This archive is a great place if you have broadband…some good debates. I liked the James Fallows one especially.
Month: February 2005
Thomas L. Friedman: An American in Europe
Friedman on being in Europe:
That sense that America is now so powerful that it influences everyone else’s politics more than their own governments – so everyone wants to vote in our elections – is something you hear more and more these days.
Elizabeth Angell, a 23-year-old American studying at Oxford, told me that a Pakistani friend at school had asked her if he could just watch her fill out her absentee ballot for the U.S. election. “He said to me, ‘It’s the closest thing I am going to get to voting. I wish I could vote in your election because your government affects my daily life more than my own.”‘
The one concrete result of the U.S. election will probably be to reinforce Europe’s focus on its own efforts to build a United States of Europe, and to further play down the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“When it comes to emotions, the re-election of Bush has reinforced the feeling of alienation between Europe and the U.S.” Moïsi said.
“It is not that we are so much against America, it is that we cannot understand the evolution of that country. This election has weakened the concept of ‘the West.”‘
Funnily enough, the one country on this side of the ocean that would have elected Bush is not in Europe, but the Middle East: It’s Iran, where many young people apparently hunger for Bush to remove their despotic leaders, the way he did in Iraq.
An Oxford student who had just returned from research in Iran told me that young Iranians were “loving anything their government hates,” such as Bush, “and hating anything their government loves.” Tehran is festooned in “Down With America” graffiti, the student said, but when he tried to take pictures of it, the Iranian students he was with urged him not to. They said it was just put there by their government and was not how most Iranians felt.
Iran, he said, is the ultimate “red state.” Go figure.
Permanent military bases won't work
Kimberly Marten and Alexander Cooley, professors of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, argue that military bases won’t work.
In Iraq, it seems unlikely that the U.S. military will shake its current negative reputation, in spite of the good intentions of most American soldiers. As a result of mounting civilian deaths, the failure to establish security, and the enduring images of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, America will always be regarded as an unwelcome occupier by most Iraqis. Politicians in a democratic Iraq will have a ready-made election issue to exploit if bases remain.
Considering all these factors, a continuing U.S. base presence in Iraq is unlikely to be politically tenable. When the United States finally decides to leave Iraq, it should remove troops under an interim agreement that allows it to retain its most important facilities only for the few months necessary to complete withdrawal. Any long-term presence, no matter how small, would make American troops the focus of political unhappiness and the targets of violent attacks.
Hollywood banks on foreign DVD bonanza
Ever wonder how much Hollywood makes out of foreign DVD sales? Nobody knows the exact figures, but they are pretty high.
New blog
I found this blog the other day, interesting stuff.
Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'
The Guardian speculates on peak oil theory, and where certain people get money from.
Catching up
I have a list of over a dozen articles that I have, for any number of reasons, failed to blog about over the last number of weeks. My blog serves as a way for me to communicate with readers, but also as a means of archiving my own content. I will be posting these articles with brief descriptions, you may or may not find them interesting!
WordPress 1.5
I have a test blog up, I like some of the features. But when will we have proper, distinct trackback?
Hannibal, Battle of Cannae
I am really enjoying reading about the various exploits of those who dared to stand against the Roman Empire. Hannibal is a name known to many, and famous for his taking elephants through the Alps. Perhaps the most interesting battle I have come across is the Battle of Cannae.
The scene is Italy, 216 BC. Hannibal has already been victorious against the Romans in Trebia and at Lake Trasimene. The Romans decided to change tack, first trying to trap Hannibal. Matyszak notes:
As Hannibal pillaged Campania, he allowed [the Roman General] Fabius to slip a garrison into Casilinum, near Capua. From here, the river Volturnus blocked Hannibal’s retreat while Fabius waited in the mountains between Casilinum and the colony of Cales. This put Hannibal in a trap. He could not remain in a plain which he had stripped of supplies, nor could he launch his army in a suicidal assault against a Roman army entrenched in a superior position. Yet these appeared to be his choices.
Eventually, it seemed that Hannibal chose to try a night break-out. The Romans saw the torches of the army streaming towards a well-guarded pass. Confident that the garrison there could intercept the attempted break-out, Fabius refused to move from his camp, despite the pleas and imprecations of his subordinates, who saw a chance of breaking the Carthaginians once and for all.
But when Fabius’ garrison carried out their interception, they found thousands of cattle with torches tied to their horns, but no Carthaginian soldiers. Hannibal’s army was streaming through the position which they had abandoned, taking their booty and heading for winter quarters in Apulia.
Following this embarrasing episode the Romans decided to revert to the warfare they knew best – engage and crush the enemy in open battle. Accordingly they gathered together no fewer than eight legions, each of about 5,000 men. Together with their alies and cavalry, they had at least 85,000 men to Hannibal’s 50,000.
Later that Summer, Hannibal took Cannae and seized the corn supplies designated to feed Rome’s massive army. Hannibal was eager for battle with the Romans, as were the two Roman consuls, Terentius Varro and Aemilius Paullus. So on the morning of August 2, 216 BC the two armies faced each other.
What ensued was a classic flanking movement by Hannibal, using Numidian, Spanish and Gallic cavalry to encircle the massive Roman legion formation. The battle resulted in the death of as many as 45,000 Romans on a single day, a figure of deaths on a single day unrivalled until the first day of the Somme offensive in 1916.
New books
Despite my poor efforts in reading of late, I have recently purchased more books. Perhaps this will prompt me to improve my reading habits. The new books are:
Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies
Philip Matyszak, The Enemies of Rome: From Hannibul to Attila the Hun
Niall Ferguson, Colossus
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalisation and its Discontents,
Bill Hicks, Love All the People: Letters, Lyrics, Routines