Recently Published

Now the Neo-Cons Want a War with Iran?

by Murray Polner

Flipping the pages of a newspaper I ran across an AP dispatch buried in the back pages. In it, a grief-stricken father in Florida just informed that his 20-year-old marine son had been killed in Iraq, angrily tried to ignite the van carrying the marines sent to tell him the news, and in the process burning him severely. "My husband did not take the news well," his wife said. And a few days later another story about a mother in New York state mourning the death of her soldi

The Deeper Significance of Bush's Slip that We Are Waging a Crusade Against Terror

by James Carroll

At the turn of the millennium, the world was braced for terrible things. Most "rational" worries were tied to an anticipated computer glitch, the Y2K problem, and even the most scientifically oriented of people seemed temporarily at the mercy of powerful mythic forces. Imagined hobgoblins leapt from hard drives directly into nightmares. Airlines canceled flights scheduled for the first day of the new year, citing fears that the computers for the traffic-control system would

Paul Buhle Strikes Out Again

by Ralph Luker

Readers at History News Network know of the charges brought against Brown University's Paul Buhle about the accuracy of his scholarship in political history. Over two years ago, Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes accused Buhle of politically motivated dishonesty and obfuscation of the facts in"Radical History" which appeared in the

85 Years Before 9-11 ... Manhattan Was Blasted in a Now Forgotten Act of Terrorism

by James Ottavio Castagnera

Since September 11, 2001 -- when the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed by Al-Qaida terrorists -- tourists have been barred from climbing to Lady Liberty’s crown. Since July 30, 1916, visitors to Liberty Island have been barred from climbing into the Lady’s torch. At about two o’clock on that Sunday morning, an explosion of such severity rocked adjacent Black Tom Island that Philadelphians felt the shock wave. The Statue of Liberty sustained 100,000 1916-dollars w

I Don't Punish Students Who Disagree with Me

by John H. Morrow, Jr.

Response by David Horowitz, Publisher of FrontPageMag.comHNN has invited me to reply to an article by one of our university students, Bradley Alexander, entitled, “Profane Professor,” in the conservative Internet journal FrontPageMagazine.com (September 9, 2004), which refers to the first class meeting in my course on the World Wars at the University of Geo

Column: Deficit. What Deficit?

by P.M. Carpenter

On the heels of the Gingrich Revolution ten years ago, President Bill Clinton's budget director warned that Republicans' demagogic "tax-cutting frenzy" would, if left unchecked by the White House, "throw fiscal discipline to the winds," be fed by "dishonest numbers" and lead to "a bigger budget deficit." Soon-to-be-Speaker Newt Gingrich pooh-poohed the warning, bizarrely citing the Reagan administration years that tripled the national debt as p

The Meaning of August 29

by Van Gosse

Nothing like it has happened in the 170 years since American political parties began meeting in convention to choose their presidential candidates. Half-a-million people marched for six hours in broiling summer heat to repudiate a sitting president at the moment and place of his triumphal renomination. Now the urgent question becomes: How can this huge new antiwar movement, led by the United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), engage with practical politics and actually affect policy, rather

Would Any Historian Take the Swift Boat Vets' "Truth" Seriously?

by Jonathan Rees

Near the beginning of his autobiography, the historian Howard Zinn explains the philosophy he had regarding objectivity in his classes before he retired from Boston University: I would always begin a course by making it clear to my students that they would be getting my point of view, but that I would try to be fair to other points of view. I encouraged my students to disagree with me. I didn't pretend to an objectivity that was neither possible n

Quiz: In What One Way Is Ralph Nader Like Lenin?

by Jonathan Coopersmith

Why would Richard Egan, who has raised over $200,000 this year for the George W. Bush presidential campaign, and his family donate $6000 to Ralph Nader, whose political positions are certainly not in the GOP mainstream? Why are so many other wealthy Republicans sending tens of thousands of dollars to Nader’s presidential campaign? They are following the advice of an old proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” By aiding Nader in an effort to take votes aw

Is God an American?

by Carl Mirra

During the Vietnam War, discussions of American civil religion emerged as people challenged sacred notions of American decency and global leadership. Then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara felt that a "theology of containment" too readily pushed the U.S. into Vietnam. The war on terror has resurrected this national religious discourse. Recall that George W. Bush announced that a battle between good and evil commenced following the 9/11 catastrophe, and that &q

