Category Archives: History

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

More On The “Student Of History”

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Michael Ledeen points out more alternate history from the president’s speech:

On the other hand, there were so many errors of history that I was left wondering if there is anyone in the White House that checks facts. “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition.” But the Muslims had been driven out of Spain by the time of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was Catholic, after all. What was he thinking? And even if he was thinking about an earlier epoch, the so-called Golden Age, “tolerance” is hardly the right word. Yes, non-Muslims were permitted to live, provided that they submitted to Muslim rule and paid their rulers. Yes, Jews were better off in Muslim lands than in Christian areas during the Middle Ages. But “toleration” it wasn’t. One of my best professors used to argue that the word, in its contemporary sense, only began to make sense in the seventeenth century.

He credited Muslims for inventions of others, from the magnetic compass to algebra to pens, arches, and even to printing. It’s as if there were no ancient Chinese inventions, and the Romans had to await the Prophet before they could build the Pantheon. And someone really should tell him that printing came from the Orient, was rejected in Muslim domains, and then developed in Europe. It was introduced into the Middle East in the 15th century by Jews, who were not permitted to publish in Arabic. So the first printing press in the region was brought by Jews who then published in Hebrew.

The absolute worst part of the speech was the mush about Iran. He could have talked about the great Persian contributions to Western culture, or credited Cyrus the Great for issuing the first known document dealing with human rights. He didn’t do that (Cyrus wasn’t a Muslim, after all). Instead, he regretted American meddling in Iran in 1953, and then moved on to assure the mullahs that they were fully entitled to have a (peaceful) nuclear program. As if nobody knew (Bushitlercheney had made the same point, let us not forget). Not a word about Iranian killers around the world. Not a word about the dreadful repression of the Iranian people. Not a word about any possible consequences if, as everyone expects, Iran builds atomic bombs.

That’s because he expects there to be none. I suspect that the Israelis have a different idea.

History, Social Commentary, Space, Space History

Well, He Meant “…A Man…”

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…but he didn’t quite say it:

Riley and Olsson…concluded that Commander Armstrong and his family members do pronounce the word “a” in a discernible way.

And based on broadcasts from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from the surface of the Moon, it is clear that the word “a” was easily transmitted to Earth without being obliterated.

But their analysis of the intonation of the phrase strongly suggests Commander Armstrong had intended to say “a man”. There is a rising pitch in the word “man” and a falling pitch when he says “mankind”.

According to Mr Olsson: “This indicates that he’s doing what we all do in our speech, he was contrasting using speech – indicating that he knows the difference between man and mankind and that he meant man as in ‘a man’ not ‘humanity’.”

I think it’s safe to say that this has been analyzed to death at this point. It’s only been forty years.

History, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

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If we’re lucky:

After Obama assumed office in January, whatever hesitation that existed in North Korea’s policy-making circles regarding the likely response of U.S. administration has disappeared, and its leadership now feels it can defy the U.S. and the international community with impunity.

A series of actions taken by the Obama administration have created an impression in Iran, the “Af-Pak” region, China and North Korea that Obama does not have the political will to retaliate decisively to acts that are detrimental to U.S. interests, and to international peace and security.

Among such actions, one could cite: the soft policy toward Iran: the reluctance to articulate strongly U.S. determination to support the security interests of Israel; the ambivalent attitude toward Pakistan despite its continued support to anti-India terrorist groups and its ineffective action against the sanctuaries of Al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistani territory; its silence on the question of the violation of the human rights of the Burmese people and the continued illegal detention of Aung San Suu Kyi by the military regime in Myanmar; and its silence on the Tibetan issue.

I’m afraid it could be a lot worse.

[Early evening update]

More thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson:

Fate, chance, luck, and more will contribute to the outcome of any presidential action — unpredictable, of course, but in the cruel game of assessing presidential decision-making, no grounds for excuse.

Moreover, both these problems not only antedated Obama, but antedated Bush as well, yet they cannot be massaged with “reset” button and a “Bush did it,” nor by soaring “hope and change” rhetoric. Neither Ahmadinejad nor Kim Jong-il care a whit about Obama’s landmark advance to the presidency, or his sober and judicious efforts to show rational concern for their own predicaments; instead, they calibrate only the degree to which Obama poses an obstacle to their regional ambitions, whether they be rational or not.

As David Pryce-Jones notes, the more sincere he is, the more naive he seems.

History, Space

The China Analogy, Redux

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Here is a post comparing the voyages of Zheng He to the modern US space program. Arthur Kantrowitz is the first that I’m aware of to make this comparison, back in the seventies.

I think that it’s an interesting analogy, but not in the way they intend, and I wrote about it a few years ago at Fox News:

…some have argued that in essentially turning our backs on the cosmos after the rapid success of Apollo, in favor of welfare programs and pork, our own politicians have given us a similar failure of vision.

But that draws the wrong conclusion. The fact was that Zheng He’s journeys were a failure. They sent out vast amounts of the nation’s treasure with which to impress the heathens and gain tribute and the appropriate respect (just as is the goal for the current Chinese space activities). But when trade occurred at all, the ships often came back with items that were perceived to be of less value than what had been sent out to the ports. The trade was not profitable — it was draining vital resources. The bureaucrats were right.

