Spencer Ackerman

Columnist

attackerman

Spencer Ackerman, a Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award–winning reporter, is the author of Reign of Terror: How The 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump. Since the dawn of the War on Terror, Ackerman has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere as a staff writer for outlets like Wired, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, and The New Republic. He writes a newsletter, Forever Wars, on Ghost; and is the co-author of the DC Comics miniseries Waller vs. Wildstorm.

War on TerrorMay 19, 2023

Why the Right Embraces Military-Veteran Vigilantes

The right is often misconstrued as anti-war. In reality, it wants to wage its war on American soil—against people whose Americanness it won’t recognize.

Spencer Ackerman
May 2, 2023

Emptying Guantánamo Is Not the Same as Closing Guantánamo

Unless the post-9/11 forever prison is permanently shuttered, it’s only a matter of time before one of Biden’s successors takes up Trump’s unrealized call to fill it back up with “some bad dudes.”

Spencer Ackerman
Foreign PolicyMarch 17, 2023

The Unlearned Lessons From the War in Iraq

You don’t have to reflect on a war if that war doesn’t end, let alone pay reparations for your crimes.

Spencer Ackerman
Covert OpsJune 26, 2008

The CIA’s Failures

The history of American intelligence-gathering is rife with incompetence, dysfunction and contempt toward legislative oversight.

Spencer Ackerman
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Nation BuildingMay 17, 2007

Training Iraq’s Death Squads

The Army’s plan to professionalize Iraq’s police could backfire, as militia-infiltrated squads become more effective killers.

Spencer Ackerman
National SecuritySeptember 21, 2006

Driving While Muslim

As the hunt for homegrown terrorists sympathetic to Hezbollah intensifies, the Muslims of Dearborn, Michigan are losing their trust in American justice.

Spencer Ackerman

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Spencer Ackerman

Columnist

War on TerrorMay 19, 2023

The right is often misconstrued as anti-war. In reality, it wants to wage its war on American soil—against people whose Americanness it won’t recognize.

May 2, 2023

Unless the post-9/11 forever prison is permanently shuttered, it’s only a matter of time before one of Biden’s successors takes up Trump’s unrealized call to fill it back up with “some bad dudes.”

Foreign PolicyMarch 17, 2023

You don’t have to reflect on a war if that war doesn’t end, let alone pay reparations for your crimes.

Covert OpsJune 26, 2008

The history of American intelligence-gathering is rife with incompetence, dysfunction and contempt toward legislative oversight.

The stakes are higher now than ever. Get The Nation in your inbox.

Nation BuildingMay 17, 2007

The Army’s plan to professionalize Iraq’s police could backfire, as militia-infiltrated squads become more effective killers.

National SecuritySeptember 21, 2006

As the hunt for homegrown terrorists sympathetic to Hezbollah intensifies, the Muslims of Dearborn, Michigan are losing their trust in American justice.