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If you've devoted your professional career to teaching World History or Western Civ, you might rather slit your wrist now than watch this clip from ABC's The View:
If you can absorb that one, Crooked Timber cites another mind-bender – this one from Rob at Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk:
I have now received three (3) student papers that discuss Iraq's attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11. All three papers mention it as an aside to another point. I've had two papers on the virtue of forgiveness that argue that if we had just forgiven Iraq for the 9/11 attacks, we wouldn't be at war right now. I just read a paper on the problem of evil which asked why God allowed"the Iraq's" to attack us on 9/11.
The thing that upsets me most here is that the students don't just believe that that Iraq was behind 9/11. This is a big fact in their minds, that leaps out at them, whenever they think about the state of the world.
Leaves me speechless. Thanks to Ogged at Unfogged.
I guess we historians will have to read more carefully before we can teach our students to do so. Sort of pulling the plank out of our own eye before going after the splinter in our neighbor's?
The biggest problem seems to be the surfeit of reading materials, which encourages skimming and careless reading. But I can see no solution.
Ralph E. Luker -
12/20/2007
No, of course you aren't wrong. There was some misreading going on here of what you said and the misreading tracks back to the idiotic comments by Escalona.
John Edward Philips -
12/20/2007
I didn't speculate (at least not here) on Cheney's motive(s) in carefully parsing his sentences, so please don't attribute causation (or lack thereof) to me when I haven't postulated it. What Cheney was doing, in my own interpretation, was carefully trying not to be caught in a deliberate bald lie the way Bush was in 16 words of a State of the Union address.
I would like to have a public who were more careful readers and listeners. I believe that was the original point of Ralph's blog entry: that we historians must do a better job of educating the public about history. Part of that involves teaching them to read and listen more carefully.
Or was I wrong about that, Ralph?
Timothy James Burke -
12/19/2007
Carefully parsed sentences apparently happen by accident, in your view. Cheney just happened to speak in such a way as to give the impression that Hussein was a planner of 9/11--you know, oops, that happens sometimes?
Give me a break. Go insult some other people's intelligence somewhere else. I've had enough of it.
John Edward Philips -
12/17/2007
My comment was a response to Mr. Escalona's remarks, and therefore the "you" in my comment referred to him.
I brought up Bush, as an example. If even Bush doesn't think Saddam had anything to do with 9/11, why should anyone else? As for Cheney, if you parse his remarks carefully, he never actually said that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 either. He "certainly led the public to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11" as you point out, but only because the public are not very careful readers of carefully parsed sentences.
The bottom line is that the Bush administration never really claimed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11, but the public assumed that he must have, otherwise why would we attack? Mr. Escalona apparently still believes that Saddam Hussein did have something to do with 9/11. I'd like to know what kind of medication he's on, and if he's not on any, why not?
Ralph E. Luker -
12/17/2007
Mr. Philips, It isn't at all clear to whom the "you" in "You're not serious!" is supposed to refer. Review the discussion: George Bush's name doesn't occur in it. The Vice President certainly led the public to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 -- but Cheney's name doesn't come up in the discussion either. What do you have in mind?
John Edward Philips -
12/17/2007
Bush never claimed that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. The invasion of Iraq was supposed to be about WMDs. Where everyone got the idea that Iraq had been behind 9/11 is beyond me. That there are still people who believe it, despite not only all evidence, but Bush's repeated assurances (and he would have NO reason to exonerate Saddam) is so far beyond reason that I cannot even believe it myself. You're not serious!
Jonathan Dresner -
12/16/2007
P.S. It wasn't a "jury of peers" but a Judge's best guess about what a jury might reasonably conclude. Given that juries can be extremely unreasonable at times, and are presented with a deliberately limited set of information....
Jonathan Dresner -
12/16/2007
From the USA Today article: Baer relied on testimony from former CIA director James Woolsey and from author Laurie Mylroie in determining that Iraq "provided material support" to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He also cited Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5 in which the secretary of State linked Iraq to Islamist terrorism.
The testimony, Baer wrote, "barely" established a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq but offered enough proof to persuade a "reasonable jury."
Colin Powell has publicly repudiated his presentation, much of which has been publicly disproven. The CIA Director honestly testifying in open court in contradiction to the administration's publicly stated policy aims? Unlikely and uncredible. And Mylroie has been extensively documented as using administration sources, not independent ones, though she represented herself otherwise and the administration itself used her reportage as "independent verification" of their views.
Dear Professor Mkay, Don't come over here calling a position "retarded" when you can't cite evidence to the contrary. In the face of four years on mounting evidence against the position you defend, but claim not to believe, you play the fool.
Paul Escalona -
12/16/2007
"Subsequent history"? What subsequent history? The decision as far as I know was never overturned, and 10 minutes or so of google doesn't find me any evidence that it was. (Yes, I know, 10 minutes of google isn't high quality research or anything, but really, if that doesn't turn up any news of what you're claiming, why would you expect every student in the world to know about it?)
And it wasn't just in USA Today. It was on CNN, CBS, I can find you a link to that decision from virtually every media source in the country. And I'm not finding anything to materially contradict it, other than the opinions of some politicians appointed to some partisan congressional show trials.
Believe it or not, it is -possible- to have more faith in the lawsuit's verdict than in the Duelfer report. It is possible to have a different opinion than you about a matter that can't be proved conclusively one way or the other without being an obvious idiot. Do you get that?
I mean seriously, when you actually try to pin down liberals on why it's impossible for Saddam and Osama to have worked together against their common enemy, you always get the same thing: Saddam was secular (never mind him invoking Allah a hundred times a day in his broadcasts in later years) and Osama was religious so they'd never work together. A more naive, ridiculous and retardedly simplistic world view is hard to imagine, but it's sure not one I'd get cocky about holding.
Qwinn
Ralph E. Luker -
12/16/2007
Dear Professor Mkay, Citing a case finding from 2003, without citing the subsequent history of the case and additional evidence, may satisfy you that the moon is made of green cheese or that there's reason to believe that it is so made, but your refusal to learn beyond what you read in *USA Today* four years ago is not something we'd want to encourage in students. mkay?
Paul Escalona -
12/16/2007
Look, I know it's fashionable for people of a certain political persuasion to act as if there was never, ever, ever not even the slightest most distant and unverifiable piece of evidence ever that Saddam or Iraq might have had anything to do with 9/11...
But a jury of peers in NY found differently. And a lot of people -do- consider, with some reason, that successful lawsuits do amount to evidence of guilt.
Spare me the reams of "evidence" that Saddam had nothing to do with it. I don't particularly think he was directly involved, though I don't treat an absence of evidence as evidence of abscence like a lot of liberals seem to.
...kinda destroys the "it's a hard fact he had nothing to do with it" meme, I'm really sorry to say and disturb the echo chamber some people reading this might be living in. And to still believe it is not on the same level as saying "Jesus was born before Greek civilization", mkay?
Qwinn
James W Loewen -
12/15/2007
I especially enjoyed the report on students who of course know that Iraq attacked the Towers. Never underestimate the power of students to get it wrong! (The one exception: I could always count on my students to recall that WWI preceded WWII.)
Alan Baumler -
12/14/2007
Maybe Rob should suggest that his students be hired as faculty by the History Department at U. Iowa. Solve the problems in each of the last two posts at once.
