It kind of iumps right off the page at you. There in the “Christmas Issue” of the New York Review of Books, leading the letters section, is a strongly worded complaint about a Robert Block essay on Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic. David Binder writes that Block has appropriated from his own past work, without citation, some basic biographical details on Mladic. And then this: “I strongly wish to dissociate myself from [Block’s] assessment of the general as a crazed killer. Until compelling evidence to the contrary surfaces, I will continue to view Mladic as a superb professional.”
General Mladic, for the record, is the subject of an International War Crimes Tribunal indictment for genocide. David Binder, for the record, is . . . well, the I.D. on his letter says it all: “The New York Times, Washington Bureau, Washington, D.C.” Who says the Times can’t any longer be depended on to employ unconventional men with unconventional views?
