Crimes of War
August 1998
(The following was published in “The Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know,” a handbook about war crimes.)
Slobodan was being a gracious host. Whenever we entered an exposed stretch of territory, he would stop, listen like a terrier for signs of trouble, and ...
Wired
June 1998
The steel door swings shut on the chamber, sealing off the outside world. They feel no fear or regret, the four of them, just eagerness to get on with their new lives. After a stretch of hard work, Nigel Packham showers in filtered urine. Vickie Kloeris downs shots of distilled sweat. ...
The New York Times
March 10, 1998
The Clinton Administration does not hesitate to express its moral outrage when a crisis unfolds in a place like Kosovo, a province of Serbia where 90 percent of the residents are ethnic Albanians.
“We are not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities ...
Los Angeles Times
March 1, 1998
(The following is a review of “The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience” by Michael Ignatieff” and “Unwinnable Wars: American Power and Ethnic Conflict” by David Callahan)
One of the nice things about the Cold War was ...
The New Yorker
October 20, 1997
It was ten at night, the day had been a long one, and before going to sleep Vasily Tsibliyev wanted to call Tamara Globa. She was turning forty, and there was a small party at her Moscow apartment. True to the nature of Russia’s phone system, the connection was ...
Wired
September 1997
The plane lands without incident at Chicago’s teeming O’Hare International Airport, where everyone’s on a mission, going somewhere, doing something. The industrially correct word for such an airport is hub, but it’s a turnstile more than anything else, flinging ...
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 ...
The New York Times
July 14, 1997
The last time I saw Simo Drljaca, he gave me a friendly pat on the back as I said goodbye. We had spent the better part of a day together, ending it with a beer and a toast to peace. Mr. Drljaca was a warlord in Prijedor, and he gave me a tour of his prison camps: Trnopolje. ...
Slate
July 10, 1997
When I first moved to Manhattan, a neighbor approached me in the corridor of my apartment building.
“Are you Peter Maass, the writer?”
Though I have heard this many times over the years, I still don’t know the correct response. Yes, I am; no, I am not. Both are accurate. ...
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 ...
