Raï Rules

I’ve been using Last for a bit more than a year now and if you aren’t using it too, you should be. Below are  my ten most-listened-to artists over the the last 12 months.

1

Rachid Taha

2

Altan

3

Ali Hassan Kuban

4

Souad Massi

5

Sawt El Atlas

6

Cheb Mami

7

Khaled

8

Patrick Street

9

De Dannan

10

Bob Dylan

Líbano

Eduardo Febbro dice

Líbano y Siria jamás entablaron relaciones diplomáticas desde la proclamación de la independencia libanesa a finales de los ’60.

Francia, el poder colonial, reconoció la independencia del Líbano en 1943 y sacó sus tropas después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. La razón por la cual Líbano y Siria jamás entablaron relaciones diplomáticas es muy sencilla; Siria jamás  reconoció Líbano como país independiente y mantuvo fuerzas de occupación miltar en su territorio desde 1976 hasta 2005.

FARC Fucked

It’s to be hoped that Uribe doesn’t let this brilliant success go to his head.  And I am sure we won’t have long to wait before some lickspittle here in Argentina  claims that Cristina deserves some sort of credit for this.

Wars

After noting that the USA suffered comparatively few causalities in the great conflicts of the 20th century Tony Judt says,

As a consequence, the United States today is the only advanced democracy where public figures glorify and exalt the military, a sentiment familiar in Europe before 1945 but quite unknown today. Politicians in the US and otherwise comparable countries, which accounts for their dissimilar responses to international challenges today. Indeed, the complacent neoconservative claim that war and conflict are things Americans understand—in contrast to naive Europeans with their pacifistic fantasies —seems to me exactly wrong: it is Europeans (along with Asians and Africans) who understand war all too well. Most Americans have been fortunate enough to live in blissful ignorance of its true significance. surround themselves with the symbols and trappings of armed prowess; even in 2008 American commentators excoriate allies that hesitate to engage in armed conflict. I believe it is this contrasting recollection of war and its impact, rather than any structural difference between the US and otherwise comparable countries, which accounts for their dissimilar responses to international challenges today. Indeed, the complacent neoconservative claim that war and conflict are things Americans understand—in contrast to naive Europeans with their pacifistic fantasies —seems to me exactly wrong: it is Europeans (along with Asians and Africans) who understand war all too well. Most Americans have been fortunate enough to live in blissful ignorance of its true significance.

I think he exaggerates a bit in that glorification and exaltation of the military are not unknown phenomena in France and the UK, to take just two examples. My main gripe about his argument is different though. What he seems to be saying is that recent experience of catastrophic suffering and mass casualties on the national territory tend to make countries, or advanced democracies at any rate, wary of militarism and reluctant to go to war.

If this is the case you’d expect it to also hold true with respect to previous wars in the modern period that have caused mass causalities. The United States, for example, fought an enormously bloody civil war from 1861 to 1865, a war which laid waste to large parts of the country and caused a great deal of suffering to civilians.

Far from being chastened by the experience the end of the civil war saw the United States expand westward with redoubled energy, exterminating any Native Americans who stood in the way and plenty that didn’t. Furthermore, only thirty five years after the civil war ended – a much shorter period of time than that which separates today’s advanced democracies from their mass casualty experiences, the United States chose to go to war against the Spanish Empire and make a colony of the Philippines. It’s true that few US casualties were caused thereby but that doesn’t weaken my argument as the butcher’s bill for military adventures can’t be known with certainty in advance.

And even when the US entered WWI in 1917 – again, a war it could easily have kept out of – it was still closer in time to the horror of the Civil War than Judt’s supposedly peace-loving advanced democracies are now.

Update: Norm has a go at  Judt here.

Imbéciles

Qué clase de imbéciles mandamos a representarnos en Francia que no
sabían esto?

Otro funcionario que aportó sorpresas sobre su pasado fue el canciller Bernard Kourchner: contó que no es diplomático ni abogado especializado en asuntos externos, sino médico. Además, fue uno de los fundadores de Médicos Sin Fronteras