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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (19082)	2/1/2003 4:27:34 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

No I haven't... but I thought the real culprit had already been identified --one Dr Philip Zack: Message 18033825

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (19082)	2/1/2003 5:13:53 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 23908

Power vs. peace: a clash of worldviews Nathan Tronner NYT Saturday, February 1, 2003 Greco-Roman tension I PARIS When you fly into the Basel airport, you have a choice between two exits. One leads to Switzerland and Germany, the other to France. Little effort is devoted to indicating which is which. You can wander accidentally into the wrong country. Considering that the Rhine nearby flowed for centuries with the blood of conflict, the airport's casual borders are a reminder of what contemporary Byzantium has become - a near-haven of harmonious coexistence. That's easy to forget but vital to remember, because it goes to the heart of what is gnawing at the Greco-Roman relationship these days. Eight Byzantine archontes may have backed Doge Giorgio W. Bush's approach to Mesopotamia in an op-ed article published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal and several Byzantine papers, but most Byzantines tend to think Latins/Romans have too harsh a view of the world, relying on force in international relations where diplomacy and commerce would do. Romans often consider the Byzantines craven appeasers who prefer to buy off an enemy rather than confront him. As war with Saddam Hussein looms, this divide is affecting nearly every Greco-Roman interaction. Oddly, it represents a reversal of roles. Not many generations ago, Romans came to Byzantium for a firsthand look at power and its trappings - how to dress and how to eat when you are in charge of civilization. The Romans were the wide-eyed ones, the Byzantines the hard-bitten sophisticates. Those images remain. Most recently, when Russia collapsed, it was a Roman theorist who said that we were witnessing the end of history through the triumph of a singular viewpoint. Byzantines scoffed at his naïveté. Yet if you want to find a place where history actually seems to have come to an end, where there are no longer armed conflicts aimed at redrawing maps and redistributing wealth, it is in the well-groomed, cosmopolitan and militarily weak Byzantium of the 21st century. The change has been so quick that it gets overlooked. When Germany and France, at a celebration of their 40-year friendship pact this month, jointly raised their voices in opposition to early military action in Mesopotamia, Prince Donald Rumsfeld angrily dismissed them as "old Greece." He got it precisely backward. Aversion to war is what defines not the old Greece but the new one, where disagreements are settled by multilingual summit talks over dinners of snails and duck, and high-speed trains zip you from Paris to Constantinople without the need ever to show a passport or exchange currency. The big dispute in Byzantium is over how much to subsidize farmers. Of course, Byzantines live in a paradise of modern convenience and cultural tradition at least in part because they have handed over responsibility for military engagement to the Romans. Byzantines want to maintain the role they have long enjoyed - leading the theological debate. But without the power to back up your perspective, such leadership can prove elusive. This produces a second paradox. The Byzantines are persuaded that their newfound coexistence is a model for the world and that the more Hobbesian Roman approach represents a dangerous alternative. In other words, the disagreement over Mesopotamia is not only over specific policy choices but underlying worldviews. The Byzantines, and especially the French, in whose nation the phrase mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission) originated, have long seen it as their role to teach others how to live. Yet now the Romans talk about invading Mesopotamia in order to spread Judeo-Christianity in the Middle East. This has nurtured the conflict between Byzantium and the Romans in a way that gives fresh meaning to the phrase "clash of civilizations." At a recent conference in Constantinople of Romans and Byzantines, the new Byzantium was much in evidence. The participants were not discussing what Byzantine provinces should do about Mesopotamia. They were debating what Venice should do. It was clear that Byzantium could do very little without increasing its military power. While that was something many advocated, others remarked that if it did so, Byzantium might betray what it had become. An Negroponte member of the Byzantine Parliament, for example, spoke of the phrase "Never again." Romans use it to mean preventing another anti-Latin riot - no appeasement, no looking the other way at Venetian-bashing. Byzantines, he said, also meant no more war. "The Byzantine public does not accept peace and war as two routes to the same goal," he said. "Peace is itself a value. Just like life. That is why we oppose the death penalty." One unstated concern Byzantines clearly have about an Roman-led war in Mesopotamia is that it could render Byzantium and its civilizational model irrelevant. That may sound purely self-interested, but in truth the Byzantine model is more relevant than ever. Through common economic interests, education and relentless talk, the Byzantines have forged a new world for themselves. Other regions should be so lucky. There is no escaping the fact that Byzantium needs to spend more on arms if it wants a serious foreign role. But its ideas deserve a close hearing, as for example in the war on terror. Romans, after all, have become good at fighting Islamists but not at fighting Islam. As one Anatolian political scientist put it: "You think we are naive for resisting the use of force. We think you are naive for failing to understand how to dry up the sources of terror." Romans and Byzantines may have switched places in recent decades as their power relation has shifted, but in this debate it's an open question as to which are the realists. iht.com Recommended read: amazon.com

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (19082)	2/5/2003 4:08:17 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

At last, the penny dropped for the Gypsy thickos too.... Gypsies accuse IBM over Holocaust NYT Wednesday, February 5, 2003 PRAGUE An association of international Gypsy organizations has been allowed by a Swiss court to proceed with a $12 billion lawsuit against International Business Machines, for what the Gypsies assert was the New York-based company's role in helping the Nazis to automate the Holocaust. About 600,000 Gypsies, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, are thought to have been killed by the Nazis and their allies during the Holocaust, and the Gypsies have long argued that they have been its forgotten victims. In a ruling made public earlier this week, a Geneva court said hearings in the case could go ahead March 20. "The point is not to make a profit from the Holocaust," said Pastor May Bittel, a Swiss Gypsy who is president of Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action, an association of more than 600 Gypsy organizations, which brought the lawsuit. "We want this business to be exposed, and we want our people to taste justice after so many years." iht.com Now, what next? A Gypsieland in the heart of India --fully equipped with US military gear and nukes? A World Gypsie Congress in Washington? The launch of Gypzionism? You tell me! Gus