Not only broadcast, but Tweeted, too. From Dave Does The Blog:
RT @mhegi: Uninstalling dictator COMPLETE – installing now: egypt 2.0: █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ #egypt #jan25 #tahrir#
Hey, I’m not that tech savvy — I had to think about that for a minute myself. Quick: Can you define “hashtag” to your grandmother?
Shouldn’t it be more like “Egypt 10.0?”
Update: The actual Tweet:
Leave a Comment » | 
Capturing history, History, Humor, Technology, Twitter | Tagged: Capturing history, Current History, Egypt, foreign affairs, Humor, Politics, Technology, Twitter | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Chicago Boyz fancy themselves as hard-nosed, free-enterprise economics sorts of guys (as opposed to capitalists — but let’s not let Texas education politics muddy the waters). It seems to me, too often people who self-label themselves as skeptics are not, and those who label themselves as “just give me the facts” sorts of people don’t really want to look at the facts at all.
A recent Chicago Boyz post expresses excitement about Republican investigations into corruption, which would indeed be news were it directed at corruption among Republicans in Congress, and good news at that. Despite the hopeful ambiguity of the statement, I gather the author favors investigations into corruption in the UN, as if that were one of the top problems we face in the world today.
Corruption is not pretty. Corruption should be prosecuted. Corruption is not the target of the Chicago Boyz and their fellow travelers, however — the UN itself is.
Do they know what they’re talking about? I have my doubts. James Rummel complains about UN corruption in humanitarian missions after 9/11. Um, don’t look now, boyz, but you’re confusing things. The UN is located in New York, but didn’t carry out humanitarian missions there after 9/11. Of course, that’s not what they meant to imply — Rummel was complaining about the Oil for Food program in Iraq, which was set up in 1996 to allow Iraq’s people to get needed food and medicines from foreign suppliers, food and medicine that had been cut off as a result of Gulf War I, putting Iraqi citizens in dire straits. (The mention of 9/11 was just gratuitous red meat to the conservatives, probably.)
Ultimately the program was found to be riddled with fraud. The UN shouldered blame, but a careful reading of the Volcker Report on the incident shows facts we should consider: The fraud was contrary to UN guidelines — that is, not caused by the UN — and the UN could not monitor the program adequately because it was underfunded. Why was the UN program underfunded? In 1996, all UN programs were underfunded because North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms successfully cut U.S. funding because of his allegations of fraud and waste — allegations that didn’t bear out. In addition, political considerations pushed operations to high-cost contractors. In particular, the U.S. didn’t want Swiss banks to be in on the operation at all.
So, the last time the Republicans went after the UN for fraud and abuse, the Republicans’ actions caused fraud and abuse. And if we look to pin blame for the problems, fingers point to the U.S.
Oy.
I don’t think a new investigation and cutting funding to the UN makes a lot of sense, now.
Rummel also complains that UN sanctions didn’t seem to affect Saddam Hussein after 9/11. This is astonishingly selective memory. All evidence we have now indicates that there were no weapons of mass destruction — and, consequently, the judgment must be that the UN sanctions worked, and worked well. This is a continuing embarrassment to the United States, and while we wish it were ancient history and could be forgotten, we do so at great peril as we deal with every other nation on Earth who well remembers that the U.S. invaded Iraq to stop the spread of “weapons of mass destruction,” only to find there were none. Don’t embarrass the U.S. further by looking dotty in foreign relations. (Were I feeling snarkier, I’d put in a link to Bush’s “humorous” show at one of the Washington correspondents association dinners, where he feigned searching for WMDs in the Oval Office, under White House beds, etc.)
But then, in comments, the truth starts to get smoked out in comments at Chicago Boyz. One commenter complains about all the socialist nations sitting on the human rights commission, including the U.S. One commenter complains about how ineffective the UN has been in making peace in Korea, Vietnam, and Israel.
Oversimplifying, but no more so than Chicago Boyz, we should note that the truce in Korea has held for more than 57 years, even without a formal end to hostilities. That sounds rather successful, to me. And Israel’s existence since 1948 seems to have caught hold, even if to the chagrin of major Arabic groups in the region. Israel is generally considered the great power in the area. Not exactly a failed enterprise on the UN’s part, on that score.
