It's time to pardon the ones you've prosecuted.

17

689

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

11) So, as I said, I really don't know how to make people care that 15 years ago the U.S. started a war that still decimates Iraq & Iraqis. But I'll continue tweeting and posting photos in the days and weeks ahead, as the catastrophe began to unfold and I made my way to Baghdad.

Tweet media one

16

379

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

What Americans remember about the Iraq war is what they choose to remember. Same is true for all our wars -- we choose what to remember, and primarily that's what happened to our soldiers. What happened to civilians --not remembered so much.

5

181

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

It boggles the mind that the intellectual authors of the Iraq war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and will cost trillions of dollars in the course of time, are doing better than ever. It's an injustice to truth and memory.

32

372

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

I have to warn you, the tweets that are coming will include some graphic photographs. There's a saying that only the dead have seen the end of war. I think that by seeing the dead of war, we can better understand what war really does, not in the abstract.

3

130

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

Journalists who covered the war in Bosnia are taking a stand against the Nobel Prize going to Peter Handke. Using the hashtag #BosniaWarJournalists , they're describing what they witnessed in the 1990s. Tomorrow, Sweden's king is scheduled to give the Nobel to Handke.

28

641

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

At dawn, as the Marines prepared to run across the damaged bridge, an artillery shell hit an armored personnel carrier and killed 2 of them. Gary Knight shot this photo of the immediate aftermath.

Tweet media one

4

102

1K

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

This photo was shot by Kuni Takahashi. The dead Iraqi -- the one I mentioned before -- wore a sport coat, no weapon near him. He was a civilian. What was he doing there, why was he killed, what was his name -- I have no idea. War generates more questions than answers.

Tweet media one

2

134

998

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

I may have posted too many of these gruesome photos; I don't know. There's a dilemma of not knowing how much to write or show about war, that sometimes you write too much, too intimately, too graphically. It's hard to know what to show, what not to.

8

65

993

@maassp

Peter Maass

2 years

My latest story asks a simple question: Should a military veteran reliably accused of war crimes, and who admitted that he killed a prisoner, be invited to train police officers? The Tallahassee Police Department came up with a surprising answer.

Tweet card media

An Accused War Criminal Trained Florida Cops in "New Concepts of Shooting"

A sign of the forever wars coming home, Eddie Gallagher trained officers from the Tallahassee Police Department.

theintercept.com

39

393

990

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

On the war's 15th anniversary I wrote a long thread on what I witnessed from the first day of invasion until the Marines I was following toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Firdos Square. Here it is:

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

1) I'm not sure how to make people remember or care that 15 years ago the United States invaded Iraq, setting off a war that continues to this day, with several hundred thousand Iraqis dead, millions turned into refugees. I covered the invasion for the New York Times Magazine.

259

6K

14K

13

132

962

@maassp

Peter Maass

3 years

2) Glenn is trying to defame the Intercept’s solid reporting on the far right in America — and his campaign, mostly on Twitter and Fox News, has jeopardized the security of our staff and their families. I stand with my colleagues at The Intercept.

120

105

854

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Over several hundred yards, a half-dozen vehicles were shredded with gunfire. Afterwards, I counted nearly a dozen bodies; only two had military clothing or weapons, the rest appeared to be civilians. Three of the dead were in this Kia van (photo by Laurent Van der Stockt).

Tweet media one

3

112

875

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

The plan was for snipers to fire warning shots in front of vehicles or at their tires and engine blocks. If they kept coming, they'd get drilled. It was an ineffective plan. How would civilians (unschooled in ballistics) know where shots came from, that they should turn around?

2

76

862

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

The Marines were basically invisible; they wore camouflage and lay on the ground. Their Humvees and tanks were on the other side of the damaged bridge. Iraqis who were just trying to escape the American bombing of their capital saw open road ahead of them.

1

76

859

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

I’ve watched North Korean stae TV, Romanian under Ceausescu, lots of Soviet TV (I was a student there), Serbian TV during Milosevic, and this is indistinguishable. And we have kids in cages and a president reliably accused of assault/rape by many women.

@MattGertz

Matthew Gertz

5 years

Jeanine Pirro talking about President Trump is completely indistinguishable from what you get in an authoritarian state media apparatus. "This kind of enthusiasm has never been matched in American history... there is a chord that this man strikes in the American heart."

1K

749

3K

21

311

831

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

Brett Kavanaugh just said Mark Judge's book, "Wasted," is fictionalized. A note at the beginning of the book says, "This book is based on actual experiences. In some cases, the names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved."

