Roundup: Historians' Take

Michael Kazin: Democrats Losing Battle For America's Hearts and Minds

Michael Kazin, Ottawa Citizen, 30 Sept. 2004 [Kazin teaches history at Georgetown University.] As George W. Bush and John Kerry get set for their first televised debate tonight, a U.S. historian looks at a recent book that may help explain why the Democrats are having trouble in the polls. Approach this book with caution, fellow progressives. It may confirm your worst fear. John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, two smart Brits who work for The Economist, have writ

Daniel Pipes: Islam Is or Isn't Tolerant of Other Religions?

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (Sept. 28, 2004):What do Muslims believe regarding freedom of religious choice? A Koranic verse (2:256) answers: "There is no compulsion in religion"(in Arabic: la ikrah fi'd-din). That sounds clear-cut and the Islamic Center of Southern California insists it is, arguing that it shows how Islam anticipated the principles in the U.S. Constitution. The center sees the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law resp

Edward Tenner: Kerry's Debate Advantage ... He's Taller

Edward Tenner, in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept. 30, 2004): As the presidential debates approach, some anxious Democrats are taking comfort in the five-inch height advantage of their candidate, who stands 6 feet 4 inches to George W. Bush's 5 feet 11 inches. They remember, all too well, the 1988 presidential debates between George H.W. Bush and Michael S. Dukakis. At the time, the newspaper colu

John Steele Gordon: We Never Really Had a Surplus in the 1990s

John Steele Gordon, in the WSJ (Sept. 28, 2004):With the presidential elections weeks away, politicians are in full cry. While Iraq dominates, the federal deficit is getting its share of attention. That's understandable, seeing that for the fiscal year 2004, which ends on Friday, the government will report spending $422 billion more th

Ann Hitchcock: The 6 Lessons We Should Learn from Iraq About Historic Preservation at a Time of War

Ann Hitchcock,"Through the Fog of War in Iraq: Lessons Learned in Heritage Preservation", at the George Wright Forum: ... Some Lessons Learned After lending a helping hand in a disaster, a natural response is to consider, “What if this happened to us? How would we fare? What lessons can be learned?” Professionals managing museums, libraries, archeological sites, and other heritage resources, who ask these questions and l

Juan Cole: Why I Find It Hard to Shed a Tear for Cat Stevens

I know that it is faintly ridiculous that Cat Stevens a.k.a. Yusuf Islam was deported on Wednesday from the U.S. after the airplane he was on was diverted to Maine, on the grounds that he is a dire security threat to the country. David Letterman in his monologue allowed darkly as how the Feds were no doubt gunning for Gordon Lightfoot next. He also wickedly observed that despite Osama Bin Laden being at large, what with Cat Stevens deported and Martha Stewart in jail, he felt a lot safer.

Richard Landes: Comparative History - Millennialism And Terrorism

Leonard Stern, Ottawa Citizen, 21 Sept. 2004 One consequence of Sept. 11 was the emergence of an academic industry, which for lack of a better term can be called jihad studies. You'd have thought such a speciality would already exist, yet for decades students of Islam and Arabia recoiled from the subject. At scholarly conferences there would be two dozen lectures with titles such as"The problem of Ottoman heroic narratives," but not a peep about the problem of holy warriors. Sc

Max Boot: Presidents Have Often Lost Many Battles Before Winning the War

Max Boot, in the LAT (Sept. 23, 2004):John Kerry is right to accuse President Bush of "colossal failures of judgment" in Iraq. These range from decisions taken in the early days of the occupation, such as the premature disbanding of Iraq's army, to more recent missteps, such as allowing Fallouja to become a terrorist sanctuary. Reading the depressing headlines, one is

Nicholas Turse: The Archives Back Up Kerry's 1971 Charge About Vietnam Atrocities

Nicholas Turse, in the Village Voice (Sept. 21, 2004): John Kerry is being pilloried for his shocking Senate testimony 34 years ago that many U.S. soldiers—not just a few "rogues"—were committing atrocities against the Vietnamese. U.S. military records that were classified for decades but are now available in the National Archives back Kerry up and put the lie to his critics. Contrary to what those

Daniel Pipes: To Profile or Not to Profile?

