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Fear strikes again

Yes fear, it appears, is the number one priority of the US and the UK these days. Instil fear in your populations and they will stay quiet, and our leaders can then do as they wish. Osama is talking on al-Jazeera again apparently, praising the attacks in Bali and the hostage taking in Moscow. CNN is hardly the best source for news, but on occasion I will link to it. It is amazing how differently things are reported than here in Europe.

A defiant Russia, and Europe

Jonathan Steele writes an interesting article in the Guardian today. I cannot agree more with his closing sentiment that we need to “restore the integrity of the UN as the arbiter of international conflicts, and to restrain the irresponsible use of American military might.” In light of the impending invasion of Iraq we should realise that only the most multilateral and internationalist option is the solution. Otherwise we will repeat mistakes made throughout history.

Gavinsblog.com updated!

Well I have finally updated my site. I hope to add a comments section soon, because no one goes to the bother of emailing anyone these days – that would take too much time. And with the other 100,000 blogs out there I am up against a fair amount of competition. As can be seen here my site has been receiving about 300 hits a month at best. God knows how many of them are some web crawlers or something. But all I can so is hope that there are people out there with similar ideas and interests to me, and would like to read about them here.

Its Armistice Day (Let's hope we won't need any more of them)

Yes its November the 11th, the day the Great War ended back in 1918. Since my visits to the Somme and Belgium I am more acutely aware of this war and its effects, I am currently reading about that period in history. From Bismarck’s successful creation of the German Empire in 1871, to the destruction of several empires in 1918 and the start of what Bobbitt calls the ‘Long War’

Colin Powell on Saddam

Published in the Washington Post originally, this article appears in today’s Tribune. Powell argues in favour of the UN resolution recently passed unanimously. What I always find dubious is that Saddam using his weapons on his own people being put up as an example of how cruel a dictator he is. For reference to this massacre and the US response to it perhaps Powell should check how the US increased aid to Iraq following the attack, and was not exactly vocal in its condemnation of it. See Noam Chomsky’s Deterring Democracy for more detail.

Rome = Washington

This is a very interesting article in the Guardian today. Jonathan Freedland writes an excellent piece on the ins and outs of whether the US empire today could be compared to the Roman Empire c300BC – 150AD.

Strangely enough, this argument is one that the irreverant Anthony Sheridan and I have discussed with the other Roman scholar, Tony. We had come to all the same conclusions drawn by Freedland, as well as the fact that like all Empires, the US will fall at some point in the future. But that unlike the collapse of the Roman empire, the fall of the US empire could be far more catastrophic given its huge number of nuclear weapons. The documentary starts Saturday.

Fukuyama under attack: Amitav Acharya

Amitav Acharya writes an interesting piece in today’s Tribune. This subject is one that interests me greatly, as can be seen be seen from previous postings about Fukuyama. The book mentioned in Acharya’s article, the Clash of Civilizations by Sam Huntington, I actually bought for my uncle last Christmas, but have recently borrowed from him for my own reading. I am currently half way through it so I cannot really comment on the book as a whole.

As for the Acharya article, I do largely agree with his sentiments. His criticism of Fukuyama is well placed and well thought out. The book mentioned at the end of the article also sound interesting, one I will have to look at in the future.


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