Tweet media one

12

352

836

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

I joined a platoon that was about to cross the bridge but they had to pass the shelled APC, still smoldering. "Holy shit," one of the Marines said. "Don't look, don't look," urged another. We ran over the bridge, past the dead Iraqi.

1

58

815

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

In the 1960s, Daniel Boorstin identified a category of media spectacle that he called "pseudo-events," which are created to be reported on. I think the toppling of the statue belongs in that category. Too often, journalists go along with these things - and sometimes create them.

4

145

822

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

I just want to pause to note how breathtaking it is that the so-called experts who created the greatest foreign affairs disaster in memory (at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Americans killed) remain at the highest echelons of the U.S. policy-making establishment.

11

236

777

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

Our understanding of what's happened in Iraq has been shaped by the rare leaks of visual evidence of war crimes by U.S. forces. You can dislike Assange for justifiable reasons, but the video Chelsea Manning leaked to him, and that Wikileaks published, is stunningly important.

Tweet media one

20

432

754

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

The flawed plan broke down. As cars approached, jittery Marines opened up with their M-16s and machine guns. Gary Knight heard an officer shout "Ceasefire! Wait for the snipers!" Journalist Kit Roane heard a Marine scream, "What are you guys doing out here?" It was too late.

1

71

781

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

The road was littered with wreckage and bodies. No weapons or anything military in this truck -- the driver was killed in his seat. Photo by Laurent Van der Stockt.

Tweet media one

2

88

762

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Slumped in a seat inside the van, there was the body of a woman in a black chador (photo by Gary Knight).

Tweet media one

4

90

756

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

I'm about to explain how the Marines killed civilians but first I need to describe the physical space. On the map below, the Marines took positions along the road to Baghdad. Their weapons pointed in one direction -- at any vehicles coming at them from the city.

Tweet media one

4

76

751

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Gary Knight took this photo of the Kia's windshield, behind which you can see one of the crumpled bodies.

Tweet media one

2

90

740

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Once across the bridge, the Marines took cover along the road to Baghdad. The body in the foreground of this photo by Gary Knight is an Iraqi soldier -- note the clothing and the helmet.

Tweet media one

1

61

729

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

I've written a 6,000-word article about the Murdoch family and Fox News, and I'd like to highlight its key points on how the Murdochs have spread far-right ideas in America. It's time to connect the harm of Fox with the family that controls the network.

Tweet card media

How Lachlan Murdoch Went From Studying Philosophy at Princeton to Exploiting White Nationalism at...

Rupert Murdoch's oldest son has taken charge of Fox News. The family's role in the far-right network is coming under greater scrutiny.

theintercept.com

29

403

696

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

I have no idea what happened to these children. If they survived Iraq's many years of warfare, they would be in their twenties now. What have their lives been like? Imagine the trauma of this day, add 20 years, multiply by millions of Iraqis.

12

69

725

@maassp

Peter Maass

4 years

This country has gone mad. Its future is not good.

@theintercept

The Intercept

4 years

Oregon Police Beg Public to Stop Calling In False Reports Blaming Antifa for Forest Fires by @RobertMackey

58

540

1K

10

127

684

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Once I crossed the bridge, I found the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy. "Boys are doing good," he told me. "Brute force is going to prevail today." He was listening to his radiophone. "Suicide bombers headed for the bridge?" he said into the phone. "We'll drill them."

1

50

671

@maassp

Peter Maass

2 months

"I chose journalism, then wars chose me. Exposing war crimes — wherever they occur — is central to my identity as an American, a journalist and a Jew." From my latest article in the Washington Post (gift link)--

Tweet card media

Opinion | I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.

Israel, a nation created in the wake of the Holocaust, has no right to commit war crimes in self-defense.

www.washingtonpost.com

40

319

689

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

Max Boot is one of them. Before the war, he wrote in the Weekly Standard, "Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul."

12

163

621

@maassp

Peter Maass

3 years

My latest story: "By tightening the circulation of disturbing images, the guidelines fulfilled, intentionally or not, a key Trump administration goal: keeping public attention away from the pandemic death toll, which has surpassed 300,000 souls."

Tweet card media

Hiding Covid-19: How the Trump Administration Suppresses Photography of the Pandemic

The U.S. government has reinforced media restrictions at hospitals, reducing the flow of disturbing images of the pandemic.

theintercept.com

25

473

667

@maassp

Peter Maass

4 years

My latest: The Murdochs are the first family of disinformation in America. We need to treat them that way.

