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Wesley Morgan

@wesleymorgan.bsky.social
11K followers 971 following 4.7K posts

Writing about America’s post-9/11 wars linktr.ee/wesleysmorgan Author of THE HARDEST PLACE (2021) www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/22… Signal: tinyurl.com/kzmejtaw

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Reposted by Wesley Morgan
Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The kind of people I know now don’t have barbecues, Mama. They stand up alone at nights in small rooms and eat cold weenies. My so-called friends are bums. Many of them are nothing but rats. They spread T.B. and use dirty language. Some of them can even move their ears.
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Dan Murphy @bungdan.bsky.social · 10h
Can't pin this one on Trump alone. Shoveling cash at Egypt despite full knowledge of industrial scale torture and other human rights abuses is a long, bipartisan American tradition. reut.rs/4hD4KZa
reut.rs
EXCLUSIVE: US waives rights conditions for $320 million in military aid to Egypt, letter shows
The US State Department has waived human rights conditions for ​more than $300 million of military aid to Egypt in light of Cairo's "helpful role" since the launch of the US ‌war with Iran, according ...
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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 22h
Per declaration from the Pentagon's General Counsel, the OLC boat strike memo is TS/SCI, exists in hard copy only, there are only four hard copies, and DoD's sole copy is secured in his safe. Umm, ok This is not some sort of super secret squirrel CA program www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/u...
nytimes.com
Judge Questions Secrecy Around Trump Administration’s Memo on Boat Strikes
The judge also ordered the Justice Department to privately show the court the contested document, which blesses the disputed killings at sea.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
More detailed thread here on northern Gaza demolitions that aren’t yet reflected on Google imagery, and the timeline of how it happened (short answer is that if fall 2023-fall 2024 was the year of the 2,000-lb bomb for the IDF, fall 2024-fall 2025 was the year of the far-more-thorough bulldozer)
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
And here is a thread linking to articles that describe how, within the IDF, to-the-foundations earthmover demolitions became the norm in Gaza. It wasn’t because of orders from IDF high command, really—it was a highly successful bottom-up revolution by the extremist reservists who had the earthmovers
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
…still standing that in fact received Rafah treatment (like the whole Gaza City district of Shejaiya, and the whole city of Beit Hanoun, which are simply gone but still appear on Google Maps). There is other satellite imagery out there that you can piece together, though—see this thread:
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s important that Google Earth/Maps has done this, but worth noting that so far the updated 2026 imagery is only of southern Gaza—the imagery of northern Gaza is still from before the final destruction of spring-fall 2025, giving the impression that large areas of Gaza City and Jabaliya are…
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s important that Google Earth/Maps has done this, but worth noting that so far the updated 2026 imagery is only of southern Gaza—the imagery of northern Gaza is still from before the final destruction of spring-fall 2025, giving the impression that large areas of Gaza City and Jabaliya are…
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“Penthouse Letters, but for Women” will be the cockroach of the written-word apocalypse www.thecut.com/article/tess...
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Besides the embassy, US forces had already drawn down to just Irbil and possibly Bashur airbases in Kurdistan and the embassy annex at BIAP. Seems clear this means closure of Irbil—things to watch for include what remains at BIAP under State authority, and whether JSOC maintains the Kurdish CTG…
washingtonpost.com
U.S. withdraws forces in Iraq as balance of power shifts to Iran
U.S. military forces are set to depart from bases in Iraq on Wednesday, a milestone in two bloody decades of American involvement.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
How about a monkey island? I don’t say it would be cheap. Nobody’s going to pay to see one or two monkeys these days. People want to see a lot of monkeys.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
DOD has released the name of the SEAL Team 6 operation in Nigeria last spring where they killed an ISIS-West Africa emir, and it is “Galavinic Cobra” It appears that “galavinic” is not a real word, but is an occasionally recurring misspelling of “galvanic” (with some instances on old gun forums)
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It is very much like CIA public affairs to not know what kind of helicopter their own extremely historic helicopter that they display at HQ is (The quote-tweeter who’s corrected them was a paramilitary officer in CIA SAD’s Air Branch at the time, and that’s him posing with it in Afg in early 2002)
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I relate this dream, knowing it is illmannered to do so, because of its anomalous character.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“Guess Who”: the game that teaches toddlers about establishing PID
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Reunion in Rhode Island with two favorite friends and colleagues, and one new pal
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“It’s getting pretty late in the day for you to have so few interests and convictions. How old are you, Mr. Midge?” “I’m twenty-six.” “Later than I thought. Think about this. All the little animals of your youth are long dead.” Melba said, “Except for turtles.”
