Review: Horse Soldiers

Doug Stanton, Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Stor of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan.

Almost immediately after terrorists attacked American soil in September, 2001, members of the Army Special Forces began to prepare for entry into Afghanistan. While a nation sat shocked at the events of September 11th, these "silent warriors" relied on their own ingenuity and creativity to prepare for battle: Cold weather gear, batteries and modern GPS's were just a few of the things these warriors purchased on their own in the days leading up to their deployment. And their ability to improvise was a preview of what was to come in Afghanistan. As in past wars, no one had written a "how-to book" on war in Afghanistan. So the members of the Special Forces learned as they went along.

In a book full of characters, the journey of Special Forces Captain Mitch Nelson and the men under his command lay at the heart of the book, particularly the time Nelson spends with larger-than-life Afghani General Abdul Rashid Dostum. It is Dostum who shows Nelson the lay of the land in Afghanistan and who helps Nelson gain insight into the tribal/Warlord culture.

Throughout the book, Stanton illustrates the intricacies of Afghanistan's politics, such as how the leaders of the three rival factions of the Northern Alliance were fighting together while also positioning themselves politically and geographically for a peacetime nation. Stanton also shows the sort of deal-brokering that went on between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, often facilitated by family and tribal ties. Dostum even mentioned to Nelson that sometimes he would go light on attacking the Taliban here or there if some of his men told him they had family in the opposing camp. In one instance, Dostum radioed the Taliban to tell them that he had Americans with him and that they were coming to get them!

For their part, the Special Forces, well trained in politics and technology, found one area in which they were unprepared: horsemanship. The Northern Alliance relied on actual horsepower on the battlefield. Stanton describes how, like warriors out of a bygone age, Afghani soldiers raced and rode at their mechanized Taliban opponents. And, with the help of well-targeted American bombs, they won the day.

Stanton doesn't focus solely on Nelson and Dostum. Several other members of the Special Forces have their stories told and one sub-plot involves the journey of the American Taliban, Johnny Walker Lindh, and how he ended up in Mazar-i-Sharif on the day 600 Taliban prisoners revolted. This last part of the book, which details the revolt and the attempt to take back the fort, is a clearly written and exciting read.

Stanton has produced a fine work of contemporary, boots-on-the-ground history. It's surprising that the story hadn't yet been told, but it was worth the wait. Now, onto the movie!

Al Queda Hit by the Plague?!

I couldn't pass up pointing to this story:

The disease, which struck Europe in the Middle Ages killing more than 25 million people, has swept through a training camp for insurgents in Algeria.

The arrival of the plague was discovered when security forces found the body of a dead terrorist by a roadside, the Sun reports.

The victim belonged to the large al-Qaeda network AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb).

A security source told the paper: "This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease.

"It spreads It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda."

Black Death comes in various forms and was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history when it struck in the 1340s killing 75 million people across North Africa, Asia and Europe.

Bubonic Plague is spread by bites from infected rat fleas. Symptoms include painful boils in the groin, neck and armpits. In Pneumonic Plague, airborn bacteria spread like flu. Without medication it can be deadly.

The new epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers, the Sun reports.

The group, led by wanted terror figure Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.

The group now fears the highly-infectious disease could have spread to other al-Qaeda training camps or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, the paper said.

A source said: "The emirs (leaders) fear surviving terrorists will surrender to escape a horrible death."

Review: In a Time of War

Bill Murphy, Jr., In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002.

Bill Murphy writes:

Todd Bryant and his classmates in the West Point class of 2002 were the heirs apparent to a military in crisis. In the wake of Vietnam, the leaders of the first army in American history to lose a war faced a stark strategic choice. They could study the war intently, learning and applying its lessons so they would never be caught flat-footed again. Or, they could decide that Vietnam was simply the product of a strange confluence of unfortunate geography, misguided tactics, and a lack of political will at home: an unnerving episode, but unlikely ever to be repeated. With a few notable exceptions, the leadership of the late-twentieth-century U.S. military chose the latter, more comfortable course. The Army set aside its Vietnam-style missions against insurgents and guerrillas, and instead prepared almost exclusively to fight the hordes of Soviet tanks that they expected would one day invade western Europe.

