Irene L. Gendzier

Play it again, Sam: The practice and apology of development∗

Abstract Development policies and their justification in the 1990s bear a striking resemblance to those of the 1960s, in spite of the evident changes that have occurred at the national and international levels. Hence, the urgency of reconsidering the way it was, in theory and practice. A version of this essay first appeared in Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences during the Cold War, Edited by C. Simpson, copyright The New Press, New York, 1998. It is reported here with the permission of The New Press.

Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945-1958.

The Setting Of U.S. Policy * The Dynamic of Collaborative Intervention * U.S. Postwar Policy and the Middle East * Learning Lebanon: A Primer Formative Years In The Evolution Of U.S. Policy: 19441952 * Alternating Currents of Criticism and Conformity * The Foundations of U.S. Policy, PACLIFT: Petroleum, Aviation, Commerce, Labor, Intelligence, and the Friendship Treaty * Altered Circumstances and the Design of U.S. Political Strategy The Eisenhower Administration And The Shamun Regime: A Policy Of Information And Consent * Pressure Points and Priorities * Lebanon: The Bridgehead in the Orient * Realities of Power in the Rear Area * Our Man in Beirut Intervening Before Intervention * Civil War, May 1958 * Doubt, Deliberation, and Preparation The Minefield Explodes: U.S. Military Intervention * 11,000 Sorties in Search of a Target * By Mutual Consent: JulyOctober 1958

Consensual deception and US policy in Iraq

In its May 3, 2004 update, the National Security Archive reported that “the US government classified more than 14 million new national security secrets last year, up from 11 million in the previous year and 8 million the year before, according to the new annual report to President Bush from the oversight office for the national security secrecy system.” The Information Security Oversight Office referred to “the rising tide of secrecy” reflected in the administration’s withholding of information “that will not cause damage to national security ...” Several days earlier, the National Security Archive had posted another update on its website relevant to government secrecy. This one referred to an ongoing lawsuit challenging “President Bush’s Executive Order 13,233 that gave former Presidents and their heirs (as well as former Vice-Presidents for the first time) indefinite authority to hold up release of White House records.” If the history of this and past administrations is to become publicly known, the “rising tide of secrecy” is an ominous sign, particularly for those seeking to make sense of US policies in the Middle East, including Iraq. The danger—in terms of the withholding of information—posed by an administration that has magnified the classification of official data, and that has promoted the habit of secrecy, can hardly be discounted. But there is another kind of danger that merits attention, the danger of indifference. Why, given the amount of information concerning US foreign policy in the Middle East that is in the public domain, do so many appear to know so little about it? Why does it remain virtually invisible, “disappeared” from public view? And why have US policy and Middle East politics been taboo in public discussion, save for a critical minority whose views on the subject are marginalized, the better to dismiss them? In an explanatory text on “Cornerstones of Information Warfare,” the Secretary of the Air Force, Sheila E. Widnall and Ronald R. Fogleman, General USAF, Chief of Staff, posed the rhetorical question, “what is information?” Their reply was instructive. Information was defined as “phenomena, observable facts or events, [which] are everything that happens around us. Phenomenon must be perceived and interpreted to become information. Information then, is

My Enemy's Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900-1948

This text identifies early Zionist perceptions about Lebanon, considers efforts to construct a lucid Zionist policy toward that country, and characterises the nature and course of Zionist-Lebanese relations prior to the establishment of the State of Israel.