Free Republic

Russian officials have ordered to inspect and remove books by well-known British historians John Keegan and Antony Beevor from libraries, saying they promote Nazi-era stereotypes. The move is among a raft of measures to streamline historical narrative by limiting alternative viewpoints, as well as ending the perceived foreign influence from fields such as education. The regional education ministry in Sverdlovsk, near the Ural Mountains, issued a decree telling school and university libraries to 'check the availability of books' by the historians and 'take measures to remove them from access by students and teaching staff'.

<p>FOURTEEN months on from the fall of Baghdad allows for some per spective on the invasion. John Kee gan's "The Iraq War" and Evan Wright's "Generation Kill" make interesting bookends for seeing the assault in different lights — from the lofty heights of trenchant political-military analysis down to the raw emotion of force recon Marines in battle.</p>

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth in a five-part series of excerpts from The Iraq War, by John Keegan. Together they comprise chapter six: "The American War." Nasiriyah is an important crossing place over the Euphrates. A combat historian travelling with 1st MEF described it as 'a dingy, neglected collection of one- and two-storey cinder-block and mud houses sandwiched in square city blocks between the river and the Saddam Canal to the north. In essence an island two and a half miles square, Nasiriyah had bridges on its north and south ends: two on Route 7 through the heart of...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a five-part series of excerpts from The Iraq War, by John Keegan. Together they comprise chapter six ("The American War") of the book. History repeats itself, though no two historians agree quite how. Those who reported the First Gulf War of 1990-91 had an almost eerie impression of events replicating themselves between Iraq and its enemies twelve years later but, once the campaign began to unfold, it was the differences rather than the similarities which commanded attention and demanded explanation. In February 1991 a very large and high-quality Western army confronted an equally...

America's bewildering battle in Iraq follows new rules Repressed people won't defend their country as expected Far more than an account of the battles and strategies during 2003, this compact history of the Iraq war manages to span the ages from ancient Mesopotamia to the recent excavation of Saddam Hussein from his "spider hole." Highly readable, "The Iraq War," by military historian John Keegan, contains both plenty of tactical detail for war buffs and ample historical insight for a general audience. Above all, Keegan has a knack for crystallizing the motivations and mind-sets of key players and how they clash....

Coverage of the conflict has been confused and wilfully pessimistic, writes military historian John Keegan. SADDAM Hussein's war plan, if he had one, must be reckoned one of the most inept designed. It made no use of the country's natural defences. All advantages the defence enjoyed were thrown away even before they could be used. Because the war has taken such a strange form, the media may be forgiven for their misinterpretation of how it has progressed. Checks have been described as defeats, minor firefights as major battles. In truth, there has been almost no check to the onrush of...

Hey, has anybody seen a recent editorial on the Iraq threat by British war historian John Keegan? I caught a snippet of John McCain referencing it on the Sean Hannity radio show, but missed the source. Anyone?

Private conversation with those in a position to know seems to make it certain that the United States will attack Iraq within the next six months, with the purpose of toppling Saddam Hussein from power for good. The Bush administration will not be deterred by European protests or by the fear of alienating regional governments in the Middle East or South Asia. It has decided that Saddam Hussein threatens America's vital interests by his known and unrelenting efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and by his undoubted, though unproven, sponsorship of terrorism. The U.S. judgment is that the longer Saddam is...