Retracing the steps of a Marine who went missing in the Montana wilderness. Family, friends and fellow Iraq veterans struggle to understand what happened to 30-year-old Noah Pippin:
Pierce remembers the stranger as none too friendly. Pippin kept his back turned when Pierce started asking questions and said curtly that he’d hiked in from Hungry Horse. Seeing the fatigues, Pierce asked if he was military, and Noah told him he was a vet.
‘You been over in Iraq?’
‘Got back a little while ago.’
‘I was in Vietnam,’ said Pierce, hoping to break the ice. ‘Navy.’
Noah didn’t answer.
‘If you’re going hiking in these parts, you need a gun,’ said Pierce. ‘Do you have one?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Just a .38.’
‘That ain’t much to stuff in the face of a grizzly when he’s chewing on your foot.’
‘It’s all I got.’
“Why Noah Went to the Woods.” — Mark Sundeen, Outside
See also: “The Waiting.” — Ashley Halsey III, Lonnae O’Neal Parker, Washington Post, Nov. 23, 2010
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Retracing the steps of a Marine who went missing in the Montana wilderness. Family, friends and fellow Iraq veterans struggle to understand what happened to 30-year-old Noah Pippin:
“Pierce remembers the stranger as none too friendly. Pippin kept his back turned when Pierce started asking questions and said curtly that he’d hiked in from Hungry Horse. Seeing the fatigues, Pierce asked if he was military, and Noah told him he was a vet.
“‘You been over in Iraq?’
“‘Got back a little while ago.’
“‘I was in Vietnam,’ said Pierce, hoping to break the ice. ‘Navy.’
“Noah didn’t answer.
“‘If you’re going hiking in these parts, you need a gun,’ said Pierce. ‘Do you have one?’
“‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Just a .38.’
“‘That ain’t much to stuff in the face of a grizzly when he’s chewing on your foot.’
“‘It’s all I got.'”
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Published: Apr 9, 2012
Length: 44 minutes (11,100 words)
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Which would be worse: Iran developing a nuclear weapon, or waging a war to prevent it? An examination of both scenarios:
Given the momentousness of such an endeavor and how much prominence the Iranian nuclear issue has been given, one might think that talk about exercising the military option would be backed up by extensive analysis of the threat in question and the different ways of responding to it. But it isn’t. Strip away the bellicosity and political rhetoric, and what one finds is not rigorous analysis but a mixture of fear, fanciful speculation, and crude stereotyping. There are indeed good reasons to oppose Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, and likewise many steps the United States and the international community can and should take to try to avoid that eventuality. But an Iran with a bomb would not be anywhere near as dangerous as most people assume, and a war to try to stop it from acquiring one would be less successful, and far more costly, than most people imagine.
“We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran.” — Paul Pillar, Washington Monthly
See also: “The Sabotaging of Iran.” — Financial Times Staff, Financial Times, Feb. 11, 2011
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Which would be worse: Iran developing a nuclear weapon, or waging a war to prevent it? An examination of both scenarios:
“Given the momentousness of such an endeavor and how much prominence the Iranian nuclear issue has been given, one might think that talk about exercising the military option would be backed up by extensive analysis of the threat in question and the different ways of responding to it. But it isn’t. Strip away the bellicosity and political rhetoric, and what one finds is not rigorous analysis but a mixture of fear, fanciful speculation, and crude stereotyping. There are indeed good reasons to oppose Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, and likewise many steps the United States and the international community can and should take to try to avoid that eventuality. But an Iran with a bomb would not be anywhere near as dangerous as most people assume, and a war to try to stop it from acquiring one would be less successful, and far more costly, than most people imagine.”
