text:
Notes from Wales
We are standing in a stone circle, built 3,000 years ago, on a rock hilltop 500 million years old. The view is a mosaic of geological history: inundation, subduction, glaciation and erosion have left visible traces wherever we look.
Here a grey crag, there a swooping valley. Here a waterfall carving through dark granite, there a placid lake reflecting the sky. All around, meadows populated by sheep: thoughtful creatures who stare intently then trundle off when we get too close.
Geology was born in Wales. The names we give sections of Earth's history are Welsh: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian. These are Roman words for unruly Welsh tribes who fought everyone from the legions to the Normans until, with the Tudors, they captured the English monarchy.
Edward built a chain of massive, glowering castles to force the Welsh into submission. They didn't work, but all are 'worth the detour'. At Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt Welsh archers, with their Schwarzenegger shoulders, annihilated the French aristocracy. We think of the Welsh as small, dark people chipping away in mines, but they were something else entirely in the Middle Ages.
Wales is neither a destination nor on the way to anywhere. For centuries its people lived in isolated farms. No towns. Their diet was oats, potatoes and milk. Oats and milk for breakfast. Milk soup with oats for dinner. But they could fire arrows from a two-metre bow, hitting the target at 200 metres every time. Their over-developed bones have been found in the wreck of the 'Mary Rose'.
Then: copper, coal and slate. Landowners suddenly got rich as new industries paid millions for the minerals beneath their fields. The rural landscape was torn apart. 200-metre hills were cut to pieces. 200-metre shafts were driven down and through mountainsides. Enormous caverns were hewn out by hand. The miners worked deep underground by candle-light, never seeing the vast scale of the caves they excavated.
Millions of tons of copper, coal and slate were shipped from Welsh ports to St Petersburg, Auckland and Rio. Canals were dug, 30-metre aquaducts were built to carry them over inconvenient valleys. Railways were pushed over precipices or through them. Engineering masterpieces. Experiments, still there and still working 200 years later.
Then it stopped. Sources closer to St Petersburg, Auckland and Rio were discovered. Trees and plants re-colonised the ruined Welsh landscape and made it look – to Victorian eyes – romantic. The Welsh emigrated in tens of thousands, mining and building in countries where their descendants still live, retaining folk-memories to this day. Australia, South America, South Africa. Wales and its ruins turned into tourist attractions for curious Victorian gentlefolk.
The Celtic strain – emotional, articulate, expressive – runs deep and strong. Dylan Thomas, the poet who out-faced death: 'Do not go gentle into that good night'. Drink finished him before he was forty. Richard Burton, an actor whose voice made stones weep: he married Elizabeth Taylor twice. Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Manic Street Preachers.
Wales in 2017 survives on a mixture of tourism, arts-and-crafts and outposts of Celtic entrepreneurialism. The people are friendly, welcoming, chatty. They have their own language, millennia-old, and they still speak it – though they switch to English at the drop of a hat.
Don't miss Wales. But don't rush. The Welsh are the same as ever and the landscape hasn't changed, bar a few temporary disturbances, for 500 million years.
Carnage at Waterloo
The French call it the battle of Mont St Jean. The Prussians wanted to call it The Victory of La Belle Alliance. Wellington, knowing the English facility with foreign languages, named it Waterloo. Two hundred years ago these quiet villages witnessed a ten-hour frenzy of organised murder which had no precedent in European history.
It's a small battlefield. You can easily see from side to side: ten square kilometres, nowadays undulating farmland with the same small villages and the same roads – it hasn't changed much. In 1815 an Anglo-Allied army of 74,000, a French army of 74,000 and a Prussian army of about 30,000 crashed together with swords, lances, muskets and guns to decide the future of Europe. About 40,000 soldiers and 10,000 horses were killed; no-one knows the exact numbers.
Napoleon was sent into exile, Blucher died not long afterwards but Wellington lived to a ripe old age, heaped with honours from a grateful nation. It is Wellington's account which most of us know today. To his discredit, he eclipsed the contribution of the Prussians, Belgians, Germans and Dutch. In reality, the Prussians' title for the battle was spot-on: every one of the allies' forces was essential – take just one of them away and Napoleon would almost certainly have won.
Perhaps Wellington was thinking 'he who pays the piper calls the tune'. The United Kingdom was the United States of the 18th century and financed the entire war. Its reward was global trade hegemony for another 100 years; a good investment, you might think. But it was actually the Royal Navy which ensured Britain's mercantile dominance; her land wars were never again as conclusive, glorious or creditable as Waterloo. So the British celebrate it while others don't.
In some ways Waterloo was a portent of today's post-war European unity, but not entirely. The English and the French, traditional enemies, seem to have treated each other chivalrously. One French regiment, beating the English back above Hougoumont, were much affected to find one of their own wounded men, bandaged and given a supply of food and water, when they swept the English from the field. But the French and Prussians loathed each other and gave no quarter: tales swirled round the battlefield of prisoners hanged from trees, throats cut… retaliation ensued.
It is tempting to compare the slaughter at Waterloo to Ypres and the Somme. But the differences are more significant. Waterloo had no trenches: soldiers fought each other face to face, hand to hand. The artillery accounted for at least half the deaths and mutilation at Waterloo, but even the best gun-crews could only fire three rounds a minute, and most of those rounds were solid shot. The rest were killed by close-range musket-fire, swords and lances. Dead and wounded men were at once stripped of their valuables by their adversaries, who were very likely to be stripped in their turn.
Waterloo was more like Marathon than Messines. General officers fell like flies. Wellington dined alone at his headquarters on the evening of the 18th June: his staff were dead or in hospital. The men could see their leaders with the naked eye: Wellington's reputation stems largely from his coolness during the battle (which he later said was touch-and-go). Bounding around on his steeplechaser, he seemed oblivious and impervious. Napoleon too inspired awe; when advised to move away from the cannon-balls which were deluging his position late in the day, he was laconic: 'The balls have not yet been made which can touch me!'
The ordinary soldiers were forced to face shot and shell imperturbably but were not so lucky. Forty thousand died on the battlefield; thousands more received gruesome injuries and were carried away for amputation and perhaps a slow death from gangrene. They could see the cannon-balls coming, but to duck or break ranks was thought of as worse than death. So they stood stock-still.
It was Napoleon's surgeon-general, Larrey, who (like Shaka Zulu) understood the importance of rapid treatment for the wounded. Shaka's answer was a brigade of nurses armed with bactericidal moss; Larrey's solution was his own design of fast, sprung cart to get the wounded off the battlefield and into the hands of the surgeons. Nevertheless, at Waterloo the French casualties were nearly ten times those of the British.
Waterloo tells us something about the role of morale in determining who wins a battle. The outcome hung in the balance for most of the day. The sight of Prussians on the skyline put new heart into the hard-pressed allies; they repulsed the onslaught of the Imperial Guard – which had never happened before – and the French fell back in dismay. Seizing the opportunity, Wellington threw his entire army into the fray and the French retreat turned into a rout. Many of the French casualties were inflicted during this headlong rush to the south: infantrymen speared in the back by furious Prussian lancers.
Most battlefields need an effort of the imagination. Waterloo doesn't; compact in space and time, it lets you see exactly what happened, when and why. Hundreds of books have explored the significance of the battle, which can hardly be over-stated. But the central mystery remains… how did Europe's most accomplished warrior, equipped with the best-motivated army and by far the best artillery support, manage to lose a battle which he thought he would win hands-down? He told his staff that they would be in Brussels for dinner; his Imperial Guard carried no food because they had packed their best uniforms for the victory parade.
Was Napoleon ill? Was he over-confident to the point of rashness? Was he wrong to give responsibility to marshals and generals who, on the most generous estimation, were not up to the job? Was he getting old and tired? No-one knows, but Waterloo was one battle where Napoleon – unlike Wellington – was rarely to be seen: he tried to command the battle from a position well behind the lines. This error would be committed again and again in 1914-1918, with equally disastrous consequences.
Sailing The Atlantic
'There's a spare berth on a ketch crossing the Atlantic. Can you take two weeks off?'
Matt was a sailing friend. He'd met an American with a 13-metre Bowman who needed a couple of hands to make up a transatlantic crew of five. 'Bluejacket' would start from St John's, Newfoundland, and finish the voyage in County Kerry, Ireland.
The flight to St John's took a long time. It dawned on me that it would take a very long time getting back. In fact, it took longer than any of us had expected.
The owner was a sailing addict who was exploring the world. He seemed to have organised a perfect life. He earnt his living as a market researcher, spending two or three months conducting interviews in the USA then catching a plane to wherever his boat happened to be. On the next leg of his global journey he wrote up his reports and sent them off to his clients. Then another round of interviews, then another month of sailing.
We had just got 'Bluejacket' shipshape when a wild apparition barged on-board speaking a language no-one could understand. He turned out to be a radio broadcaster for CBC. Could he come with us? The owner asked 'What's in it for us?' 'A series of programmes telling the story of the voyage.' 'Oh… OK, then. Find a berth.' In this way, Jim Winter joined us on Bluejacket.
The crew was motley. The bosun, an old friend of the owner, was a US diplomat in North Africa. He turned out to be a Cordon Bleu chef. This mild-mannered American became our hero, setting a standard in the galley that we all failed to match. The boat operated a normal three-watch system, with a tweak: whoever cooked dinner was excused night-watches for the next 24-hour period. Cooking was a sought-after role.
The deck-hands were Brits. Matt, John and myself.
And Jim.
