Commentary by Stanley Meisler

Some Tentative Reflections on the War in Afghanistan

Some Tentative Reflections on the War in Afghanistan

January 14, 2002
Some Tentative Reflections on the War in Afghanistan
To make cold sense out of the events of last year, I have been trying to order some of my thoughts. The situation is so complex that it spawns at least a dozen issues: 1. The destruction of the World Trade Center was a despicable, incredible act that can not be justified in any way. Americans have the right to feel fury and contempt for the perpetrators and those who gloat over their deed. Their deed was so foul that I turn away from the television screen whenever the events of September 11th are replayed. I feel too drained, at least so far, to spend time at Ground Zero when in New York...

Reflexiones de un norteamericano sobre lo ocurrido en Afganistán

Reflexiones de un norteamericano sobre lo ocurrido en Afganistán

January 14, 2002
Reflexiones de un norteamericano sobre lo ocurrido en Afganistán
El ataque terrorista que destruyó las Torres Gemelas y causó importantes daños en el Pentágono fue un acto que no tiene justificación alguna y ante el que había que responder. Pero, aunque la tragedia fue de gran magnitud, los Estados Unidos no pueden enfrascarse en una guerra de castigo unilateral contra los países que componen lo que Bush llama el "eje del mal", desvirtuando la actuación internacional contra los movimientos terroristas y convirtiéndola en una guerra abierta de devastación de territorios y poblaciones civiles...

Traces of the French in Hanoi

Traces of the French in Hanoi

November 25, 2001
Traces of the French in Hanoi
There was a time -- romantic in French history -- when French Indochina with its capital of Hanoi shimmered as one of the jewels of the French colonial empire. Thousands of French administrators and teachers and merchants and police lived in Hanoi. The brightest and richest Vietnamese studied at elite French schools there. French law, French bureaucracy and French communications dominated life in the colony. And a visitor could taste a little bit of France and its elegance in the best hotels and restaurants...

Kofi Annan and the Nobel Peace Prize

Kofi Annan and the Nobel Peace Prize

October 30, 2001
Kofi Annan and the Nobel Peace Prize
Kofi Annan, soft in speech, clear and plain in meaning, scrupulously honest with words, is the second United Nations Secretary-General to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel committee in Oslo awarded the prize posthumously to Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961 for his leadership in the bloody Congo crisis that took his life. There can hardly be two statesmen of molds so different. And the mood and power of the U.N. then and now contrast as much as the personalities of the two men...

Rhetoric and War

Rhetoric and War

September 25, 2001
Rhetoric and War
An all-out American war against terrorism is unprecedented. But much of the rhetoric by our politicians has a familiar ring. The president says we are in a "crusade" against "a new kind of evil" and that each nation must decide whether "you are with us or you are with the terrorists." ... These words echo from the past in an eerie way. I heard these kind of arguments from American politicians and diplomats often as a foreign and Washington correspondent for more than 30 years during the Cold War...

The Hidden Bush

The Hidden Bush

August 10, 2001
The Hidden Bush
I have been reading No Ordinary Time lately, Doris Kearns Goodwin's marvelous history of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II. There are so many reminders of my childhood, so many names of long forgotten officials like War Production Board chief Donald Nelson that we used to memorize from My Weekly Reader. Goodwin describes the remarkable ability of President Roosevelt to unify the nation and mold public opinion...

Reflections on the Election of George W. Bush

Reflections on the Election of George W. Bush

December 18, 2000
Reflections on the Election of George W. Bush
I'm hesitant about adding to the cacophony over the elections, but I do have a few reflections. These bear no hallmark of objectivity. I do not like the strutting George W. Bush and can not conceive of him growing into greatness à la Truman. What if? I have toyed with this a lot. What if Governor Jeb Bush of Florida and his henchlady Katherine Harris had announced from the beginning that, in view of the closeness of the machine recount, they had ordered a hand recount of all the votes of Florida...

Reflections on Pierre Trudeau

Reflections on Pierre Trudeau

October 5, 2000
Reflections on Pierre Trudeau
Pierre Trudeau, who died last week, was well served by an engaging obituary in the New York Times written by Mike Kaufman, who covered Canada a couple of decades ago while I covered it for the Los Angeles Times. Trudeau was prime minister then and his style, pronouncements, policies and antics dominated our stories in those days. Mike's obituary delineates Trudeau's greatness as a leader, his dominance in elections, his sophistication and wit, and his mastery of both French and English Canadian cultures. The admiring account was written with care and superb craftsmanship...

The Star-Crossed Basques

The Star-Crossed Basques

March 15, 2000
The Star-Crossed Basques
I spent a few days in Bilbao a year or so ago and found the Basques more optimistic than ever before about peace and prosperity in their little nub of Spain. It was easy to share that optimism. Not only did the glorious Guggenheim Museum of Frank Gehry now hover over a once-nondescript city. But a truce declared by ETA, the murderous Basque separatist movement, was holding...