Vietnam? That was never a UN project. Much as it pains me to point it out, it was the U.S. who stopped elections in Vietnam in the 1950s (1956?), and it was the South Vietnamese government whose corruption so often derailed attempts to make a lasting peace that would have kept any part of Vietnam noncommunist. (Investigations into corruption, anyone?)
So, of the three so-called “failed” UN peacekeeping projects, two really were very successful, and the third had nothing to do with the UN. Is this the accuracy and level of analysis that calls for an investigation of the UN now?
A complete set of facts might be useful before going off half-cocked. Since 1948 the UN was called in for 64 peacekeeping operations — the UN has no troops, and so cannot wage war nor force war-waging nations to stop. If we conceded the two operations, Israel and Korea, as failures, that would leave 62 other operations unstudied. Most of those missions ended years ago, and without making an actual count, I’ll wager most of them ended successfully. We don’t regard Guatemala anymore as a hotbed of unrest and civil war, for example. Angola isn’t perfect, but neither is there a civil war there fueled by Cuban assistance, for another example.
One commenter complaints about a “fantasy world” about the UN that the left occupies:
One of the big differences between the Left and Right is that the Left is more controlled by fantasy narratives and can’t separate the real world organization from the one that Leftists would like to have. In other words, they can’t separate the real world U.N. from the noble goals it is supposed to achieve.
Quite the opposite, it’s the right who occupy a hallucinogenic world with regard to the UN, unable to count accurately even the peace operations of the UN, and unable to accurately state the history of operations they wish to criticize. Fantasy narratives in this case reside almost completely on the right. Rightists can’t separate the real world UN from the ignoble beast they wish to crucify.
They hope to take the UN hostage to begin the crucifixion, soon.
Resources:
1 Comment | History, Iraq, Peace, War, War on Terrorism | Tagged: Chicago Boyz, foreign affairs, History, Iraq War, Oil for Food, Peace, United Nations, War, War on Terrorism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
“Penny pinching” conservatives in Congress shamefully worked to guarantee America’s legacy of freedom would be buried at the current Shanghai Expo. Architecture writer Fred A. Bernstein reports that the conservatives won, and that the current U.S. exhibit in Shanghai is shamed by exhibits from other nations highlighting American virtues that the U.S. pavilion should have shown:
Where are the examples of American democracy and freedom, of American know-how and imagination, and of American heroes?
Artist's rendering of U.S. pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 - corporate sponsorship failed to replace government support prohibited by "money-saving" 1990s law
For those things, visitors have to search elsewhere at the Expo: for the statue of Rachel Carson, outside the Broad Air Conditioning pavilion; for a tribute to Frank Gehry, at an exhibit sponsored by the city of Bilbao, Spain (Gehry would have designed a great U.S. pavilion!); and for videos of an American girl, describing what makes cities livable, look to the Russian pavilion. (Incredibly, the Russians shot the video in front of the U.S. Capitol, smartly appropriating an American symbol of freedom.) Carson, Gehry and the girl are Americans worth celebrating.
What will the millions of Chinese who visit the Expo think of the United States? The most sophisticated of them, especially the 45,000 a day who get inside the U.S. pavilion, will see a country determined to promote its corporations rather than its people or its political system. The rest — and this is even scarier — may visit the Expo, a microcosm of the world in 2010, and not think about the U.S. at all.
What in the hell were we thinking?
Bernstein explained what happened:
Seeing a statue of Rachel Carson, the crusading American environmentalist, at the World Expo in Shanghai moved me almost to tears. After all, Carson is a symbol of independent thought and action, both vital U.S. exports.
Too bad the statue wasn’t at the U.S. pavilion. But that building, sponsored in part by Carson’s nemesis, Dow Chemical, was never going to be a celebration of the power of individuals. Indeed, the pavilion, with its bland tribute to “community,” says little about what makes America, and Americans, special.
Check out Bernstein’s piece, “A World Expo flop by the U.S.,” with the subhead: “Our pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is a huge disappointment, failing to showcase the best of the United States.”
More:
2 Comments | China, foreign affairs, Rachel Carson, Travel | Tagged: American Exceptionalism, China, foreign affairs, Rachel Carson, Shanghai Expo 2010, Travel, U.S. Pavilion | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Israel's Prime Minister Menachim Begin and Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski square off, at Camp David, Maryland - 1978 (September?)
