Virgil61

A low level civil war began while I was there. The Shia have a lot of vengence built up in them. In mixed areas much of our time was spent heading off large-scale reprisals. It wasn't a great secret that the only Iraq units that were any good in the Sunni areas were those comprised of Kurds or Shia. Few insurgent leaders are strictly Saddam loyalists anymore, perhaps in the Tikrit and surrounding area. They are small pockets of Sunni for the most part and there's little co-ordination on a large scale. The Sunni ruled Iraq for 80 years, they skimmed the wealth for themselves and oppressed the Shia and Kurds. They've lost it all and now they're p*ssed--getting back for what they've sown for 80 years. The options at this point are few, perhaps a federalist Iraq. The Sunni aren't organized enough to even guarantee a cease-fire of any sort with the Iraqi government. The best tactical option (and it's counter-intuitive) from a US standpoint is to bring troop levels up by 50 to 100k more than they are at now. Saturate the Sunni areas with soldier and Marines for one to two years. Every large village to city has troops living within it. Constant foot patrols, getting to know locals even if they hate your and garnering intel by including Iraqi army elements. It's akin to putting police foot patrols in neighborhoods. You get to know the locals, word gets out as to who the insurgents are eventually, they can be gathered up or movements checked or even brought in for talks. Put platoon sized elements on highway intersections and along major stretches who will get to know the familiar vehicle movements and individuals in their areas. Casualties would be high in the first six months, then as intel and local knowledge of insurgent elements by individual units increases you'll see a gradual slowdown in bombings, attacks etc. It's a tactical plan that unit commanders on the ground have wanted for the last two years but of course Rummy knows better.

Frankly after personally seeing some of the savagery that animal and his cohorts commited in Iraq and Kuwait in '91 and '03/04 drawing and quartering the SOB over a series of hours would be humane. When you're tending to thousands of Kurdish refugees in shock about losing many in their family and their homes in gas attacks because they couldn't run from their villages fast enough or seeing people dig up bones in a graveyard of 10,000 Shia to identify loved ones killed by Saddam's security forces you tend to lose that glossy idealism about the sanctity of every human life.

This topic has been covered a dozen times. Was there a new theory or some special insight you'd like to add? EDIT: Zama, as Pertinax added by no means let it put you off in posting on the topic, it's always good to try and add a new insight.

So what's the hold up? Work, bills, retirement fund and family! Also a real dearth of choices for part-time programs here in Seattle. The Washington, DC area was a godsend for people like me. There are literally dozens of LLM (advanced JD degree), Masters and PhD programs there geared towards working professionals [read part-time evening] from schools like Maryland, Johns Hopkins, William and Mary, Georgetown, George Washington, American, Catholic and George Mason. Both George Mason and George Washington had interesting PhD programs in history or public policy geared towards professionals, Johns Hopkins w/an interesting MA in Applied Economics or Finance and Georgetown's LLM in international law. Here in Seattle, since I'm not into science or engineering, I'm reduced to an MBA or LLM in Tax--both from U of Washington--a very good school but not my first choices.

Frankly I envy PhD candidates. Working in seclusion on a topic you presumably chose and actually like seems a godsend. It seems to beat the hell out of the dog-eat-dog tussle of law school and the daily inquisition of the legal Socratic method, at least from what I can tell from friends and acquaintances. I came to this conclusion during my first year of law school--what I'd opted for instead of a PhD program. I guess the grass is always greener...and the lawyer jokes...if I had a dollar...

It was either Hebrew or Aramaic. This particular Latin (or Tridentine) Mass has little to do with the original languages used in the biblical texts or that it's the most ancient language of the mass. It isn't, it was 'codified' in its present form in the 16th century.

What's really interesting is it's in the days before the forward pass was instituted. The game looks a bit like a bridge between rugby and today's football. The famous Amos Alonzo Stagg was Chicago's coach. Nov 18 ought to be a hell of a game, though I'm a Tar Heel fan first (pining for the days of Mack Brown) and a Notre Dame fan second.

I'm very excited about this new translation. Fagles previous translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad helped to energize renewed interest, hopefully this will do the same.

Very interesting, comes complete with brutal injuries. LINK

Well that's big news. It had been long gone by my first communion. Mel Gibson's happy!

Return of the Roman By Allan Massie Knowledge of Latin may be in decline, but novels, films and documentaries about the Romans have never been more popular. We are still dimly, unconsciously, aware that our culture grew out of classical civilisation Excerpts: Why are so many novelists in the modern age drawn to write about the ancient world, especially Rome but also, to a lesser extent, Greece? The line of those who have done so goes back at least to Edward Bulwer-Lytton and The Last Days of Pompeii, written at a time

Happy B-day Moonlapse!

