Harvard's Humanitarian Hawks

by TOM HAYDEN

[posted online on July 14, 2007]

Should a human rights center at the nation's most prestigious university be collaborating with the top US general in Iraq in designing the counter-insurgency doctrine behind the current military surge?

Led by Gen. David Petraeus, the so-called surge--an escalation of over 25,000 American troops--is resulting in hundreds of killings, mass roundups, door-to-door break-ins, and military offensives in Baghdad, Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces, on the side of a deeply-sectarian Baghdad regime which, according to the White House benchmarks report, still compiles official lists of Sunni Arabs targeted for detention or death. The counter-insurgency campaign is explained as a military way to create "space" for Iraqis to reach a political solution without violent interference.