(Originally published in the L.A. Times on June 27, 2006) Intensifying combat and mounting casualties in Afghanistan are growing evidence that what was a sporadic, low-intensity conflict is fast turning into a national uprising against foreign occupation. After the US invasion in 2001, Taliban’s leaders ordered their outgunned fighters to […]

20 June 2022 I’ve seen many coups in my decades as a journalist and connoisseur of exotic, turbulent places. The most exciting coup occurred in Paris under President Charles de Gaulle as I waited at Place de la Concorde with heavily armed paramilitary police as we prepared for an attack […]