Looks fantastic. I'm a bit thirsty now. I have several friends who brew their own beer and take a real shine to exotic European beers like these. And hey FC, they are all active or former airborne soldiers! Lord time for one of my favorites...Sierra Nevada...followed by a Pete's Wicked!

This is one of the best moderated forums I've ever visited--one of the many reasons I stick aroundl. Excellent choice on Pan, congrats!

Interesting reply you received. So the answer may be tbd until or if we know what diseases were present. I know that the New World disease theory stating up to 40m or so deaths is very contraversial since it gets caught up into some of that PC-slanted 'white man is bad' theory.

Oh, sure--there wouldn't be a lack of immunity at the same level as in the New World but the risks for disease transmission would be far greater than those presented by Columbus' small crew in the New World or by the Italian traders in Narbonensis. Epidemiology is all about probabilities... Interesting. I count epidemiologists among my closest friends and dated a couple as well. Never ask 'em about work though. Never. Any clues in the sources that indicate it may have occured? Who knows, you may have a novel thesis in the field.

Doesn't that presuppose that the local populace hasn't been exposed to the bacteria and viruses? With what seems to have been at least a modereate intermingling, at least on the fringes of the Republic in southern Gaul it doesn't seem plausible that there would be a lack of immunity anywhere on the level of the New World. Not that outbreaks don't or wouldn't occur on a smaller local scale. Of course plagues making their way from the East excepted, though I don't recall there being evidence of that at this particular time.

Always like college ball better, though I'm no Ohio State fan (sorry MPC, but Woody Hayes was entertaining as hell). They are saying the threat isn't credible. I doubt it'll stop Seattle traffic this weekend!

I'm not particularly worried since most of the big names like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc. in addition to the grass roots movements are lined up in support of net neutrality. It's strikes me as a bit funny though that a medium whose trunk lines are primarily devoted to *or*, *or*, assorted videos, free music and movie downloads and more *or* is put forth as an instrument of democratic action. I know, the blogs are influential as are some discussion groups, but as late as 2003, 90% of the net was devoted to the download of movies and music files. Oh, and welcome back G!

Favorite examples? I suppose I should have inoculated myself by adding that they are only slightly less scarce than a Salmon Rushdie book signing in Tehran. Perhaps good revisionist historis is a better more inclusive way of stating what I like. A Critical History of Early Rome is what I'm currently reading (with about three other books). The author strips away a lot of accepted notions about what is known about that era as well as casting doubt on most of the sources whose second-hand info we rely on. At the risk of causing you a stroke or sidetracking the conversation I appreciated Michael Parenti's book and what he was trying to do. Frankly though, I think other fields are riper for this approach than classical history. Eric Hobsbawn's series of "Age of..." books are a particular favorite, especially the first two dealing with the revolutions of the early 19th century and the industrial revolution. A small but now infamous study; Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, is particularly chilling. Along the same lines, for anyone interested in early Soviet history but raised on the Richard Pipes and Robert Conquest school, books like 'Everyday Stalinism' by Sheila Fitzpatrick and 'Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization' are a bit of an eyeopener. They put forth the prospect that, lo and behold, the average Soviet citizen from the peasant and working classes not only put up with purges but gained from them as well. A bit like 'Hitler's Willing Executioners' pointing at the average German's complicity in the holocaust I suppose. 'Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World' was a favorite of mine years ago, the premise being that revolutions from above or below resulted in totalitarian governments and that economies which developed a middle-class that reached a critical mass resulted in democratic revolutions. Two other books stand out; 'The Great War and Modern Memory' which is everything it's written about and 'Europe and the People Without a History'. And I'd like to see 'The Conquest of Gaul' given similar treatment as 'The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War'. That was an impressive job. That's all I can think of at the moment.

Any book whose author can present a decent and well-argued thesis rather than a rehash of previous data in a more accessible format is what I prefer. While I enjoy the original sources--Caeser, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, etc--I keep in mind that using them as sources can be problematic; they come from the same general backgrounds and hold their own biases which I usually try to keep in mind. Biographies are fine, some are excellent, but really just an addition rather than my primary source--Plutarch and other ancients excepted. Many historians tend to approach a series of events from a particular viewpoint. Any honest academic critique that makes the reader to look at something from a different angle is usually appreciated, even when I disagree.

US population passes 300 million: Reuters. In case you think it's all a bad thing, several financial studies hint--and this economist article highlights--that this population growth improves the long-term outlook of the US economy.

I guess it's better than "An Army of One" which was reviled by most NCO's. Army of One lasted only a few years-Be All You Can Be lasted 20--although "Army Strong" seems like something someone would grunt. Army Strong. My favorite Army commerical.

A definite happy b-day.

Watched the game last night. From the cellar to the series in three years.