Because of these decisions, members of the West Point Class of 2002 would find themselves on the front lines of war in which neither they nor the majority of their commanders were prepared. Instead, belatedly, they were forced to learn on-the-job while military and political leaders made misstep after misstep until the arrival of General David Petraeus and the implementation of a new strategy and new tactics. But that is only the backdrop to Murphy's work. At the heart lay the individual and collective stories of some of the cadets of the West Point Class of 2002. Young men and women who entered the Academy in 1998, at a time when:

A great gulf had opened between those who served in the military and those who didn't. Americans no longer believed they had to serve to be good citizens. Instead, they simply had to "support the troops," whatever that might mean.

With no Cold War and no other major conflict on the radar, the Army was searching for its identity and the bicentennial class of 2002--dubbed the Golden Children--were to be in the vanguard of the new Army. They entered with careers in mind that weren't necessarily related to war fighting. And perhaps it was the seemingly remote chance of ever fighting in a big war that enabled romantic thoughts of battlefield glory. Yet, no matter the individual motives for entering the Academy, the cadets emerged with a sense of duty and a camaraderie with their classmates that was deeper than personal ambition.

The reality of the Iraq War scraped the luster off of the battlefield medals that had danced in the heads of so many of these young Army officers. And decisions made higher up in the chain of command, such as taking the tanks away from a cavalry unit prior to their deployment to Iraq, were met with disbelief, consternation and a can-do attitude. They may not have approved of the decisions being made, but they followed orders and made due. If for nothing else, then for each other and, more importantly, for the men under their command. In the end, that was the ultimate goal of the platoon leader: to bring all of his men back from patrol. How it may or may not have helped the policy of the United States government was secondary. Especially when they had doubts as to the overall strategy and observed the gap between the rhetoric and the reality they encountered. As one soldier wrote, "These people don't want democracy...It is totally against their culture. They do, however, want capitalism."

The war affected their outlook on a career in the Army, too. To one young officer:

[T]he idea of making a twenty-year professional commitment to a large, bureaucratic organization--even one with as honorable and important a role as the U.S. Army--was foreign to most people of his generation....Of his West Point classmates, he could hardly think of any who were talking about staying in past five years. But they were all worried about the stop-loss policy...

And the arguments used by higher-ranking officers to try to persuade younger officers to make a career of the Army fell on many a deaf ear:

Today's field-grade officers had had it easy when they were [his] age. You could walk around Fort Hood and see plenty of majors and lieutenant colonels without a combat patch on the right sleeve, meaning that in ten or fifteen years in the Army they hadn't once deployed to war. What right did they have to judge him and his cohort?

But there were also members of the class of 2002 who valued their place in the Army and believed in its mission:

Visiting his family...he felt he was forever defending his choices: going to West Point, serving in the Army, fightin in Iraq. Civilians didn't always understand why the military mattered to him so much. He, his classmates, and his fellow soldiers had given their all for the nation....[He] understood that a moajority of his countrymen no longer thought the war in Iraq was worth fighting, but he [and others thought] America had learned from its mistakes and was no following a viable strategy [under General David Petreaus].

As another soldier, injured in Afghanistan, explained to a group of friends from Europe and America:

The U.S. invasion had been launched with the best intentions, he told them, and by liberating the country from Saddam, America had intended to bring prosperity to the Iraqi people. Obviously things haven't gone as well as we hoped...but he was convinced if the United States pulled out now, the result would be utter chaos. Having created a power vacuum...America had an obligation to stay until it was certain that whatever emerged in the wake of the U.S. military would bring postive change to the country.

Finally, on his way to his third deployment, a soldier was able to remain optimistic, no matter his personal sacrifice:

"What do you think about the surge?" the man asked.

"It has achieved a lot, " Will said, but then added that he was worried that the next president might be unreasonably optimistic about how quicly American troops could be withdrawn. Iraq seemed to have all but disappeared as a political issu. In polls, far more people now said their chief concern in the 2008 election was the economy, or health care.

"In Bush's defense--" Will started to say. [His wife] was amazed to hear these words come out of his mouth.

But the man started speaking at the same time. "Everyone wants the war to be over," he said.

"Americans want everything instantly," Will agreed, shaking his head. Then he added: "I think we'll be there for ten years or more."

