"Filipino Lessons for America's Strategy in Iraq"

William Niskanen, Financial Times

[The writer, an economist and former defence analyst, is chairman of the
Cato Institute, a prominent right-libertarian think-tank.]

America's first experience of a relatively "easy" war followed by an
extended period of guerrilla combat was not in Iraq; it was a century ago
in the Philippines. Max Boot, the neoconservative commentator, described
the defeat of the Filipino insurrection as "one of the most successful
counterinsurgencies waged by a western army in modern times;" a model of
how US forces could prevail in Iraq." The parallels to date however, are
ominous.

Taylor Peck writes:

"SLAM Defeated at New York City's Hunter College"

Taylor Peck

SLAM, an activist group that has dominated Hunter College student government for eight years, was defeated last week in a school wide election by the newly formed party, Hunter United. The party aims to represent the entire student body and refrain from participating in political activism that offends certain ethnic/religious groups at the college.

"Splendid Little War; Long Bloody Occupation:

Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson"

William Loren Katz, April 28, 2004

Weapons of mass distruction, a slam-dunk war followed by a
no-end-in-sight occupation? We've been here before when a century ago
the U.S. first sent an army overseas to accomplish regime change and
liberate a resource-rich land from tyranny.

It began in February, 1898 when an explosion sunk the U.S. battleship
Maine in Havana harbor. Since Cubans lived under a cruel Spanish
colonialism, a pro-war U.S. press felt free to claim that Spain
unleashed a weapon of mass destruction, and to whip up "Remember the
Maine" fever. No weapon was ever found — it was a boiler explosion that
sank the Maine — and though Spain agreed to President McKinley's main
demands, Congress declared war with a promise to free Cuba.

Decision on Possible Attack on Iraqi Town Seems Near

David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, New York Times

Washington, April 24 — Facing one of the grimmest choices of the Iraq war, President Bush and his senior national security and military advisers are expected to decide this weekend whether to order an invasion of Falluja, even if a battle there runs the risk of uprisings in the city and perhaps elsewhere around Iraq.