United States Troops Research Articles

Persekusi Sebagai Pelanggaran Hak Hidup Menurut Hukum Internasional (Kasus Persekusi oleh Taliban di Afganistan)

Introduction: The withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan caused pros and cons in the world community. Their fears of a return to a Taliban Government that implements hardline Islamic Sharia law have forced Afghans to flee their country en masse. The Taliban are famous for their acts of persecution against the weak or miniroties who are considered to disagree with them.Purposes of the Research: The purpose of writing this journal is to find out international legal arrangements regarding persecution which is a violation of the right to life and also to know that the persecution by the Taliban violates human rights. The method used in the research is a normative research method. Methods of the Research: The type of research used is the type of normative legal research, and uses a statutory approach, case approach and conceptual approach. The legal materials used primary and secondary legal materials which are classified and arranged systematically and then reviewed to answer the problems under study.Results of the Research: The result of this research is that persecution is an act of violation of the right to life as regulated in the third article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and is one of the international crimes against humanity regulated in the Rome Statute in 1998. Rough and brutal acts carried out by the Taliban are acts of persecution that violate of human rights. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the third article and the eleventh article, the first paragraph emphasizes that everyone has the right to life and cannot be killed arbitrarily and cannot be punished before a court decision is made on charges of wrongdoing.

Analysis of China's investment in Afghanistan

Throughout history, Sino-Afghan relations have been considered friendly. Afghanistan illustrates many security problems for China. First, Afghanistan, which was plunged into a series of wars and conflicts, suffered from protracted wars and instability, and was left with an underdeveloped economy and a poor population. These situations not only deprived Afghanistan of peace and stability but also had a negative impact on border regions and countries. Although, as neighboring countries, China and Afghanistan are connected by a very short length, the insecurity in Afghanistan remains a constant problem for the Chinese government since Afghanistan has become one of the largest sources of drug trafficking to China. Secondly, the country’s internal security and stability are particularly vulnerable to the spread of terrorism and extremism from Afghanistan. Thirdly, instability affects the activity and security of Chinese investment projects. In view of the constant threat of terrorism, China will take decisive steps to strengthen security measures and intensify economic ties. In resolving the Afghan problem, China will act at the international and regional levels so that the Afghan issue meets the geopolitical and economic interests. This article analyzes China’s investment activities in Afghanistan and provides an overview of the relations between the two countries in historical retrospect with an emphasis on China’s national interests and policy in Afghanistan. The authors consider the statements of the parties after the withdrawal of the United States troops, analyze the channels of humanitarian ties, and give cases on the largest investment projects of China in Afghanistan. The article identifies the main motives and goals of Beijing’s investment policy in Afghanistan, with an emphasis on changing the agenda of relations between the two countries after the recognition of the Taliban by Beijing.

The epidemiology and outcomes of combat ocular trauma among local nationals managed at a deployed military hospital in Afghanistan.

There is limited published data on combat ocular trauma (COT) among local nationals managed at deployed United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) military hospitals in recent conflicts. We report the epidemiology and outcomes of COT from a deployed military hospital in Afghanistan. In this retrospective case series, consecutive injuries requiring ophthalmic surgery at a military hospital in Afghanistan where the sole US and UK ophthalmologist(s) were deployed between January 2017 and September 2019 were reviewed. The main outcomes were mean post-operative visual acuity (VA) in open and closed globe injury and the incidence of retinal detachment after open globe repair. There were 102 eyes of 84 patients who had ocular injuries and underwent ophthalmic surgery at the military hospital. Most patients were male (81 [96%]) and were local nationals (71 [85%]). Blast exposure (82 [80%]) was the most common mechanism of injury. Mean post-operative VA was 1.24 ± 2.29 logMAR (20/348 Snellen equivalent) in open globe injury and 1.59 ± 1.17 logMAR (20/778 Snellen equivalent) in closed globe injury. After open globe repair, retinal detachment developed in 8 of 18 (44%) eyes. COT injuries often resulted in poor post-operative VA and retinal detachment after open globe repair was common. The high incidence and severity of COT sustained by local civilians and combatants in this study may support programs to increase the availability and wear of combat eye protection among local nationals partnered with US and coalition troops.

