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. ...
The New York Times
July 5, 2002
The war-crimes tribunal in The Hague is supposed to put the bad guys behind bars. I never thought it would go after an American journalist. But last month the tribunal upheld a subpoena against Jonathan Randal, requiring him to testify about events he covered in Bosnia ...
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 ...
The New York Times Magazine
January 6, 2002
Gul Agha Shirzai was the governor of Kandahar Province in the early 1990’s, an infamous period filled with anarchy that was shocking even by Afghan standards. Gul Agha was personally acquainted with the ethos of those times. In 1989, his father, who ...
Dissent
January 2002
In the early days of the Bosnian War, Colin Powell, who at the time chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to the conclusion that stopping the fighting would require the use of 250,000 troops. Then-President George Bush took his advice to heart and, fearing another Vietnam, opted ...
The New Republic
December 15, 2001
The United States Special Forces have had many fine days in Afghanistan of late, but yesterday was not one of their best, at least not in Kandahar.
The Taliban surrendered their spiritual capital a week ago, and now the city’s dusty streets have become an occasional ...
Slate
November 20, 2001
It was, I suppose, just a matter of time until the Taliban imported a media circus.
About nine days ago the Afghan ambassador in Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was his regime’s principal spokesman to the outside world, was instructed by Islamabad to cease his well-attended, ...
The New York Times Magazine
November 18, 2001
Nusrat motions for me to follow him through the crowd. The situation is hectic, and I hesitate, even though Nusrat was a guerrilla commander in Afghanistan who fought the Red Army for a decade, facing far worse than the assemblage of widows and orphans before ...
The New York Times Magazine
October 21, 2001
Emroz Khan destroys for a living. He dismantles car engines, slicing them open with a sledgehammer and a crooked chisel, prying apart the cylinders, tearing out pistons, dislodging screws and bolts and throwing the metal entrails into a pile that will be ...
The New York Times Magazine
October 7, 2001
A commander in the Hezbul Mujahadeen, a band of Islamic militants, Kiramat Ullah loves to fight, loves to watch videos of fighting, loves to listen to songs about fighting and would be honored to die in battle against American soldiers. When I visited his ...
