Into 2016-Geopolitical Darkness
New York- One of my first notions of this still new year is that the heyday of the ‘Arab Spring’ was firmly five years ago….
#ParisAttacks Heavy gunfire in Saint-Denis
New York- A hail of bullets can be hear in the video during an anti-terror police operation in the northern commune of Saint-Denis approximately 12 kilometers…
Walk It Home
New York- A couple of photos of mine from the ‘Summer War’ in 2006-era Lebanon are featured in a new documentary film on The Wanton Bishops,…
Babylon Papers
New York- A quick street story… Sometimes late at night, I like to talk to people about where they’re from. If I were an economist, statistician,…
SDSU: My Alma Mater in Books
New York- Reading two very different books in the same day, I came across references to the college where I received my bachelors degree, San…
The Uncertainty
Athens- I’ve just spent the last three weeks in Greece and it felt as if I visited two distinct worlds between the whitewashed and azure…
Troubled Waters
Paros- Sitting in here in a quiet village on a quiet island in the heart of the Cyclades, the drama seems to churn all around….
Ground Zero: My Photographs from 9/11/01 to 9/11/11
Paros- Four years ago today I finished this decade-long documentary project about what was then called ground Zero in lower Manhattan. When 9/11 took place in…
Afghanistan-Where It All Began
New York- I spent a fascinating week down in central South Carolina at Shaw AFB lecturing on the socio-political and religio-cultural dynamics of the Levant. Within…
The PKK vs. the Deep State
New York- With Turkey’s renewed war against the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê (PKK) in the Qandil range in Iraq’s Suleimaniyah Governorate, the war against IS was given another…
The Rise and Demise of Qaddafi
New York- I’m appearing in a new series which premiered last week for Discovery Networks entitled Evolution of Evil about the rise of dictatorships in the twentieth…
The Black Banner Cafe
New York- I have a new article out in the June issue of the Combating Terrorism Center’s Sentinel journal on the decline, or perhaps dismemberment…
The Shia Ascendancy
New York- I don’t have much time to do full fledged blog posts as of late but today I was prepping an image for my ongoing…
Footprints
New York- Milling around the the 9/11 memorial the other day, I looked at one random, small cluster of names engraved above on of the…
Feet to the Fire
New York- I don’t ordinarily post the work of others here on TWD (unless they happen to be close friends) but I am thoroughly impressed by…
Dust and Urethane from Kabul to NYC
New York- Skateboarders Kenny Reed and Louisa Menke have published a handsome edition of their photographs of skateboarding in Afghanistan in 2009 with Vanderbooks of Rotterdam. They…
One Hundred Years
New York- Yesterday marked the centenary of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Armenians and their supporters in the international human rights arena describe the massacres as…
Twenty Years
New York- It’s such an obvious thing to say but it’s really hard to believe it’s been two solid decades since the Oklahoma City bombing…
It’s Morning in Iran…Maybe
New York- Regarding the planned nuclear deal to be reached by late June, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani announced “Today is a day that will remain in…
The Intrinsic Value of Ancient Sites
New York- As the faux caliphate referring to itself as ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah (Islamic State) continues to smash the shared human heritage of Iraq and Syria, the…
The Beginning or End of Iraq
New York- I’ve been delving through my archives of late in preparation for an upcoming series of television appearances the rise of dictatorships mostly in the…
The Imperiled Fate of Historic Sites in Iraq
New York- With each coming day lately there is a new tragedy being announced by the takfiri evangelists who refer to themselves as ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah (the…
A Home in Defence
New York- An image I shot back in 2008 in Karachi was employed to tell the tragic story of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl’s disappearance…
Libya: Revolution Awry
New York- How did we get here? This is what you may be wondering with the news today that a group of 21 Egyptian Copts…
Looking Back at Lebanon
New York- I have a photo of the Israeli destruction of Haret Hreik, Lebanon from the UN-mediated ceasefire in August, 2006 in the new issue…
Syria: A Lost Revolution
New York- Three years ago today I trekked into northern Syria’s rebellious Idlib Governorate from Hatay Province in Turkey. I had to put immense trust in…
The Quiescence of Oman
New York- With all of the nonstop news and largely negative social media I scan day by day with regard to affairs in the Arab-majority states…
The Siege Continues
New York- I have a new (and final for the time being) report on the battle for Kobane for IHS Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst titled…
Kobane to Kirkuk
New York- I have a an article in the November/December issue of the Combating Terrorism Center’s Sentinel publication titled The Battle for Kobani Comes to the Fore….
A Death in South Waziristan
New York- Upon reading the headlines today about the killing of Adnan el-Shukrijumah in South Waziristan, I thought I’d quickly post a short profile I wrote of…