Newfoundland, his home, is an odd place. Peopled 500 years ago by fisher-folk of Irish extraction, it bears some resemblance to Ireland, some to Scotland, some to Norway and none at all to the rest of Canada. Jim was a 'Newf' incarnate. Merry, chatty, full of fun, he turned every waking hour into a party and slept hardly at all. He had been sailing in arctic waters since he was six and had forgotten more than the rest of us knew about handling a boat.
We sailed out of St John's harbour with a sense of adventure. Ahead of us, we thought, lay two weeks of following winds aided by the flow of the Gulf Stream. Fast, direct, plenty of spinnaker. Our main concern was keeping a sharp look-out for large vessels: they don't usually see yachts, and even when they do they expect them to get out of the way.
For four days it was plain sailing. Then the forecast worsened and the wind picked up; the sea had been calm but now the waves grew higher. Bluejacket began to pitch and roll. Within twelve hours we were in a Force 8 gale, occasionally Force 9, and the seas were mountainous. We could barely hear one another shout. The deck was lashed by wave after wave. With just a storm-jib we were racing along at nine or ten knots and the steering was tricky: the helmsman had to climb each wave at just the right angle, turn slightly at the crest and keep the boat moving as it rushed down into the trough, losing the wind. Then again, and again. This went on for three days.
In theory, it was frightening. A single mistake could have turned us over. In fact, it was the most exciting experience of our lives. The wind and waves were awe-inspiring. The nights were tense; people scrambling to get on deck when the watch changed, impossible to stand upright, howling wind and rain driving horizontally into our faces. We were soaked through and the cabin was awash, but we were so exhausted after our turns on deck that we slept like logs with seawater swirling around our bunks. Meals were basic: wet bread and jam. We lived on coffee.
At last the storm blew itself out. The seas remained high but the wind died down, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We hung our sodden bedding on the rigging, glad that no-one could see us. The owner took some sights with his sextant, consulted the charts and called us all into the cockpit. 'Guys – we are nowhere near where we should be.' The storm had blown us a long way off course. Ireland suddenly seemed very far away.
We spotted a Russian warship in the distance and called them up to get a fix on our position. No answer. Then we saw a British warship and made the same request. It was politely denied. What we wanted most of all was to tell our families that we would be a week late reaching port. At last a friendly fishing-boat agreed to send our message.
The sheer size of the North Atlantic stretched our imagination. Apart from two warships and a fishing vessel, we saw no-one in three weeks. But we did see a whale, spouting majestically in the distance, and we saw seabirds throughout the whole journey. Then, half-way across, nature put on a spectacular display which none of us have ever forgotten.
It was the middle of the night and I was alone at the helm. There was no moon, no stars; the boat was sailing along easily on a calm sea in the pitch darkness. Suddenly I spotted a light way out on the port beam. I grabbed the binoculars: to my astonishment, the light seemed to be underwater, and it seemed to be getting closer. Was it Captain Nemo? I really thought it might be, so I called the others up on deck.
Three minutes later the mystery was solved: it was a pod of dolphins, ten or twelve of them, whose bodies were phosphorescing. They surrounded the boat and gave us an extraordinary show: formation aerobatics, under and around the hull, changing places, changing speed, all the time brightly illuminated in the clear, dark waters of the North Atlantic. They seemed to be having fun and stayed with us for hours.
Most days were pleasantly monotonous. We cruised along with a following wind, so there was little sense of movement. We changed the sails more often than necessary; it was something to do. We read and re-read the boat's small library: I now know more about the crabs of the Chesapeake Bay than anyone needs to. We played Trivial Pursuit (invented on a boat) but soon everyone knew the answers to all the questions. We cleaned Bluejacket inside and out until she was spotless. When we thought we were above the North Atlantic Trough we jumped overboard, just to say that we'd been swimming in 4,000 metres. But mostly we thought of food; as soon as we'd finished one meal we started looking forward to the next.
With Ireland a week away our supplies and water ran low. Rationing began: someone found a box of rusks, tainted with diesel. We eagerly devoured this treat. By the time the coast was in sight, Bluejacket's galley was bare. We dreamed, day and night, of Guinness, steak and chips.
Which is exactly what awaited us in Kenmare Bay. We moored and leapt onto the jetty. Everyone promptly fell over: after three weeks we had lost the art of walking on dry land. But there had never been anything like that first pint of Guinness, and to this day there never has been.
First World War Generals
They didn't all lurk in chateaux behind the lines, scoffing lobsters and caviar. Eighty British generals were killed between 1914 and 1918 while visiting the trenches, and in some cases taking part in attacks.
The idea that staff officers were cowards took root in the flood of First World War literature which poured forth a decade after the armistice. The poets, many of whom died, took a mordant line: generals were fat, ruddy-faced buffoons who cheerfully sent men to pointless deaths while safely ensconced in five-star accommodation. The auto-biographers were less inclined to caricature but no less ready to condemn the generals for heartlessness and stupidity.
It is this image of the staff which still informs our ideas today. We don't like nuances.
Revisionist historians like Gary Sheffield have tried to encourage a balanced view. But we prefer a Manichean picture: lions led by donkeys, in Alan Clarke's absurd account, which he confessed was fraudulent, full of made-up quotations: a tabloid fable masquerading as history.
What is the truth?
Some of them were stupid, but they didn't last long. Some were callous. We find heartless people in every walk of life; the military is neither more nor less burdened than banking. Some were lacking in moral fibre, technical ability or flexibility. All were sent home at the drop of a hat; there was no lack of up-and-coming senior officers to promote as substitutes for these 'limoges'.
Soldiers' letters show respect and admiration, if not affection, for their senior officers. Public opinion at home was no less supportive: strange, when we remember that almost every family had lost a relative. Ordinary people realised that the war had to be won. They knew that the generals were struggling with the most fearsome military machine in history. They knew that we had to attack while the enemy only had to repel our onslaughts. They realised, as our generals did, that we faced circumstances for which there was no precedent.
Some generals stood out for their genius: Maxse, Currie, Monash. Most were doing the best they could with barely-trained troops in novel circumstances: they had been trained themselves for manoeuvre battles. The static siege-warfare of the trenches was a new and insoluble problem.
The German generals had a somewhat easier task. They commanded a professional reserve army: millions of capable soldiers. They could also depend on the strange idea, shared by those millions, that Germany had the right, and the duty, to invade its neighbours. Hence the allies' need to overcome trench systems ten metres deep with three, four or five lines of defence.
The idea that our generals were remote, and therefore cruel, is based on a simple misunderstanding. The army's rules – established in the aftermath of the American Civil War and the Boer War – stated that a general could not fulfil his role unless he was detached from the battlefront.
Without radio, dependent on messengers and carrier-pigeons for their information, these men were obliged to do the best they could, with whatever resources they possessed, in the face of problems for which neither their experience nor their training had prepared them.
The Germans learnt from our battlefield disappointments; hence March 1918. What is often overlooked is that we also learnt from our failures: hence our headlong defeat of the German army and the armistice of November.
Verdun 2015
The contrast is astonishing. In my hand is a photograph of the summit of Le Mort Homme, a hill just outside Verdun. It was taken in 1916 and shows a lunar landscape churned into desolation by thousands of shells exploding in an area the size of a football pitch. But when I look up all I can see is foliage; there are dense woodlands on all sides. It is early summer.
Underfoot the contrast is less marked. There are pathways criss-crossing the hill but on either side, barely hidden by the bracken, shell-holes pock the earth side-by-side, often over-lapping. There are zig-zag indentations among them: the traces of trenches which once protected the French soldiers defending the position. But not very well, and not for long.
The Germans' surprise onslaught at Verdun was meticulously prepared. On the 21st of February 1916 a hail of one million large-calibre projectiles all but obliterated the French outposts on the right bank of the Meuse. A few brave units somehow survived the barrage and held their positions for a day or so, but the sheer weight of the German shock-troop attack (which used flame-throwers for the first time) forced them into retreat, death or capture. The Germans were on their way to the forts of Verdun.
But, as often happened, their plans contained a fatal flaw. Concentration on the right bank gave the French artillery on the left bank (where I was standing) a priceless opportunity to shoot into their flanks. The French artillery were first-class; the opportunity was not missed. And so, a fortnight after the launch of the assault, Falkenhayn's grand plan had to be changed. The German army would, after all, have to attack the left bank and wipe out the French guns.
It was easier said than done. Even after the Germans' artillery bombardment had removed every shred of cover, the terrain favoured the defenders: each slope, each hill captured at unthinkable cost in death and injury simply revealed another slope, another hillside with lines of French troops firmly entrenched. Week after week the battle for the commanding heights continued. The French slowly gave ground, bit by bit, but never gave in. The attack abated in May after 81,000 German casualties.
What happened next is notorious: the battle on the right bank reached unheard-of levels of ferocity. The forts were captured and re-captured. The butcher's bill grew to unprecedented levels, enough to give the most sanguine commanders pause for thought. The village of Fleury, by now a mere smudge on the landscape, changed hands sixteen times between June and August. Conditions were atrocious: men died of thirst in the height of summer and perished from sub-zero temperatures as winter drew on.
What is extraordinary in this sorry tale of carnage is the relentless determination of the troops on both sides. While the commanders dithered, covering up their mistakes and hedging their bets, the men in the ravines fought like panthers: the Germans would not admit defeat, the French would not be defeated. Two martial nations met head-on; neither would give way. In hindsight we are struck by the similarities which challenge our stereotypes: here we see the French, for whom 'elan' was supposedly all-important, resisting superior forces, superior artillery and superior battle tactics in a nine-month display of dogged implacability. The German troops, allegedly dull and robotic, instead showed verve, imagination and flair in ceaselessly trying to outwit their opponents.