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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
At some point Daniel Tiger is going to snap and eat all of the other children in that preschool except for O the Owl who can presumably fly away from the carnage.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
In South Texas I saw three interesting things. The first was a tiny girl, maybe ten years old, driving a 1965 Cadillac. She wasn’t going very fast, because I passed her, but still she was cruising right along, with her head tilted back and her mouth open and her little hands gripping the wheel.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Me trying to deal with all the kids who keep talking to me at this wedding
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Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
yeah this isn't a "operation cuba libre is a go," it's Donovan doing exactly what he was brought in to do (make SOUTHCOM a 'traditional' warfighting CCMD in the dumbest way possible)
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
(This account will now be focused on posting the greatest sentences of Charles Portis’s “The Dog of the South,” if you couldn’t tell)
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
In South Texas I saw three interesting things. The first was a tiny girl, maybe ten years old, driving a 1965 Cadillac. She wasn’t going very fast, because I passed her, but still she was cruising right along, with her head tilted back and her mouth open and her little hands gripping the wheel.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Bizarre selection of books that Audible is advterising to me. (“Close to Shore” is about a spate of shark attacks in New Jersey in 1916.)
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
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Kenny Logins @kennylogins.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
everything reminds me of BONE TOMAHAWK (2015)
a mountain cleaved, but imagine it’s an upside down man and it’s his butt and balls
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Akbar Shahid Ahmed @akbarshahidahmed.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I'm honored an excerpt from CROSSING THE RED LINE is out in @us.theguardian.com My reporting found the patterns among Biden-Harris officials which fueled atrocities in Israel-Palestine also shaped the doomed Biden-Harris campaign. Votes driven by Gaza since have demonstrated why a reckoning is key.
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Katrina Manson @katrinamanson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
NEW: US Central Command has made multiple changes to its lethal targeting process and boosted how it uses AI to help vet intelligence following a deadly strike against a school in Minab, Iran, according to US officials and people familiar with the matter. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
US Military Modifies AI and Lethal Targeting Process After Iran School Strike
The changes include refining processes for vetting targets and adding open-source data feeds to better track civilian movement.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I’m skeptical of this claim by DOD’s top AI guy that 13,000 targets in 38 days was “revolutionary” and required AI. We don’t have a strike number for OIF1 or a munitions number for Iran, so it’s not a perfect comparison, but over 3 weeks in 2003 AFCENT and NAVCENT fired a total of 28,666 munitions.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Chotiner’s interviewee here, Jaser AbuMousa of the Middle East Institute, lost his wife, two children, and nephew to an IDF airstrike a week after 10/7, and his mother, sister, nephews/nieces via that sister, uncle, and uncle’s wife in another strike in July 2025.
newyorker.com
What Life Is Actually Like in Gaza Today
Nearly a year after the ceasefire in Gaza, the analyst Jaser AbuMousa explains the impediments to rebuilding, and the devastation of his own family.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Other details about this Iraqi militia leader (arrested in Turkey) and his connections to the Quds Force etc. during his career in this CTC report:
ctc.westpoint.edu
Mohammad Baqer al-Saadi: Profiling an IRGC and Iraqi Militia Operative - Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract: This article profiles Mohammad Baqer al-Saadi, an alleged senior operative linked to Kata’ib Hezbollah, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF), and wider Iraqi proxy m...
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Major who commanded IDF drone strike cell tells Haaretz that on ISR, the ambulances Golani Recon attacked in Rafah in 2025 were clearly identifiable as emergency vehicles. This officer has a lot more to say about the conduct of the Gaza war he observed in aerial HD. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
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Eye on Afghanistan @eyeonafgh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Pakistan Airstrikes Kill Three Civilians in Kunar, UNAMA Says #Khaama #Afghanistan
dlvr.it
Pakistan Airstrikes Kill Three Civilians in Kunar, UNAMA Says
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said at least three civilians, a man, a woman and a girl were killed and four others injured in apparent Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province early Monday, as cross-border tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban escalated after deadly militant attacks in Pakistan. UNAMA said the […] The post Pakistan Airstrikes Kill Three Civilians in Kunar, UNAMA Says appeared first on Khaama Press.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Iraqi PM “dismissed the Maysan Operations commander and the province's police chief” after drone attacks on Saudi Arabia were launched from the province, but “didn't even consider expelling members of the Houthi mission in Baghdad,” who have also been publicly photographed in Maysan.
