Jablonski's Class Blog

Reminder!  HISP and AP U.S. Government Summer Reading:

1).  The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

2).  Contempt of Court, by Mark Curriden

You will be required to annotate* both books as you read.

I    For  The Prince, please annotate by highlighting what you believe to be the 10 most important lessons Machiavelli is providing “the prince.”   (Also note the reasons for your choices.)

II    For Contempt of Court,  annotate (using three different color highlighters or post-it notes for each category as follows):

a).  the legal problems/constitutional violations associated with Ed Johnson’s arrest, trial, conviction and punishment.

b).  the basis for Noah Pardon appealing Johnson’s case to the Supreme Court

c).  the Supreme Court’s actions and reasons for its actions from the time of Pardon’s appeal forward.

*For our purposes, annotate means to mark and briefly summarize (note) important passages from the book, according to the criteria described above.

If you own the book, you may annotate by writing directly on the page.   If you don’t own the book, or if you prefer, you may use post it notes.   Keep in mind, if you are writing directly in the book, everything that is underlined must have a comment in the margin to explain why it is underlined.  If you are using post-it notes, every note must be written on explaining the significance of the passage you are marking.

YOU MUST BRING BOTH ANNOTATED BOOKS TO CLASS ON THE FIRST DAY.  I WILL COLLECT THEM AND GRADE FOR ANNOTATIONS.

YOU WILL HAVE A SHORT QUIZ ON THE PRINCE THE SECOND OR THIRD DAY OF CLASS.  YOU WILL ALSO BE EXPECTED DURING THAT FIRST WEEK TO WRITE ON THE PRINCE’S LESSONS YOU’VE HIGHLIGHTED IN YOUR ANNOTATIONS.

The Guardian UK has the grim revelations:

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers’ website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.

Among the findings:

• How a secret “black” unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for “kill or capture” without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In 1971, the nation was rocked by the leaked publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret US Defense Dept.  history of the Vietnam War.  What was particularly startling about this leak was the realization that the Johnson and Nixon administrations had been lying to the American people about the course of the war in Vietnam and the extent of its expansion into Cambodia and Laos.

While certainly not a perfect comparison, the Wikileaks paint a dark portrait of a war effort in disarray, numerous civilian deaths, a resurgent Taliban (perhaps with the assistance of Pakistan Intelligence Service forces),  and a losing effort to win the hearts of minds of the Afghan people.

This is the developing story with major implications.  Please read up and stay posted…be sure we will be dealing with this in class.