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other magazines: Summaries of what's in Time, Newsweek, etc.

Fair Questioning

By Julia Turner
Updated Friday, April 4, 2003, at 11:56 AM ET
New Republic

New Republic, April 14
The issue squeezes the last few drops of editorial succor out of this week's quotable quote: "The enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against." … The editorial slams Bush's frustration with media coverage that questions the war plan. It's not like reporters' doubts are based on wild rumors, the editors write; they're based on comments (like the one above) by knowledgeable military sources (like Lt. Gen. William Wallace, who said it). The administration shouldn't dismiss legitimate skepticism. … In a piece on the Fedayeen, Ryan Lizza points out that the enemy is in fact the one we war-gamed against. In a war game last year, one side used suicide attacks to sink U.S. ships, but instead of planning a defense, war gamers asked for a do-over, calling such attacks unfair. (Slate made this same point in a piece last week.) … And Lawrence F. Kaplan defends the war plan, citing the political reasons for an abbreviated bombing campaign, which limits civilian casualties.

Economist

Economist, April 3
The cover story also has the war plan's back: Comparisons to Vietnam, Palestine, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan are way premature, the piece notes. Even with setbacks, the war should be over in about 10 weeks, and the occupation should last no more than three years (though both figures sound a bit arbitrary). One concern: Any victory will likely "humiliate" the Arab world, and no matter how few stars or stripes fly over the desert, there's little the coalition can do to mitigate that shame. … Western European resistance to the war in Iraq is having an unintended effect; Muslim immigrants in countries with largely anti-war populations—think France, Germany, and Spain—feel increasingly at home. … Also, handy tips for those looking to buy up some Iraqi debt: Do it now, while communications are down. Borrowers in Iraq typically reject debt transfer requests, but after 10 days, failure to respond can be taken as a "yes."

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, April 6
If the cover story delivered what the cover line promises—a coherent argument that Minimalist and Conceptualist artists like Donald Judd and Fred Sandback make up American art's "Greatest Generation"—it might warrant the splashy promotion and offer a welcome media palate cleanser in the midst of the current all-you-can-eat war news buffet. But the piece just offers a modest overview of Dia, a group that sponsored those artists, and a plug for Dia's new museum on the Hudson. … The story to read is Elizabeth Rubin's profile of Emadeddin Baghi. Deftly tracing the Iranian's course from religious revolutionary to muckraking dissident, she makes the case that an incremental shift to "indigenous democracy" may be the only way to effect change in the region. … After last week's friskily good R. Crumb fashion spread, the mag offers a whimsically bad Hummel figurine layout: a history of the precious tchotchkes alongside models in clothes that are hardly Hummelesque. 

American Prospect

American Prospect, April 2003
Is "quicksand" a synonym for "quagmire"? Though the magazine went to press before the war began, the cover features the former word in bold type and warns that "Iraq is just the beginning." Inside, Robert Dreyfuss offers a précis of long-term neoconservative plans in the Middle East, noting (apparently for readers who can't stomach magazines like the Weekly Standard that have touted these plans for months now) that neocon wonks have, at various points, advocated restoring monarchy in Iraq and Iran, dismantling Saudi Arabia, and ousting the Syrian regime.

Time and Newsweek

Time and Newsweek, April 7
War wrap-ups in both Time and Newsweek examine the significance of last week's setbacks, whether the Pentagon is prepared to meet them, and—in the words of Newsweek's cover—"how bloody" the war is likely to get.  One key to answering that question will be the extent of the street fighting; both mags note that Saddam circulated copies of the movie Black Hawk Down, which depicts the battle in which U.S. suffered heavy casualties on the streets of Mogadishu, as a primer on how to defeat superior American forces. Newsweek cites Kenneth Pollack, who argues that "the risks of urban warfare have been somewhat exaggerated" and that the U.S. military has carefully studied earlier urban bloodbaths and devised tactics to avoid making the same mistakes. U.S. casualties will likely number in the hundreds, not the thousands. But Time, though agreeing that the United States has improved its urban-combat readiness, contends that U.S. casualties will be in the thousands. … Both mags concur that when fighting moves to the cities, the U.S. military will have to loosen its restrictions on Iraqi civilian targets, and the civilian death toll will likely rise. … A dispatch from one of Time's embedded reporters points out a problem with the relatively low number of U.S. troops on the ground in southern Iraq: Iraqis don't feel safe helping American troops or working to oust Saddam unless coalition forces can remain in their towns to protect them from local Saddam loyalists. With forces stretched so thin, Iraqi assistance in the south becomes less likely. … A Newsweek reporter in the north describes felicitous cooperation between U.S. special forces and Kurdish peshmerga in fighting the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam.

