Roundup: Historians' Take

Neve Gordon: The U.S.-Israeli “Somalia Plan”

[Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, and is the editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights. He can be reached at nevegordon@gmail.com] In his first visit to the White House on May 23, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told President Bush that Israel will “devote six to nine months to find a Palestinian partner” before it pursues the unilateral “Convergence Plan.” It was an e

Eric Alterman: Truth is for 'Liberals'

Here we are, five and a half years into the Bush Administration, and the press corps still hasn't figured out how to handle the White House's primary tactic of media management: lying. During George W. Bush's first term, reporters had a powerful confluence of motivations for their difficulty in calling the President to task. First was tradition; mere journalists lacked the authority to call a President a liar. Second, post-9/11 they were intimidated by Bush's McCarthyite with-us-or

Niall Ferguson: Reasons to Worry About All Our Debt

[Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch professor of history at Harvard University and the author of "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire." His new book, "The War of the World," will be published in September.] Think of the economy of the United States as a dinosaur — one of those huge herbivores whose bulk shook the ground. A brachiosaur. A brontosaur. A diplodocus. Like them, the U.S. economy is mind-bogglingly enormous — two and a half times as big

Henry Graff: Bush and the Plight of the Presidency

President Bush’s constantly dropping approval rating should not be misunderstood as simply a response to the Iraq debacle. A variety of mistakes and missteps must be considered factors in the public’s disapproval of his performance. As chief executive he is being given a judgment unique in history. The words of criticism leveled at him come from all directions. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid of Nevada, declares without hesitation: “We see no end of Bush’s dangerous incompe

David Applebaum: Historians Need to Act Fast Against the Florida Law

[Mr. Applebaum, teaches history at Rowan University, NJ.] It is ironic to find the text of the Florida Law on teaching history published in “online sunshine.” Analysis of the legislation states that the fiscal impact of the legislation is “indeterminate” – a postmodern term in a document that condemns postmodernism! The impact, from the point of view of “revisionist historians” is not indeterminate. There are contingent possibilities and that is the reason for historians acro

Andrew Meyer: The Complex Specter of Vietnam

[After living in mainland China and Taiwan for four years and in Japan for one year Mr. Meyer returned to the U.S. and earned a doctoral degree in Chinese history, which he teaches at the City University of New York.] Comparisons to Vietnam began haunting the Bush administration's Iraq policy even before the Coalition invasion was launched in 2003. The specter of Vietnam is not a simple or univalent influence on the US political climate surrounding the Iraq conflict, however. It imp

Daniel Pipes: Does the Police Department Profile? Should It?

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his HNN blog.] The NYPD, like every Western law enforcement agency, indignantly denies profiling. Its spokesman, Paul Browne, said in August,"Racial profiling is illegal, of doubtful effectiveness, and against department policy."But it does, in fact, profile.

Gary Leupp: The Occupiers and the Worsening Plight of Iraqi Gays

[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion, at Tufts University and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.] Last May, Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith interviewed seven young Iraqi men on the program. CBS News summed up the interview: “Many Iraqis think conditions have gotten so bad in their country, they’d like to see Saddam Hussein back in power…” One stated, &ldq

Juan Cole: Paul Bremer's Still Not Learned Anything

Paul Bremer says he hopes Bush's cabinet summit will develop an effective military plan for defeating the insurgency in Iraq. Bremer came to Iraq saying appalling things like "we will go on imposing our will on this country" or words to that effect, and appears to have learned nothing. Counter-insurgency is tough. The best the hawks can usually do is cite the British in their colony of Malaya in the 1950s, when they curbed a communist movement. But 1960 was a long time ag

Lee Cassanelli: Somalia's Islamists differ from Taliban

Lee Cassanelli is professor of history and chair of the African Studies Committee at the University of Pennsylvania The reported takeover of Mogadishu by Islamic militias last week raised fears that war-torn Somalia might be on the verge of turning into another Afghan. Somalia has experienced more than a decade of misrule by predatory warlords and their locally recruited militias. Armed gangs terrorize Somali civilians and extort money from travelers at roadside checkpo

Tom Engelhardt: Zarqawi ... Does it matter all that much?