The Relation between the United States and the Countries of the Korean Peninsula in the 1970s: A Survey of the Chinese Academic Literature

In recent years, the relations between the United States (US) and the countries of the Korean Peninsula began to play a more important role for China. With the improvement of the level of Chinese scholarship, as well as the rapid declassification of the archival material on pre-1980 Cold War history, there emerged a lot of academic publications in China on the 1970s history of US relations with the two Koreas. Although Chinese scholars took different perspectives on this subject, the mainstream view maintains that with the ease of the Cold War tensions in the Northeast Asia, the relations between the United States and the countries on the Peninsula changed in the varying degrees in the 1970s: on the one hand, although the United States and South Korea still maintained their alliance, their relationship was characterized by friction and contradictions, as the issue of the withdrawal of the US troops and the human rights debates had vividly demonstrated; on the other hand, US-North Korean relations were marked by the rapid process of bilateral relaxation. In general, Chinese academic literature on US-South Korean relations is much more profound compared to the scholarly work on American relations with North Korea. And while in recent years remarkable progress has been made by Chinese scholars, there is still plenty of room for improvement, especially in terms of broadening interdisciplinary studies and theory, utilizing multi-archival material, conducting in-depth research of the political systems, the decision-making processes in the relevant countries, as well as the politics within the lower levels of government, etc.

EL MODELO DE GUERRA AFGANO Y LA ESTABILIDAD REGIONAL: LA ESTRATEGIA DE INTERVENCIÓN MILITAR ESTADOUNIDENSE EN SIRIA E IRAK

Las guerras no convencionales que tienen lugar en Siria e Irak se caracterizan por la participación de una compleja red de actores estatales y no estatales que aplican técnicas asimétricas de lucha en una región profundamente dividida en líneas religiosas y étnicas. Ante este escenario, la administración Obama intervino militarmente en la zona aplicando el modelo de guerra afgano; una estrategia que reemplaza a las tropas convencionales estadounidenses en el terreno por aliados locales que son respaldados por el poder aéreo norteamericano y por las Fuerzas de Operaciones Especiales. A pesar de que existe un consenso en torno a que cada método de guerra posee tanto fortalezas como debilidades, aún prevalece como una cuestión debatible las implicaciones que este modelo puede generar sobre la estabilidad regional.El presente artículo establece las implicaciones que el modelo de guerra afgano implementado por la administración estadounidense en Siria e Irak puede generar sobre la estabilidad regional. Para ello, se caracteriza la situación de conflicto en cada uno de estos países y se analiza la manera en que el modelo ha sido empleado en cada uno de ellos. Se encuentra que a pesar de que a través del modelo de guerra afgano se ha pretendido mantener a las tropas estadounidenses alejadas del teatro de operaciones en Siria e Irak, su puesta en marcha podría traducirse en un progresivo involucramiento militar estadounidense en la zona, en el empoderamiento de otros actores locales cuyas agendas e intereses no necesariamente se ajustan a los de Estados Unidos y, en definitiva, en un detrimento para el ya delicado equilibrio regional.

