Slate
September 23, 2001
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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.
Macedonia Diary: Dispatches After 9/11
Slate
September 13, 2001
Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001
At the main gate to the U.S. military base outside Skopje, Army soldiers in full battle gear offer visitors a crisp salute and an even crisper shout of their squad’s motto—”Strike To Kill.”
The motto predates the attacks on the World ...
Milosevic and the Beginning of Honesty
The New York Times
June 30, 2001
When Bob Stewart, who commanded the first regiment of British peacekeepers in Bosnia, was asked by the BBC for his reaction to the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic, he responded with one joyous word: “Hallelujah.”
Across Europe and America, similar words ...
Have It Your Way: Why the Bush Administration Should Be Thrilled About Macedonia
The New Republic
June 29, 2001
In 1993, connoisseurs of government dithering heard Warren Christopher utter a delightful phrase that reflected his befuddlement with the war in Bosnia. The conflict, the secretary of state confessed, was a “problem from hell.” What he meant, of course, was ...
Ayn Rand Comes to Somalia
The Atlantic
May 2001
The headquarters of Telecom Somalia is filled with the sights and sounds of Mogadishu-style success. Customers pour through the entrance, funneling past machine-gun positions that flank the front doors. After a pat-down by security guards, who take temporary possession of any guns ...
Sin City: How the French Became Puritans
The New Republic
April 30, 2001
“I represent the Mitterrand name,” the former French president’s son said unhappily as we lunched not long ago at Les Comediens, a Paris restaurant near his lawyer’s office. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 54, who has the long cheeks and gravelly voice ...
This Space for Rent: Dennis Tito Is the Neil Armstrong of Our Time
The New Republic
April 27, 2001
If all goes as planned, at 3:37 tomorrow morning a new space age will dawn. At that moment, a Russian capsule will bear into the blue sky and beyond the strangest cosmonaut of all time–a balding, 60-year-old businessman from Los Angeles who is paying a cool $20 ...
Our Half-Baked Balkan Policy
The Washington Post
March 26, 2001
All too often the American government has, in its handling of Balkan affairs, pursued a policy of “Do as I say and not as I do.”
Last week Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was on the receiving end of this treatment during his visit to Washington. The ...
Ad Nauseum: Race and Free Speech at the Daily Californian
The New Republic
March 7, 2001
The Daily Californian is doing it again, bless its soul.
The newspaper at the University of California at Berkeley has always had a Madonna-like ability to reinvent itself, remaining relevant and controversial long after its presumed zenith. The Daily Cal found ...
Radio Wars: Milosevic’s Failure to Silence the Radio Station B-92 and the War He Lost
Brill’s Content
March 2001
In Belgrade, you don’t need to be paranoid, but it helps. It’s late October, and I’m sipping an espresso at the Window Café, along Knez Mihailova, the city’s main shopping street, with Sasha Mirkovic, the general manager of B-92, an independent ...