Zbigniew Brzezinski likes chess. One of his books on diplomacy compares good diplomacy to a chess game – 1997, The Grand Chessboard. In 1978, a nearly two-week negotiating session with President Jimmy Carter acting as intermediary between Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachim Begin led to the peace treaties between Egypt and Israel, known as the Camp David Accords.
This photograph probably was taken sometime during that period in September 1978.
Your move:
1 Comment | Chess, foreign affairs, History | Tagged: Camp David Accord, Chess, foreign affairs, History, Menachim Begin, Zbigniew Brzezinski | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It would be good news were it not so bad: India, usually considered a threat to U.S. dominance in science, has turned its back on climate science and instead, citing junk science claims, rejected overtures to reduce pollution that affects climate. India appears to have fallen victim to the hoaxters who claim climate change is no big deal.
From the Financial Times:
A split between rich and poor nations in the run-up to climate-change talks widened on Thursday.
India rejected key scientific findings on global warming, while the European Union called for more action by developing states on greenhouse gas emissions.
Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, accused the developed world of needlessly raising alarm over melting Himalayan glaciers.
He dismissed scientists’ predictions that Himalayan glaciers might disappear within 40 years as a result of global warming.
“We have to get out of the preconceived notion, which is based on western media, and invest our scientific research and other capacities to study Himalayan atmosphere,” he said.
As if the atmosphere of the Himalayan range is unaffected by emissions from Europe or Asia. As if the glaciers in the Himalayas, and the snowfall, and the water to India’s great rivers, come independent from the rest of the world.
Deadly air pollution obscures the India Gate, New Delhi, India, November 2008 - NowPublic.com
It’s interesting to see these issues play out politically. India and China both understand that the U.S. and Europe have much more to lose from climate change than either of those nations. Climate damage to the U.S. wheat belt, for example, would chiefly close off U.S. production of wheat for export, opening markets for others — like India and China. Critically, such damage also hurts U.S. ability to offset balance of payments issues, providing economic and finance advantages to China’s banks. U.S. ports are much more vulnerable to climate change damage, from increase storms and changing ocean levels, than are ports in India and China — and there are more ports that are vulnerable in the U.S. and Europe.
India’s inaction and recalcitrance should not be used as justification for the U.S. to do nothing, thereby slitting its own patriotic throat.
But watch: Climate denialist blogs, “hate-America-first” outlets like World Net Daily, and Osama bin Laden will hail India’s inaction.
Let’s hope cooler heads prevail, lest we run out of cooler heads.
Shake of the old scrub brush to Brown Hell and Watt’s Up With That.
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7 Comments | China, Climate change, Cost of Green, Economics, Energy, Environmental protection, foreign affairs, Global warming, Globalization, Green Politics, Hoaxes, India, Junk science, Natural resources, Politics, pollution, Rampant stupidity, Reason, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science, Water | Tagged: Climate change, Cost of Green, denialism, Fighting Back, foreign affairs, Global warming, Junk science, National Security, Science, Sovereignty, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Alistair Cooke's typewriter, displayed at BBC headquarters, Bush House, in London - Photo by Jeff Zycinski
Alas, our students now are too young to remember Alistair Cooke’s hosting of “Masterpiece Theater” on PBS, and of course, back then the BBC America service — if it existed — was available only to shortwave fanatics or people who traveled a lot to the British Isles.
Perhaps more than anyone else other than Winston Churchill, and maybe the Beatles, Alistair Cooke tied England and America together tightly in the 20th century. BBC’s other writers are good to brilliant, but even their obituary for Cooke (March 30, 2004) doesn’t quite do him justice:
For more than half a century, Alistair Cooke’s weekly broadcasts of Letter from America for BBC radio monitored the pulse of life in the United States and relayed its strengths and weaknesses to 50 countries.
His retirement from the show earlier this month after 58 years, due to ill health, brought a flood of tributes for his huge contributing to broadcasting.
