Leftist opposition to the war in Afghanistan faded in November and December of last year, not only because of the success of the war but also because of the enthusiasm with which so many Afghans greeted that success. The pictures …
In the summer of 2000, I met Scott Slaten, an America soldier who had come to Pristina, Kosovo, two-and-a-half months earlier as part of a NATO-led peace keeping force (KFOR) providing security for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). …
Victor Serge: The Course is Set on Hope by Susan Weissman Verso, 2001, 364 pp., $35 In the months after the Nazi invasion of France, while hoping for an exit visa but expecting Stalin’s henchmen, Victor Serge managed to write …
If man were to begin by studying himself, he would see how incapable he is of going beyond himself. How could it be possible for a part to know the whole? But he may perhaps aspire to a knowledge of …
Crossing the Great Divide: Worker Risk and Opportunity in the New Economy by Vicki Smith Cornell University/ILR Press, 2001, 240 pp., $29.95 Recession’s harsh light having awakened us from our dreams of a new economy, we’re now looking bleary-eyed at …
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001 can appear within two different frames of interpretation. The first sees them as attacks on the United States as a state and its people. The second views …
Since September 11, no question has been more urgent for America and the West than how to combat terrorism. The danger of this dramatic and necessary change is, however, that it threatens to obscure the problem of humanitarian intervention—the need …
A week or so after the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and the attack on the Pentagon, I had this conversation with a friend who shall remain unnamed. “They could not have been Arabs,” he said. “Of course …
August 30, 1999, should have been a day of celebration for the people of East Timor. In a referendum in which more than 98 percent of the eligible voters cast their ballots, 78 percent voted for independence from Indonesia, throwing …
A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West by Noam Chomsky Verso, 2000, 145 pp., $23.00 Powerless By Design: The Age of the International Community by Michel Feher Duke University Press, 2000, 167 …
It was around the 15th of April 1994 that we started to spend the night in sorghum fields and in the woods. People were being pursued during the day, killed or tortured. When I saw this, I put my little …
On the afternoon of September 13, 1999, I joined one of the last United Nations patrols to venture out into Dili, the capital of East Timor. Clad in flak jackets, but unarmed, we toured the city in three vehicles. In …
There is nothing new about human disasters caused by human beings. We have always been, if not our own, certainly each other’s worst enemies. From the Assyrians in ancient Israel and the Romans in Carthage to the Belgians in the …
The Fracture Zone: My Return to the Balkans by Simon Winchester HarperCollins, 1999, 272 pp., $13 The Road to Kosovo: A Balkan Diary by Greg Campbell Westview, 1999, 228 pp., $15 Only the Nails Remain: Scenes From the Balkan Wars …
A glass wall covered by blinds separated the courtroom participants from the spectators in the public gallery, but a hush enveloped both sides when the witness known as FWS-50 began to speak. Although a voice modulator screened her identity from …
