Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hizbollah, is believed to have issued the fatwa that encouraged suicide terrorists to detonate truck bombs outside the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. But as David ...
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.
The Soccer War
It’s hard to imagine that America beating Portugal at anything would be newsworthy, but the American team’s 3-2 victory over Portugal in their World Cup match today is amazing; it’s the most significant U.S. soccer ...
FBI And CIA Negligence: The Good News
Oddly, I feel somewhat relieved after learning about the many ways in which the CIA and FBI failed to prevent 9/11. Until these stories emerged, I had the terrifying (and erroneous) ...
Following The Money In Afghanistan
There’s been a lot of attention focused on the role played by the Special Forces in getting rid of the Taliban, and the role of smart bombs and JDAMs and Daisy Cutters and all manner of military materiel. But what about money? When I was in Kandahar in December I learned that cash played an ...
Brazil. Not The Movie, But Not Unlike It.
You know things are not going well in a country when businessmen begin commuting to work in helicopters, not to avoid traffic jams but to avoid being kidnapped or shot on the streets. Things are not going well in Sao Paulo, according to The Washington Post:
Michael Klein quietly stared out the window. ...
Climbing Lessons from the School of Tomaz Humar
Outside Magazine
June 2002
My chakras are shot. I know because Tomaz Humar has just checked them.
We’re getting ready for a hike in Slovenia’s Kamnik-Savinja Alps, sitting in Tomaz’s Volkswagen Golf in a patch of forest below the limestone face of 6,014-foot Mount Rzenik, where Tomaz ...
Another War For Pakistan
Al Qaeda is linking up with home-grown terrorists in Pakistan for new attacks on westerners and Gen. Musharraf’s regime, according to this story in The Washington Post. Not all stories about the activities ...
What I Do For Fun
Hypocrisy That Hurts
From the front page of today’s Los Angeles Times:
The White House and Congress are trumpeting their determination to bring economic opportunity to the people of Africa. But first, a few million sub-Saharan farmers will have to suffer.
The Bush administration has been busy extending special ...
The War Is Over. We Won.
That’s the message, though with greater complexity and shading, of a new book, “Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam,” by Gilles Kepel. Although the author is a French ...