For How Long Has the CIA Engaged in Torture?

by Alfred W. McCoy

From ancient Rome's red-hot irons and lacerating hooks to medieval Europe's thumbscrews, rack, and wheel, for over 2,000 years anyone interrogated in a court of law could expect to suffer unspeakable tortures. For the last 200 years, humanist intellectuals from Voltaire to members of Amnesty International have led a sustained campaign against the horrors of state-sponsored cruelty, culminating in the United Nation's 1985 Convention Against Torture, ratified by the Clinton

Bush on the Couch

by Justin Frank

If one of my patients frequently said one thing and did another, I would want to know why. If I found that he often used words that hid their true meaning, and affected a persona that obscured the nature of his actions, I wou

Bush Hasn't Really Tried a Democratic Approach in the Middle East ... Kerry Should (If He Gets the Chance)

by Neve Gordon

As democratic presidential nominee John Kerry formulates his Middle East policy, he would do well to learn from the mistakes of both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Former President Bill Clinton began his tenure after the demise of the Soviet Union, and thus he was the first president to enter office following the establishment of U.S. hegemony around the globe. Accordingly, maintaining the status quo became the cornerstone of his foreign policy, which meant that U.S. interests would b

30,000 Nukes ... And the Voters Don't Know Where Bush and Kerry Stand?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

In the run-up to the Iraq war, the threats posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were exhaustively discussed by the politicians and the pundits. But, in the aftermath of that conflict, when no WMDs were to be found, they became an embarrassment to the war enthus

The Face-Off: Bob Bateman Vs. the Associated Press

by Bonnie Goodman

On Saturday, August 28, 2004, C-Span 2 Book TV presented a "Debate Over No Gun Ri" with AP Journalist Charles Hanley and historian Robert Bateman. Charles Hanley is the co-author of The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War, and Robert L. Bateman is the author of No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident. The debate was moderated by freelance broadcast journalist, John Callaway, and held at the Pritzker Military

Column: So You Were Surprised by the Approach the Republicans Took Last Week?

by P. M. Carpenter

All last week editorialists across the country fumed over the Republican Party’s orchestrated hypocrisy in New York. It was a crying shame, they wrote, that the Grand Old Party would wallow in such political Tartuffery – hiding from television viewers its regnant princes of darkness while parading a few moderate warlocks onto the convention stage. There at the prime-time podium, for example, stood liberal California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, bulging with conservative c

The War of Words Between South Korea and China Over An Ancient Kingdom: Why Both Sides Are Misguided

by Mark Byington

"A leading [Korean] opposition party leader on Monday underlined the necessity of joining forces with Asian countries or territories, including Tibet, to deal with China's attempt to distort the history of the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo." Korea Times (Aug. 23, 2004) The present academic and political debate unfolding between China and Korea over which

Did the Associated Press Misrepresent the Events that Happened at No Gun Ri?

by Robert Bateman

Editor's Note In the following article Mr. Bateman criticizes the Associated Press account of the events that took place in late July 1950 at No Gun Ri during the Korean War. In an attempt at fairness, HNN sent Mr. Bateman's article to the authors of the Associated Press story. This prompted an interesting exchange. Readers may judge for themselves who gets the better of the argument.

Michael Beschloss & Richard Norton Smith: Their Commentary on the Republican Convention

by Bonnie Goodman

As part of PBS's coverage of the Republican National Convention in New York last week, historians Michael Beschloss and Richard Norton Smith provided historical perspective. The first day of the convention the discussion focused on war presidents, the second on party perspectives, the third on the effect of outside events on the course of the election, and the fourth on acceptance speeches. The following is a summary of their commentaries. Day One: War PresidentsTh

How History Was Used at the Republican Convention

by Brandi Lux

How did Republicans attempt to use history to bolster their case for President George W. Bush? We asked HNN intern Brandi Lux to find out by compiling a list of the historical allusions, analogies and metaphors speakers employed. PRESIDENTSGiven that Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, it is no surprise that his name was frequently invoked by the main speakers (five times). But FDR was cited three times to draw comparisons between t