The more thoughtful Germans had known since March that they could not win. By December their hopes had evaporated and the most bloody campaign in modern history petered out. The French gained the upper hand and brought the battle to an end by taking 11,387 prisoners in a single day. Some German officers complained about their uncomfortable conditions in captivity. Mangin replied: 'We do regret it, gentlemen, but then… we did not expect so many of you'.
Standing on that hillside nearly a hundred years later, my friends and I were quiet as we contemplated the endurance, fortitude and – there is no other word – bravery - of the soldiers on both sides. Later we wondered if we were living, as Europeans in 2015, with the echoes of Verdun. Could it have been the memory of Verdun, a battle of mutual annihilation, which inspired the grand idea of the European Union? We are used to thinking of the EU as the outcome of the Second World War, yet the confrontation between France and Hitler's mad ambitions was embarrassingly brief.
At Verdun both countries tried their hardest to murder each other's young men. Once started, the 'mill on the Meuse' was obviously pointless, but neither side knew how to bring the slaughter to an end. Perhaps both France and Germany were frightened by what had been unleashed. Perhaps they realised that a common border works better as a protection for both than as an invitation to either. Perhaps it was the dreadful memory of Verdun that provoked these ancient enemies, two generations later, to bury the hatchet.
The Battle of Britain
When France fell, to universal astonishment, Churchill predicted that the 'Battle of Britain' would soon follow. Though Hitler had expected an accommodation with the United Kingdom ('you keep your colonies – I'll take Europe') – and there were many in Westminster who thought this was a reasonable option – Churchill would have none of it.
Britain in 1940 was still a mighty imperial and industrial power. It had the largest merchant navy in the world and the largest fleet of warships to protect it. We like to think of Britain as weak, alone and endangered during World War Two, but it was never so: British tank and aircraft production outstripped Germany's from 1940 until the war ended. So secure did Churchill's cabinet feel in their island fortress that, facing the threat of invasion, they had no hesitation in sending ship-loads of tanks and fighter-planes to North Africa and the Far East. They never doubted they would win.
Hitler sensed this. He wasn't convinced that 'Operation Sea-Lion' was viable. Like Napoleon, he was happiest with land warfare, where he more-or-less knew what he was doing. But his aura as a supreme war-lord demanded punishment for the recalcitrant British, so barges were assembled in the Channel Ports and barracks hastily built on the cliff-tops facing Dover.
Two factors stood in his way. The first was the Royal Air Force. No barge would reach Kent unless the RAF's thousands of aircraft in Fighter Command, Coastal Command and Bomber Command could be neutralised. Goering promised to do this. Like most of Goering's commitments, it was impetuous and ill-thought-out. The Luftwaffe started by trying to destroy the RAF's radar chain and airfields. The radar installations were too hard to hit, and too easy to re-build, while – to the Luftwaffe's surprise – attacks on the airfields were met by swarms of fighters who always seemed to know where the Germans were going.
From July to October the Germans threw everything they had at the Royal Air Force. They felt they were close to victory because they consistently over-estimated their combat successes and under-estimated Britain's capacity to produce new Spitfires and Hurricanes. They got this completely wrong: the RAF had more fighters at the end of the Battle of Britain than at the beginning.
Morale was another problem for the Germans. Their own morale was excellent, but as nothing compared with the visceral hatred felt by Europeans whose homelands had been over-run by Hitler's myrmidons. Among the band of fighter pilots who won the Battle of Britain was a large contingent of Czechs, many of whom had escaped by way of France. Born airmen, then as now, they fought with flair and fury: the fourth-top-scoring Battle of Britain ace, with 17 kills, was Josef Frantisek. He and over 2,000 compatriots who fought with the RAF are commemorated by the Winged Lion Memorial at Klarov in Prague.
By the end of September the Germans realised they couldn't win and switched to bombing civilians in cities: The Blitz. That didn't work either. The barges were quietly dispersed and the barracks disassembled. Hitler officially 'postponed' the invasion.
The second factor standing in Hitler's way was the Royal Navy. Even if Goering's air-fleets had beaten the RAF, there was not the slightest possibility of an army crossing the Channel while the Royal Navy existed: it was vast, aggressive, intimidating and unbeatable. We may conclude that 'Operation Sea-Lion' was a case of sabre-rattling. Or we may conclude that Hitler was deranged.
But the Battle of Britain was a turning-point in history. It showed the oppressed nations of Europe, and the Americans, and the Russians, that the Germans were not invincible. The RAF – a multinational organisation if ever there was one – had struck a resounding blow for freedom. These young pilots inspired hope and resistance throughout occupied Europe. For the Axis, in spite of many military successes to come over the next four years, it was the beginning of the end.
War and whipping-cream
A hundred years ago five hundred German housewives demonstrated outside the Reichstag because the whipping-cream in Berlin's shops was worse than it had been in 1914. Munitions workers in Britain earned ten times as much as a corporal. 200,000 miners in South Wales went on strike.
Meanwhile, not far away, their fathers, brothers and husbands were cowering in ditches, terrified of being vaporized or torn to shreds by the next five-kilogramme lump of high-explosive iron. Nearly seven million of them were right.
Paris in 1916 was a riot of colour: the Spring Flower Festival resumed after a two-year pause. Theatres, night-clubs and restaurants did a roaring trade, though the art world was not quite so lively; Braque injured, Leger gassed, Gaudier-Brzeska dead, Apollinaire fatally wounded.
But on the whole, civilian life went on as it always had.
Soldiers on leave from the front in London, Berlin and Paris couldn't believe their eyes. It was another world. Some reacted positively: this was the civilisation they were dying in droves to protect. Others were disheartened: was it for this that they were living in an abattoir?
We know from their letters that most soldiers didn't try to describe trench conditions to their families at home. It would only worry them; also, there was no point. It was impossible to convey even a fraction of the carnage and misery. Nothing like it had ever happened before; there was no frame of reference. It would have been as incomprehensible to civilians as it was to the soldiers themselves.
The way in which the war was imagined at home has been explored by historians, notably Paul Fussell. Truth was concealed. It took years for authors to begin exposing reality: Graves, Remarque, Giono, Blunden and other survivors, writing in the twenties, depicted a startling counterpoint to the memoirs of the generals. War-poets shocked a world audience by describing the horrors of 1914-1918 from a raw, personal perspective.
It was hard for people to accept that the war had made no difference. France regained Alsace and Lorraine… Germany was punished… the Austrian Empire was disassembled… Russia turned inwards… Britain continued to rule the waves…
Yet it had to mean something. Those ten million soldiers… ten million civilians. They could not have died for nothing. Surely,this was The War to End War. Statesmen said so. Large sums were spent on memorials and cemeteries, concrete monuments to the inconceivable loss of life.
The British government gave war-widows railway tickets to visit their husbands' graves (third-class). The supreme sacrifice had been made in the best possible cause. Dulce et decorum est.
But soon enough, sure enough, there was honey for tea again at Grantchester and whipping-cream in Berlin.
The Somme: Revisionists Are Wrong
We visited the Somme battlefield again this year, tramping through muddy fields (as we felt we should) and reflecting, as always, on the incomprehensible bravery of the thousands who went forward as the whistle blew, knowing that their chances of survival were 50:50 at best.
We couldn't imagine the fortitude of those soldiers – not all of them young and starry-eyed. The German machine-gun nests were artfully sited, manned by experts and numerous. Everyone knew that, yet still they clambered out of their trenches and leant forward, as if into driving rain, in a doomed attempt to penetrate the enemy wire – which was, in most places, intact.
Post-war memoirs, both British and German, condemn The Somme as the ne plus ultra of abject, senseless warfare; relentless, inhuman, destructive of both body and soul. It was rarely a man-to-man fight. Day and night, howitzers and mortars hurled iron dustbins of high explosive at the opposing lines, on and on. No wonder so many soldiers simply ceased to exist, evaporated by the blast and remembered only as names on the memorials to the missing.
Those who witnessed both say it was much worse than Passchendaele.
After the effusion of anti-war sentiment originated by writers like Barbusse, Remarque, Blunden and Graves reached its UK peak in the 1970s, we have seen scholarly attempts to re-assess the competence of the British high command at The Somme, leading to a more nuanced view of the catastrophe: the generals were, some claim, forgiveably wrong. But I am not so sure.
Haig's concept of battle was romantically fixed in the 19th-century wars of manoeuvre in which he took part as a young officer. He believed in his heart that decisions were achieved by breakthroughs and that these were accomplished by men and horses. The function of artillery was to soften up the enemy's positions so that the all-important penetration could take place according to plan. Haig either couldn't, or didn't want to, recognise that he was engaged in siege warfare where material strength – the sheer quantity of shells, mines, mortar-rounds and bullets – made the human element secondary, and often irrelevant.
That's why his artillery plan for The Somme was homicidal. Haig diluted the week-long barrage over far too wide and deep an area, hoping to make way for his cavalry to rush forward and roll up the Germans' rear lines. This left the wire uncut, the shelters undamaged and the machine-gunners undead.
The British shells weren't much good. Thirty per cent failed to explode. A whole shipload bought from the USA had faulty fuses. The plan called for the wire to cut by shrapnel – something that can't be done, as anyone in the front line could see. The plan also assumed that the German artillery would be put out of action. It wasn't.
