... oh sure, right, and which core segment of the cirriculum will suffer - race? class? gender? I'm sorry, there is no time for something as phallocentric, hegemonic, and triumphalist as your rape narrative military history.

All the more reason to teach it, WM, in addition to the good reasons Thompson gives. (Though I assume you were just being sarcastic.)

I also assume you're being sarcastic but cannot tell for sure because all too many people in academia think that (which is the reason for your sarcasm that rings all too true). In high schools, particularly AP history, you must absolutely know about women in the Revolution, the Draft Riots, the Committee on Public Information, the Japanese internment, women in World War II, black northern migration, etc. Military history and the actual fighting? Nope.

WM was clearly being sarcastic.

But the thing is, his comment was such a bullseye, that we're not quite sure that he was being sarcastic, and wasn't some lefty type.

Today, more kids know about the Japanese internment than know the reasons behind it.

Academia and the Left regard the study of war as Elizabeth Edwards regards her neighbor who has a gun, id est, a kook to be avoided. They think they can avoid the occasion of war by thinking about it as little as possible.

It's childlike, but what are you going to do.

The problem is, as with all fanatically-idealistic people, these folks really, really think that reality follows belief (i.e., in the immortal words of En Vogue: "Free your mind, and the rest will follow"). You can see it in speech codes, in PC thought-crime, in the moral opprobrium heaped on certain attitudes. Just so, studying war guarantees it will continue to happen.

Of course, wise folk (like conservatives) understand that belief does its best to govern the world of Man, but that human nature and hard material reality warp even the best of "intentions."