History

History News Network | Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris

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Juan Cole has an interesting take on the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack: “This horrific murder was not a pious protest against the defamation of a religious icon. It was an attempt to provoke European society into pogroms against French Muslims, at which point al-Qaeda recruitment would suddenly exhibit some successes instead of faltering in the face of lively Beur youth culture (French Arabs playfully call themselves by this anagram).” It is certainly a possibility, but I’m not convinced at this point. It has happened before (as Cole points out) so it is not out of the question. However, this would assume that these men were carrying out an Al-Qaeda strategy rather than being lone wolves. At this point we don’t know enough. Either way, Cole is correct that this event will polarize the French population unless they have the fortitude to follow Cole’s advice: “The only effective response to this manipulative strategy (as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani tried to tell the Iraqi Shiites a decade ago) is to resist the impulse to blame an entire group for the actions of a few and to refuse to carry out identity-politics reprisals.” Read his entire essay at:

History News Network | Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris.

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How He and His Cronies Stole Russia by Anne Applebaum | The New York Review of Books

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After reviewing Karen Dawisha’s Putin’s Kleptocracy, Anne Applebaum concludes: “Since 2000, Russia has been ruled by a revanchist, revisionist elite with origins in the old KGB. This elite had been working its way back to power since the late 1980s, using theft on a grand scale, taking advantage of the secrecy provided by Western offshore havens, and cooperating with organized crime. Once in power, the new elite sought to maintain control using the same methods that the KGB always used to maintain control: through the manipulation of public emotion, and by undermining the institutions of the West, and the ideals of the West, in any way that it can. Based on its record so far, it has every reason to expect continued success.” Read her full review at:

How He and His Cronies Stole Russia by Anne Applebaum | The New York Review of Books.

putin's kleptacracy

Update on the Japanese ‘Comfort Women’

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More attempts by the Japanese government to deny the use of comfort women by the Japanese army during WWII. Nogawa Motokazu gives an update on the situation in Japan and concludes: “These moves of the government and the ruling party not only prevent any improvement of Japan-Korea relations but also inflict a second victimisation on the victims of Japanese military’s wartime sexual slavery, who are still living in many parts of the world. We should never forget this.” Read his entire article at:

History News Network | New Attack on the ‘Comfort Women’.

Japanese comfort women

Credit: Robert G. Fresson from the New York Times article: “The Comfort Women and Japan’s War on Truth” (November 14, 2014)

History News Network | The Censoring of History and Politics Takes Us Back to the Dark Ages

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I agree with the historian Bruce Chadwick’s plea against the censoring of movies and other art forms because of their portrayals of history are objectionable, but I wouldn’t call it “the censoring of history.” These works of art were not meant to be accurate portrayals of history but creative interpretations  of historical events meant to entertain or provoke. And how this “takes us back to the Dark Ages” is unclear. Nevertheless, Chadwick makes a good case against censorship  of all forms of art. Read his entire article at:

History News Network | The Censoring of History and Politics Takes Us Back to the Dark Ages.

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History News Network | Are We a Great Nation?

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The historian Steve Hochstadt comments on the Senate Intelligence Committee Report and concludes: “It is noteworthy that those conservative Americans who insist most loudly that we should follow the founding documents literally, and who also insist that the US is an exceptional nation because of its moral virtue, defend torture because they believe it is effective. The rejection of torture as immoral has now become a “liberal” idea, just as it was in the 18th century, when the most liberal political leaders in the world founded our nation.” Read his assessment at:

History News Network | Are We a Great Nation?.

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The Christmas Truce of World War I: The Two Sides of Humanity

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I love this story! It was a bright spot in a horrible war. It gives me faith in humanity, and exposes the folly of war. It breaks my heart when these young men are forced to return to the trenches to begin killing each other for no reason. Soon suffering and propaganda fostered a hatred that ensured that they could no longer see each others humanity. There would be no more truces.

History News Network | The Christmas Truce: A Sentimental Dream.

christmas truce WWI

History News Network | Conservatives go after UCLA’s historian James Gelvin

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Does anyone else find this disturbing? An organization called Campus Watch audits the courses of professors who teach in the area of Middle Eastern studies to ensure that they align with their pro-Israeli perspective. On their website they claim that their organization “reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.” A review of their activities show that they are only perpetuating the “problems” they profess to be fighting against. While they do have the right to free speech their efforts to harass professors with views that are different from their own goes beyond their right to criticize those they disagree with. It is a very dangerous trend that I believe does not actually serve their real purpose (promote Israel as innocent of all wrong doing). James Gelvin, professor of history at ACLU, is their latest victim. One of Campus Watch’s representatives, Cinnamon Stillwell, attacked Gelvin in an article entitled “UCLA Prof Assigns Pro-Israel Book in Order to Trash It.” In one of his courses, Gelvin had required his students to read Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel in order to critique it. Stillwell claims that this critique was not extended to other assigned material. But Gelvin pointed out that he also assigned a book with the opposite perspective and that “the assignment explicitly states that significant errors from both books must be cited, critiqued, and corrected.” For the full debate go to:

History News Network | Conservatives go after UCLA’s historian James Gelvin.

The goals and practices of Campus Watch go beyond the right to free speech, it amounts to harassment with the goal of stamping out all view points on campuses across America that do not conform to their ideological viewpoint. I believe that this trend is dangerous to not only to academic freedom but also to the prospects of peace in the Middle East. It serves only to perpetuate hatred and undermines any real attempts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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