So 20,000 Commonwealth troops were annihilated on the first day. Revisionists say that Haig and his colleagues made the best possible plans with the knowledge available to them at the time. It is certainly true that The Somme was organised to an unprecedented level of detail, and this in itself gave the British commanders a high level of confidence in its success. Unduly so, since the basic assumptions were wrong. They didn't know what they were doing; they should have done.
It got worse. Undismayed by the carnage, Haig pressed on. Learning nothing, he persisted in throwing small-scale, unco-ordinated attacks into well-defended positions which offered no strategic advantage whatsoever. The losses mounted, the weather worsened, German opposition stiffened. Haig changed his tune; The Somme was no longer a breakthrough battle – it was now a battle of attrition. Yet British casualties were twice those of the enemy. Even the Germans were puzzled.
The Somme ground to a halt in November 1916 in a crescendo of protests from British and Commonwealth politicians. Movement on the battlefield was by then practically impossible. The chalk had been pulverised into a kind of sticky quicksand and the clay had been churned into fathomless pools of glue. Morale was at a low ebb; it was obvious to everyone, except Haig, that nothing had been gained and nothing could be gained by persisting.
The Germans learnt a rapid lesson from The Somme and built the Hindenburg Line; they wanted no more close-quarters bloodbaths and concluded that success meant keeping the British at bay. In the spring of 1918 they demonstrated that they had also worked out how to break the deadlock of trench warfare, retaking the entire Somme battlefield in a matter of days.
Haig, though, was obdurate. The intelligent ideas which emerged in 1917 were thought up by Commonwealth generals and British field commanders who had enlisted as volunteers. The final victory in 1918 – if it can be called that – was as much due to the exhaustion of the German army and the destitution of the German nation as to Haig's acumen on the field of battle. I think the revisionists are wrong. He was a bad general, stubborn and obsessed by antiquated ideas. The evidence is there for all to see in a thousand sad cemeteries on the Western Front.
Pro patria mori
A company of the Green Howards leapt out of their trenches and ran towards the German lines at Fricourt. A well-sited machine-gun, of which the Germans had many, killed them all. The Green Howards were acting against orders. What possessed them?
The question can be asked of hundreds of separate actions and thousands of men on that fateful day in July 1916 and during the months that followed, until Haig finally lost hope in his fantasy of a breakthrough and the fighting ground to a muddy, miserable halt for the winter.
Other questions can be asked, and have been, again and again over the last 90 years. Were the commanders really doing their best in conditions which confounded their training and previous experience? Or were they criminally complacent? Was it rational to devote ships, railways and vast quantities of human labour to feed thousands of horses who were never used, nor likely to be? Or was it moronic? Was it a forgivable error to spread the artillery barrage over three lines of defence, thus allowing troops and weapons in the German front line to escape unharmed? Or was it an idiotic mistake which should have been rewarded with oblivion rather than an earldom?
These questions can be answered, and have been. There is no consensus. We can judge the competence of these Edwardian generals in the light of their French and German counterparts, and we can compare the futility of their performance in 1916 with their somewhat better grasp of battle management in 1918. But we cannot possibly form an opinion of their moral calibre; everything which made them what they were is too distant and too alien to us in the 21st century.
It is equally perplexing, and more emotionally taxing, to try to understand the mentality of the soldiers who knowingly ran or walked to almost certain death when the whistle blew. Can we imagine ourselves or our friends behaving like this? The answer is almost certainly no. We are different these days; perhaps less credulous, perhaps more concerned with our own safety and welfare. We are less inspired by religious beliefs and less patriotic; the idea that our country is a 'higher cause' raises eyebrows, and the notion that our leaders deserve respect, still less obedience, is risible.
For a farmhand or clerk in 1914 things must have been simpler. The decision to join up might not have been a decision at all; I suspect it was, for most, the obvious thing to do. The idea of a natural order in human affairs – 'the great chain of being' – was still prevalent. Most people 'knew their place' and were more or less content with it; they were proud of being British (or French, or German) and instinctively understood the covenant, stretching back hundreds of years, that in return for the benefits of citizenship they should answer the call to arms when it came.
I am Daniel, a 20-year-old pen-pusher at Leeds Town Hall. The country needs me to do my bit to protect England from the voracious Hun. Kitchener says so, and all right-thinking people agree. For King and Country! Everything I see and hear – at work, in church, at the club, at home – encourages me to believe that I can play a part in the glorious battle for freedom, and that I should. I am fit, smart and able-bodied. Jim and Bill are already in uniform. Our army is the best in the world, with wise and experienced generals who have won a host of campaigns – we never lose. I won't come to any harm, and in any case the war will be over soon. I don't want to miss it…
In the back of my mind are Gerald and Charlie. They were killed at Loos and their parents still have black curtains at the windows. But no – these were exceptional circumstances. It won't happen to me. I'll be trained to do whatever I need to do and I will do it to the best of my ability. I can rely on my pals and I trust our leaders to make the right decisions. They are experts. Anyway, you can't think of yourself when the country's in danger. I want Elspeth to think highly of me, and I want to be able to tell our children that I answered the call, formed up, did my duty…
Whether volunteers or conscripts, most civilians who put on uniform probably felt something like Daniel's sentiments. They trusted implicitly in the rightness of their country's cause, the threat posed by the enemy and the competence of their leaders. Few doubted; the majority didn't have the cultural or mental apparatus to question established authority. The world in which Daniel lived was settled, stable and orderly. The disruption caused by German aggression had to be crushed as quickly as possible; then things could get back to normal.
Neither Daniel nor anyone else could know that nothing would ever be the same again. The First World War was a cataclysm, ending only when the German population grew more war-weary than the British or French, and the German generals realised that their gamble had failed: they hadn't lost, but they could never win. Meanwhile 12 million lives had been squandered; famine and misery would ensue over swathes of the European continent, and a botched settlement would be signed in Paris and Lausanne, hastily and – as it turned out – pointlessly.
What made Daniel and millions like him throw his fragile body into a hail of shell fragments and machine-gun bullets when the moment came? They cannot have retained their illusions; they knew for sure that they could die in agony. They had seen sudden and horrific deaths carry off their friends, and they would have buried them – if anything was left to bury – as best they could. By the end of July 1916 the soldiers' faith in the infallibility of their generals must have been close to zero. Yet still they obeyed their orders, climbed out of their trenches and ran into a blizzard of metal projectiles designed to tear them to shreds.
Management is supposed to be the art of getting people to do things they would rather not do. Were the WW1 generals superlative managers of men? The evidence suggests that they were neither good managers nor particularly good at anything else. Was it team spirit? The desire to keep faith with comrades is well-attested, especially in studies of US soldiers in WW2. Was it sheer personal courage? Lord Moran analysed this attribute and showed that it is a limited reservoir which runs out in time. Was it the absence of a real alternative? Whether British, French or German, soldiers on the Western Front seem to have possessed a remarkable ability to ignore the unthinkable consequences of their actions. To call them brave is an understatement.
If you stand in one of the 1,000 British cemeteries on the Western Front today you see row after row after row of crosses, each marking the sad grave of a Daniel. Sadder still are the names carved on the memorials to soldiers whose bodies had simply disappeared. For the British Empire alone there are 750,000 of these graves and names – a number it is hard to visualise. They all risked their lives and lost. Why? What made them do it? Few of us would dream of acting in the same way today. We admire them and we do our best to remember them, but I doubt we can ever understand.
The Party-Day Fields at Nuremberg
A notice on the tribune at the Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg informs us that the city was 'liberated' by the US Army in 1945. At first sight the audacity of this idea is shocking, but on reflection it echoes a dilemma which must have vexed most of us at one time or another: how was it that a nation universally admired for its civilisation and culture could have turned so quickly into a homicidal mob which aroused the world's disgust and despair in equal measure?
The off-the-cuff answer is usually that Adolf Hitler possessed such preternatural powers of rhetoric that he was able to hypnotise his audiences, whether one person or five hundred thousand. He was the 'strong leader' for whom the Germans yearned. Yet his performances do not stand up to analysis: all sound and fury, delivered in a funny accent with the gesticulations of a marionette. He was uneducated and boring; his table-talk was piffle, hour after soul-destroying hour. He was the man you dread sitting next to on a bus.
I suspect that the person who was really responsible for the death of Germany's conscience was a man who had none of his own yet was diabolically clever: a true Faust. A narcissus whose diary recorded the petty triumphs and even pettier disasters of his daily life in excruciating detail; a man who coolly supervised the murder of his own six children when he couldn't bring himself to face the consequences of his actions. Josef Goebbels, a psychopathic dwarf with a club-foot and a bottomless reservoir of hatred and contempt for humankind.
It was Goebbels, like all sociopaths a cynic, who figured out how to create a new religion which would sweep aside the Germans' self-control by exciting and enthralling them, inspiring them with overwhelming feelings of glory, destiny and superiority, inflating their bruised feelings of self-worth and offering them a new future, a utopian vision of freedom where they would be physically and spiritually united with countless millions just like them, to dominate the world for all time. They deserved it! They were – of course! – the master-race.
Goebbels' cold heart knew what salesmen know: people make life-changing decisions because of what they feel, not because of what they think, still less because of what they know. His cold eye appraised systems which used emotional manipulation to achieve extraordinary behaviour: the exaltation of the churches and their martyrs; the atmosphere inside a cathedral; the discipline of the public schools and their inmates' indifference to comfort; royal weddings and jubilees; the laughter and tears of cinema audiences; the wolf-pack instincts of football crowds. Cleverly, he stole visual and aural prompts from the worlds of sport, theatre and the military: bright light and deep shadow; crimson and black, the visceral colours; the sheen of gold; the flapping of flags, the beat of drums, the rhythm of marching boots, the sound of thousands of voices singing, shouting and cheering in unison…. the use of vast crowds to extinguish individualism and evoke the predator within, free of morals, free of responsibility, free of constraint.
