War: USA, Afghanistan, Iraq
January 2004
(The following essay was published in the book “War: USA, Afghanistan, Iraq,” which features the work of photographers from the VII photo agency.)
Wars, like people, have many expressions. The Iraq conflict involved a diplomatic war at the United Nations ...
The New Republic
December 22, 2003
It was a perfect day for a provocation. In late August, Norbert Vollertsen, a German human rights activist, traveled in a chartered bus from Seoul to Cholwon, just a few miles from the border with North Korea. His mission was simple: to launch a flock of hot air balloons, ...
The New York Times Magazine
December 15, 2002
Should an American who is suspected of having links to Al Qaeda have the right to a lawyer and the right to not answer questions about coming attacks? The U.S. government has been holding two Americans incommunicado at military prisons. They have not been ...
The New York Times Magazine
December 14, 2003
A convention of military strategy is that you do not rush tanks into the center of a hostile city unless you wish to lose them. In 1994 the Russians learned this fatal lesson when they sent an armored column into Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, and guerrillas ...
The New York Times Magazine
December 14, 2003
During the invasion of Iraq, the American military displayed amazing technological superiority, firing missiles that flew nearly 1,000 miles before hitting their targets precisely, with a margin of error of just a few feet. Once the occupation of Iraq began, ...
The New York Times Magazine
October 19, 2003
The Dear Leader is a workaholic. Kim Jong Il sleeps four hours a night, or if he works through the night, as he sometimes does, he sleeps four hours a day. His office is a hive of activity; reports cross his desk at all hours. Dressed as always in his signature ...
A quarter of a million Americans took a trip in March 2003. It was noisy, hot, and violent. Accommodations were poor. Some of them didn't come back.
A quarter of a million Americans took a trip in March 2003. It was noisy, hot, and violent. Accommodations were poor. Some of them didn't come back.
The New York Times Magazine
June 8, 2003
There are two types of people who do well in dictatorships: those who make themselves politically indispensable, doing whatever bit of wickedness the dictatorship requires, and those who make themselves economically indispensable, keeping the trains and refineries ...
Slate
June 2, 2003
Baghdad was hectic when two blogging friends e-mailed me to suggest that I track down “Salam Pax.” I had no idea who or what they were talking about. I could have handed over the job of sorting out this Salam Pax thing to my interpreter—he was a clever and funny Iraqi ...
The New York Times
May 11, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The news conference was held in splendid isolation. Splendid, that is, if you enjoy being walled off from the rest of Baghdad by tanks, armored Humvees, barbed wire and a small army of soldiers bearing M-16 assault rifles and .50-caliber machine guns.
The ...
