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Moves toward War with Iran: How to Prevent War ... Part 4

by William R. Polk

Editor: This the fourth in a series: Part 1. Part 2.Part 3.  In previous articles I have set out why I think an America attack on Iran is likely,  how such an attack  would be carried out and what would happen as a result.  Here I will discuss how it could be avoided while preventing the further spread of

Reflections on the Anti-War Documentary, Sir! No Sir!

by Jerry Lembcke

The new documentary about the Vietnam-era GI anti-war movement, Sir! No Sir!, opened in theaters during the spring and summer of 2006. The film compiles the historical record of the rank-and-file rebellion that grew during the war years and reached the level of mutiny in Vietnam by the war’s end. It recounts that history through the stories of people like Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan, Dr. Howard Levy, Navy Lt. Susan Schnall, and infantryman David Cline, all of w

Muslim Propaganda at the University of Chicago

by Diana Muir

The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is Indiana Jones’ museum.  At least, it is the museum that Indiana Jones would have shipped the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant home to, if only he had been a real person. Not that even the Holy Grail would top the actual collections of the museum by much.  Chicago had lots of  archaeologists shipping stuff home.  Visitors can see the sixteen foot tall human-headed, winged, guardian bull from the palac

Did the Bush Administration Take History into Account Before Attacking Iraq? What Woodward's Book Suggests

by HNN Staff

A thorough review of Bob Woodward's account of the Iraq War, State of Denial, suggests that the Bush administration rarely thought to consult historians or to consider how history might shape the outcome. These, according to Woodward, are the limited number of occasions when they did.Run-Up to WarTo help shape the administration's response to 9/11 Paul Wolfowitz gamely assembled an outside group of pundits and scholars to "tackle the biggest questions."

Restoring Russian Support for the War on Terror

by Jeffrey Mankoff

In the hours after the planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 the first foreign leader to call President George W. Bush to express sympathy for the victims of the attack was the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Putin's phone call and promise to support the United States in crushing Islamic terrorism appeared to herald a new era in U.S.-Russian cooperation. Now, five years after the terrorist attacks, ties between Washington and Moscow are increasingly frayed

Democracy's Vital Ingredient -- Food

by William Lambers

It was George Marshall, architect of the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe after World War II, who observed that "democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs." Marshall's words ring true today as a lesson for the fledgling democracy of Afghanistan, where over eight million people are at risk from hunger and malnutrition.   The Bush administration would be wise to heed Marshall's warning and rally the international community to increase food aid to

The First War Crimes Trial of a Head of State

by Geoffrey Robertson

The trial of Charles I in 1649 secured the historic gains of the English civil war – the supremacy of parliament, the independence of judges, individual freedom guaranteed by Magna Carta and the common law. From a modern perspective, it was the first war crimes trial of a head of state. The arguments in Westminster Hall resonate today in the courtrooms at the Hague and even in the Iraqi Special Tribunal – Saddam Hussein’s opening words to his judge were, in translation, a p

Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars: Freedom and Slavery in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800

by Susan Bevington

Each summer the Gilder Lehrman Institute holds seminars for public, parochial and independent school teachers "designed to strengthen educators' commitment to high quality history teaching." More than 6,000 teachers have participated in the program through the years. In the summer of 2006 600 participants from 49 states and 6 foreign countries took part. HNN asked partic

Moves toward War with Iran: In the Event of War ... Part 3

by William R. Polk

Editor: This the third in a series: Part 1. Part 2.The Iranians believe that American threats and moves are a bluff.  That is what I have been told authoritatively by a senior official of their government.  But, if they are wrong, something like the following will probably happen. The first step, in fact, has already happened.  Unmanned drones and pr

I Don’t Want Candy: The Uses and Abuses of Marie Antoinette

by Caroline Weber

As a child of the nineteen eighties and a longtime Manolo Blahnik devotee, I expected to adore the MTV-worthy musical shoe shopping sequence in Sofia Coppola’s new biopic, Marie Antoinette. In this scene, Kirsten Dunst’s radiant, irrepressible teen queen chooses to ignore a political briefing from the Austrian ambassador to Versailles, and embarks instead on a buying spree that would have made Imelda Marcos proud. With the infectiously happy anthem “I Want Candy,&rd

