CNN’s Ben Wedemen is doing an amazing job in Libya (as he has done in other countries in the Mideast). This piece from Benghazi is just about as memorable as a liberation clip can be. If the link on the video doesn’t work, click here for the video on CNN’s site.
Author: Peter Maass
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.
Tahrir 2011, Firdos 2003
Tahrir 1, Firdos 0
The New Photojournalism
As most news organizations slash their funding of photojournalism, photographers are turning to the crowd for financing. Take a look at emphas.is and kickstarter ( ...
The Literature of 3/4
The Strategic Corporal at Firdos Square
If Leon Lambert, a 35-year old gunnery sergeant, hadn’t been at Firdos Square, the statue of Saddam Hussein probably wouldn’t have been toppled on April 9. It was Lambert who gave a sledgehammer and rope to a handful of Iraqis at the square, thereby triggering the process that led to the ...
The Map to the Palestine Hotel
The Marines who were dispatched to the Palestine Hotel were given a grid coordinate for an area that was a square kilometer large but they did not know where the hotel was located in that area; the hotel was not marked on the map they used. The map is posted above. The red circle, which ...
Shelling the Palestine Hotel
On April 8, the day before Marines arrived at Firdos Square, an Army tank on the Al Jumhuriya Bridge fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, killing two journalists and injuring three others. Those killings increased pressure on the Pentagon to secure the hotel, so that no further harm would come to ...
Being There
If you were at Firdos Square on April 9, 2003, you would end up in somebody’s picture. This photo was shot by Robert Nickelsberg of Time, and it shows Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy outside the Palestine Hotel, moments after he pulled up in his Humvee. McCoy is on the phone, and the guy on the left, ...
Inside the Palestine Hotel, 2
On the fifth anniversary of the invasion, New York Times reporter John Burns wrote about the precarious status of journalists at the Palestine Hotel, and how he felt when Marines arrived at Firdos Square.