I would have thought this was a Modern Humorist hoax—The International Federation of Competitive Eating–were it not for an IFOCE-sanctioned burrito-eating contest I happened to attend a few days ago in Tribeca. As the burritos disappeared down the gullets ...
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.
The Friedman Phenomenon
Thomas Friedman notes today the importance of altering the shape of repressive governments in the Muslim world. He recently wrote that poverty does contribute to terrorism and that perhaps we should do something about it. Both columns ...
Gul Agha Gets His Province Back
The New York Times Magazine
It’s kissing the ring, cash stuffed in envelopes and bloody lawlessness again in Kandahar. The warlord has returned.
January 6, 2002
Gul Agha Shirzai was the governor of Kandahar Province in the early 1990’s, an infamous period filled with anarchy ...
Paying for the Powell Doctrine
Dissent
The illusions and delusions behind 200,000 deaths in Bosnia.
January 2002
In the early days of the Bosnian War, Colin Powell, who at the time chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to the conclusion that stopping the fighting would require the use of 250,000 troops. Then-President ...
Special Operations
The New Republic Online
How to change a tire in Kandahar.
December 15, 2001
The United States Special Forces have had many fine days in Afghanistan of late, but yesterday was not one of their best, at least not in Kandahar.
The Taliban surrendered their spiritual capital a week ago, and now the city’s ...
Camp Taliban
Slate
The strange last days of the mullahs in black turbans.
November 20, 2001
It was, I suppose, just a matter of time until the Taliban imported a media circus.
About nine days ago the Afghan ambassador in Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was his regime’s principal spokesman to the outside world, ...
How a Camp Becomes a City
The New York Times Magazine
Every refugee camp has its own social hierarchy. In Shamshatoo, on the Pakistani border, it all begins with a man named Nusrat.
November 18, 2001
Nusrat motions for me to follow him through the crowd. The situation is hectic, and I hesitate, even though ...
Emroz Khan Is Having a Bad Day
The New York Times Magazine
Which is not unusual, and helps explain why Peshawar’s youth are tinder for Islamic extremism.
October 21, 2001
Emroz Khan destroys for a living. He dismantles car engines, slicing them open with a sledgehammer and a crooked chisel, prying apart the ...
The Volunteer
The New York Times Magazine
Finding love on the battlefield.
October 7, 2001
A commander in the Hezbul Mujahadeen, a band of Islamic militants, Kiramat Ullah loves to fight, loves to watch videos of fighting, loves to listen to songs about fighting and would be honored to die in battle ...
Do You Know the Way to Paradise?
Slate
Terrorism, suicide and the Quran.
October 4, 2001
Nawaf Alhazmi, one of the suspected Sept. 11 hijackers, left behind a letter that outlined last-minute things he should do and think about, such as not forgetting his passport and ensuring he was not being followed. The letter, ...