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Published: Mar 2, 2012
Length: 20 minutes (5,084 words)
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Tim Hennis was an Army sergeant serving at Fort Bragg in 1985 when he was charged with the murder of a woman and her two young daughters. His case has gone to trial three separate times, and the military’s intervention has raised questions about what constitutes double jeopardy:
That Saturday, Hennis’s neighbors recalled, he had poured lighter fluid into a fifty-five-gallon barrel and stoked a bonfire for at least five hours. Had he burned evidence? Hennis did go voluntarily to the police station, but Bittle told me that this was a tactic regularly employed by a certain class of criminal. “Why do people rob banks? They think that others didn’t know how to do it right. That was Tim Hennis’s attitude: ‘You can’t get me. I am smarter than you are.’”
“Three Trials for Murder.” — Nicholas Schmidle, The New Yorker (Nov.14, 2011)
See more #longreads from Nicholas Schmidle
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Tim Hennis was an Army sergeant serving at Fort Bragg in 1985 when he was charged with the murder of a woman and her two young daughters. His case has gone to trial three separate times, and the military’s intervention has raised questions about what constitutes double jeopardy:
“That Saturday, Hennis’s neighbors recalled, he had poured lighter fluid into a fifty-five-gallon barrel and stoked a bonfire for at least five hours. Had he burned evidence? Hennis did go voluntarily to the police station, but Bittle told me that this was a tactic regularly employed by a certain class of criminal. ‘Why do people rob banks? They think that others didn’t know how to do it right. That was Tim Hennis’s attitude: “You can’t get me. I am smarter than you are.” ‘”
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Published: Nov 14, 2011
Length: 35 minutes (8,792 words)
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Inside Israel’s attempts to slow Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and whether it may ultimately take military action:
Matthew Kroenig is the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and worked as a special adviser in the Pentagon from July 2010 to July 2011. One of his tasks was defense policy and strategy on Iran. When I spoke with Kroenig last week, he said: “My understanding is that the United States has asked Israel not to attack Iran and to provide Washington with notice if it intends to strike. Israel responded negatively to both requests. It refused to guarantee that it will not attack or to provide prior notice if it does.” Kroenig went on, “My hunch is that Israel would choose to give warning of an hour or two, just enough to maintain good relations between the countries but not quite enough to allow Washington to prevent the attack.”
“Will Israel Attack Iran?” — Ronen Bergman, New York Times Magazine
More Bergman: “Gilad Shalit and the Rising Price of an Israeli Life.” — New York Times Magazine, Nov. 9, 2011
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Inside Israel’s attempts to slow Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and whether it may ultimately take military action:
“Matthew Kroenig is the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and worked as a special adviser in the Pentagon from July 2010 to July 2011. One of his tasks was defense policy and strategy on Iran. When I spoke with Kroenig last week, he said: ‘My understanding is that the United States has asked Israel not to attack Iran and to provide Washington with notice if it intends to strike. Israel responded negatively to both requests. It refused to guarantee that it will not attack or to provide prior notice if it does.’ Kroenig went on, ‘My hunch is that Israel would choose to give warning of an hour or two, just enough to maintain good relations between the countries but not quite enough to allow Washington to prevent the attack.'”
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Published: Jan 27, 2012
Length: 30 minutes (7,693 words)
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[Not single-page] The Google engineer who became a symbol of the Egyptian revolution grapples with what’s next for the country:
“A little more than two weeks ago, Ghonim settled into his regular three-hour flight from Dubai to Cairo. His seatmate, an older Egyptian executive type, recognized him immediately and started right in. ‘Isn’t enough enough?’ the man asked. ‘What are you doing to this country?’ The executive turned out to be an engineering consultant whom Ghonim pegged at around 50; he might have been Ghonim himself born twenty years earlier. Ghonim is both an interested listener and not great at getting out of conversations, and so he spent the flight absorbing his seatmate’s story: The older man had supported the protests at Tahrir Square and experienced ‘the epitome of happiness’ when Mubarak had been forced down on February 11. But as the revolution had barreled on, some of its demands seemingly extreme, and the country continued to falter, the consultant had come to resent all of it.
“The Lonely Battle of Wael Ghonim.” — Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New York magazine
See also: “On the Square: Were the Egyptian Protesters Right to Trust the Military?” — Wendell Steavenson, New Yorker, Feb. 21, 2011
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