Perhaps for Cooke, from Cooke’s broadcasts, we could develop a new variation of the Advanced Placement document-based question: Broadcast-based questions. Heaven knows his Letter From America provided profound material on American history:
BBC's famous broadcaster Alistair Cooke, painted by June Mendoza (copyright Mendoza - http://www.junemendoza.co.uk)
3 Comments | Advanced Placement, DBQ sources, foreign affairs, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, History, History audio sources, Politics, Technology, Travel, Typewriters | Tagged: Alistair Cooke, BBC, DBQ sources, foreign affairs, freedom, History, Masterpiece Theater, Politics, Radio, Technology, Television, Travel, typewriter | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Hoisting the flag at Guantanamo, Cuba, June 12, 1898. Edward H. Hart, photographer. Image from the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress
Oh, it’s important in retrospect, no?
On June 10, 1898, U.S. Marines landed at Guantánamo Bay. For the next month, American troops fought a land war in Cuba that resulted in the end of Spanish colonial rule in the Western Hemisphere. Cuban rebels had gained the sympathy of the American public while the explosion and sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, widely blamed on the Spanish despite the absence of conclusive evidence, further boosted American nationalistic fervor.
On June 12, the area was secured and the flag posted.
1 Comment | 1898, Flag ceremony, foreign affairs, History, History images, Spanish American War, War | Tagged: 1898, Cuba, foreign affairs, Guantanamo Bay, History images, Spanish American War, U.S. Flag | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Is it time? Is there any chance we could bring the Pueblo home?
Regular readers here probably know of my admiration for the resistance put up against North Korea (NPRK) by the captive crew of the U.S.S. Pueblo during their 11 months’ imprisonment in 1968.
In a recent comment to a post I did back in 2006, a reader named Bob Liskey offered an interesting, and rational way by which NPRK could demonstrate lasting good faith in negotiations with the U.S., especially over the state of their energy generation and nuclear weapons production:
We made every effort to avoid the catastrophe of a second Korean War and the use of nuclear weapons such a war. Much better and saner than a RAMBO approach.
At this point in time, I would like to see the OBAMA administration suggest to NK that if they really want to improve and normalize relations with the USA then they ought to return the USS PUEBLO as a clear intent to improve and normalize relations. I would like to see the USS PUEBLO returned to the USA and docked at SAN DIEGO as a memorial to the crew and DUAYNE HODGES and those who undertake secret and dangerous missions on behalf of the USA.
Mr. Liskey offered several other chunks of history of the incidents in 1968 you may want to read, including just how close we were to the brink of using nuclear weapons to retaliate against NPRK, an issue that is not much discussed elsewhere, I think. Interesting reading.
What’s Bill Richardson doing this week? Since he’s not on track to be Secretary of Commerce, maybe we could borrow him to establish a pillar of world peace in North Korea, instead?
Mr. President? Sec. Clinton? Do you ever drop down into the Bathtub? What about Bob Liskey’s suggestion?
3 Comments | 1968, Heroes, History, Korea, Nuclear Nonproliferation, Nuclear power, Nuclear weapons, Peace, President Obama, USS Pueblo, Vietnam, War | Tagged: 1968, foreign affairs, North Korea, Nuclear Nonproliferation, Peace, President Obama, USS Pueblo, Vietnam, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Can this be accurate?
Gareth Porter argues in Asia Times that the Bush administration never had any plans to get Osama bin Laden — they were too busy planning an attack on Iraq to have time to get the man who led the attacks against us. So Osama bin Laden went free, free to attack the U.S. again and again.
New evidence from former United States officials reveals that Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were able to skip Afghanistan for Pakistan unimpeded in the first weeks after September 11, 2001, as the George W Bush administration failed to plan to block their retreat.
Top administration officials instead gave priority to planning for war with Iraq, leaving the United States with not nearly enough troops or strategic airlift capacity to close the large number of possible exit routes through the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area where Bin Laden escaped in late 2001.
Because it had not been directed to plan for that contingency, the US military was also forced to turn down an offer from then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in late November 2001 to send 60,000 troops to intercept the al-Qaeda leaders.
Nuts. Who could ever have guessed that incompetence in the White House could so cripple our military, and ultimately, so cripple our nation?
Can we move inauguration day up to December 1? Please?