The press tells us that our "thrilled" President was "conservative" or "carefully guarded," or expressed "cautious optimism" in responding to the death of Abu Musad al-Zarqawi, the small-time thug, beheader, fomenter of Sunni/Shia civil war, and all-around violent extremist who became an American poster boy for terrorism in Iraq. Who had even heard of him until, as British journalist Patrick Cockburn points out, "he was denounced in 2003, by Secretary

Tom Engelhardt: The "Incident" at Haditha

[Mr. Engelhardt is the author of The End of Victory Culture and co-editor of History Wars, the Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past.] First news stories about the My Lai massacre (picked up from an army publicity release), March 1968: The New York Times labeled the operation a significant success:"American troop

Daniel Pipes: New Route to the West

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his HNN blog.] The illegal immigration of non-Western peoples, I predict, will become an all-consuming issue in every Western country.As Western birth rates plummet, as communication and transportation networks improve, and as radical Islam increasingly rears its aggressive head

Michael Radu: The Demise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

[Michael Radu is a Senior Fellow of the FPRI and co-chairman of its Center on Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Homeland Security. He is the author of Dilemmas of Democracy and Dictatorship (Transaction, 2006).] Born circa 1966 in the Bedouin tribe of Bani Hassan in Zarka, Jordan, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike on June 7, near Bakuba, Iraq. Lately known as the “amir” of Al Qaeda in the Country of the Two Rivers (Iraq), Al-Zarqawi typified th

Daniel Pipes: Muslim Zionism

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is danielpipes.org. Click here for his HNN blog.] Might Muslim Zionism be stronger than Jewish Zionism?Although the question may sound preposterous, it is not.Jewish Zionism evolved out of a steadfast three-millennium-old love of Jerusalem that flourished despite a dispersion that settled Jews far from their holy city. Thi

Stephanie Coontz: What Newsweek Got Wrong 30 Years Ago About the Future of Marriage

Marriage has changed more in the last 30 years than in the previous 300. People today have unprecedented freedom about whether, when and whom to marry, and they are making those decisions free from the huge social and economic pressures that once had them marching in lockstep. In such periods of massive change and diversification, it is useless to see averages as descriptions of the typical experience. They are simply the artificial addition of the experiences of many different subg

Victor Davis Hanson: The Left Misuses Haditha

Victor Davis Hanson ... As the drumbeat of hysterical criticism continues, domestic support erodes to almost nothing. The enemy becomes emboldened, taking much of its triumphant rhetoric right from the antiwar Western left. Funds will be cut-off and deadlines for withdrawal imposed. But wait, stop! Do we really wish to continue the tired formula, since we know what follows and where it ends? Once we leave, the killing starts in earnest, not 20 or 30 per day

Gary Leupp: Breakthroughs in Iraq, While Backing Off on Iran

[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion, at Tufts University and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.] This morning I wake up to learn, as I peruse Antiwar.com, that the Bush administration has suddenly agreed to acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich uranium. Then almost immediately thereafter, from the TV, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has be

Kanan Makiya: Iraq’s Democratic Prospects

[Kanan Makiya, who was born in Iraq, is the Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, author of The Republic of Fear (1989, rev. 1998), and founder of the Iraq Memory Foundation. This essay is based on his keynote address at FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers, “Islam, Islamism, and Democratic Values,” held May 6-7, 2006 in Bryn Mawr, PA.] In the run-up to the Iraq war, many of us reasoned that if a successful democracy took root, th

Trita Parsi: Israel and Iran: Irresolvable Conflict?

The following is an interview with Dr. Trita Parsi, an Iranian living in Washington. Dr. Parsi is a Middle East specialist at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He wrote his Doctoral thesis on Israeli-Iranian relations under Professor Francis Fukuyama. He is the author of “Treacherous Triangle - The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States” (Yale University Press, 2007.) An op-ed by Parsi on Israeli-Iranian relations appeared in the Forward on Mar