The Chinese suffered a failure of expansionary will 600 years ago because they were doing it for the wrong reasons. And I suspect that the current leadership is similar to Zheng He in their outlook. His missions were for national prestige — not the generation of wealth — as, apparently, are the current Chinese space plans.

As was America’s Apollo program.

Space will not be settled by governments, whether Chinese, Russian, or American. It will be settled by the people who want to go, and seek their own opportunities, and dreams. Governments can help, and if the Chinese government can navigate the difficulties I describe above, and actually eventually get to the Moon, that might be one way of helping, not just the Chinese, but as the article states, all who want to go. But I suspect that there will be private activities that beat them to it, and we cannot, and should not, count on Beijing.

We will know that things are moving forward seriously in space when, in addition to remote-sensing and communications satellites, there are activities going on in space, involving humans in space, that bring more value back than is put into them. Unfortunately, communist governments (which China’s remains, despite propaganda to the contrary) are not notable for their value-added activities, and I don’t think that the present Beijing regime is that far removed from its predecessors, either in the Ming Dynasty, or the Mao Dynasty.

But I hope they’ll prove me wrong.

I continue to so hope.

Business, Economics, History

The Last GM Dealership

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…in the birthplace of General Motors:

We remain the only GM dealership in the city limits of Flint. Isn’t it ironic that the birthplace of General Motors has only one dealership? The employees of the dealership for the most part felt confident that our performance and Mr. Applegate’s integrity and straight forward way of doing business would sustain the storm and survive the cut.

Some felt that our location would be a hindrance to our longevity….perhaps it worked in our favor…who really knows…it’s impossible to second guess or try to predict GM’s thinking. Remaining in business is not only a victory for Mr. Applegate and his employees but also a victory for Flint. I feel that is the untold story. How strange would it be for Flint not to have a GM dealership?

It would be surreal, like the empty field that I saw a couple weeks ago when I drove past where the old AC Spark Plug plant, near which I grew up, and where my father and brother worked for decades, used to be.

Business, History, Political Commentary

How The Mighty Fall

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What are the signs of incipient failure or collapse?

Great enterprises can become insulated by success; accumulated momentum can carry an enterprise forward for a while, even if its leaders make poor decisions or lose discipline. Stage 1 kicks in when people become arrogant, regarding success virtually as an entitlement, and they lose sight of the true underlying factors that created success in the first place. When the rhetoric of success (“We’re successful because we do these specific things”) replaces penetrating understanding and insight (“We’re successful because we understand why we do these specific things and under what conditions they would no longer work”), decline will very likely follow. Luck and chance play a role in many successful outcomes, and those who fail to acknowledge the role luck may have played in their success—and thereby overestimate their own merit and capabilities—have succumbed to hubris.

Might not be bad reading for the president.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

War Atrocities

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Over at The Corner, Jonah Goldberg is having a discussion about intentionality. I think this is a little off:

Whether it was necessary or not is a serious debate, but I am personally at a loss to understand why the shortcut of firebombing Dresden was less outrageous than waterboarding some SS offficer would be. Likewise, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki involved the deliberate killing of civilians. It was deemed necessary, and in my mind justifiable, to avoid (i.e. shortcut) the deaths of American and Allied soldiers via a conventional invasion.

Not exactly. The civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were collateral casualties. The actual targets were military facilities and arms factories.

Bill Whittle has a devastating video riposte to Jon Stewart’s historical ignorance on this issue.

As an aside, had Roosevelt still been alive that summer, the war might have dragged on for much longer, because his policy was unconditional surrender. He had already probably extended the war in Europe with this policy, because if he had accepted terms from Mussolini, they might have been able to take Italy at much lower cost of life. The extended weeks of negotiations entailed by the Italians’ unwillingness to accept unconditionally gave the Germans time to occupy Italy, which resulted in a bloody conquest, whereas a surrender with terms could have resulted in a more rapid Allied takeover with few casualties, and more reserves for attacking Germany from the south much earlier than Normandy.

Roosevelt wouldn’t have allowed the Japanese to (among other things) keep the emperor, and he might have run out of bombs before the Japanese would have surrendered (they only had three, and it would have taken a while to make more plutonium) and had to invade.

Truman was more reasonable. He just wanted to end the war, and would have been happy to let them have a dozen emperors if that’s all they wanted.

So FDR extended the depression by meddling in the economy right up until the war started, at which point he left it alone to focus on the war (and of course with able-bodied men in uniform, the unemployment rate finally dropped). Then he meddled in the war and probably lengthened it as well (and it would have been even worse had he not died in the spring of ’45). One wonders in the cases of both Wilson and Roosevelt how long they would have remained in power if they hadn’t been struck down by their health. Truman tried to tinker with the economy after the war, but the Republican Congress wouldn’t let him, so the economy finally recovered completely, after fifteen years.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems a little related. Will Barack Obama apologize for World War II?

History, Technology and Society, Weird

Gun Porn

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Here ya go. Cutting down a tree with a gun. It’s pretty amazing to see the brass waterfalling out of that thing. I want to be a mythbuster.

The first known instance of this took a lot longer. At the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, the hot lead was so unremitting and thick that it cut down an oak tree of a foot-and-a-half diameter over the hours-long duration of the battle. The stump is now in the American Museum of History. It was probably the most intense battle of the war up to that point, and it’s hard to contemplate the hell it must have been for the combatants.