Which is scarier: a government that hunts down and kills dozens in cold blood, or a government that hunts down and kills dozens by accident?
Read more at the IHT.
Filed under: International Herald Tribune, Turkey
16 December 2011 • 5:06 pm 1
Mercenary Hires Self, Has Fool for a Client
I reviewed Simon Mann’s memoir, Cry Havoc, for The National.
John Blake Publishing Ltd
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Everyone’s favourite kind of coup d’état is the bloodless one: El Presidente is surprised in his pyjamas, or while shopping in London, his trusted military aides turn out to be snakes, and he ends up, along with his loyalists, either under house arrest or in exile – padded at first, then increasingly threadbare as the secret accounts are frozen, one by one. Meanwhile, if you are an average citizen of his beleaguered country, not much changes. The money flows to anyone but you: meet the new Presidente, same as the old Presidente.
Simon Mann, one of the most famous living mercenaries, set out in 2004 to manage what he insisted would be a bloodless coup to topple Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. But the Wonga Coup was so bloodless that it barely got started. Mann chartered a Boeing 727 full of armed men and planned to fly into the capital of Malabo, where an advance team led by the South African mercenary Nick du Toit intended to take over the airport. Mann hoped to install Severo Moto, the leader of a government-in-exile headquartered in Spain, as president, and in return reap millions in oil revenues.
6 December 2011 • 4:44 pm 0
Clinging to the Egyptian Army
I visited Nag Hammadi for the IHT and found an Egyptian Wild West.
Read my story here.
Filed under: International Herald Tribune, Egypt, religion
14 November 2011 • 4:49 pm 0
Afghan Oil Fields Not a Curse — Yet
I visited the northern oil fields of Afghanistan.
Read about it at the IHT Global Opinion site.
Filed under: International Herald Tribune, Afghanistan, China
1 November 2011 • 4:50 pm 0
Microrevolutions off Tahrir Square
Originally published on the IHT‘s Latitude blog.
CAIRO — It has been nearly three months since the last really big, unmanageable crowd converged on Tahrir Square and threatened to stay until its demands were met. On the eve of Ramadan, in early August, the Egyptian military smacked and clubbed that group — a broad but woefully inarticulate coalition opposing the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ hold on power — out of the square. And much to the protesters’ horror, the majority of Egyptians seemed fairly satisfied with the pushback, preferring a return to order even if it came with a military policeman’s truncheon. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: International Herald Tribune, Egypt
8 July 2011 • 7:32 am 0
Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology
I reviewed Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology in the Wall Street Journal.
Filed under: Wall Street Journal, books, religion
1 May 2011 • 12:09 pm 1
Far-Future Shock
In the Boston Globe Ideas section, I consider what will happen to the human species a billion or more years from now.
Filed under: Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, philosophy, science
8 April 2011 • 12:13 pm 0
