Letters to the Editor
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Bush More Like Crassus than Augustus: A Plague of Big Shots
Pace, Martin van Creveld, but the Iraq War seems more like Crassus's expedition against the Parthians (today's Iranians, more or less), which was undertaken for no good reason -- other than to defeat a pesky enemy on the Roman frontiers and answer the whispers that Crassus was only capable of beating slaves (he had put down the Spartacus rebellion -- played by Laurence Olivier in "Spartacus"). Or to prove that he was indeed, a Big Shot.
So Crassus marched a Roman army into Mesopotamia to fight the Parthians, who let him chase them until he reached a point where his powerful forces were without food and water and cut off by the nimble Parthian cavalry. The exhausted Romans were then defeated by a much smaller Parthian army, with most killed, including Crassus. The site of the battle is in modern Turkey, not far from the Iraqi border.
The American army in Iraq is not likely to defeated by another regular army. But it is being steadily worn down by a much smaller and less powerful force of guerillas. Unhappily, there is no good solution to the problem. Sending an Indian (Hindu) army into Iraq is sheer lunacy. The United States has already imported a small army of guest workers to do work Iraqis, with their 60 percent unemployment rate, could obviously be doing. The refusal of the Americans to employ Iraqis will no doubt eventually be blamed on the backwardness of Islam, which is preferable to the stupidity of the Americans. A few days ago a mortar shell in the Green Zone killed several such workers -- from India, Thailand and Burma, if memory serves.
And people wonder why the Iraqis hate us.
Blair's determination to fight this war is akin to the ongoing disaster in Israel. He and the Israeli leaders are addicting to playing the Big Shot. Fighting alongside the Americans or presiding over a permanent trouble spot ensure global press coverage and permit hobnobbing with American Presidents and remaining the constant subject of arguments at the UN.
Israel at peace would quickly become a Middle Eastern version of Ireland or the Netherlands, a wealthy, technically advanced country, swarming with tourists from all over the globe. But the price of peace is obscurity. There would be no more summit meetings at Camp David. The Israeli prime minister would be no more known to the world than the Dutch prime mininster. Visits to Washington would be for ceremonial occassions, akin to St. Patrick's Day.
Israeli leaders, forced to choose between peace and remaining Big Shots, have invariably elected to remain Big Shots, electing play Crassus with a disastrous intervention in Lebanon. And the Israeli people must content themselves with the dubious assurance that bad as Lebanon was, it could have been worse.
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RealName
The nationalist movement of the Jews IS evil by definition and by simple assertion because it is predicated on theft of land from the Palestinians. Moreover, to call it a nationalist movement is a misnomer for two reasons. One, the Jews already have a nation and so the idea of a nationalist movement is only a ploy to garner sympathy for their cause; two, because the land they are occupying does not belong to them, has not belonged to them for over 2000 years, and is land which they have and continue to steal through settlements. This is not very different than what European settlers and their descendants did to to the natives of America, except they didn't call it a 'nationalist movement' but 'manifest destiny,' allusions to the Bible and all.
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Re-Vision
Sir Alistair Horne may be the only author in the world whose books have been read and praised by George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon and Robert Fisk. Not to mention by much of the senior military staff of the U.S. Army, Middle East scholars, State Department policy wonks, and realpolitik statesmen.
That right there tells me two things: First, that this man is the Premier Revisionist Historian for the Right-Wing World, and second, that his books are useful for exactly one thing- Opposition Research.
He comes off as a top-notch apologist who masquerades as an independant researcher. I think that this type of thing is a great example of the relationship between Revisionist History and Radical Ideology. It's like the intellectual equivalent of the Berlin Wall.
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What Did Horne Say About Afghanistan?
Is Afghanistan just as lost as Iraq? Can we pull back from Iraq, and stay in Afghanistan? Can we make Afghanistan into Dubai?
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Gary Did a Good Interview
The purpose of the interview was served. We learned a good bit about Alistair Horne.
I looked for a sense of Horne's personal culpability in the Iraq debacle and didn't find it. He blames Tony Blair, the Labor Party guy. But aren't our historians with a "Sir" in front of their name better able to weigh the benefits and liabilities of going to war?
Horne offers one positive alternative to invasion that many supported, use special forces to attack al Qaeda where found. Horne correctly decrys the disbanding of the Iraqi Army in May 2003 and provides an 1814 analogy. But Horne tips his hand when offering a solution to the mess we are in. "Bring in the Indian divisions", he says and pay them.
Geez, didn't an earlier British historian have the wonderful idea of bringing the Hessians to America in the 1770's? The Iraqi's are Arabs and they HATE outsiders as occupiers.
So Mr. Horne we must leave Iraq for al Qaeda is our enemy. As long as we remain there, we recruit new and committed soldiers for our enemy.
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Hate to nitpick but
"Horne didn't vote for British Prime Minister Tony Blair".
Neither he nor anyone else, except in Blair's district, voted for Blair. In a parlimentary system, the party in the majority elects the Prime Minister. The PM is not nor ever has been directly elected.
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so we agree
One rule for everyone else. Another rule for the evil dastardly cattle raping mind controling hooknosers. Thank you 'anon' for earning your Salon cookie street-cred today. My friends in West Africa who had to literally step over the bodies in the river the crocodiles couldn't eat will be happy you approve of how things work there.