A year ago, Peter Maas died. M-a-a-s. I did not rejoice, but I thought his passing would make my life less complicated, because for as long as I’ve been a writer I’ve been confused with Peter Maas (one “s”, not two), who wrote “Serpico”, “The Valachi Papers” ...
Author: Peter Maass
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.
Does Torture Work?
On a recent trip to Pakistan, I spent a fair amount of time with Jameel Yusuf, who heads a semi-official crime-fighting organization in Karachi. He described to me his interrogation of two members of a kidnapping gang: “When we get two guys, it is very nice, very easy. One guy was weaker so ...
Dirty War: How America’s Friends Really Fight Terrorism
The New Republic
November 2002
If you happen to believe the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist, you are quite possibly a member of the U.S. government. I realized this while visiting the home of a U.S. official in Pakistan one Sunday afternoon. Security guards are always stationed outside his residence. ...
When Fear Kills
The Washington Post has a terrific story about the manner in which fear, rather than the at-large sniper, is raising the risks of living in the D.C. area. “Is it meaningful,” the story asks, “to ...
Four Arguments Against Invading Iraq
Crossfire Meets C-Span, on the Web
If you’ve been waiting, as I have, for an intelligent, focused and spirited debate about invading Iraq, your wait is over. No, it’s not occurring in the halls of Congress or in the opinion pages of The New York Times or on CNN in non-primetime hours. It’s taking place at Slate, ...
Journalists and War Crimes (cont.)
Public Radio International interviewed me yesterday about journalists being called upon to testify, against their wishes, at the war crimes tribunal in the Hague. If you have an idle six minutes in which you would enjoy nothing more than listening to the interview, click here ...
Prisoner Milosevic: The Diaries
If a prize existed for the oddest diary of the year, Dragisa Blanusa would be the surefire winner. He was the governor of the Belgrade jail in which Slobodan Milosevic was held for 89 days before being extradited to the Hague. Last year Blanusa published his diary in Serbia, and Granta ...
Where’s Osama?
Not in President Bush’s vocabulary. According to The Washington Post, “a search of the White House Web site indicates Bush has not made an unprompted mention of bin Laden’s name since March 8. ...
The Jetsons Go To Afghanistan
File this in the “department of little-known tales about the Special Forces”: the Taliban, fearful and confused, believed the Americans possessed a “death ray” that could incinerate any target. This and other colorful nuggets about the Special Forces can be found on an excellent ...