“Lords of New Mexico”: Raiding Culture in Pre-Reservation Navajo Society

“Lords of New Mexico”: Raiding Culture in Pre-Reservation Navajo Society Reilly Ben Hatch (bio) It was a strange new land that Lieutenant William Emory beheld on the morning of September 30, 1846. Rough lava rock spread out across the plain, covering layers of sandstone with six feet of black, vesicular basalt, all surrounded by high mesas in the immediate horizon, and mountain ranges even farther beyond. The cavities in the igneous flow were large; Emory even remarked that hawks used the naturally formed holes for their nests. Emory took careful notes of birds that made this malpaís their home, and he recorded the species of vegetation growing nearby. As part of the Army of the West, Emory and his team of topographical engineers were tasked with bringing back information in regard to the natural landscape of New Mexico and California, along with its flora and fauna, in anticipation of it becoming American territory upon termination of the war currently being waged against Mexico. Emory carried out these orders with the precision that might be expected of an engineer or a soldier, and he happened to be both. But on this particular day, he was apprehensive. In the early morning, Emory had wandered by himself away from camp to take notes of the area just described, not wanting to make his entire unit go out of the way of the trail they were already on. But he did so cautiously, for this was Navajo country.1 Emory’s experience with this “wild tribe” was limited. His only personal encounter with a group of Navajo, as far as his record shows, had been a month earlier, a few days after General Kearny and his army had marched into Santa Fe and captured the New Mexican capital without a firing a shot. A small band of Navajo had ridden into the capital, and Emory felt uneasy in the presence of these “naked, thin, savage looking fellows,” who were apparently fierce-looking enough to set them apart [End Page 311] from the Pueblo, Ute, and Apache Indians that had already promised good conduct to General Kearny in Santa Fe.2 They were aloof, austere, and guarded, seemingly living up to their reputation as untrustworthy warriors and raiders that had been given them by the Pueblo and Mexicans. Emory seemed to have bought into these descriptions, and he even went so far as to record that these Navajo eyed a little New Mexican child who played in a nearby court, as if they wanted to eat him.3 While Emory’s assumptions of Navajo cannibalism were absolutely unfounded, his perception of the Navajo as fierce warriors was not. For decades, the Navajo had preyed upon the inhabitants of New Mexico, stealing their livestock and sometimes their women and children, in an effort to exercise power over the territory. And now, a month later and on his way to California, Lieutenant Emory was looking at Dinétah, the Navajo homeland; even though his mission was to write about plants and rocks and critters, Emory could not help but wonder if this expanse of desolate badlands was a hiding spot of the Navajo, who “carry off the fruit, sheep, women, and children of the Mexicans.” And as far as Emory knew, they would continue in their dominant role, living in “caverns...in high and inaccessible mountains,” where United States troops would “find great difficulty in overtaking and subduing them.” To Emory, the Navajo had been, were presently, and would continue to be “the lords of New Mexico.”4 Though Emory was one of the first Americans to travel near the Navajo homeland, he was not the first foreigner to pass through or to acknowledge Navajo authority in the area. For hundreds of years, Spanish, Mexican, and other Indian tribes had been subjected to Navajo power, a dominance maintained by the establishment of a raiding culture in Navajo society. The Navajo (or Diné, as they call themselves, meaning “the People”) were not unique in this by any means—the various tribes of Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, Arapahos, and Utes had all developed an inclination for raiding whites, mestizos, and their native neighbors—but they were the biggest...

Iran’s Policy towards Afghanistan

The fall of the Taliban in 2001 presented Iran with a complex strategic situation. On the one hand, the removal of the Taliban promised to open up new opportunities for Iran to expand its influence, based on historical and cultural ties between Iran and Afghanistan. On the other hand, the 2001 operation brought the United States (US) to the region. The large scale entrenchment of US troops on the eastern borders of Iran presented tangible security risks, dominating Iran’s strategic outlook. The closure of the US base in Uzbekistan and the planned withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan have offered an opportunity to policy makers in Iran to recalibrate bilateral relations with Afghanistan. But the Iranian leadership appears too slow in readjusting its strategic outlook, keeping Iran’s policy towards Afghanistan hostage to its hostility towards the US.