Murphy does a fine job of stepping back and letting the soldiers and their spouses tell their stories. The impact that decisions made up the chain of command have on these men and women are often disappointing and tragic. Especially to a group of officers who entered West Point in one environment and concomitant professional expectations but graduated into a world where war was at hand. As one Class of 2002 member observed, the cadets who entered West Point after 9/11 were different than his class:

He and his class had committed to the Army during peacetime. The cadets now attending West Point knew from their first day that they were probably going to serve in Iraq--or some other war zone--after they graduated.

"It is one thing to have to go to war...It is quite another to volunteer for it."

But whatever their expectations, they heeded the call to duty and some gave the ultimate sacrifice. Their personal stories have been well served by Murphy's re-telling.

It's All Medieval

Jeff Sypeck at Quid Plura explains that the people in the center of the Russia/Georgia conflict consider themselves to be contemporary Alans.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, with North Ossetia as part of Russia and South Ossetia lumped in with Georgia, the Ossetians looked to historians, philologists, and archaeologists to tell them who they were. Was “Ossetia,” a Georgian term filtered through Russian, the name they should use? Shouldn’t they call themselves “Alans”? As Victor Shnirelman explains, speakers of the two Ossetian dialects, Digor and Iron, argued over whose speech was more pure; North Ossetia became North Ossetia-Alania; and the Alan name was slapped on everything from soccer teams to supermarkets. Never mind that “Alans” may have been a term used only by outsiders; or that the name “Ossetia” probably comes from *ās, which the Alans used to refer to themselves; or that the original Alans were famously inclined to assimilate and be assimilated. The Alanian nationalism of the 1990s soon took on moral and racial overtones, especially as neighboring enemies tried on the name for size. The Ossetes should have looked westward for precedent and warning: Once you buttress your national identity with medievalism, expect politicized folklore to beguile the public —and to take on a life of its own.

Patrick Geary's thesis seems to still hold up, eh?

Review: Your Government Failed You

Richard Clarke, Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters

Your government failed you.

So said Richard Clarke to the American people during the 9/11 Commission hearings a few years back. Clarke's resume of over 30 years in the foreign policy arena speaks for itself and adds weight to his point of view. At times, his tales of frustration infuriate because they show just how much government did fail leading up to 9/11.

But, as reaction to his first book Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror made evident, he can also be frustrating to those who are familiar with events he describes. And this familiarity with acute events can lead, ultimately, to a wholesale--albeit unwarranted--distrust of Clarke.

If I know that he's not being completely forthcoming on Event "A" for which I know a lot about, then how can I be sure he's not doing the same for Events "B, C and D" for which I'm not as familiar? And to the degree that his diagnoses and prescriptions rely upon his experience and expertise, as supported by his explanation of various events, then how seriously am I to take his ideas? In other words, are Clarke's ideas well-informed and worthwhile or just part of an exercise in legacy-protection? The answer, unsurprisingly, is all of the above.

When reading and analyzing a first-hand account of events, a reader should always be on the look out for bias; on the part of both the source and the reader. Ultimately, each of us have to rely on our sense of what seems like good, sound reasoning and argumentation. So, despite these reservations, there are still some things that even those most predisposed to distrust him can learn from Clarke.

Throughout Your Government Failed You, Clarke clearly names names and assesses blame. His reasoning seems sound and his grasp of the nuances of foreign affairs and diplomacy is worth noting as is his recognition of the role that contingency can play in outcomes. And while he doesn't let himself off the hook for some of the errors made, his phraseology can be passive/aggressive. For instance, the phrasing of his "apology" that gave title to this book leaves the impression that he's apologizing more for others than himself. In his opening to Chapter 5, Clarke explains that on the morning of 9/11

I knew that I had failed. In the days and years leading up to that awful moment I had failed to persuade two administrations to do enough to prevent the attacks that were now happening around me.

You see, the decision makers in government didn't listen to Clarke, which is why they failed. And he only failed because they didn't listen. That's a fairly obtuse way of taking blame. The question is then: should we listen to him? Based on my reading and analysis of the events that Clarke describes, I certainly am wary of accepting Clarke's version of events prima facia.

For instance, he notes "the refusal of the Bush administration to ratify the [Kyoto] protocol...(p.277)" and makes no mention of the Clinton administrations similar "refusal." Elsewhere, he explains how he thinks partisanship is bad for national security, something for which many would agree. But the examples of partisanship he provides are markedly one-sided.