The showcase for this mind-bending extravaganza was the Party-Day Fields just outside Nuremberg. Eleven square kilometres of limestone, granite and beaten earth for the ritual enactment, every year from 1933 to 1938, of the Nazis' adulation of themselves. Parts remain. The city seems ambivalent about its brief sojourn in the Fuehrer's sun: ashamed but also proud. Few of the buildings were ever finished and the remnants are interspersed with warehouses, race-tracks and sports fields; traffic grinds through on its way somewhere else, families stroll with picnic baskets, dogs trip over their paws as they race to meet other dogs. No-one seems to look up at the towering walls of the Congress Hall or down at the granite slabs of the Grand Street. The iron-and-stone personification of the Thousand-Year Reich is, now, just a place to wander on a sunny day.
Albert Speer, Hitler's obsequious architect, was reputed to be a good organiser. But you will look in vain for evidence of architectural talent in the sprawling Party-Day Fields. There is no refinement, balance or aesthetic sensibility in the proportions or the detail. All is massive, square, clunky, crude. Speer's 'talent' was to over-awe. He said that he aimed for grandeur; he achieved the grandiose. The Congress Hall, designed by local architects within Speer's master-plan, is the largest surviving edifice. It is big – like a U-boat pen – but bare and utilitarian; a pastiche of the Colosseum on which it was modelled. Today it houses a museum where the introductory film intercuts clips of present-day skateboarders with scenes from 'Triumph of the Will'. Round the corner are photographs of Wehrmacht soldiers shooting Serbian civilians in the back of the head; further on, pictures of the stone quarries at Mauthausen where 30,000 were deliberately worked to death.
The wall-surfaces of these huge buildings were clad in stone but the interiors were rubble and clinker. The soft-focus images in 'Triumph of the Will' give an impression of monumental structures, destined to last a thousand years, but most of them are stage-sets designed to last two weeks. We can detect here the values of Josef Goebbels: reality was irrelevant; illusion was all. Goebbels could hoodwink fifty million people, make them believe black was white, make them feel they were doing a good thing by shooting children in the back, make them throw their lives away in the slaughter of 1945. He revelled in his ability to deceive. He was a moral abyss with exceptional technical skills. He stands as an example of what an able human being can become once all humanity is stripped away.
We visited the Party Day Fields in an effort to understand the magic which the Nazis used to pervert an entire nation. It was possible to glimpse the role of size and scale in robbing the troopers and the citizens of their better selves; it was possible to dimly understand how the Nazis created feelings of excitement and exaltation here, using sets and props, lights, music and sounds, colours and gimmicks, drama and numbers, noise and movement, fear and awe.
Hitler, a mental midget, probably believed what he said. Goebbels believed nothing but had the technical ability and the moral nihilism to create a gross illusion, a crashing falsehood which ensnared millions of otherwise normal citizens who rapidly became blood-stained activists or silent supporters.
But it was a show, a performance staged by experts who were laughing behind their hands at the gullibility of the people. In the end, the scenery collapsed and the arc-lights sputtered out in a deluge of blood. The Party-Day Fields are as good a place as any to contemplate the gimcrack illusion on which the Twelve-Year Reich was built.


text:
When thinking about any successful and popular brands, the first element that often comes to mind is the brand's logo design. Most of the recognizable and well-known brands worldwide spend millions on logo design, paying attention to the simplicity and assuring that the logo provides a highly effective venue of communication with customers. This is yet another reason why you should consider a high-quality logo a good investment to enable your brand's ability to draw in your target audience. Too often, the process of designing a strong logo gets set aside in hopes of saving money. This decision can prove detrimental to a brand's growth and success. By looking into the reasons behind a good logo, you can easily understand why your brand has a deep need to have one.
Brands Spend Millions on Logo Design
To further comprehend the importance of investing in a unique and artful logo design, take a look at some well-known brands that most individuals recognize simply because of their logo and the cost of those logos. The results might surprise you.
Here are some of the more expensive logo design examples:
The Pepsi logo of 2008, cost $1,000,000
The BBC logo, designed in 1997, cost $1,800,00
The BP's redesigned logo of 2008 cost $211,000,000
These are some of the most expensive examples of brands that spend millions on logo design compiled from an article on Stocklogos.com. Chances are that you do not have millions to spend on designing your logo. So, here are some examples of other brands that you may recognize and the price tag of their logos.
Nike spent only $35 for its logo in 1971
Twitter paid only $15 for its original design
Google did not pay a single cent for its original logo in 1998
Neither did Coca Cola
So don't start sweating the prices just yet. While it is important for you to invest in a well-put-together logo, you do not have to spend millions on logo design.
Logo Design Cost
Since you more than likely do not have a million dollars on hand to spend on designing your logo, take a look at the more typical prices of a logo. Maybe you want to design the logo yourself. You should not use typical software like Microsoft for the process as it communicates a lack of stability. So, you will want to use professional equipment. Good software for logo design costs around $700, not including equipment such as the computer, paper, ink, and printer.
If you prefer to use a professional designer, then consider the outline of the process. According to "Why Professional Logo Design Costs More than 5 Dollars," the design process typically entails the following:
The design brief – a questionnaire with the client about desired details and brand specifics
Research on the specific industry itself
Reference to successful logo designs within the industry
Conceptualization of the actual design
Reflection – leaving the design alone after the initial conceptualization so that ideas can grow and mature
Decision on which designs they will present to the client
Designing a logo professionally can cost anywhere from $5-$200, but you should probably invest closer to the $200 range to ensure high quality of all elements necessary for a cohesive logo. Whether you invest in your own software, or select a professional designer, imagine yourself in a customer's position and consider these questions: What would help you remember your logo? What logo elements would draw you to the brand? What should the logo communicate to the audience? Let the brainstorming begin.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
City of Industry, CAHome Menu
Excavation Permit
Excavation Permit/Encroachment Permit:
Required for all utility work within public right of way. This work includes: installing, maintaining, repairing utility services, and traffic control within public right of way. Excavation/Encroachment Permits require an inspector to verify that all new structures, backfills, sidewalk replacement, traffic control and other improvements have been properly constructed and installed in accordance with City Standards. All Excavation permits require the appropriate contractor's license and insurance which must be obtained prior to permit issuance. A Right-of-Way Agreement is also required to utilize the public right-of-way.


text:
Earlier this month, we attended an arts & craft festival in Harrisburg, PA. There were loads of goodies there, lots of fun things made by local crafters. But nothing was quite as memorable as a stand called "Mostly for the Birds." The artisan was a sweet lady named Linda from central Pennsylvania.
Linda finds unwanted scraps and pieces of wood, and builds quirky, cool birdhouses, feeders and other fun objects. She told us that all the fixtures are new – like the hinges and screws – but overall, she uses lots of upcycled construction materials. And she can tell you exactly what kinds of bird will like each of the houses and feeders.
We got this trapezoid birdhouse and log-feeder at the arts & crafts show. Unfortunately, Linda isn't selling online yet. If you're local to the area, you can drop her an email (firstname.lastname@example.com) and she'll be glad to send a schedule of her upcoming shows/list of places you can get her playful, fab creations.
Things are going well with ours.
Though as you can see, the squirrels usually beat the birds to our log-feeder. Squirrels love peanut butter, that's for sure!
Thanks Linda for making your upcycled and funky bird feeders and houses. Our backyard wildlife will go through the winter a little warmer , with fuller tummies this season thanks to you!


text:
Games for Learning Spanish: More Active Spanish Games to Make Your Kinesthetic Learners Happy
Keep the Energy Up
Physical activity is a good way of collecting your students' attention and keeping it, no matter what their innate learning style is. For kinesthetic learners, playing active Spanish games that let you get up and move is invaluable; aural and visual learners will benefit from taking in all the activity around them.
These fun games for learning Spanish can also be adapted for use in any language learning class, including English as a Second Language.
Simón Dice
Simon Says–en español, of course–is the perfect way to practice imperatives. In this active Spanish game, students take turns ordering the rest of the class around. Just as in the English version of the game, anyone that follows an order that wasn't preceded with "Simón dice…" is out and has to sit down. The game ends when everyone is out, and a new "boss" is selected for the next go-round.
For an extra twist on this classic game, divide the class into two teams. Each team picks a "Simón" to start with. Then alternate between teams, with each "Simón" issuing commands to the other team. The goal is to get the other team's players out before your own are similarly outed. Rotate who plays the "Simón" role within each team after a few commands are issued so that everyone gets a chance. Of course, players who are "out" miss the chance to play "Simón".
Pin the Flag on the Country
If you're trying to teach your students Latin American country names in Spanish, the old children's game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey may do the trick. You'll need a very large wall map of the world or whichever continent you're learning about at a given time, some thumbtacks, a blindfold and pictures of various country flags pasted onto index cards. If you can't come up with images of country flags, just print out the country names in Spanish and use those instead.
Stand one student at a time near the wall with the map, blindfold him, and carefully spin him around a couple of times to disorient him. Then hand him one of the thumbtack/card flags or country names and tell him which country it is. He has to somehow pin the correct country name or flag in the correct place in the map. Given that he's blindfolded and disoriented, he can only do that with his fellow students' help. It's their job to direct him (in Spanish, of course) until he gets the marker in the right place. Then it's another student's turn.