Allen Dulles: “I’d have felt much better…if there had been…ten thousand people killed”

by David M. Barrett

In 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified transcripts of certain conversations that the Director of Central Intelligence held in his office during the 1950s. One transcript gives vivid evidence of the DCI’s attitude toward the loss of life by Europeans in the lead-up to Hungary’s 1956 Uprising, in which 2500 died. The document was accessed at the CREST computer terminals in the library at National Archives II, College Park, MD. I came across them by using the searc

Moves Toward War with Iran: Part 1

by William R. Polk

After careful study of recent moves and statements by the Bush Administration, I have concluded that there is at least a 10% chance of an American attack on Iran before the November 7 Congressional elections and about a 90% chance before the administration’s end in 2008. In this and following articles I will explain that prediction, illustrate what moves are now being made the prepare for war, analyze what the results of such actions would be and, finally, discuss what alternatives Amer

The Myth that Low Taxes and Liberty Go Hand in Hand

by Robin L. Einhorn

One might think the record of the Bush administration and Republican Congress -- from domestic spying to Terri Schiavo to a long and expensive war -- would explode the idea that the difference between liberals and conservatives has something to do with the power of government to intervene in our lives. Yet the stereotype of strong-government liberals and weak-government conservatives continues to shape American political debate, especially when the subject is taxes. The Republicans who substitut

Moves toward War with Iran: Part 2

by William R. Polk

In my first article, I set out why I think an American attack on Iran is likely. Now I will show what steps are being taken to prepare for that event. The first step toward war is to prepare the public.  That step was partly taken in the 2005  “National Defense Strategy” which proclaimed that “America is a nation at war” and warned that  “At the direction of the President, we will defeat adver

Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars: Abraham Lincoln

by John McPherson

Each summer the Gilder Lehrman Institute holds seminars for public, parochial and independent school teachers "designed to strengthen educators' commitment to high quality history teaching." More than 6,000 teachers have participated in the program through the years. In the summer of 2006 600 participants from 49 states and 6 foreign countries took part. HNN asked partic

Should Democrats Pay Attention to All the Advice They've Been Getting?

by Robert Brent Toplin

In the recent years and, especially, in the months prior to this year’s election progressive writers have published a variety of books that advise Democrats on ways to improve their political fortunes. Most of these writers draw lessons for their readers by looking back on American history. Several authors suggest that Democrats can learn from techniques employed successfully over recent decades by the conservatives. Others point to Democratic leaders who provided inspiring leadership i

Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars: The Colonial Era

by Barbara Markham

Each summer the Gilder Lehrman Institute holds seminars for public, parochial and independent school teachers "designed to strengthen educators' commitment to high quality history teaching." More than 6,000 teachers have participated in the program through the years. In the summer of 2006 600 participants from 49 states and 6 foreign countries took part. HNN asked partic

The Caliph-Strophic Debate

by Walid Phares

It seems that the US is having a hard time winning the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims, but an equally serious problem can be observed in the intellectual circles of America where some have had a difficulty coming to terms with the terminology of the War of Ideas. If the educated elite of the United States is incapable of identifying the ideology and the strategy of the Jihadists five years after 9/11, we not only have a problem with handling the War in Iraq, but also with the future of

Debating 9/11: Democrats Break Their Silence

by Robert Brent Toplin

After George W. Bush campaigned for Republican candidates in California earlier this month by claiming that Democrats were leaving the nation vulnerable to terrorist attacks, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, responded by saying Bush ignored warnings of an al-Qaeda attack “months before 9/11.” Reid countered the President’s charge with a relevant point about recent history, yet it is remarkable that few Democrats have spoken in a similar way when confronting c

Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars: America Between the Wars

by Jennifer Hellman

Each summer the Gilder Lehrman Institute holds seminars for public, parochial and independent school teachers "designed to strengthen educators' commitment to high quality history teaching." More than 6,000 teachers have participated in the program through the years. In the summer of 2006 600 participants from 49 states and 6 foreign countries took part. HNN asked partic