Roundup: Historians' Take

Andrew Rudalevige & Richard Norton Smith & Ellen Fitzpatrick: The Imperial Presidency

RAY SUAREZ: The recent furor over President Bush's domestic intelligence program is the latest skirmish in a centuries-old battle over presidential powers in times of war. By letting government agents eavesdrop without court oversight, Mr. Bush joined a long list of presidents who've tested the limits of their war-time authority. For a historical look at how executive powers have been wielded and its impact on governance, we're joined by Richard Norton Smith, director of the Abraha

Mackubin Thomas Owens: Lincoln and Bush on vigilance and responsibility

[Mackubin Thomas Owens is professor of national security at the Naval War College.] IN JUNE of 1863, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Erasmus Corning, who had sent him the resolutions of the Albany Democratic convention censuring the Lincoln administration for what it called unconstitutional acts, such as military arrests of civilians in the North. This letter remains the best articulation of the problems that a democratic republic faces when confronted by a crisis that threatens t

Dale Andrade: Three Lessons From Vietnam

[The writer is a historian and author of "Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War."] It's not uncommon these days to hear talk of "lessons" learned in Vietnam and their application to current U.S. conflicts. Unfortunately, most observers have ignored the uniqueness of the Vietnam War, picking and choosing the lessons learned there with little regard for their application to the present. This is particularly true with the current buzz

Joshua Brown: Bush's Hopes for 2006 (Illustration)

 

Juan Cole: So Sunnis are threatening a boycott of parliament? Bad move.

... Parliament requires a 2/3s vote to elect a president, who must appoint a prime minister from the coalition with a simple majority. I figure 2/3s as about 184 votes. Allawi and the Sunni Arabs probably won't have more than 50 or 55 seats all told, leaving around 220. The Kurds will have about 50. If we subtract them, we come down to 170. Therefore, an Allawi/Sunni boycott would force the Shiites into another coalition with the Kurds if they are to form a government, and the Kurds can extract

Daniel Pipes: Winning the Propaganda War

It comes as a relief to learn that Karen Hughes, who runs the public diplomacy shop at the U.S. State Department, has suspended the pathetic effort to reach out to Arab and other foreign audiences via a taxpayer-funded magazine named Hi International (best remembered for a notorious June 2005 article,"Sharp-Dressed Men," that told how"

Geoffrey Blainey: Perils of Multiculturalism

[Historian Geoffrey Blainey, in The Multicultural Experiment (Macleay Press, 2002).] CULTURAL diversity can have great claim and vigour, but extreme diversity, as modern history shows, can also be risky to a self-governing nation. A nation has two main functions. One is to maintain or foster a good life for its citizens: a good life, materially, culturally, socially and politically. The second function is to defend the citizens and, if necessary, their liberties and way

Michael Radu: The End of Bolivia?

[Michael Radu, Ph.D., is Co-Chairman of FPRI's Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security.] If fascism is simply defined as statism plus racism and hatred of democracy, December 18 witnessed its coming to power in Bolivia, Latin America's poorest, as well as its most dysfunctional and unstable, country. Since achieving independence in 1825, Bolivia has had 189 official military coups (one every 11 months, on average), and since 2000 it has had five p

Niall Ferguson: The possibility now facing Iraq is not of a democratic peace but a democratic war

[Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University www.niallferguson.org.] ... the forces bedevilling the Middle East today are fundamentally the same ones that tore Europe apart in the mid-20th century. If I had to offer a concise explanation for the extreme violence of that era, I would blame the three Es: ethnic conflict, economic volatility and empires in decline. It was the ethnic diversity of

Daniel Pipes: Back to Sept. 10

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 attacks of September 11, 2001, made me feel more secure, unlike most Americans. Finally, the country was focused on issues that had long worried me."The FBI is engaged in the largest operation in its history," I wrote

