Cover Story: The Damage Done
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
Photographs by Nina Berman
For the maimed soldiers returning home from Iraq, the conflict has just begun.

Tearaway Burkas & Tinplate Menorahs
By Al Franken
Our intrepid comedian heads to Iraq on a USO Tour and discovers he’s funny enough, brave enough, and doggone it, the troops like him.

Smuggling Hope
By Julia Whitty
Her father was dying, and the drug company wanted $47,000 for his medication. So she did what any daughter would do: She became a liar and a fraud.

The Longest Arm of the Law
By Tim Golden
Chilean dictators, Basque terrorists, Belgian drug lords, even Osama bin Laden—Judge Baltasar Garzón is not afraid to take them all on. Maybe he should be.

The New Yankees
By Maggie Jones
When Somali refugees began flocking to Lewiston, Maine, they weren’t exactly greeted with open arms. Yet they may turn out to be the town’s best chance for survival.

Toxic Tipping Point
By Andrea Rock
Are the CDC, the FDA, and other health agencies covering up evidence that a mercury preservative in children’s vaccines caused an epidemic of autism?

Editor’s Note
Masthead
Contributors
Backtalk

OUTFRONT
Is the Pentagon pushing pathogens?; the quotable Mr. Byrd; one widow’s year of lobbying dangerously; misadventures of a middle Shrub; Medicare’s new Golden Rule; and a Hellraiser who brings low power to the people

EXHIBIT
The Radio Flyer goes off-road; plus playing with the president

PUBLIC DOMAIN
The No-Exit Strategy
By George Packer
Four honest lessons from the war

THE SLANT
The Stump Speech
By Ian Frazier
I Am the President,
I Speak for the Trees

EXPOSURE
For their God and country?
Photograph By Sye Williams
Chips off “The Rock”

MEDIA JONES
Debra J. Dickerson reviews the human fallout of New York’s drug-sentencing laws; truth
teller Billy Bragg on Bush, Blair, and American Idol; plus more book, music, and film reviews

REACTION
Resources for getting involved

P.S.
Fancy Footwear
Cartoon by Greg Clarke