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (Sept. 21, 2004): Should law enforcement profile Muslims?Amnesty International USA answers emphatically no. It asserts in a report issued last week that"law enforcement's use of race, religion, country of origin, or ethnic and religious appearance as a proxy for crimin

Interview with Bat Ye'or: Eurabia

From frontpagemag.com (Sept. 21, 2004): Frontpage Interview's guest today is Bat Ye'or, the world's foremost authority on dhimmitude. Her latest study is Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide. Her forthcoming book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, will be published in January 2005.FP: Bat Ye'or, welcome to Frontpage Interview.Bat Ye'or: Thanks for inviting me to your prestigious magazine.FP: First things first, can you explain the term "Eurabia&

Ron Briley: A Tale of Two Texans: I Ain’t No Fortunate Son

Ron Briley, history teacher at the Sandia Prepatory School: Beginning with the Republican National Convention, President George W. Bush has attempted to recapture the label of compassionate conservative so missing from four years of tax breaks for America’s wealthiest citizens and record deficits to fight an unnecessary war in Iraq which largely provides corporate welfare for such companies as Halliburton. But does this fortunate son really understand the meaning of compassion and th

Chesler Vs. Pipes: An Exchange on Chechen Terrorism

by Phyllis Chesler

An exchange, featured at FrontPageMag.com (Sept. 15, 2004): Chechen Solidarity at the New York Times By Phyllis Chesler [Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D., is the author of 12 books including Woman's Inhumanity to Woman and The New Anti-Semitism. She may be reached through her website www.phyllis-chesler.com] The gruesome, graphic beheadings of Jews and Americans, the spectacularly simultaneous suicide airplanes, the human suicide bombers are al

Joshua Brown: Bush's Historical Amnesia (Illustration)

 

Thomas Palaima: I Am Tired of Trashy Politics

Thomas Palaima, in the Austin American-Statesman (Sept. 11, 2004):Four years ago, I was asked to write a post-mortem on the 2000 presidential campaign. It appeared in the American-Statesman on the day after the election and was titled "The end of an uninspiring campaign." The drama of the Florida vote-count fiasco is what sticks now in most of our minds, but campaign 2004 has given me queasy feelings of déjà vu, so I checked back. Sure enough. Un

Michael Radu: It's Time to Realize Islamists Are Behind the Chechen Terror Attacks

Michael Radu, in the newsletter of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Sept. 3, 2004):Russia is under assault by Islamic terrorists. On August 24, two Russian airliners were blown up, leaving 90 people dead.A week later, a car bomb near a Moscow subway station killed another ten people, and the next day, September 1, Islamist terrorists took hundreds of hostages in a North Ossetia school, including many children. At this writing,

Jack Rakove: The Most Important Election Since 1968

Jack Rakove, in the SF Chronicle (Sept. 5, 2004):Scholars use the term critical election to describe those contests that crystallize broad changes in the electorate, when voting blocs shift their loyalty from one party to another, new political alignments form, and one party achieves dominance over the other. There was a time, not so long ago, when Bush political adviser Karl

Gil Troy: We Lied. 9-11 Didn't Change Us

Gil Troy, in the Montreal Gazette (Sept. 10, 2004):Let's face it, most of us lied. Three short years ago, amid the unspeakable carnage of Sept. 11, with the Pentagon aflame, the World Trade Centres towers collapsed, one hijacked plane still smoldering, so many of us said, "Our lives will never be the same." The phrase, which became a mantra for a month - a long time in our throwaway society - was partially a fear, partially a vow. Those ug

Richard Pipes: Give the Chechens a Homeland of Their Own

Richard Pipes, in the NYT (Sept. 9, 2004):The terrorist attack in Beslan in Russia's North Caucasus was not only bloody but viciously sadistic: the children taken hostage by pro-Chechen terrorists were denied food and drink and even forbidden to go to the bathroom, then massacred when the siege was broken. It is proper for the civilized world to express outrage a

Ronald Steel: An Empire ... No Matter Who's Elected in November

Ronald Steel, in the Nation (Sept. 2004):It did not take long for a term that not long ago was slanderous to become a cliche. Suddenly everyone has discovered, and accepts as a commonplace, that the United States possesses an empire. For some our newly acknowledged imperial status is a source of