10 Comments | Afghanistan, History, Iraq, Politics, Terrorism | Tagged: Afghanistan, foreign affairs, History, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, Politics, Terrorism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, joined a panel on CBS’s “Face the Nation” this morning, discussing the qualifications to be vice president of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
She said, “Four of the last presidents have been governors, and they have come in, every one of them, without an in-depth foreign policy experience.” Hutchison suggested that Palin reads the newspapers and knows as much as the average governor about foreign policy, but doesn’t need significant knowledge in foreign affairs.
Hutchison challenged: “Name one governor who has become president who has had in-depth foreign policy experience.”
It pains me when public officials demonstrate such a vast lack of knowledge about American history. Because you’re from Texas, Sen. Hutchison, let me give you the facts, so you can avoid gaffes in the future.
1. Thomas Jefferson, former governor of Virginia, assumed the presidency after having served as the American Ambassador to France, after extensive travels through Europe specifically to study government and foreign affairs, and after having served as both Secretary of State to George Washington, and vice president to John Adams. If we ignore Jefferson’s service after his governorship, we would note that he read fluently in both Greek and Latin before he was 20, and had read extensively of the histories of Rome, Greece, France, Britain and the rest of Europe. By the time he assumed the presidency he had added fluent French, passing Italian, and Hebrew to his catalog of languages.
Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican (the first of that party), the party that is today known as the Democratic Party. Perhaps Sen. Hutchison is party blind.
2. Theodore Roosevelt — you remember him, the guy with the glasses on Mt. Rushmore? — came to the vice presidency in 1901 from being governor of New York. Prior to that he had been Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy, a post from which he wrote the book on naval power in the new age, for foreign affairs. When the Spanish American War broke out, Roosevelt thought his desk job as head of the Navy too tame, so he created an elite corps of cavalrymen, recruiting almost equally from his old cowboy friends in the Dakotas and his Harvard friends, and insisted on service in the front lines. His 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the “Rough Riders” were deployed to Cuba. Coming under fire, they stormed San Juan Hill and pushed better-trained, veteran Spanish troops off, thereby winning the battle (Roosevelt was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for this action, though many years after his death). Among the more interesting facts: Their horses had not made it to Cuba; Roosevelt led the charge on foot. He always was impatient.
Roosevelt’s experience came in handy. He was the guy who pushed the Japanese and Russians to a peace treaty, ending the Russo-Japanese War, in 1906. Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Prize in Peace for this work (he’s the only person ever to have won the Congressional Medal of Honor and been president, and the only Congressional Medal of Honor winner to win a Nobel Prize, and vice versa. If we’re making a case that one doesn’t need foreign affairs experience to be vice president, for fairness, we should consider that vice president’s with foreign affairs experience provide great advantages to the nation, and have advanced the cause of peace, and readiness.
New York City, the major city in New York, was in 1900 one of the world’s greatest cities, a major trading center, and one of America’s largest ports (Roosevelt had been police commissioner there, earlier). The population of the city alone was 3,437,202. The population of the entire state was 7,268,894. Alaska’s population today is about 670,000
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived at the White House after four years as governor of New York. Like his cousin before him, Roosevelt had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, during a period of frequent intervention in Central America and Caribbean nations. It is reputed that FDR wrote the constitution imposed on Haiti in 1915. In his Navy post, Roosevelt visited England and France, and made the acquaintance of Winston Churchill. Roosevelt played a key role in the establishment of the Navy Reserve, and fought to keep the Navy from decommissioning after the end of World War I. FDR came from a privileged family. They made frequent trips to Europe, and by the time he was 18 FDR was conversant in both French and German. A philatelist, his knowledge of the world’s business and trade was rather legendary.
4. Jimmy Carter graduated high in his class at the U.S. Naval Academy, where the required curriculum includes extensive instruction in foreign affairs. He was chosen by Adm. Hyman Rickover for the elite nuclear submarine corps. As Georgia’s governor, Carter was elected to the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-governmental group whose intention is to create knowledge about foreign relations in the U.S. in order to aid in defense and trade, and the Trilateral Commission, a group founded on the idea that trade between the U.S., Japan and Europe can be a basis for improving international relations and trade.
5. Bill Clinton graduated from Georgetown University with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS), from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Phi Beta Kappa, he won a Rhodes Scholarship, designed to pick from the next generation of great leaders, and got a degree in government in his studies at University College, Oxford. He also traveled Europe during that time.