The American National State and the Early West by William H. Bergmann (review)

American National State and Early West. By William H. Bergmann. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. 288. Cloth, $90.00.)William H. Bergmann seeks to correct an allegedly pervasive misunderstanding, both popular and scholarly, of American westward expansion: Most people, scholars included, rarely view federal government as an important player in development of trans-Appalachian West. Rather they envision a country largely devoid of a powerful national with spontaneous, opportunistic, egalitarian, and racist forces shaping early nation (1-2). Bergmann promises to bring the national state back into story, by emphasizing federal role in stimulating commercial capitalism and national integration (2). book's title and introduction promise attention to entire transAppalachian West, but Bergmann focuses almost exclusively on Old Northwest Territory, north and west of Ohio, to exclusion of old Southwest. In sum, he dwells on region where federal government waxed strongest to neglect of where it waned.Bergmann tells a familiar story of a federal government struggling to gain control of brutal warfare between natives and settlers in Ohio watershed. After suffering crushing defeats in 1790 and 1791, United States troops defeated a confederacy of native peoples in 1794 and compelled their chiefs to make sweeping territorial concessions in Treaty of Greenville in 1795. After 1800, William Henry Harrison accelerated American expansion through a series of controversial land cession treaties bitterly opposed by Shawnee brothers, Tenkswatawa and Tecumseh, who ultimately suffered defeat. Grateful settlers credited and embraced triumphant federal which also provided economic stimulus through military supply contracts, post offices, and postal roads.Evidence, however, often lags behind Bergmann's most sweeping assertions. The rise of a western market economy must be credited in large part to intervention of federal government, he insists (171). But he does not provide statistical data to demonstrate aggregate impact of federal investment on region's economic growth. He describes federal bureaucracy as concentrated, penetrative, centralized, and specialized, but neglects to specify numbers of federal officials or their annual budgets (7). He does mention, in passing, that postmaster general's office employed just five others in Washington, DC, in 1798, which renders federal government something less than concentrated. Such a government would also seem pretty paltry if compared to its southern neighbor, Spanish Empire, in terms of size and expenditures. Bergmann does often digress to discuss British colony of Upper Canada, but offers only anecdotal evidence drawn from official correspondence rather than a comparative analysis of bureaucratic structures and their budgets. author also should have compared federal government's scale of operations to those of frontier state governments-for example Kentucky, Ohio, and New York-to measure which form of governance made greater and more effective investment in economic development. I would bet on states (prior to 1860). …

Discourses of popular politics, war and authenticity in Turkish pop music

Turkey and the United States (US) have had a close mutually beneficial political and military relationship since the end of World War Two. However, this relationship came under pressure when the US government and Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) tried to cooperate closely in the 2003 military invasion of Iraq. AKP's leadership failed to persuade Turkey's parliament to accept the deployment of US troops and equipment in Turkey partially due to public opinion. Despite Turkish media and its government being intertwined to the extent where subversive discourses are all but silenced, some popular music videos were able to articulate discourses which questioned AKP's military policies. This paper analyses lyrics, visuals and sounds of one of these songs to look at the way war and political issues become articulated through a form of simplified popular politics, despite being presented as serious and authentic by a number of key signifiers across the different modes. A number of scholars have addressed the issue of subversion in music both as actual political challenge and as popular counter culture. This case study is used to assess subversion in music in these terms in order to consider its likely place in political debate in Turkey.

The differential impact of mortality of American troops in the Iraq War: The non-metropolitan dimension