Tweet card media

When We Talk About Fox News, We Need to Talk About the Murdoch Family Too

The Murdochs own Fox News but rarely get the scrutiny they deserve for bankrolling racism and hatred.

theintercept.com

35

179

663

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

There are many forms of genocide denial. Today, the Nobel Foundation and the Swedish Academy resorted to farce.

16

251

653

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

2) Though I'm a writer, I shot photos during the invasion as I drove a rented Hyundai SUV from Kuwait into Iraq via Safwan, then up the spine of the country to Nasiriya, Diwaniya, Hilla, Kut and finally Baghdad. Here's the Hyundai on March 19, 2003. It's clean--that will change

Tweet media one

4

112

625

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

Dear @NobelPrize , Your 2019 Literature Prize went to an apologist for the Serb genocide in Bosnia. I covered the Bosnia war, I've read Peter Handke's "A Journey to the Rivers" -- which denies the genocide -- and I wrote this article. Sincerely, Peter Maass

Tweet card media

Nobel Literary Prize Goes to Genocide Apologist Peter Handke

Peter Handke has downplayed Serb atrocities in Bosnia and attended the funeral of strongman Slobodan Miloševic. The Nobel judges ignored it.

theintercept.com

12

268

652

@maassp

Peter Maass

3 years

3) Here’s a thread from Rob Mackey that refutes Glenn’s lies about Rob’s work on the “Riot Squad,” a group of right-wing journalists who specialize in videos of violence that are used to smear the BLM movement. (I edited Rob’s article.)

@RobertMackey

Robert Mackey

3 years

1 There's no point in arguing with bad-faith actors willing to lie about my work to mislead followers who don't read or watch it, but I will respond here to blatant lies about my video and print piece looking at how Fox News uses viral video of violence at protests to smear BLM

51

215

808

10

89

608

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

"In one fell swoop, the American-backed, American-armed Saudi regime murdered more kids than have ever been killed in one single attack in modern American history." -- @shaunking

Tweet card media

There's a Lot of Injustice at Home — but We Can't Let Ourselves Miss Crimes Abroad

Last week, the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition killed at least 40 kids in one attack in Yemen. We can’t let these crimes slip by.

theintercept.com

17

486

583

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

7) Iraqis in Safwan tended to keep their distance -- not many were outside. A guy drove up in a truck with a white flag. A woman and child got out and embraced Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press. I think they were relieved they hadn't been shot.

Tweet media one

4

81

592

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Notice the photographers at the bottom of the frame. Their presence influenced what the Iraqis did to the statue and for how long. A famous media study from 1953 by Kurt and Gladys Lang showed how media cameras provoke people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

1

70

629

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

Overlooked in the praise for James Comey's book: Comey told Barack Obama that the phrase "mass incarceration" was offensive to the law enforcement community.

Tweet media one

33

262

582

@maassp

Peter Maass

4 years

The last stage of genocide is genocide denial. On the 25th anniversary of the massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, let us not forget the evil of the @NobelPrize organization, which awarded Peter Handke, a genocide denier, its Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019.

9

232

605

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

This is an article I can't believe I had to write -- on the connections between my visits to Serb-run concentration camps in Bosnia in the 1990s and what's happening today at U.S. camps for immigrant children and adults.

Tweet card media

What the Concentration Camps of Bosnia Can Teach Us About the Abuse of Immigrants on the U.S. Border

I never thought the pattern of abuse and deceit that I saw at Serb-run prison camps in the 1990s would be relevant to America — but it is.

theintercept.com

36

399

591

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

23) One thing I don't like in American war reporting -- it is too often about us (our soldiers, our reporters). It will be hard to escape that vise in this thread; my contact w/Iraqis was limited. The grim truth is that a lot of Iraqis I saw were corpses. But they have stories.

4

115

585

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

Judge wrote that it was the summer before his senior year and he was "completely hooked" on drinking. Every week he was "spending between four and seven nights with the gang, either at a party or O'Rourke's ... We were pretty much left alone to do what we wanted, when we wanted."

Tweet media one

14

319

565

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

20) Kuni would end up taking what I think was one of the best combat photos of the invasion. Here it is, but the crazy and graphic story behind it will come a few weeks later, when we're closer to Baghdad.

