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Susan Katz Keating

Captured in the Desert: A Soldier’s Misfortune With the French Foreign Legion in Algeria

The French Foreign Legion these days is more exclusive than it used to be. If there is an Interpol notice against you, for example, you won’t get through the gate. A century ago, however, a man who wanted to escape his past and assume a new identity could disappear into …

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Cole Allen’s Manifesto, Decoded

A close read of the suspect’s document – and what it is designed to do. ANALYSIS by Susan Katz Keating “Hello everybody!” is not how shooters begin their manifestos. But that’s how Cole Allen began his. Allen was subdued on Saturday after he exchanged gunfire with the Secret Service at …

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Gallipoli: The Landing and the Line

The ANZAC landing on April 25, 1915, marked the opening of the Gallipoli campaign in World War I. by Jose Campos Bullets snapped off the shale walls of Shrapnel Gully. Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, stretcher bearer with the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance, led his donkey along the narrow track. A …

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Badge and Betrayal: How Ex-DEA Official Paul Campo Tried to Run the System in Reverse

Prosecutors say a former DEA financial operations chief used his expertise in a rogue effort for personal gain, agreeing in a federal sting to assist what he believed was a cartel. This installment of Crossings in Wartime examines what happens when the people who know how the machine works decide to run …

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Missed by a Keystroke: A Typo Enabled the Boston Bomber to Slip Through Security Net

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a grim lesson in what happens when the security safety net has holes. Long before the smoke cleared on Boylston Street in April 2013, long before the manhunt in Watertown gripped the nation, warnings had come in. They arrived not …

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A Nuclear Blast Would Bring Hell on Earth: Blinding Light, Searing Heat, and Intense Winds

The degree of hazard depends on the type of weapon, height of the burst, distance from the detonation, hardness of the target, and explosive yield of the weapon.  by Susan Katz Keating Russian President Vladimir Putin again raised the specter of nuclear war when he announced that a conventional attack …

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The Guns of 1916: Ireland’s Easter Rising Was Fought With Smuggled Rifles, Stolen Revolvers, and Improvised Weapons

by Susan Katz Keating The Asgard came in low, riding heavier than it should have for a vessel of its size. Below deck, rifles were stacked four feet high. The ship sailed into Dublin Bay, through one of the most consequential gun-running lanes in modern military history.  THE ARMS SITUATION …

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Silenced in the Streets: What the No Kings Protests Left Behind

by Susan Katz Keating The No Kings protests advocate for people who live on the margins. We found the ones they pushed aside. The bomb went off on a Saturday afternoon in a town center full of shoppers. Omagh. August 1998. Twenty-nine people and two unborn children who had nothing …

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No Kings, No Credit: Lenin’s Old Playbook Gets a Reboot, Without the Byline

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating I’m told that Vladimir Lenin has been spotted again racing through American streets with fire in his eyes, trying to make it to the revolution – but they started without him. Poor Vlad. He dragged himself out of the mausoleum, dodged Teslas and taco trucks, only …

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