Frederick Kagan: Fighting to Win

[Frederick W. Kagan, a military historian and coauthor of While America Sleeps, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His Blueprint for Victory appeared in the Weekly Standard of October 31, 2005.] IS RETREAT FROM--or withdrawal from--or defeat in--Iraq inevitable? Almost all opponents of the Bush administration say it is. As Rep. Jack Murtha put it in mid-November, when demanding the "immediate redeployment of U.S. troops" consistent with their safet

Joshua London: Lessons from America's first war against Islamic terror

At the dawn of a new century, a newly elected United States president was forced to confront a grave threat to the nation  an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists. Worse still, these Islamic partisans operated under the protection and sponsorship of rogue Arab states ruled by ruthless and cunning dictators. Sluggish in recognizing the full nature of the threat, America entered the war well after the enemy's call to arms. Poorly planned and f

Douglas Baynton: 'Intelligent Design' Deja Vu

[The writer is an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa.] School boards across the country are facing pressure to teach "intelligent design" in science classes, but what would such courses look like? Thankfully, we need not tax our imaginations. All we have to do is look inside some 19th-century textbooks. The one science course routinely taught in elementary schools back then was geography. Textbooks such as James Monteith's "Physical

Jacqui Murray: Australia isn't paradise after all

[Dr Jacqui Murray is a historian and journalist who has worked with the ABC, SBS and newspapers, magazines and journals in Australia and overseas.] AUSTRALIA is in denial. It has a problem called multiculturalism which, beyond self-serving platitudes and postured poses, it cannot explain -- much less discuss in any really meaningful way. The elites have been way out in front of the rest of the population, and deep down they know it. Thus, multiculturalism is taboo and t

Juan Cole: Why the Iraqi elections don't mean peace

According to wire services, Sunnis in Fallujah came out to vote:' not only get rid of the Americans but to also get rid of the Shiite-dominated government."It's an extremist government [and] we would like an end to the occupation," said Ahmed Majid, 31."Really the only true solution is through politics. But there is the occupation and the only way that will end is with weapons."Even in insurgent bastions such as Ramadi and Haqlaniyah, Sunnis

Thomas Spencer: More bogus Iraq analogies

... Now as we’ve seen in the past the administration loves to mangle history and twist it way past the breaking point if it will serve their ends — remember the hilarious comment by Rumsfeld about how the Iraq situation was like Shays’ Rebellion or the “werewolves” thing? So now the meme going around in conservative circles is that the current situation in Iraq is analogous to the American Revolution. That those that question the Iraq War are like Tom Paine’s “sunshine Patriots” of

Bevin Alexander: The United States Is Backing Out of Iraq

[Bevin Alexander is a military historian and author of nine books on military history. His most recent book, How America Got It Right, was published in summer 2005 by Crown Forum, New York.] It’s becoming clear that the United States is in the process of withdrawing its troops from Iraq. Iraq’s national security adviser Muwafak al-Rubaie said recently that more than 50,000 of the normal-level 138,000 Americans troops can leave in 2006. And the Pentagon is talking about

Tom Engelhardt: The Missing Air War in Iraq

From the destroyed Japanese and German cities of World War II to the devastated Korean peninsula of the early 1950s, from the ravaged South Vietnamese countryside of the late 1960s to the"highway of death" on which much of a fleeing Iraqi army was destroyed in the first Gulf War of 1991, air power has been America's signature way of war. Once, it was also a major part of Hollywood's version of war-making on the"silver screen." Mo

Daniel Pipes: Kofi Annan and Eliminating Israel Politely

Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his HNN blog.There is a right way and a wrong way, strangely, to call for the elimination of Israel.The secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, provided an example of both ways in recent weeks. When the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated on

Daniel Pipes: No American Muslim Terrorists?

Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his HNN blog."It's startling," proclaims Spencer Ackerman in a New Republic cover story dated today,"how few American Muslim extremists there actually are." The article,"Religious Protection: Why American Muslims