You can play this active Spanish game in one class as a whole or in small teams. If you play with teams, those who pin the marker correctly advance to the next round and those who don't get the marker in the right place can sit down or be melded into one of the continuing teams. Break ties, if necessary, by giving the win to the fastest team. And if you're not studying countries right now, you can still use the good old unfortunate donkey–who should be available at any party store–and his cola to good use. Your students will still refine their ability to issue and understand imperatives whilst greatly enjoying the chance to order each other around.
Read up on European country names in Spanish for additional practice.
- Source: author's own experience
This post is part of the series: Classroom Games for Learning Spanish
Bright Hub presents a series of articles about various classroom games you can use to get, and keep, your students involved. These games can be adapted to suit students of all ages and learning styles.


text:
Luckers Girls Dazzling Glitter Slide Sandals
Product Description
Having grown up in a great seaport, we love the coastal scenes and the ocean sounds. This year our new "seaside slide sandals collection" is inspired by the sounds of the sea, the dazzling sunlight and the glassy ocean waves.
- Dazzling glitter upper, durable traction rubber sole
- Lightweight, soft rubber insole for comfort and support
- Synthetic upper and lining
- 1" heel; 1/2" platform
- All man made material


text:
SANA'A, YEMEN (YEMEN PRESS)– The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, described the humanitarian situation currently facing the Yemeni people like the Apocalypse, warning of the worst humanitarian disaster in 50 years in Yemen if its situation did not change.
He said the UN Emergency Fund would allocate funds to support relief work in Yemen, the largest in the history of the UN.
Lowcock's comments came as the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocated $50m to bolster the relief effort in Yemen, where more than eight million people are on the brink of famine.
The sum represents the largest ever allocation made by (CERF) and reflects the dire situation in Yemen, which was already one of the Arab world's poorest countries before the start of the war in 2015.
The United Nations has ranked Yemen at the forefront of the humanitarian crisis, with some 17 million Yemenis need food, seven million people at risk of starvation, and cholera in more than 2,000 deaths.
Last year, the United Nations listed the Saudi-led coalition on its black list; after 683 children were killed, during the war in 2016 and 38 attacks were carried out on schools and hospitals.
The statement comes in after a report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in which he stressed that Yemen needs urgent humanitarian assistance by 2018, especially as war escalates; more than 22 million people need protection and humanitarian assistance, more than 11 million are in desperate need than others.
The report said civilians are at great risk; more than 8,000 deaths, more than 3 million people forces are displaced, an estimated 18 million people are food insecure, and millions need to be kept life.
He added that the 16 million Yemenis lack water and sanitation services, and lack the same to health care, a ring that the Yemeni economy has shrunk since the outbreak of conflict; which led to the demobilization of 55% of the workforce.
The conflict is having a devastating effect, causing widespread food shortages and a major cholera outbreak as well as leaving millions in need of humanitarian assistance.
He pointed to the need to keep all ports always open, as Yemen imports about 90 percent of its basic food and nearly all types of fuel and medicine.
Lowcock said the steady flow of these imports is a must for millions of people. As Yemen moves forward, Yemen needs sustainable levels and higher levels of imports of food, fuel and medicine, especially through the ports of Hodeidah and Saliph, stressing that millions of needy Yemenis can not afford more restrictions on imports.
In coincidence with the UN report, international organizations and Western countries are exerting pressure on the Saudi coalition to lift completely the blockade on Yemen and allow free access to humanitarian supplies through Yemeni sea and air ports.


text:
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Cheeky Pigs.
Having seen the Cheeky Pigs play on the RTE television show "SBB ina Hee", I thought it would be great if they would play "The Fattening Of The Pig". Turns out it was a good idea and they where feckin brilliant. From start to finish Paudy Bradley and the band captivated the crowd with bangin beats from "Warren Zevon" "The Rolling Stones" "Talking Heads" and some of there own self writen songs which I think are as good as any of the covers they performed.
Paudy took the stage wearing a big pair of goggles and black leather jacket with the collars turned up which immediately drew the gaze of the crowd. When they opened up with "ware wolves of London" I couldn't believe it, I wasn't expecting such a great selection of songs. Between the class tunes and Paudys antics on stage the "Cheeky Pigs" where brilliant. If you get a chance to see them play live don't miss it.
Thanks for playing the show lads.
Videos from Cheeky Pigs performance to come !!!!!!!!!!
Posted by The Ardee Man at 3:01 PM
2 comments:
Links to this post
Monday, June 29, 2009
Pandora Internet Radio
Pandora has been around for years but I forgot to mention it before. If you love new music you have to download it for free, no hidden fees, no charge, FREE!!!
All you do is type in a band you like, eg Oasis. Pandora will play an Oasis tune then roughly four of five tunes that have a similar style of music. Then it will go back to Oasis and will repeat the process all day. It is deadly, all day every day new music with no assholes talking shite between songs.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 4:42 PM
1 comment:
Links to this post
Toffee Rats ????
In the picture it shows penny mice, the lovely chocolate mice with the pink centre. Now do you remember the big mice for 3p, they where much bigger and filled with hard toffee. We called them 3p mice. I was talking to a couple of egits from Monaghan and they said that they here called 4p toffee rats. Toffee Rats !!! Egits.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 4:31 PM
No comments:
Links to this post
Peter Callaghan. Callaghans Butchers Ardee
What can I say about Peter Callaghan, Only that without him everybody in Ardee would probably be about two stone lighter. Without doubt the best sausages I have tasted in nine years, I sampled The Curry Sausage and The Paprika Sausage and they are lovely, Grand on white bread with the butter dripping onto the plate.
When I came up with the idea for "The Fattening Of The Pig" Peter came to mind,no not because he reminded me of a pig but the fact that they are the finest butchers in Ireland and the trophy's to prove it. I gave Mr Callaghan a call and explained my idea and Peter agreed to donate a lovely fat pig for the cause for which I am very grateful. If that wasn't enough Peter came up with loads of other ideas for the gig too.
Peter thank you very much.
CALLAGHAN BUTCHERS ARDEE CO.LOUTH !!!!! Go there you wont be sorry.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 2:50 PM
1 comment:
Links to this post
Me And Alec McLean
Alec McLean is the chairman of MS Ireland Louth Branch. He was good enough to attend "The Fattening Of The Pig" and he attempted to make a speech but there was that much craic going on I don't think many people heard him speak. Alec's wife Mary has MS too and I got to meet her when they drove to my house to have some pictures taken.
It was great to meet them and I hope to stay in touch.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 2:39 PM
No comments:
Links to this post
Labels: MS
The Fattening Of The Pig
There was a lot of organisation and panic to put on "The Fattening Of The Pig" but in the end it turned out to be a great success. We managed to raise 4222.00 euro which was donated to the north east branch of MS Ireland. ( keep it local sez I. )
With the bands pumping out the sounds, the pig roasting and all the people that arrived it was just deadly.
Special thanks too
Jesus Christ,
My dance crew,
Peter Callaghan,
Sean Muldoon,
Just Friends,
Cheeky Pigs,
Alec McLean,
The Familiar Things ( thanks Franky )
Brendan Reaburn,
Mammy and Daddy,
Thomas Doherty,
Aunty Cora,
Skinny (Big Balls) McCague,
Murph Rooney,
Thanks everybody who bought tickets and attended the gig, Thank you all very much.
I had a fantastic time and it was feckin deadly to be back in Ardee.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 2:19 PM
2 comments:
Links to this post
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Michael Jacksons Death
Michael Jacksons Death
Michael Jacksons Death
Simply Dicky. Formula 1
This next segment to the blog is called "Simply Dicky".
Indeed a rare glimpse into the world of Dicky, if he's not playing music, bringing peace to the middle east or dining in the white house you can bet Dicky will be doing something cool.
In our first look into the exotic life of Dicky we see him on the podium taking first place at last years Formula 1 season, much to the delight of the crowd Dicky signed autographs, pulled donuts in the team car while showering the fans with cash. All before retiring to the after party surrounded by models.
You Go Dicky.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 2:33 PM
3 comments:
Links to this post
Labels: Simply Dicky
Feeling Gay At The Jumping Church
Probably the gayest thing I did on the two week trip to Ardee, well maybe the rubber dildo in my trousers was abit gay too !!
But that's another story.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 12:53 PM
1 comment:
Links to this post
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Well Horshh Box.
One of the first stops we had to make was The Jumping Church. One the way we came across all these friendly horshs's. We would have to pay to get this close to a horse in New York so it was quite a novelty for us. There was that many horsh's there that it was like being in Cavan on a Friday night.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 7:21 AM
1 comment:
Links to this post
On Aer Cunnilingus
The spin on the plane on the way over was grand. It only took five hours and it was gone before we knew it, a couple of Vodka and Cokes and an episode of Father Ted helped pass the time. We got quite a decent meal, although it looked like shite it fill a hole before I had my first real Irish breakfast prepared by Mary in Dromin.
I was under serious cabin pressure as I was dropping loads of silent farts but nobody seemed to notice only me as I laughed to myself. God help whoever was getting my blanket on the next flight...Suckers.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 6:15 AM
No comments:
Links to this post
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
My Return To The Motherland, ARDEE
Well I have to say that my trip back Ardee was the best two weeks I had in a long long time. Touching down in bleeding Dublin on Hair Cunnilingus a lot of things where on my mind....
Will I get into Benny Andersons ?
If Mammy is at the airport,who is gonna make the fry ?
Will the locals run Molly from the town with pitck forks ?