I think the record is fairly indisputable that national security issues have been used for partisan electoral advantage in recent years: terrorism threats have been overhyped near elections, predictions have been made about terrorist attacks occurring if the other party wins, people's patriotism has been questioned. (p.340-41)

Common charges levied against the Republicans, all. No mention of the political rhetoric flying from the Democratic side--immediate withdrawal, illegal war, the Bush fascist state, etc.--which helped them sweep to Congressional power in 2006. I suppose if you believe one set of arguments, then they aren't partisan?

Much of the first part of the book is devoted to Clarke's restatement of many of the same charges he made in Against All Enemies. He still thinks Iraq is a distraction away from Afghanistan, which is an arguable point, especially with Osama bin Laden still loose. He also puts much blame for Iraq at the feet of the generals charged with preparing our forces for the invasion:

1) "Neither the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [General Richard Myers] nor the regional commander at CENTCOM [General Tommy Franks] dissented from the initial war plan..."
2) The generals didn't implement proper counter-insurgency activities though they were aware of analysis from the CIA and State department that predicted insurgent activity in post-invasion Iraq.
3) Related to #2, once it became clear that the President intended to invade Iraq, the Generals did not advise the President and Congress that they did not have enough troops to deal with an insurgency.
4) "Inadequate training and...equipment" for American troops in Iraq.
5) Generals tacitly condoned torture, such as at Abu Grahib.
6) Generals didn't ensure that wounded troops were treated adequately (Walter Reed).

All of these points are worth debating. But elsewhere, Clarke essentially accuses General David Petraeus, architect of the proving-successful surge implemented in 2007, of moving the goalposts himself when his own counter-insurgency efforts were initially exhibiting slow returns. "It began to seem as if the reason for the surge, in Petraeus's mind, was to prove that his new counterinsurgency strategy could work."

The recent success in Iraq is making Clarke a victim of the time line. For he claims that Petraeus

[b]y defending a policy that in the larger sense was injurious to the United States and the Army, by arguing for staying on when he admitted that his own condition for the U.S. presence (real progress toward Iraqi unity) was not being met...raised new questions about what makes a general political.

When Clarke wrote these words, the effectiveness of the surge was still in doubt. But no matter the expertise that lay on the side of the predictor, reality has a way of ruining predictions.

Clarke has much else to say about a plethora of items related to national security and, not as impressively, global warming. As to the last, he essentially toes the Al Gore line. Nothing earth shattering (or warming?).

Further, it becomes clear that Clarke is a supporter of the Powell doctrine, though redefined for the times, which is entirely defensible. On the other hand, he also channels Thomas Franks (the academic, not the general) by basically asking "what's the matter with the military," because he can't understand why they have become so overwhelmingly Republican (though he notes that Democrats are gaining support).

All in all, this is a "thick" book. There is a lot to digest and a lot to think about. Clarke's writing isn't florid or light. Instead, he hits you time and again with anecdotes and antidotes that spring from the mind of the man who apologized to the American people on behalf of the U.S. Government. In the end, his is a voice that warrants a listen. Perhaps the best way to get a balanced view of some of the events is to read Clarke's book in combination with Douglas Feith's War and Decision. To quote Ronald Reagan, "Trust, but verify."

Going to School on the Barbary Wars

I've done a few substantive posts about the Barbary Wars in the past. Michael Medved is the latest (here's another) to use them to buttress his particular position in contemporary arguments about the War in Iraq and the GWOT. Here are his 7 points.

1. The U.S. often goes to war when it is not directly attacked. One of the dumbest lines about the Iraq War claims that “this was the first time we ever attacked a nation that hadn’t attacked us.” Obviously, Barbary raids against private shipping hardly constituted a direct invasion of the American homeland, but founding fathers Jefferson and Madison nonetheless felt the need to strike back. Of more than 140 conflicts in which American troops have fought on foreign soil, only one (World War II, obviously) represented a response to an unambiguous attack on America itself. Iraq and Afghanistan are part of a long-standing tradition of fighting for U.S. interests, and not just to defend the homeland.

2. Most conflicts unfold without a Declaration of War. Jefferson informed Congress of his determination to hit back against the North African sponsors of terrorism (piracy), but during four years of fighting never sought a declaration of war. In fact, only five times in American history did Congress actually declare war – the War of 1812, the Mexican War, The Spanish American War, World War I and World War II. None of the 135 other struggles in which U.S. troops fought in the far corners of the earth saw Congress formally declare war—and these undeclared conflicts (including Korea, Vietnam, the First Gulf War, and many more) involved a total of millions of troops and more than a hundred thousand total battlefield deaths.