Tweet media one

4

76

587

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist, wrote a month before the invasion that Iraq had WMD and "only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman — could conclude otherwise.” He remains a Washington Post columnist.

Tweet card media

Opinion | A Winning Hand for Powell

www.washingtonpost.com

18

154

556

@maassp

Peter Maass

10 years

Best. Headline. Ever. http://t.co/W43JU2NVp7

Tweet media one

39

1K

571

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

3) The photographer I worked with, Laurent vander Stockt, drove his own SUV. After several failed attempts to get into Iraq, one time turned back at gunpoint by U.S. soldiers, we finally got through, via what we guessed was a minefield (I followed Lauren tracks). Here's Laurent.

Tweet media one

5

81

560

@maassp

Peter Maass

3 years

4) Glenn has also attacked Micah Lee for his reporting on Gab, a website used by white supremacists. Micah and his wife have been doxxed and have received threats, thanks largely to Glenn’s encouragement of harassment.

19

89

557

@maassp

Peter Maass

3 years

5) I’ll end this thread by quoting from an Intercept statement I helped draft a few days ago: “We are doing everything we can to guarantee the security of our staff and defend their families and their reputations. Our reporting will continue.”

The Intercept Stands By Its Reporting on Gab and the Riot Squad

The specific accusations about our reporting crumble when subjected to scrutiny.

theintercept.com

32

68

555

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

It's been noted that the July 1 entry on Brett Kavanaugh's calendar shows an outing that fits the description of the party where Christine Blasey Ford says she was assaulted. People whom she says were at the party are mentioned on the July 1 entry.

Tweet media one

Tweet media two

16

272

554

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

I can't forget this passage from Mark Judge's book. It's about a party at his house in 1982, and it speaks to the terrible fate of girls who attended these gatherings. Remember, Judge is a good friend of Brett Kavanaugh's, by all accounts they drank and partied together.

20

258

514

@maassp

Peter Maass

22 days

“Gradually, then suddenly.” A few thoughts on whether Benjamin Netanyahu might actually end up in the Hague for a war crimes trial, using the precedent of Slobodan Milošević's extradition there in 2001. I covered the former Yugoslavia back then and wrote a book about it.

4

104

576

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

15) Because we were just a few miles from Kuwait, my Kuwaiti cell phone still worked. I got a call in the evening. It was Hertz in Kuwait City, wanting to know when I would return my SUV. I told them it would be a while. They reminded me that I wasn't allowed to take it to Iraq.

5

50

551

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

I can't overstate the influence of journalists who shaped not just what happened at Firdos but the initial and powerful narrative that developed in the U.S. about the success of the invasion. On this day, there was a combustible mix of chaos, opportunism, and manipulation.

1

61

558

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

On the morning of April 8, 2003 -- twenty years ago today -- I woke up in what many people would regard as a crime scene. This picture, by Laurent Van der Stockt, shows the highway to Baghdad after the Marine battalion I was following had seized it.

Tweet media one

1

63

552

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Jaw. Floor.

Tweet card media

Next America-class amphibious assault ship to be named ‘Fallujah’

“This namesake deserves to be in the Pantheon of iconic Marine Corps battles."

www.navytimes.com

28

85

540

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

I was a journalist following the battalion of Marines who toppled the statue (I know, imagine the odds). They rumbled into Baghdad around midday, tanks leading the way, M-16s pointed out the windows of pretty much every Humvee. But there was no resistance; some Iraqis waved.

1

38

531

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

4) Laurent was already a legend among photojournalists, and since the Iraq invasion he's continued to do amazing work in Syria (among other warzones). But that's another story for another day.

1

63

502

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

A key member of the Swedish Academy, Peter Englund, announces he is boycotting the Nobel Prize ceremonies. "To celebrate Peter Handke's Nobel Prize would be gross hypocrisy on my part," he tells Dagens Nyheter. Stunning development.

Tweet card media

Peter Englund bojkottar Nobelveckan i protest mot Peter Handke - DN.SE

I öppen protest mot att Peter Handke får Nobelpriset i litteratur vägrar Peter Englund att delta i årets Nobelvecka.

web.archive.org

8

209

503

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

This thread can be titled "Genocide deniers, hold my beer." It's about the @NobelPrize organization telling the survivors of mass atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo that they have an intolerant view of what happened to them.

7

240

510

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

The 20th anniversary of the Iraq war nears, so I'm re-upping my thread on the pro-invasion pundits who are still punditing, unfortunately. Includes David Frum, Max Boot, Ken Pollack, Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, David Brooks, Tom Friedman. No penalty for being horrifically wrong.

