Category: Washington Post
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 ...
Death and Taxis
The Washington Post
December 24, 2000
(Review of “This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis” by Karl Maier)
A book that begins with a taxi story usually begins colorfully. Karl Maier opens This House Has Fallen with a wild brawl that broke out when his taxi got caught in traffic in Port Harcourt, ...
The Horror
The Washington Post
August 27, 2000
(Review of “Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda” by Scott Peterson)
Africa is an expression of vastness. It is a matter not just of size but of drama and emotion; so much occurs in Africa, and at so many extremes. This is a blessing ...
NASA’s Lack of Shuttle Diplomacy
The Washington Post
December 10, 1998
(Review of “Dragonfly: Nasa and the Crisis Aboard Mir” by Bryan Burrough)
Space flight is in vogue again. The journey of John Glenn has refocused attention on the fascinating spectacle of humans soaring into the heavens on rockets that make the ground ...
Love and Fury in the Balkans
The Washington Post
August 20, 1997
(The following is a review of “Montenegro” by Starling Lawrence)
There is a passage in Rebecca West’s classic book about the Balkans, “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon,” in which she wrote of being waked in a Paris hotel room by “the insufficiently ...
Rwanda, the Sorrow and the Pity
The Washington Post
August 25, 1996
(The following is a review of “Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey” by Fergal Keane)
HOW DO you explain what war is like? How do you explain the mad violence of drunken soldiers or the spiritual ruins that survivors have been turned into? And how do you ...
Suddenly They Are Killers
The Washington Post
May 12, 1996
His name was Ibrahim. I was interviewing him at a refugee center in Croatia, in a cold room that smelled of stale cigarettes. It was late 1992. Ibrahim had just been released from Omarska, a Serb prison camp where he witnessed the worst of atrocities, including an episode ...
Will Killers Go Free? War Criminals Shouldn’t Walk
The Washington Post
February 25, 1996
At the start of the interview, my host politely offered me a Dutch cigarillo before lighting one for himself. While a waiter served orange juice and coffee, he made small talk about Los Angeles, my hometown. And when I decided to raise the issue of war crimes trials, ...
Lesson for a Younger Generation
The Washington Post
April 20, 1994
BUDAPEST–When politicians and generals discuss Bosnia, they often have Vietnam on their minds. Their warnings about quagmires, mission creep and the shortcomings of air strikes relate to Vietnam and the lessons that we should have learned from it. But they are ...