Is Clogherhead like it used to be?
Is six of one really half a dozen of the other?
Is Phil Collins really a Gorilla?
Is Supervalu secretly a Space ship?
All these questions and so many more where indeed answered and my knowledge for Ardee has grown greatly in the past two weeks.
I have a lot to get together since returning to New York but I will try to post a blog every day.
I can say this, Ardee is still home and always will be and the people so friendly, it was just great being back.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 9:29 AM
No comments:
Links to this post
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Monaghan Man Part 2
He takes the head clean of his father !!!
Posted by The Ardee Man at 12:10 PM
No comments:
Links to this post
The Monaghan Man Part 1
The classic sound clips from Nob Nation, it must be heard !! Al see yis round the christmas.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 12:06 PM
No comments:
Links to this post
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Being Back In Ardee
I am having a blast since arriving back in Ardee last Saturday, Molly has been meeting all the friends and family. It's been non stop eating and drinking. I have about 6 million pictures but I havn't the time to get them on here just to much to do.
Don't forget about the Fattening of The Pig fundraiser for MS Ireland this Friday @ The Bailey. Tickets only 10 bucks.
Don't forget about the Fattening of The Pig fundraiser for MS Ireland this Friday @ The Bailey. Tickets only 10 bucks.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 2:02 AM
4 comments:
Links to this post
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Deer Tick. Art Isn't Real
John McCauley, the man behind Deer Tick , was born and grew up in Providence, RI. This song from Deer Tick puts me in mind of a new age Robert Zimmerman and being drunk singing with the lads. He has an unusual voice which seems to get under my skin and draw me in for more. Hope you like Deer Tick.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 5:56 PM
No comments:
Links to this post
Grizzly Bear. Two Weeks
Grizzly Bear are a little strange if you ask me but I have to say when I first heard them I wasnt to impressed but after a while they grew on me. This song Two Weeks I really like and the video is very strange but cool. Maybe whats in there heads is whats in the brief case in Pulp Fiction.
Posted by The Ardee Man at 4:40 PM
No comments:
Links to this post
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text:
December 11, 2013
Professor Amitav Acharya,
Professor Girijesh Pant, Dean SIS JNU,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you for asking me to speak to your Third International Studies Conference. My congratulations to MEA, JNU and the other co-sponsoring universities on arranging this Conference It has become an annual feature that we look forward to as an occasion to
learn from the best minds in international relations (IR) studies in India.
It was suggested to me that I should speak to you about 'Strategic Culture in India". I think my views on this are well known. There have been those, like George Tanham, who deny that India has a strategic culture. My view is that this is an impossibility
for a self conscious culture and civilisation such as ours, with our heritage and sense of our own importance and role. Just as saying one is apolitical is itself a political choice, saying that India has no strategic culture is only to say that it is different
from the strategic cultures one is used to.
Sadly many Indians have picked up Tanham's refrain saying that India has no strategic culture. I think what most of them mean is that they do not see the long term thinking and patient planning that is often (rightly or wrongly) ascribed to other cultures.
This too seems untrue to me. India has shown remarkable consistency in the manner of her engagement with the world, across different stages of her development, under governments of divergent political persuasions, and in very varied international circumstances.
The record has been remarkably consistent.
But why is there an argument about this at all? One reason may be the nature of IR studies in India. Let us be honest among ourselves. With a few individual exceptions, IR studies in India are yet to benchmark themselves to the best in the world or to carve
out a place in IR studies globally. As an Indian, this pains me. As a practitioner, rather than indulge in a theoretical discussion, which you scholars are much better qualified to do, I would therefore like to speak today on "Strategic Culture and IR Studies
in India" and to suggest some issues for our future work.
Preparing for this talk, the first question that struck me as a practitioner was whether what we do as India's diplomats is studied; whether we diplomats recognise the reality that we know and experience, or something like it, in the studies of Indian diplomacy
and foreign policy that we see. My honest answer, after over forty years in the field, must be that there has actually been very little such scholarship. It is now beginning, as Srinath Raghavan's '1971', and his previous book show, but there is very little
of that quality which is empirically based on the historical record and which suggests the real policy dilemmas that we face. We are fortunate in having a considerable body of memoirs, some of them like JN Dixit's 'Assignment Colombo' of very high quality
indeed, but little that combines theoretical rigour with knowledge of the real world.
I suppose that what I am asking for is a combination of theory and practice that is rare, and difficult when we are so archivally challenged, to put it mildly. Even so, the exceptions prove that the effort can be made successfully. IR is and must be a primarily
an empirical discipline, even though some of us are tempted by the 'quants' or by the desire to be 'scientific'.
To illustrate my point let me mention two issues in Indian foreign policy.
(i) India and her Neighbours: We are yet to find a paradigm to satisfactorily explain the paradox of India having more in common than most countries with her neighbours in terms of language,
culture, economic complimentarity, common history, and so on, but still having difficult or complex relations with each of them. Instead our studies concentrate on the day to day politics and compulsions that affect these relationships rather than their drivers
or explanations of why they are as they are.
(ii) India and China: Similarly, a simple realist theory is insufficient to explain or even describe the complex course and state of India-China relations. If the balance of power were all
that mattered, how do we explain the development of the relationship in the last twenty-five years?
When Rajiv Gandhi became the first Indian PM to visit China after Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954 we had a mono focal relationship. That is now transformed and it continues to change before our eyes. We lack a theoretical basis for understanding this change.
1. The Gap between Theory and Practice
Why is there this gap between theory and practice, between theoreticians and practitioners, between academics and diplomats in Indian IR studies? Let me suggest a few reasons that my experience suggests:
(i)One reason is the post-modern emphasis on narrative and discourse. When I look at your agenda some words leap out: "reimagining", "imagining", "subaltern reading", "binaries, silences and alternatives", a view from nowhere", "intellectual discourse",
"contending discourses" and so on. These are no doubt useful in their place and are academically fashionable concepts. It is useful to be self conscious. The media, public diplomacy and an entire industry have been built on these post-modern concepts that
other disciplines borrowed from literary criticism. When it comes to dealing with international relations they are useful in explaining subjective perceptions, which do affect policy choices. Methodological refinement and improving the tools available to the
discipline certainly have some value.
(ii)But the fact is that this is talking about talking. While it is useful to be self conscious there must be something to be self conscious about, not just self consciousness itself. Process cannot substitute for substance. For the practitioner of international
relations, it is outcomes, the policy choices, and the objective realities that underlie them that is of interest. The practitioner seeks theories that contribute to understanding them. The post-modern vocabulary and discourse does not offer that. In my experience
what moves states and people who make decisions is not discourse but what they see as choices and risks in objective reality. In short, the diplomat seeks outcomes. These are not obtained in the real world by narratives and discourse though they can help.
If IR studies want the satisfaction that comes from having changed or explained reality post-modern discourse does not provide it.
(iii) The dominant discourse in IR studies, journalism and the world as a whole today is a Western metropolitan one. But that has not prevented the steady erosion of Western dominance, as the activation of the G-20 and its role after the 2007-8 financial
crisis showed. (There will no doubt be push back as power seldom shifts smoothly from one set of hands to another in the international system.) That shift was based on actual changes in the global economy, with manufacturing and surpluses moving to the emerging
world and China. Changes in discourse and narrative followed the objective shift, and will change again with push back.
(iv) Besides, as IR studies concentrate more and more on less and less, they are less able to convey the complexity of the real world that we face, where what Game Theory calls "minimax" solutions and choices are the rule, and every choice involves risks.
(v)Lastly, people are at the heart of what we diplomats do. Science deals with grand unification at the same time as chemistry burrows down to the molecular and atomic level. IR studies today are so concerned with being seen as "scientific" that they do
not seem to have room for the individual.
We today have a problem of plenty. Scholars are under pressure to publish books and articles in journals and newsmagazines, to comment on daily events, write blogs, tweet, appear on TV, attend conferences, seminars and to teach. Frankly, I am amazed at the
multitasking skills of my academic friends. But many of them secretly admit that quality suffers from this inflation of media and that the supply of ideas has not kept up with the demand.
What is the answer to the gap between theory and practice?
IR has been most effective where there is an interchange between academia and government. (I say government only because for most recent history international relations and diplomacy have been the province of states. Now they involve governments, supra-governmental
organisations, quasi-governmental and non-governmental organisations.) But that does not affect the argument that value lies in the interchange between academia and these institutions that make policy. That is the key to both being more effective. Both academia
and policy formulation benefit from such interchange. Some of the best academic work in India on our foreign policy was done by those like S Gopal who had experience of both. When we had a Historical Division in MEA it was possible for scholars to work in
Government of India and make these transitions. We started these conferences because we wanted to create precisely this interchange in India, which has sadly become rarer over time. And Government is the poorer for not having the benefit of grounded academic
What I am suggesting is that we try to build links between academia and policy, and that this conference is a good place to start.
2. India's Role in the World
My other suggestion would be for Indian IR scholars to look at the remarkable consistency of the role that India has sought to play in the world, under governments of different political persuasions and composition. India's non-alignment, chosen levels of
engagement, the balance between multilateralism and bilateralism, and the demands we place upon our negotiators are all unique.
All in all, our diplomatic engagement has been marked by circumspection, which may not be what an age of 24X7 media and celebrity culture demands, but judged by outcomes it has served us well. The modesty and patience that have marked Indian diplomacy so
far have resulted in India making quiet but substantive contributions to the world in many ways.
This consistency is also a feature of India's diplomatic style.