3. Islamic enmity toward the US is rooted in the Muslim religion, not recent American policy. In 1786, America’s Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, joined our Ambassador in London, John Adams, to negotiate with the Ambassador from Tripoli, Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. The Americans asked their counterpart why the North African nations made war against the United States, a power “who had done them no injury", and according the report filed by Jefferson and Adams the Tripolitan diplomat replied: “It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.”

4. Cruel Treatment of enemies by Muslim extremists is a long-standing tradition. In 1793, Algerian pirates captured the merchant brig Polly and paraded the enslaved crewmen through jeering crowds in the streets of Algiers. Dey Hassan Pasha, the local ruler, bellowed triumphantly: “Now I have got you, you Christian dogs, you shall eat stones.” American slaves indeed spent their years of captivity breaking rocks. According to Max Boot in his fine book The Savage Wars of Peace: “A slave who spoke disrespectfully to a Muslim could be roasted alive, crucified, or impaled (a stake was driven through the arms until it came out at the back of the neck). A special agony was reserved for a slave who killed a Muslim – he would be cast over the city walls and left to dangle on giant iron hooks for days before expiring of his wounds.”

5. There’s nothing new in far-flung American wars to defend U.S. economic interests. Every war in American history involved an economic motivation – at least in part, and nearly all of our great leaders saw nothing disgraceful in going to battle to defend the commercial vitality of the country. Jefferson and Madison felt no shame in mobilizing – and sacrificing – ships and ground forces to protect the integrity of commercial shipping interests in the distant Mediterranean.

Fortunately for them, they never had to contend with demonstrators who shouted “No blood for shipping!”

6. Even leaders who have worried about the growth of the U.S. military establishment came to see the necessity of robust and formidable armed forces. Jefferson and Madison both wanted to shrink and restrain the standing army and initially opposed the determination by President Adams to build an expensive new American Navy. When Jefferson succeeded Adams as president, however, he quickly and gratefully used the ships his predecessor built. The Barbary Wars taught the nation that there is no real substitute for military power, and professional forces that stand ready for anything.

7. America has always played “the cop of the world.” In part, Jefferson and Madison justified the sacrifices of the Barbary Wars as a defense of civilization, not just the protection of U.S. interests – and the European powers granted new respect to the upstart nation that finally tamed the North African pirates. Jefferson and Madison may not have fought for a New World Order but they most certainly sought a more orderly world. Many American conflicts over the last 200 years have involved an effort to enfort to enforce international rules and norms as much as to advance national interests. Wide-ranging and occasionally bloody expeditions throughout Central America, China, the Philippines, Africa and even Russia after the Revolution used American forces to prevent internal and international chaos.

Scapegoating

As I recently blathered on about, I think that part of being a "good" historian is to tone down the rhetoric and hyperbole while debating both the historical and contemporary. Also, it is also wise to avoid getting sucked into believing that there are always simple (reductionist) explanations for historical causation. Add to these the related temptation of scapegoating as explained by Mary Eberstadt.

... a flight from political reality has indeed been underway on both the left and the right in America in the years since that event, as well as accelerating into more advanced forms in much of Europe. To switch metaphors, in the wake of the 9/11 attack -- and later, related Islamist attacks on civilians, most notably in Spain and Britain -- many Western observers have responded not by absorbing what we now know to be true about our world, but rather by transposing those brute facts into other, safer, more familiar keys.

In other words, instead of focusing on the potential world-changing force that is radical Islam, many in the west are taking a sort of perverse comfort in turning towards familiar scapegoats.

Eberstadt explains that some on the right have taken to blaming "immigrants" for all of America's ills, while some on the left (including some libertarian's) have glommed onto the idea that "christianists" and/or "fundamentalists" are marching America toward Gomorrah. Then there is the popular Bush scapegoat, which many in the general public and the intellectual class find particularly appealling. But, Eberstadt explains, there are problems with this:

[One example is] Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina (Penguin Press). Like so much else now dominating the nonfiction aisles, it apprehends one large truth -- that the current balance between reality and rhetoric has been altered in a way deleterious to us. It then scrambles that message, again like the other scapegoaters, into a version more palatable than what the actual one would require. In this case, the scramble ends in focusing blame and hatred onto one single man -- George Bush -- who also shares a key feature of attraction alongside other scapegoats: He is not going to strike back.