The Return of Otis

The Return of Otis

November 12, 1999
The Return of Otis
The moment brims with high drama. Riding his motorcycle through the Ojai Valley, Otis Chandler, now 71, suddenly knows he must break years of silence about the fate of his Los Angeles Times. The moment has finally come to speak out and berate the stupidity of the people who now run the paper he loves...

The Revenge of Boutros Boutros-Ghali

The Revenge of Boutros Boutros-Ghali

July 21, 1999
The Revenge of Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, has just published Unvanquished: A U.S. - U.N. Saga, his memoir of five years in office, and the account amounts to what the French would call un réglement de compte: his revenge against Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. As U.N. ambassador in 1996, she cast the veto that overrode the affirmative votes of all 14 other members of the Security Council, preventing Boutros from a second term...

Madeleine

Madeleine

June 14, 1999
Madeleine
I have just finished reading Madeleine Albright: A Twentieth Century Odyssey by Michael Dobbs, the second Albright biography that I have read in a year. The other was Seasons of Her Life by Ann Blackman. That's a lot of biography for a secretary of state in office. I don't believe anyone ever wrote one about Warren Christopher, and I haven't heard of any publishing house hawking a Christopher bio now that he's out of office. But Madeline Albright is a secretary of state with pizzazz, sort of like a rock star...

Madeleine's War?

Madeleine's War?

April 11, 1999
Madeleine's War?
The backbiting and ass-covering erupted in Washington soon after the bombs began pounding Yugoslavia in March. The rush to escape and stamp blame was clear evidence that something had gone awry. The powers in the capital had obviously hoped and expected Slobodan Milosevic to put up no more than a show of resistance before signing with shaking hands any damn paper we would set before him. His defiance and the terrible fury hurled at the Kosovo Albanians surprised President Clinton and his foreign policy mavens. No matter how loud NATO and Washington may trumpet victory at the end, there is no doubt that a grievous miscalculation occurred at the beginning. And most people are blaming Secretary of State Madeleine Albright...

Words, Words, Words

Words, Words, Words

February 9, 1999
Words, Words, Words
In Washington a few weeks ago, David Howard, a white gay man serving as the city's ombudsman, bemoaned the paucity of his budget. "I will have to be niggardly with this fund," he told coworkers, "because it's not going to be a lot of money." One of his listeners was shocked by the sound of the word and spread the news quickly that Howard had used an expression rooted in the hated epithet nigger. Blacks, who make up a majority of the capital's population, expressed their alarm and dismay...

Some Reflections on Impeachment

Some Reflections on Impeachment

January 1, 1999
Some Reflections on Impeachment
I covered the House of Representatives for the Associated Press for a year or so during the 1960s and left with profound respect and affection for what is really a unique American institution. For years as a foreign correspondent I would extol the genius of our House against the lap dog role played by Houses in the parliamentary system used by democratic countries in Europe and former British dominions like Canada...

Impasse in Iraq

Impasse in Iraq

December 11, 1998
Impasse in Iraq
The American impasse on Iraq derives from two American faults: sound-bite thinking and too much empty bombast. For almost a decade, American policy towards Saddam Hussein has been based on the assumption that he can't last very long. This has produced a lot of threats and blather without too much thought about what would happen if someone didn't rescue us from our threats...

The Monica Affair

The Monica Affair

September 28, 1998
The Monica Affair
Since I usually write about foreign affairs, I have not covered much of the Monica story. I did have to whip out color on the first day she showed up at the federal courthouse to testify in secret before the grand jury. The frenzy of the photographers and the glee of the television performers and the gawks of the tourists made the story feel even more unwholesome than usual...

Some Reflections on the Congo

Some Reflections on the Congo

May 23, 1997
Some Reflections on the Congo
In the "good old days" of the late 1960s, when Zaire was known as the Congo and its leader did not yet call himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu waza Banga (the all-conquering warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake), the United States proudly had the huge, unwieldy, volatile country wrapped around its little finger...

The Pizzazz of Madeleine Albright

The Pizzazz of Madeleine Albright

April 27, 1997
The Pizzazz of Madeleine Albright
When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright showed up for a breakfast session with the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times recently (an event carried live on C-Span television), she began by chiding the reporters: "It is a sign of my undying affection for the Los Angeles Times that I'm here, but I don't know why I came, because you're the only paper in the United States that did not put my picture on the front page, my brilliant performance throwing out the ball..."

Saints and Presidents: A Commentary on Julius Nyerere

Saints and Presidents: A Commentary on Julius Nyerere

December 17, 1996
Saints and Presidents: A Commentary on Julius Nyerere
At a Korea University conference in Seoul a few months ago, I was placed next to Julius Nyerere of Tanzania at dinner. For those of us who covered Africa more than a quarter of a century ago, Nyerere was like a saint. Incorruptible, frank, good-humored, intellectual, he could charm the most suspicious and doubtful questioners into following the flow of his logic as he expounded the need in Africa for socialism, one-party democracy, self-reliance, non-alignment...