… than with a kind word alone. This will presumably be the lesson drawn by the U.S. government from the last couple of years of hand-wringing regarding Iraq. When the invasion of Iraq started on March 19 (see daily summary from CNN) some friends started a betting pool concerning the date on which the last Iraqi military unit would surrender. My guess was April 15. Note that this does not count lone snipers or terrorists. It appears that yesterday was the big day and that the person who bet on April 14 will be the winner. The only comparably quick surrender that comes to mind is France’s 1940 surrender to Germany after about 1.5 months. George W. might well be asking himself “Why did we waste all of that time with diplomacy if all it took was a modest military effort that did not even last one month?”
We Americans are thus faced with the question “Iraq is done; what’s next in the Middle East?” Some friends asked for an opinion of background issues, especially why the U.S. would want to support Israel (a very unpopular policy here in Cambridge, Massachusetts), so I wrote http://philip.greenspun.com/politics/israel/
Let me know if you think it provides any interesting answers.
I was a student of and evangelist for the ARSDigita system (and host for the Rocket Start program) back when it was yours – it’s great to have easy access to your thoughts and published statements again.
Thank you for this writing, very interesting perspective (as always) and I share your conclusion; we need to get off oil – now.
Philip, it would be great if you could source your assertions. For example, I’ve seen the number of Arabs expelled from Palestine estimated at 800 – 850,000 and number of Jews expelled from Arab lands in reaction put at 600-650,000. I’m not sure how this becomes “a tremendous achievement for the Arab countries.”
I’m no fan of the Palestinian, but your formulation is pretty one-sided, which is disappointing since I respect your intelligence so much.
You say: “Terrorists will kill civilians. The Israeli army will kill terrorists. American and European university professors will vent their Jew-hatred on Israelis and the Israeli government.” Hang on there. Israeli soldiers have been killing more than just “terrorists” and you know it.
I agree with the need for a reduction in our oil addiction, but for better reasons than hurting the OPEC nations and Texans (which are not all Arab). The environment is taking a beating.
It sounds like you are saying — ignore the conflict that is at the center of much of the world’s terrorism — the Israelis are the vicitims here and the Palestinians have no claim. the Palestinians should go live somewhere else.
“Muslims have a Jew-hatred tradition that dates back at least 1000 years.”
Philip, do you have a source for this statement?
I could easily make the assertion that if you were a Jew (or indeed any one of the People of the Book) 1000 years ago, you’d be much better of in Cordoba, Baghdad, Cairo, or Damascus then somewhere in modern day France, England, or Germany.
in response to scott m, musilms hate jews, jews think christians are uneducated hillbillies, christians think the jews only care about money, and that muslims have an obviously phony reactionary religion. anyone who is a jew, muslim or christian knows this. i have no conception of the state of judaism in england, but jews , christians and muslims are obviously better off in los angeles than they are in paris. the notion that anyone is better off in bhagdad, cairo, or damascus is fucking ludicrous.
Your story has the factoid: “The U.S. military is more powerful than the next 15 countries’ militaries combined.” This is no longer true.
Actually, in 2002 the U.S. spent more money on it’s military than the next 25 countries combined (source: http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp).
And in 2003, the U.S. will spend more than the rest of the world combined (from same page — if you add the increases to the 2003 US military budget, now approx $480 billion, the figure exceeds 50% of the total worldwide of $809 billion).
Pre-1939 the American military spent several decades varying between 2% and 4% of the GNP. During the cold war it peaked at 14% during conflicts and never went below 7%. After 1989 it began to decline. By 2000 it was back down to 3.5% – a normal peace time amount. Now it is edging back up to 5% – a little above normal for peace time, though still nothing like the war time budgets of the past.
You can do the math rather easily yourself, since the GNP is near 10 trillion, which is convenient number to do estimates from – $400 billion in defense would be 4% of the GNP and $500 billion in defense would 5% of the GNP.
America, therefore, does not spend a suprising amount on the military, and really quite little considering the empire it is supporting. From this I conclude that even in a capitalist society where the ruling class might well have an interest in overseas adventures, both they and the public hate paying the taxes needed for such things, and thus a definite downward pressure is exerted on governmental spending, even on the military portion of the budget.
esmith: No I don’t think it’s weird. I *do* think it’s weird that it hasn’t received more notice in the press, though.
Hey thanks for the reply Mike.
On your webpage, what’s a corporate identie?
<—haven’t been to Harvard so didn’t know