Like others who are Bush-haters simpliciter, Rich is too bilious to make a systematic argument. The result is a burning effigy of a book whose smoke obscures one fundamental point: Whatever else George W. Bush is about, what the record does seem to show and what even many of his enemies feel forced to concede is that he does actually believe in what he is doing. Because it can't allow itself to go there, The Greatest Story Ever Sold becomes as two-dimensional as its subject...

The trouble with putting Bush personally at the center of what ails us is much like the related trouble of relocating the illegals or the theocrats there instead: i.e., it tries to explain too much. In this, too, the parallelism of the scapegoats can be seen. He is a child of privilege who believes in nothing. No, he is an ideological Christian possessed of an unwavering and therefore dangerous faith. Which is it? He is a tool of the oil interests, of the neoconservatives, of the Christians; no, he is a puppet master of them all; no again, he is himself a puppet of Karl Rove. He is "someone who likes to compete and win at all costs" (Frank Rich); he is someone who has had everything handed to him and doesn't know what it is like to struggle (also Rich). And so on.

There are also those--Eberstadt points to a recent issue of Foreign Affairs--who have concluded that "9/11 was not that big a deal after all." Then there is Europe, which has closed its eyes to the Islamist threat in its own backyard and instead resorted to a ramping up of anti-American rhetoric. Yet, Eberstadt thinks that anti-Americanism may be nothing more than misplaced anger:

Perhaps these days, on the Continent, the widespread, all-explaining urge to lay everything at the door of the U.S. has little to do with America proper. Perhaps it does not have much to do either with the post-Cold War unipolar world. Perhaps it is not even really about Iraq.

No, perhaps the anti-Americanism of today is best understood instead as a way of being furious in public with somebody for the insecurities and anxieties wrought by Islamist terrorism in this world, including in increasingly Muslim Europe -- an option made even more attractive by the safe bet that Americans, unlike some other people, are unlikely to respond to this rhetoric, let alone to editorial cartoons, by burning cars, slitting throats, or issuing death threats in places like Paris and Amsterdam and Regensburg and London.

In the end, people are comfortable with scapegoats because they can understand them. They are "problems" that have been solved before. Throw out the illegals, demonize the motives of religious people, blame Bush or America for everything or put our head in the sand. All are easier than dealing with an entity that simply doesn't think about life and society like the West.

American Historical Association Against the War

Historians Against the War is going to present a resolution at the Business Meeting of the annual American Historical Association confab in Atlanta. Here's the proposed resolution:

Resolution on United States Government Practices Inimical to the Values of the Historical Profession (this resolution did not appear in the print version of the December Perspectives)

Whereas, The American Historical Association’s Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct emphasize the importance of open inquiry to the pursuit of historical knowledge;

Whereas, the American Historical Association adopted a resolution in January 2004 re-affirming the principles of free speech, open debate of foreign policy, and open access to government records in furthering the work of the historical profession;

Whereas during the war in Iraq and the so-called war on terror, the current Administration has violated the above-mentioned standards and principles through the following practices:
*excluding well-recognized foreign scholars;
*condemning as “revisionism” the search for truth about pre-war intelligence;
*re-classifying previously unclassified government documents;
*suspending in certain cases the centuries-old writ of habeas corpus and substituting indefinite administrative detention without specified criminal charges or access to a court of law;
*using interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, Bagram, and other locations incompatible with respect for the dignity of all persons required by a civilized society;

Whereas a free society and the unfettered intellectual inquiry essential to the practice of historical research, writing, and teaching are imperiled by the practices described above; and

Whereas, the foregoing practices are inextricably linked to the war in which the United States is presently engaged in Iraq; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the American Historical Association urges its members through publication of this resolution in Perspectives and other appropriate outlets:

1. To take a public stand as citizens on behalf of the values necessary to the practice of our profession; and
   
   
2. To do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.

Now, it is curious that the "anti-war" resolution was somehow left out of the printed version of Perspectives, the AHA's monthly magazine while a rather mundane Informed Meetings Exchange resolution and a more important (and less controversial) "Resolution Opposing the Use of Speech Codes to Restrict Academic Freedom" were included. But I don't want to conspiracy monger...perhaps there was a technical delay or something.