Hutchison’s point may apply to two Republican governors who won the White House, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. They brought other gifts, but their lack of foreign policy experience nearly led to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in Reagan’s first term, and Bush’s lack of foreign policy knowledge probably led to the unfortunate invasion of Iraq, which has led our nation too close to the brink of national calamity.
And for good measure, let’s list this guy at #6: Bill Richardson, the current governor of New Mexico, has a sound reputation in international relations, as a former Secretary of Energy, and former U.S. Ambassodor to the United Nations. Among other things, Richardson talked the North Koreans into shutting down their nuclear bomb plans and operations in 1994. When the Bush administration squirreled that deal, it was Bill Richardson again who stepped in (at the request of the North Koreans — they trust him), and got them to agree to back off the most recent bomb plans and development. “Richardson has been recognized for negotiating the release of hostages, American servicemen, and political prisoners in North Korea, Iraq, and Cuba.” In 14 years as a congressman representing New Mexico, Richardson “visited Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, India, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Sudan to represent U.S. interests.” He previously staffed the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate, and worked for Henry Kissinger’s State Department in the Nixon Administration.
Contrary to Hutchison’s claim, of the four “recent” governors to gain the White House, two (both Democrats) had foreign relations education or experience far beyond that of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and at least three other governors brought extensive foreign relations experience with them; one other has foreign relations experience a Secretary of State might envy.
Those are the facts.
Sen. Hutchison: Can you earmark about $200,000 for education in foreign affairs for Dallas high schools? Perhaps you can see, now, that experience and education in foreign affairs is useful for high office. My students will be seeking those offices sooner than we may expect.
I wouldn’t want them wandering the world thinking lack of knowledge about foreign affairs is a good thing.
Update: Calvin Coolidge was governor of Massachusetts before being elected to the vice presidency on a ticket with Warren G. Harding. Coolidge’s foreign relations experience could be said to be lacking. However, Coolidge’s experience as a mayor and governor differed greatly from Palin’s:
[From Wikipedia’s entry on Coolidge] Instead of vying for another term in the state house, Coolidge returned home to his growing family and ran for mayor of Northampton when the incumbent Democrat retired. He was well-liked in the town, and defeated his challenger by a vote of 1,597 to 1,409.[29] During his first term (1910 to 1911), he increased teachers’ salaries and retired some of the city’s debt while still managing to effect a slight tax decrease.[30] He was renominated in 1911, and defeated the same opponent by a slightly larger margin.[31]
And, later:
Coolidge was unopposed for the Republican nomination for Governor of Massachusetts in 1918. He and his running mate, Channing Cox, a Boston lawyer and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, ran on the previous administration’s record: fiscal conservatism, a vague opposition to Prohibition, support for women’s suffrage, and support for American involvement in the First World War.[49] The issue of the war proved divisive, especially among Irish– and German-Americans.[50] Coolidge was elected by a margin of 16,773 votes over his opponent, Richard H. Long, in the smallest margin of victory of any of his state-wide campaigns.[51]
* * * * * *
By the time Coolidge was inaugurated on January 1, 1919 the First World War had ended, and Coolidge pushed the legislature to give a $100 bonus to Massachusetts veterans. He also signed a bill reducing the work week for women and children from fifty-four hours to forty-eight, saying “we must humanize the industry, or the system will break down.”[65] He signed into law a budget that kept the tax rates the same, while trimming four million dollars from expenditures, thus allowing the state to retire some of its debt.[66]
Update: Lisa has a series of interesting posts on presidents and their executive experience, at As If You Care.
“I-have-gall” (not “I got Gaul”) update: Some clown actually compared Palin to Roosevelt in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, according to Snopes.com. Snopes’s response was much kinder, and less flattering to Roosevelt, than I would have been. WSJ left off the San Juan Hill episode, the Medal of Honor, and the Nobel Peace Prize (though he won that for his actions as president).
5 Comments | Accuracy, Education, FDR, foreign affairs, History, McCain 2008, Obama 2008, Politics, Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt | Tagged: Biden, Campaign, Elections, Experience, foreign affairs, History, McCain, Obama, Palin, Presidency, Sarah Palin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Whatever happened to the U.S. Institute of Peace?
I asked that question as I read a post over at Jon Taplin’s Blog, “The Cost of Empire Conversion.”