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

We remember things so we don't forget them. On this day, the 16th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we should remember the so-called experts who urged on the war. They have not withered away. They are still with us, still telling us what we should do.

85

2K

6K

29

170

510

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

"Just because your society seems stable does not mean it will always be so. Muslims versus Christians, Jews versus non-Jews, whites versus blacks, poor versus rich -- there are so many seams along which a society can be torn apart by the manipulators."

9

179

488

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Lots of reasons America in 2023 hardly notices several thousand Covid deaths each week but one early factor was a near-ban on photography inside hospitals in the pandemic's first months. We didn't truly see what was happening & still don't. My 2021 story:

Tweet card media

How Hospitals Became Vaults That Hid Evidence of Covid-19's Toll

In the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, only a small number of the more than 6,000 hospitals in the U.S. let journalists inside.

theintercept.com

4

177

518

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

If you'd like to read a narrative version of this thread that goes into greater depth and complexity, I wrote a feature story for The New Yorker in 2011 that was headlined, "The Toppling: How the Media Inflated a Minor Moment in a Long War."

Tweet card media

How the media inflated a minor moment in a long war.

www.newyorker.com

8

63

518

@maassp

Peter Maass

8 years

FBI destroyed diplomat Stephen Kim's exemplary life for a fraction of what Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted for.

12

517

450

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

29) One day, soldiers are calling their mothers, the next day they're killing someone else's mother. Not a judgement, just a fact in Iraq and most warzones I've been to. This is Gary Knight's photo of a Marine using what I think is my Thuraya (I'm in the background with Kuni).

Tweet media one

5

108

480

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Enrico Dagnino, one of the photographers following the battalion, took a series of pictures of the grave diggers. He sent me the contact sheet, and this is a frame from it. There's something about its graininess that fits my memory of the moment, which is distant, receding.

Tweet media one

2

31

485

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

My new story reveals that Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke received a passport from Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia in 1999, and the passport listed Handke's nationality as Yugoslav. Here's why that's quite something. (thread)

Tweet card media

Why Did Nobel Winner Peter Handke Have a Secret Passport From Milosevic-Era Yugoslavia?

Austrian Peter Handke, whose controversial books are criticized for denying the Serb genocide in Bosnia, got a Yugoslav passport in 1999.

theintercept.com

22

267

471

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

David Frum was the speechwriter for George W. Bush credited with coining the term "axis of evil," referring to Iraq, Iran and North Korea. He is now a staff writer for The Atlantic.

Tweet card media

Things are bad, and David Frum makes them worse

The ubiquitous commentator has been beating the war drum for nearly two decades.

4

114

448

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

13) I think it's okay to say this is where the road to Abu Ghraib began. I didn't see these Iraqis mistreated, but later on, others were mistreated and tortured by the U.S. military. I saw some of it. Here's a better picture by Gary Knight, a photographer in my unembedded group.

Tweet media one

3

104

469

@maassp

Peter Maass

7 years

Please read @ggreenwald on Chelsea Manning as this generation's greatest hero. In dark world, she's a ray of light.

Tweet media one

21

234

445

@maassp

Peter Maass

7 years

John Kelly is Michael Flynn with better table manners. @tinyrevolution on how Trump's generals are part of problem, not saving us from it.

Tweet card media

It Didn't Just Start Now: John Kelly Has Always Been a Hard-Right Bully

John Kelly and Donald Trump see the world in fundamentally the same, brutal way.

theintercept.com

29

197

448

@maassp

Peter Maass

6 years

5) We arrived in Safwan on the afternoon of March 19, 2003, just as Marines were taking down a placard of Saddam Hussein.

Tweet media one

1

71

448

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

In 2002, John Bolton was a senior arms control official in the Bush administration and said, "We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq." He is now Trump's national security adviser.

4

125

426

@maassp

Peter Maass

5 years

Come for @mehdirhasan writing about the AIPAC official who said he could get 70 senators to sign a napkin, and stay for Tom Friedman telling Mehdi that with AIPAC's support he would need to make only three calls to raise enough money to run for Congress.

14

204

425

@maassp

Peter Maass

1 year

Since the war began in 2003, at least several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians were killed. The total, including indirect deaths from malnutrition & illness, is far higher. None of the U.S. political or military leaders who ordered the illegal invasion have been prosecuted.

2

71

468