Since independence India has been an independent actor on the international stage with a role, a diplomatic style, and a unique and recognisable personality all her own. I have said elsewhere that:
1.For one, we have practiced the most frugal diplomacy that I know. We expect a small band of professional diplomats with minimum means to deliver all and more that much larger, better equipped and well funded foreign services do. Judged by international
standards we have delivered. But as India's interests abroad expand it will no longer be possible to improvise and extemporise with what little we have.
2.We seem to use multilateralism for our values and bilateralism for our interests. We were among the first and most persistent to raise decolonisation issues, apartheid in South Africa, and nuclear disarmament in the UN. In the early years of the UN India
played a pivotal role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other fundamental human rights Covenants and Conventions. And India is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping operations. But our experience of the UN's reactions to Pakistani
aggression in Kashmir, the genocide in East Pakistan in 1971, and other cases taught us to rely on our own resources when it came to defending our core interests.
3.India has shown a willingness to use force for clearly defined political ends when the cause is just, once it is clear that diplomacy's potential is exhausted, internally in Goa and Hyderabad and externally in 1971, in Sri Lanka and the Maldives at the
request of their governments.
4.In the choice between the imperatives of domestic politics and the demands of external engagement we have normally struck a balance which has stood the test of time. Think of our international dealings on the Kashmir issue, or those with Sri Lanka on the
Sri Lankan Tamil issue.
5.Others tell us that the articulation of our policies is normative, moralistic and academic, even in explaining acts of
real politik. We have even been called 'preachy'! This has not changed much over time and seems to be a continuing cultural trait.
3. The Uses and Limits of Power
All strategic thinkers through the ages, whether Kautilya, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli or others, have sought answers to similar questions: how to win without battle; how to deal with a stronger power; how to choose between the risks associated with any course
of action (since every course of action in IR involves risks); and so on. And they have chosen to do so empirically not normatively.
India has been very economical in its foreign entanglements but not engagements. We have so far resisted siren calls for us to do what others want us to, in the name of being "responsible" or "stepping up to the plate". This shows an acute awareness on our
part, but not others, of the extent and limits of India's power and its potential uses, and a clear prioritisation between our interests and between our goals.
My own feeling is that the key to understanding India's foreign policy practice so far is the Indian understanding of the uses, limits and nature of power. But this is a proposition that must be tested and proven with some academic rigour by you scholars.
What we practitioners can bring to the exercise is some experience and anecdotal evidence.
4. An Indian Theory
Which brings me to the last issue that I would like to raise. If India's practice and style of foreign policy is so recognisably and so uniquely Indian why is there not an Indian theory to explain it?
One way of developing such a theory is to look back. Chinese scholars have done this for some time, like Yan Xuetong, reinterpreting and mining their own past to produce what they see as a Chinese theory of international relations. In India too some people
have started this exercise. The IDSA has been sponsoring some truly valuable work on Kautilya and the Arthashastra. It is interesting in showing how central the state was to strategic thinking in India as early as the third century BC, long before other cultures
stopped speaking of a mysterious God and his ways as central to strategy.
This is extremely useful work, if nothing else to break the mental shackles of academic and linguistic conditioning. But it has its limits.
The other way is to look at the present and forward. If India is to deal with the new issues of the twenty first century, it is essential that we further elaborate our own culture and tradition of strategic thought and build on it. To the extent that India's
situation and needs are unique, we need our own ways of looking at developments, and our own strategic vocabulary and doctrines. Fortunately for us, there is no isolationist streak in our strategic thought, and we have a rich tradition to draw on.
So there is plenty to be done to link our studies with our practice, to study ourselves and our own practice and experience, and to elaborate an Indian approach to IR studies for the twenty-first century. I would also conclude that the mere fact that we
can set out such an agenda for ourselves suggests that there is a strong strategic culture at work in India.
My apologies for raising more questions than I have answers. I do hope they serve the intended purpose of provoking a discussion and some work on these issues in the future.
Post A Comment
© Content Owned by Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
Visitors: 155268573
, Page last updated on: 11/12/2013
Working hours at Headquarters 9:00 A.M. To 5:30 P.M.


text:
The place where I write: Yan Jun [China]
一月 我吃书
二月 世界像切开的洋葱
没有时间了 我打开电脑
February 20th
January— I eat books
swimming at the beaches
February— the world opens like a cut onion
and the cleaning guy heads home for the New Year
The Arctic freezes in ocean ice
Time is running out. I turn on the computer
to decipher a word: out
Downstairs buses run by
A Crow opens its black wallet
Poem about his "working room" by YAN Jun
Translated from Chinese into English by Mindy Zhang
Photo by Jiantao
i moved to this flat with my wife in 2007.
we have removed some walls to make the kitchen, living room and one bedroom open as one continual space. this corner on the photo is my working space. surrounded by books and cds as everywhere in the flat.
computer. sound card and monitor speakers. telephone. hand write notes. spice smell from kitchen some times.
Yan Jun, Peking/China
Advent Calendar – 8
We go to China, where our latest voice works as a poet, musician and critic. His poetry is surreal and concrete, energetic and full of self-irony at the same time.
Advent Calendar door 8 reveals the Chinese poet
YAN Jun
(with translations into German)
Yan Jun was born in 1973 in Lanzhou, China. His readings are unconventional, combining poetry with electronic sound collages into what he calls 'Hypnotic Noise'. As well as these performances, he is increasingly also doing spare readings that are minimalistically conceived.


text:
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) is scavenging GOP votes everywhere they can by sending speakers to woo Americans living in Israel's illegal settlements. This untapped market of totaling 160,000 absentee ballots for all Americans living in Israel has the potential to swing a Romney victory and knock incumbent Democrats out of congress. The RJC events are spearheaded by an absentee ballot registration initiative called I Vote Israel, which M.J. Rosenberg recently profiled on Mondoweiss after the group posted an anti-Arab American election video.
Today I Vote Israel doubled their efforts to reach potential GOP supporters by hosting two events with Republican hotshots, Matt Brooks, the president of the Republican Jewish Coalition and Ari Fleischer, a former Bush administration press officer. The first event was by invitation only for pro-Israel bloggers, and the second was open to the public. But I Vote Israel's official Twitter handle Tweeted updates throughout the day, albeit in the form of digs at Obama. "When it comes to dealing with the Arab world, showing strength is an asset. @BarackObama failed to deliver." And "[email protected] wants to be neutral with regard to Israel, not to stand by Israel and do what's right." Even one of the hashtags for the event was a nod to the Republican party, #ivoteRJC, short for: I vote Republican Jewish Coalition.
Today's Brooks and Fleischer public lecture for I Vote Israel.
A more substantial recap of the Republican agenda at the event was posted by Carl from Jerusalem who blogs at Israel Matzav:
In 2007, Netanyahu was Finance Minister and met with Governor Romney and got back together for one of the first time since Boston Consulting Group. They genuinely and respect each other. You won't have an open mic situation like there was between Obama and Sarkozy about Netanyahu. Chemistry is much warmer than it is between Netanyahu and Obama.
Ari Fleischer says that if Obama wins, Israel is going to suffer regardless of how Jews and American Israelis vote. Cites AIPAC Jerusalem 2008, condemnation of Israel's housing policy and open mic incident.
And both speakers used Iran to tug at the audience's fear strings:
Matt Brooks says leaking of intelligence information on cyberattacks on Iran by the US is unprecedented, and think about the ramifications that has on any US allies. On a project of that caliber, there are no more than 10-12 people who have access to that information, and yet it was exposed by the US. Will other allies trust the US after this? The only people that win because of that are the Iranians.
Ari Fleischer says that 'two state solution' is just a phrase now, and a 'Palestinian state' now would not be a peaceful state. It's Obama policy that Israeli 'settlement freeze' a precondition, and in a second Obama term that would only get worse.
Tomorrow, Brooks and Fleischer will reconvene again for another event in an Anglo immigrant neighborhood nestled west of the Green Line in Modi'im. But I Vote Israel's work scratches deeper than the border of illegal outposts; they also retain Regional Directors throughout the West Bank tasked with registering Americans living on occupied Palestinian land. There are even a series of registration form drop boxes set up in settlement pizza parlors and bagel shops in Maaleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, and Shomron.
I Vote Israel's next event, "Who should I vote for? Who's good for the Jews? Who's good for Israel?" will take place at the end of this month when extremist Gush Emunim follower Marc Zell will debate political scientist Dr. David Luchins. Zell currently lives in the West Bank outpost of Alon Shevu, which he says is "like a small town in Iowa."
I Vote Israel concentrates on Americans in Israel because their absentee ballots have the potential to shift election results. "There were thousands of Floridian Israelis who could of voted but only 64 actually did," explains I Vote Israel in a different promotional video. Continuing, "In tough races, absentee ballots decide the winner."
But I Vote Israel is not lamenting Gore's marginal loss due to the dereliction of "Floridian-Israelis." On the contrary they see tight elections as an opportunity to push Israel to the center of the nation's debate.
"We do have an agenda, and we are proud of it [but] our legal status does not allow us to endorse a specific candidate – for Congress or President." said Aron Shaviv, a political strategist hired by I Vote Israel to investigate the party affiliations of Americans in Israel, in an op-ed for the Times of Israel. Shaviv's research found that Romney has twice as many supporters in Israel than Obama, making the potential Republican votes tucked away in the Jewish state equal to 100,000. And with American Jews comprising around 3% of the electorate, or just fewer than 3 million voters, 100,000 could mean the difference between a Republican signing Israel's $3 billion aid check, or a Democrat.