Here’s the website for USIP. Here’s a video introduction:
Remember the old gospel tune, “Ain’t gonna study war no more?” Time to sing it louder, and implement the idea.
Leave a Comment » | Education, History, Patriotism, Peace, Politics, War | Tagged: Education, foreign affairs, History, Peace, Politics, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
President Lyndon B. Johnson looks on as U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk prepares to join foreign ministers from more than 50 other nations in signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, July 1, 1968. Photo from the LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, Texas, via the Nuclear Archive.
Another missed anniversary — but a found archive of original documents on a key issue of our time which has flared up into worldwide controversy in the past year: On July 1, 1968, nations that had nuclear weapons and nations capable of making such weapons — more than 50 nations total — joined in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) designed to discourage anyone else from getting “the bomb.” In the past 40 years, few other arms treaties, or any treaties, have worked so well, reducing by two-thirds the potential growth of “the Nuclear Club.”
The National Security Archives at George Washington University (one of my alma maters) assembled a solid history as a press release, featuring links to 34 documents important to the NNPT. For AP world history and U.S. history, and pre-AP courses, and maybe for AP government, these documents form an almost ready-made Documents-Based Question (DBQ).
The Scout Report explains it well:
13. The Nuclear Vault: 40th Anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb253/index.htmSigned into law on July 1, 1968, the historic Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was a major step towards creating a world that had the potential to be a bit safer from the threat of nuclear annihilation. This particular collection of documents related to the NPT was brought together through the diligence of staff members at the Archive’s Nuclear Documentation Project and released to the public in July 2008. The site starts off with a narrative essay which describes the backdrop to the signing of the NPT in 1968, along with offering a bit of additional context about the international political climate at the time. The site’s real gems are the 34 documents which include State Department cables, internal planning documents, and other items that reveal the nature of the political machinations involved with this process. [KMG]
Nuclear Archive does a good job itself — eminently readable, suitable for high school and maybe junior high:
Near the end of the protracted negotiations that produced the historic Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) 40 years ago, U.S. government officials warned that countries could legally reach “nuclear pregnancy” under the Treaty and then withdraw and quickly acquire nukes, according to declassified U.S. government documents published on the Web today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org).
The documents detail the well-known resistance to the NPT from countries like India (“China at her back, and Pakistan lurking on the sidelines”) but also from more unusual objectors such as Australia (concerned that the Western Pacific security situation might worsen) and Italy (unhappy about the “second-class status” of non-nuclear states). The documents suggest that the current crisis in the NPT system has deep historical roots, but also that current headlines overlook the long-term achievements of the NPT regime.
During the mid-1960s, prior to the NPT, U.S. intelligence had warned that as many as 15 countries had incentives to become nuclear weapons states but after the Treaty was signed, only five additional countries have developed such weapons (Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and North Korea, while South Africa has renounced them). How much of an impact the Treaty had on keeping the numbers low can be debated, but the non-nuclear standard that it set remains a central goal of the world community to this date.
This is a fantastic source for student projects, for reports, for teachers putting together presentations, for students to read on the Cold War, on 1968, on nuclear weapons, on the Johnson administration, on foreign affairs and how treaties work and are negotiated.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. Bumsted at Grassroots Research for pointing me to this site.
Leave a Comment » | 1968, Atomic Bomb, Cold War, Communism, DBQ sources, Education, foreign affairs, Historic documents, History, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nuclear power, Nuclear weapons, Peace, Politics, Science, World history | Tagged: 1968, Atomic Bomb, Cold War, foreign affairs, History, Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Peace, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
On January 28, 1968, Commander Lloyd Bucher and the crew of the U.S.S. Pueblo were confronted by several armed swift boats from North Korea, and after an exchange of gunfire that resulted in the death of one of the Pueblo crew, the North Koreans took the boat and crew captive.
1968 was a dramatic and mostly bad year for the U.S. The 11-month saga of the crew in captivity often gets lost from accounts of the year.
Among other reasons I track these events, the crewman pulled a series of hoaxes on their North Korean captors that, I believe, helped lead to their release.
4 Comments | 1968, Cold War, Heroes, History, Hoaxes, Korea | Tagged: 1968, foreign affairs, History, Korea, USS Pueblo | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 