Posts

My Spy Story

After several days in a prison near Baghdad in 1991, I was told “they” wanted to see me. Blindfolded, I was led into a room where, judging from the voices, there were at least half a dozen men. For days, I had heard and sometimes watched as guards beat and tortured Iraqi prisoners. The translator asked what my “real job”…

Gunning for His Enemies: Neal Knox, the Real Power at the NRA, Sees Diabolical Plots Everywhere

An artful conspiracy theorist can easily cultivate believers. One day history will add to the conspiratorial log the name of Neal Knox, one of America’s more widely…

Where’s the Brief

Congressman Robert Torricelli is Washington’s most aggressive anti-Castro politician, even though 90 percent of his northern New Jersey district is non-Hispanic (mostly Italian, Jewish, or Irish descent) and less than 2 percent is Cuban. These Cubans have yet to organize even one demonstration against Castro. But recently people have begun to demonstrate against Torricelli.

Why Hutu and Tutsi Are Killing Each Other: A Rwanda Primer

Rwanda’s Tutsi kings ruled over Hutu peasant farmers for three centuries. But in 1959, the Hutu finally overthrew the Tutsi monarchy. From then until President Juvenal Habyarimana’s death two weeks ago, Hutu have ruled the country. But today, Tutsi guerrillas of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) are fighting their way toward power. If the RPF […]

Official Sources, Western Diplomats and Other Voices from the Mission

On the post-cold war era, ethnic rivalry may have replaced ideology as the most likely cause of conflict, but while all else changes one journalistic habit picked up during the past four decades will, in all likelihood, persist — the habit of relying heavily on the mission, as the U.S. embassy is known, for assessments and information. In an increasingly unfamiliar world, in fact, the temptation to do so will be even stronger…

Salvadoran Rebels Anticipated Soviet Fall, Shifted Tack

EL SALVADOR’S leftist guerrilla movement began moving away from Marxism-Leninism several years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, they and independent analysts say. Since the FMLN was already…

Out on a Limb: The Use and Abuse of Stringers in the Combat Zone

Somewhere just outside of Baghdad, I was blindfolded and led down a corridor into a room where, to judge by the sound of the voices, there were at least half a dozen men. The possibility of being beaten or tortured was on my mind. I was ordered to sit, and waited in the darkness. The interrogator asked me what was my “real job.”