Abstract This study investigates the disproportionate impact of mortality among United States troops in Iraq on rural communities. We advance scholarly research and popular accounts that suggest a non-metropolitan disadvantage by disaggregating the risk of mortality according to the metropolitan status of their home county and by examining potential sources of variation, including enlistment, rank and race or ethnicity. Results show that troops from non-metropolitan areas have higher mortality after accounting for the disproportionate enlistment of non-metropolitan youth, and the non-metropolitan disadvantage generally persists across military branch and rank. Moreover, most of the differential is due to higher risks of mortality for non-metropolitan African American and Hispanic military personnel, compared to metropolitan enlistees of the same race or ethnicity. 1. Introduction Considerable attention has been given to mortality among United States troops in the Iraq War (2003 to present), especially the differential impact made by death among troops. A recent study estimated the risk of death for US troops in Iraq, according to several individual characteristics including military branch, rank, sex, age, and race or ethnicity (Buzzell and Preston 2007) and found that the greatest risk of death was experienced by the Marines, the enlisted, males, the young, and Hispanics. Some of the differences in risk of death correspond with trends in the larger society (e.g., sex) while others are specific to the military (e.g., branch and rank). Other researchers and journalists have focused on the potential differential impacts of deaths in the Iraq conflict for specific sub-populations of American society, including rural populations and lower-income groups (e.g., Mark 2007; O'Hare and Bishop 2006; see also Zeitlin, Lutterman, and Russell 1973 for an explicit focus on class and poverty). In their 2006 report on rural soldiers, O'Hare and Bishop (2006) connect these two sub-populations by linking military involvement to the poor economic opportunities that characterize many rural areas. The current study is concerned with the potential disproportionate impact of mortality in Iraq for the rural population, and extends previous research by empirically estimating the extent of the differential impact, and taking initial steps to investigate the sources of variation. The disproportionate impacts of deaths in Iraq are important to consider for at least two reasons. First, rural communities in the United States have a long and active history of military involvement, yet they have fewer resources to deal with the consequences of war. Research has shown that rural communities lack the necessary support services for families suffering loss (Helseth 2007a). Indeed, service providers in rural areas are not able to directly serve their communities because, in part, they have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan (Helseth 2007b). Second, disproportionate military deaths may also perpetuate the conditions in rural communities that encourage rural youth to serve in the military and put themselves at risk of death. Military deaths among the rural population diminish the available labor force-which makes an impact on a community's ability to attract industry and reduces household earning potential, which puts families at greater risk of living in poverty. Limited labor force opportunity and economic instability are oft-cited reasons for military enlistment (Bachman et al. 2000; Dale and Gilroy 1984; O'Hare and Bishop 2006; Teachman, Call and Segal 1993; for a contrasting view, see Kane 2005, 2006). In the current analysis, we address the question of whether rural communities are more greatly affected by mortality in the Iraq War compared to urban communities, by disaggregating mortality data by the non-metropolitan status of the reported home counties of the deceased, and estimating whether troops from rural communities have a greater risk of death than troops from urban communities. …

The Fatal Errors of Cross-Cultural Communication in United States Troops in Iraq

The Fatal Errors of Cross-Cultural Communication in United States Troops in Iraq

Mortality of American Troops in the Iraq War

We estimate the death rate of United States troops deployed to Iraq from the beginning of the US invasion through 30 September 2006. Eighty percent of the deaths in Iraq were combat‐related. The death rate in Iraq is lower than that of the civilian population of the United States but substantially higher than that of young adults. It is much lower than the death rate of US troops in Vietnam, in part because a much smaller fraction die among those wounded in Iraq. We also estimate relative mortality levels for US troops according to numerous demographic variables through 30 November 2006. The risk of death in Iraq per deployment is shown to be highest for Marines; Naval and Air Force personnel in Iraq have lower death rates than the civilian population of comparable age. Other categories with above‐average mortality in Iraq are enlisted troops, males, younger persons, and Hispanics.

State Marine Corporation and Currence v. United States of America

701State immunity — Attachment and execution — Property for use in military activity — Consignment of goods including food required by United States troops stationed abroad — Whether covered by immunity from execution — The law of Spain

Forgotten war, forgotten massacres—the Korean War (1950–1953) as licensed mass killings

In 1999, the Associated Press (AP) revealed the existence of startling documents about the Korean War showing that United States troops had killed hundreds of civilian refugees in the early stages ...

Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam. By Thomas Alan Schwartz. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. x, 339 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-674-01074-4.)