U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report, April 7
The U.S. News cover—featuring a soldier in "attack mode"—is a little more gung-ho than Time's or Newsweek's, both of which feature bloody U.S. troops. But the story inside is evenhanded, pointing out that setbacks are "more of a nuisance than a strategic defeat" and citing Pentagon sources quietly concerned about Rumsfeld's initial plan to put even fewer U.S. forces on the ground. … Analyzing recent protests in Arab countries, a piece notes that Western-leaning regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are "maintaining control" in the face of opposition. Still, the leaders of this "coalition of the silent" are jittery in the face of ongoing war. … An article explains why helicopters crash so often. Apaches have a weak spot in combat: "A single well-placed shot can knock out the tail rotor." But more often, choppers go down in accidents stemming from pilot fatigue. Downtime for pilots is scarce during war.

Weekly Standard

Weekly Standard, April 7
The Standard kicks off the issue with this war's answer to Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech, excerpting the "battlefield eloquence" of British Lt. Col. Tim Collins, who advised his troops on handling Iraqis loyal to Saddam: "I expect you to rock their world." … While American media outlets are squeamish in the face of unanticipated casualties, the U.S. public is not. Citing public opinion polls, Peter D. Feaver argues that Americans support the current military plan, which does not emphasize U.S. force protection at the expense of military goals. As long as President Bush remains "resolute" in his support of the military, the country can avoid "the Vietnam nightmare." … Stephen F. Hayes profiles of the Free Iraqi Forces' leader, Lt. Col. Dan Hammack. Hayes describes being invited to smoke cigars with Hammack (a privilege not extended to Hammack's troops) and hopes the invite was "not the last, since I recently returned to our camp with a box of 25 'Romeo y Julietas' from Havana."

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, April 7
Seymour Hersh rounds up "a dozen or so military men" willing to criticize Rumsfeld and his war plan. Rummy was so focused on slimming down the ground operation that troops now in Iraq have "got no resources," a "former high-level intelligence official" says. How did the war plan get so bungled? At the Pentagon, Rummy used "McNamara-like intimidation" to create an atmosphere of "derision and challenge" that prevented officers from giving critical advice, "a high-ranking general who served for more than a year under Rumsfeld" says. … Reporting from northern Iraq, Jeffrey Goldberg notes that it's hard to find much anti-war sentiment in Kurdistan. But local peshmerga are sometimes frightened of Ansar al-Islam, which shows persistent military strength. Goldberg also interviews an Ansar defector, who describes rifts within that terrorist group: "I was told by my commander to blow myself up, but I told him, 'Why don't you go blow yourself up? ... He got very angry."

The Nation

The Nation, April 14
Marking perhaps the first time The Nation's editors have taken their cues from America's pig-farming industry, the cover dubs the budding international peace movement "The World's Other Superpower." Inside, dispatches from around the world describe anti-war responses to the first days of coalition bombing in Iraq. … Jonathan Schell argues that protests worldwide should be a source of hope. … In Hanoi, one expatriate worries about reports that coalition forces are planting mines in Iraq. "Every week, Vietnamese children are still being maimed by landmines buried thirty years ago," she says. … In Russia, editor Katrina vanden Heuvel reports that talk is of "Bush's Brezhnev Doctrine"; the real Brezhnev Doctrine, in place from 1968 to 1985, asserted that many Eastern European countries and other Soviet allies had only "limited sovereignty," and that Moscow was the ultimate arbiter of their regimes.

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Julia Turner is Slate's deputy editor. You can e-mail her at .
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