southerners
have become more solidly Republican than ever in the Deep South.And so respectful are Republican politicians
of white southern fears that not a single Republican presidential candidate
dared suggest that the Confederate flat come down on the state capitol grounds.

Since I first
drafted this post, however, an extraordinary wind of change has blown around
the South.Governor Nikki Haley os South
Carolina is to be commended for taking the lead.It is interesting that when the South
Carolina legislature decided to fly the flag at a Confederate memorial on the
grounds, it specified that only a 2/3 vote of both houses could overturn their
decision.That, too, looks like an
attempt to defend the views of white folks against a growing minority tide.But the South Carolina legislature has
quickly come around, and a vote to remove the flag seems certain.Similar moveson ever
hearing any white southern politician say words like those.Senator Thurmond has used his family’s
prestige to try finally to move his state and his region forward.He is a great American.

Friday, June 19, 2015

Two years ago, a good friend and former colleague of mine, Douglas Porch, published an extraordinary book, Counterinsurgency. Porch is a prolific historian and, frankly, one of the few in my generation whom I regard, at the very least, as a peer. He has written numerous books on French colonial warfare and other military topics, and Counterinsurgency is not only his personal magnum opus, but one of the most important books to have appeared in years. The point of it was to situate the U.S. experience in Iraq, in particular, within the whole history of French,