Thomas Alan Schwartz succeeds admirably in demonstrating his thesis. He argues convincingly that Lyndon B. Johnson's European policies were not fatally undermined by the quagmire of the Vietnam War. Despite the Kennedyites' sneering about “‘Ol' Cornpone’” (p. 3) and despite Johnson's suspicion of people whose backgrounds differed from his, he developed into “an astute and able practitioner of alliance politics” (p. 7). Johnson reached out to the Soviets to reduce the risks of nuclear war. He wanted a treaty to stem the antiballistic missile race, and he sought bridges to Eastern Europe, although both these efforts were stalled by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia as the clock ran down on Johnson's term. The president ran herd on conflicting advisers. His administration blunted French independence, nudged the Germans toward accepting the Oder-Neisse border with Poland and a nonnuclear status, and postponed Great Britain's devaluation of sterling and its retreat from east of the Suez Canal. With the domestic and foreign policies of North Atlantic nations increasingly interpenetrated, lbj wielded the politicking and coalition-building skills that he had mastered in the Senate. His administration pursued the Kennedy round of tariff reductions, pressured Bonn to offset more of the payments burden of United States troops in West Germany, tried to rein in the balance of payments deficit, and contained the gold crisis of March 1968 by loosening the Bretton Woods requirement of redeeming dollars with gold at thirty-five dollars to the ounce.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN US PEACEKEEPING POLICY AND ASSISTANCE TO AFRICA

agenda of the United States (US) in the past, but that is changing. A transformation in America’s strategic concerns is the principal reason for this development. A desire to wean itself from relying too heavily on Middle Eastern oil suppliers and to exploit Africa’s growing petroleum reserves is a major factor. So is the growing recognition that failed and failing states provide safe havens and possible recruiting grounds for international terrorists. US policy toward Africa had begun to shift before the November 2000 US presidential elections, but the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 quickened the pace and deepened the commitment. As a result, the US has supported United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations in Africa with renewed vigour, and has expanded its assistance to augment the ability of African militaries to undertake peace operations. After an unprecedented growth in the number of UN peacekeeping operations in the wake of the Cold War, the US commitment to UN missions waned. It increasingly supported those interventions undertaken by regional organizations and coalitions of the willing. This had a profound effect in Africa. Whereas there were more than 30,000 UN Blue Helmets serving in Africa for much of 1993 and 1994, the numbers had dwindled to fewer than 2,000 at one point in 1999. During this time operations headed by Africans were deployed in no fewer than eight conflict zones throughout the continent. Before 1996, US assistance to African-led peace operations had been largely ad hoc and short-lived. Washington provided financial and material support to Zairian troops participating in the OAU Neutral Force in Chad for six months in 1981–82. Similarly, it assisted Senegalese troops in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Cease-fire Monitoring Group in Liberia in 1991–92, and later aided Tanzanian and Ugandan contingents in the same mission during 1993–94. Despite Washington’s professed “partnership” with Africa, the initial US capacitybuilding programme to develop African peacekeeping capabilities was essentially a product of its policy of disengagement, and fairly limited. The African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) began as the African Crisis Response Force (ACRF), and was rolled out rather clumsily during a dramatic rise in interethnic tensions in Burundi in 1996. The then US president, Bill Clinton, wanted an option that did not include the deployment of US troops should the escalating political conflict in Burundi result in a bloodbath. The coup d’etat in Bujumbura brought the crisis to an end, and ACRF transformed into ACRI. The RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN US PEACEKEEPING POLICY AND ASSISTANCE TO AFRICA

Southeast Asia after 11 september

Southeast Asia has become the ‘second front’ in the global campaign against terrorism. Former concerns on the part of the United States about the human rights failings of regional regimes have been shelved in order to secure cooperation against supporters of Al-Qaeda, and United States troops have been directly committed to the field in the Philippines. Although there is confirmed evidence of international terrorist activity undertaken by small cells in Southeast Asia, this issue has also served to entrench illiberal regimes and trends. While the US may destroy terrorist groups its strategy may also further undermine democracy in the region, thus contributing to the political and social conditions that are conducive to the emergence of terrorism.

