conflict studies

thus begins my formal academic career in conflict studies. perhaps one of the most highly contested and political fields in my opinion. terrorism, what creates it, how to best respond to genocide, wars of agression... the list goes on. while the program is rooted in the idea that peace is indeed desireable and possible, much of the current literature is not.
current class: reinventing foreign policy from a conflict resolution perspective for Obama. self reflection: i have difficulty reading material i disagree with, because it makes me angry. trying to dissacociate from it, and try to understand their argument without having to agree with it. The book "peace and conflict 2008" by hewitt and wilkenfeld is like reading what the US state department wants you to believe. As I am reading through, in the back of my mind - why did they choose that definition? or, if they use that, why did they not include x,y,z? such as in the chapter discussing terrorism. "the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation." the us state department only uses the term political - and actual violence rather than threat of violence. legal terrorism questions not withstanding as a moral problem, what about the war in iraq? wars of agression are illegal accourding to international law, with bombings, for political reasons. this is terrorism. why did they choose to consider rebel groups, or minority groups the sole perpetrators of terrorism? without admitting that they actually did so? but they did not consider any state terrorism. not even the razed villages campaign in Guatemala that killed 200,000 people and the gov't was responsible for 93% of the deaths. but the resistance group is counted among the terrorist? give me a break.

other areas of concern: "economic openess" is discussed as 1 of 4 main criteria for judging instability.
wow: i just looked up the political instability task force: where much of this info is analyzed. it says the task force was created by request from senior policy makers to understand failed states. columbia university, arizone, george mason public policy program.. the kicker: "funded by the CIA. are you kidding me!!! wtf george mason? how legitimate is any academic study funded by the CIA.

"The PITF is funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. The PITF website is hosted by the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University and is provided as a public service. The views expressed herein are those of the Task Force and its individual members, and do not represent the views of the University or the US Government."

wow.