al-monitor.com
From Maysan to Saudi Arabia, drone attack puts Iraqi province under scrutiny
Officials have been removed but worsening problems need to be addressed in militia stronghold bordering Iran, local residents and observers say.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The nose cones of jets today (left) have gotten too pointy. We need to return to more bulbously convex ones like your AV-8B and the naval variants of the F-4 (right). Much more pleasing.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
You visit often
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I don’t open Facebook often, but when I do…it’s like this
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Cyriak @cyriak.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Saw a man with no face today, sitting on a bench. Turns out it was a bald guy looking down at his phone with his sunglasses propped up on the top of his head, but for a brief moment i was transported to a world of cosmic terror
Literally a drawing of what I just described
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Al-Qaida and its allies killed 8,000+ Iraqis in 2005, 13,000+ in 2006, 13,000+ in 2007, 5,000+ in 2008, etc. You can blame the US for these deaths in that they would not have happened had the US not invaded Iraq, but you can’t *not* blame the direct perpetrators. By contrast, Iraq Body Count…
axios.com
Hasan Piker on "The Axios Show": America worse than al-Qaeda "pound for pound"
The Twitch streamer is central to GOP attacks on Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Soldiers of the IDF Nahal Brigade’s 50th Battalion describe their deputy battalion commander, Maj. Mendi Lasri, after being wounded early on in Gaza, ordering the execution of a blindfolded Gazan woman, pioneering the use of “Mosquito” human shields, and torturing a wounded prisoner
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Look, he probably watched “Furious” and is just applying its lessons in confusing ways
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
What are the best, most informative *magazine articles* (or magazine-length newspaper articles) that you ever read about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Listing a few of my favorites to get it going: Raffi Khatchadourian, "The Kill Company," New Yorker, 2009
newyorker.com
The Kill Company
Can one commander set the conditions for a massacre? Raffi Khatchadorian on Colonel Michael Steele’s murderous leadership in Operation Iron Triangle.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Here’s something incredibly bizarre I’d forgotten about: a Florida high school cheerleading squad reenacting 9/11 through dance, set simultaneously to both George W. Bush and Enya youtu.be/oynJDaXu-r4?...
youtu.be
9/11 Cheer Reenactment Tribute (Rare Media)
YouTube video by Skylar Rose
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I thought this gem of early YouTube (2007) was lost to time but I finally found it again: the “Happy Feet” penguins set to a Sadrist political song in order to make fun of Muqtada al-Sadr
youtube.com
بطريق مقتدى العراق
YouTube video by helloaswad
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
There are a few stories that I used to make a point of re-reading on 9/11 and am returning to this year—the New Yorker articles about Rick Rescorla and John O’Neill, the Falling Man article in Esquire, and this WaPo story about Heather Penney, the F-16 pilot who very nearly had to ram Flight 93.
washingtonpost.com
F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11
A pilot reflects on one of the lesser-told tales of Sept. 11: how the first counterpunch the U.S. military prepared to throw at the attackers was effectively a suicide mission.
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Aram Shabanian @aramshabanian.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"Okay, the directions are protecting the major centers...you have intercept authority on any traffic in the area, and if traffic does not respond to hand signals...anything like that, and they continue to press in a threatening manner towards the major center, you are cleared to engage."
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Rozina Ali @rozinaali.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I will be speaking at an online event with Georgetown on Tuesday Sept 8 about SEASONS OF FURY, and how the post-9/11 years impacted the Muslim American community. Register here events.georgetown.edu/event/41550-...
events.georgetown.edu
Book Talk: Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America
Twenty-five years ago, the deadly 9/11 attacks claimed the lives of over 3,000 Americans. Join The Bridge Initiative in welcoming author Rozina Ali...
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
It’s hard for me to fathom that Twin Peaks was on network television
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Tony Stark @tonystark.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
This week on WarTalk: We mark 25 years of GWOT with the incredible @wesleymorgan.bsky.social to talk the Pech Valley as a GWOT microcosm, US commanders in Afghanistan, multicam, embedded journalism, and more: open.spotify.com/episode/05uU...
open.spotify.com
WarTalk: GWOT at 25 with Wesley Morgan
ChinaTalk · Episode
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Alex Horton @alexhorton.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
New details on the deadly wedding strike in Iran. DoD thinks it's highly likely a bomb went off course, one of six launched at a comms tower about 440 feet away www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...
washingtonpost.com
Deadly Iran wedding strike likely due to U.S. bomb missing a nearby target
Six bombs dropped by Navy jets targeted a communications complex in the coastal town of Kuhestak. One missed.
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