Federal Troops and the Elaine Massacres: A Colloquy

THOUGH CLEARLY A CENTRAL EPISODE in Arkansas's racial history and a tragedy of grievous proportions, much remains unknown about Elaine riots of autumn 1919. It is certain that dozens and perhaps hundreds of African Americans died at hands of whites in days following an initial exchange of gunfire between deputies in Phillips County and members of a black sharecroppers' union. The precise sequence of events and number of casualties, however, continue to be debated. So does role of U.S. Army troops sent to Phillips County on second day of violence. Though troops have long been credited with restoring order, Grif Stockley, author of most comprehensive study of episode-Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2001)-believes that soldiers participated in slaughter of innocent black people. balance, he writes, the evidence suggests that military used excessive force and may have killed perhaps hundreds of (p. 66). Another student of events, Jeannie M. Whayne, has suggested that available evidence does not yet permit such a conclusion. In her essay, Low Villains and Wickedness in High Places: Race and Class in Elaine Riots (Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Autumn 1999), she notes that troops disarmed white civilians as well as blacks and wonders whether Phillips County planters may have seen military intervention as a means to stop white violence before it undermined a sharecropping system based on black labor. Stockley and Whayne discussed evidence with respect to federal troops and Elaine massacres at a debate held on February 21, 2002, at University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville. The debate was conducted under auspices of Hartman Hotz lecture series and was moderated by Tom Dillard, curator of Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System. Excerpts from debate follow and are published with permission of University of Arkansas School of Law. Transcription is courtesy of Arkansas Center for Oral and Visual History. Grif Stockley: Before I begin to try to put on some evidence that military was involved, let me just briefly set stage for you. On September 30, 1919, there was a shoot-out at a small church in Hoop Spur, which is three miles north of Elaine. Black sharecroppers were having a meeting to discuss how they could improve their situation. Probably some whites, and I'm summarizing here, came out to disrupt meeting. There was a shoot-out. Nobody knows who fired first shot, but one white man, W. H. Adkins, was killed. After that, blacks fled church. Many whites believed that blacks were fighting back. Calls went up and down delta saying there was a revolt by blacks, and mobs of from six hundred to a thousand whites came in from neighboring counties next day. But also next day, there were some telegrams sent to governor's office in Little Rock asking that United States troops be brought in to put down situation. Governor [Charles Hillman] Brough came over on a train next day with about six hundred U.S. troops. They were armed with twelve machine guns. The troops who came over were veterans of Second Battle of Marne. They were stationed at Camp Pike. Since all of this occurred, things have been debated back and forth. But essentially in my view there was a massive cover-up. Evidence shows that United States troops were involved [in deaths of blacks]. The first piece of evidence is from Walter White, a field secretary for national NAACP who managed to get an interview with Governor Brough. [Although White was African-American], he looked white. He pretended to be a newsman. The next day he came down on a train to Helena and talked with some individuals, particularly whites. He was advised by [black attorney] Scipio Jones not to talk with blacks for fear he might get them in trouble. …

“The Strong Arm of the Military Power of the United States”: The Chicago Fire, the Constitution, and Reconstruction

There must be some limit to the authority of the Army or there will be no security to civil rights, proclaimed a letter to the governor in November 1871. The state legislature agreed, passing a resolution we declare unlawful, and an infraction of the constitution of this State and of the United States, the late occupation. The letter and resolution, surprisingly, did not refer to President Ulysses S. Grant's use of nine companies of United States troops in South Carolina to quell the Ku Klux Klan in October 1871. This outrage against military usurpation actually did not occur in the South at all, but in Illinois. During the great Chicago fire of October 1871, Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan dispatched troops to help, eventually declaring martial law to maintain order in the city. Sheridan, though, did not consult the state authorities and according to Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, the United States could protect a state against domestic violence only on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, of that state. The Republican governor of Illinois, John M. Palmer, petitioned the state legislature to condemn Sheridan, Maj. General William Tecumseh Sherman, and President Grant for establishing rule. Under the constitution, the governor insisted, it is left to the State authorities to determine the necessity for Federal aid, and no officer of the army, under any circumstances, is at liberty without their consent, to interfere in their internal affairs. Palmer declared the Federal government's use of force after the Chicago fire subversive of the principles of free government.