I added the hyperlinks in a good faith effort to help explain the "story" that lay behind some of the specific charges. Specifically, I can understand why the AHA would be concerned with the first three issues listed as justifications for part 1. of the resolution. But I don't get the particular significance that the 4th and 5th justifications--in concert with part 2 of the resolution--have to practising History. Don't get me wrong, the AHA and its memebers have every right to make a political statement, but, to put it bluntly, I don't think anyone particularly cares whether or not the AHA wants people "[t]o do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion." In fact, I doubt if most people find the AHA any more or less worth listening to on the subject. To Joe Sixpack, this statement is about as relevant as if the local little league said the same thing. Just another bunch of pointy-heads throwing in their 2 cents. But I guess if it makes everyone feel good...

Concert of Democracies: Global Politics Played to a Different Tune

Ivo Daalder & James Lindsay, co-authors of America Unbound, propose a new international organization--which they dub the Concert of Democracies--in the winter issue of the American Interest. They point first to a chastened U.S. that has discovered that "America unbound alienated allies, empowered adversaries and divided Americans" and has returned to multilateralism. Yet they also believe that the U.N.--near-chronically ineffective in dealing with bad states--is also nowhere to turn. Instead, they envision a new geopolitical body comprised of democracies. Sovereignty, a la the current U.N., ain't enough. Importantly, as they point out, many international crises in today's world stem from internal problems--within a sovereign nation's borders--than from external tensions generated by two or more sovereign states:

Democracies understand that international peace and justice in an era of global politics rest on protecting the rights of individuals. Nation-state sovereignty can no longer be the sole organizing principle of international politics. Since what happens within a state matters to people living outside it, tackling these internal developments cooperatively is vital to the security and well-being of all. Threats to security arising within states are matters of concern to the commons, and so must yield to legitimate cooperative action arising from the commons. Democracies are open to cooperation to preserve the common good—it is the very essence of how they govern within their own societies, after all—in a way that non-democracies very often are not.

Their three general steps are:

First, the Concert would be a vehicle for helping democracies confront their mutual security challenges...

Second, the Concert would promote economic growth and development...

Third, the Concert would promote democracy and human rights...

Their proposal is much more detailed than this very brief summary and they do understand that it is a long road to actualizing their vision. In one sense, it's a broader version of the Anglosphere idea. I don't know if it's possible, but it worth a shot.

A Consensus on Un-serious Europe

Left, Right and Center agree, European leaders are a bunch of unserious wannabes:

MARA LIASSON: [T]he U.S. wants the European and other NATO countries to pony up more. That's, I think, been a perennial problem. You and I have covered a lot of summits where the Europeans talk big, they want to be a counterweight to the United States, but as you heard Nick Burns just say, they're not willing to spend the proportion of their GDP on defense the way we do.

MORT KONDRACKE: The United States spends about 3.8 percent of GDP on defense, the whole rest of NATO spends 1.9 percent. . . . And our friends, the French, you know, have specifically refused to get involved in Afghanistan. They've got 20,000 men that they have on standby duty for use someplace, and when they were asked specifically to join up and go help out in Afghanistan, they said, "No, we're going to hold these back in case they're needed in Kosovo." You know, typically French.

BARNES: [T]he Germans, the Italians and the Spanish, even when they come, they have a rule. No combat. They don't want to fight. So it's left to the Americans, the Canadians, and the Dutch, actually, are pretty good. And then the Australians, who aren't even members of NATO are the ones who are actually doing the fighting. And the Canadians have lost 34 soldiers in recent months, so they've really done a good job.

Look, the Europeans have been free-riders now for 60 years. It's going to are hard to get them off the dole, it really is. And it'll almost be small amounts of money, percentage-wise. [bold from NRO]

OK, I know I'm immediately endangering any credibility I may have with many because this comes from FOX (evil evil evil) via NRO (evil evil evil), but frankly, I don't care. So what if these observations were made on FOX, the comments all ring true to me and it's not like it's the first time similar points have been made (here, here, here). However, the wonderful succinctness of the above is that we have someone from Left (Liasson), Middle (Kondracke) and Right (Barnes) all agreeing that "Europe"--that generalized group of nations that is comprised mostly of the Cold War "west"--talks big and carries a twig.
Not all of them, to be sure, but too many of them.

Remember