Historical Arguments: Carlos Salinas and Mexican Women Writers

Historical Arguments:Carlos Salinas and Mexican Women Writers Emily Hind (bio) Widespread suspicion concerning the legitimacy of Carlos Salinas' win in the 1988 elections stimulated Salinas and the PRI to recognize opposition victories for the governorships of Baja California and Guanajuato. This relationship of cause and effect does not appear in the Salinas administration's version of official history, produced in 1992 as part of the Libros de texto gratuitos (free textbook) series for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Those history textbooks omit any mention of the 1988 election scandal and focus instead on Salinas' narrow triumph and the fact that three principal candidates split the vote. The textbooks indicate that because Mexican politics have been pluralized since 1988, as manifested by the opposition governors, the Salinas presidency coincides with an improving democracy. Ironically, Vicente Fox's win in the presidential elections of 2000 shows that the history textbooks correctly predicted a political transition for the country. Even so, the books met with public opposition and were destroyed. Apparently, their content—a revised national history that deemphasized the heroes of the Mexican Revolution and the Niños Héroes, the heroic defenders of Chapultepec Castle against invading United States troops, along with other modifications such as an acknowledgement of the violent repression of the 1968 demonstration in [End Page 82] Tlatelolco—failed to satisfy an audience eager for change and yet reluctant to surrender the national myths and omissions that the PRI endorsed. In his analysis of the 1992 textbooks, Dennis Gilbert reports that Salinas and his secretary of education and successor, Ernesto Zedillo, were intimately involved with the revised official history. Both politicians read the texts in manuscript form and selected the cover design. The textbooks' withdrawal revealed factionalism in the PRI and precipitated Secretary Zedillo's resignation. At one point, it seemed that Zedillo's chances of becoming president had been spoiled as a consequence of the textbook failure. However, were it not for this accident of (official) history, Zedillo would not have fulfilled the requisite time spent out of office prior to nomination in March 1994, when he was chosen to replace the assassinated PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. Nonetheless, the risk he and Salinas took with the textbook project and the resulting controversy suggest the weight of official history in the Mexican public arena and the extent to which the Salinas administration was determined to revise the official version of Mexico's past. That determination can be seen in other Mexican cultural arenas of this period as well. Carrie C. Chorba notes that the Niños Héroes became an "unviable icon" during the Salinas administration's negotiations with the United States over the North American Free Trade Agreement, quietly disappearing from paper currency in addition to their decreased importance in the 1992 history textbooks (6). Andrés Oppenheimer also remarks on the Boy Heroes' lessened role in the textbooks, but notes a second motivation for the textbooks' withdrawal: the "suggestion that the armed forces were responsible for the 1968 massacre of students at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Square." Although estimates differ, Oppenheimer cites calculations that the 6.8 million books cost some $4.05 million (121). To calculate the magnitude of the Salinas administration's attempt at historical revision, Gilbert identifies themes that distinguish the controversial 1992 texts from history books created in the 1960s under the administration of Adolfo López Mateos and in the 1970s under Echeverría. In contrast to prior official PRI history, Salinas and Zedillo's texts praise Porfirio Díaz. Critics of the 1992 textbooks objected not only to the newly benevolent portrayal of Porfirio Díaz' thirty-one year dictatorship, but also to the relatively positive evaluations of traditionally maligned historical figures such as Agustín Iturbide and Antonio López de Santa-Anna. The need for new textbooks implied fragility in the PRI's platform, because a revised official history admitted the irrelevance of policies that dictated previous understanding of Mexico' s past. [End Page 83] More generally, the new official history reveals the constructed nature of historical interpretation. Thus, the division between "fictional" and "non-fictional" texts seems potentially negligible, and comparison between textbooks and fictional...