The White Man's Burden

Of course in terms of bizarre literary readings, the troubled New York Times article on The Great Gatsby mentioned below has absolutely nothing on Bill Kristol's column about how George Orwell's take on Kipling shows that Republicans, like Kipling, are awesome.

One argument I make in my forthcoming book, Heads in the Sand, is that we shouldn't understand Bush-style neoconservative foreign policy as some kind of tremendously innovative new thing. Rather, it's very much a part of the same tradition as 19th century imperialism -- a tradition that had mostly gone into eclipse for good reasons after WWII and whose post-Cold War resurgence has brought us little of merit. It's by no means a wholly original argument, I'm following John Judis' underappreciated The Folly of Empire among other works, but I did think it was still a provocative one. At a minimum, I thought it was something most neocon types would deny. But here's Kristol, proudly waving the banner of Kipling and empire, and with nothing to say about the whole sorry business other than that Kipling is "politically incorrect" as if the whole "should we seek to subjugate the entire world with our military might" issue boils down to liberals being fussy.

Comments

"If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied."

Posted by gcochran | February 18, 2008 2:04 PM

I would go a little bit further and say that the problem is not just that they want to revive Kipling-style imperialism, but they lack that elementary sense of reality that Kipling had. Bush and Fred Barnes have both complained about the ingratitude of the Iraqis. Kipling was under no illusion that empire would win the English love of those they governed. For all his pro-imperialist bombast, Kipling never underestimated the difficulty and danger of ruling other lands. Take a look at these words from "The White Man's Burden":

Take up the White Man's Burden-
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard.

Posted by Jeet Heer | February 18, 2008 2:05 PM

One thing you can count on about Kristol: way down deep, he's shallow. Always.

Charles

Posted by Charles Moore | February 18, 2008 2:07 PM

Kipling wrote "The White Man's Burden" as a warning to the United States after the Spanish-American war that imperialism was a messy, squalid, draining affair that could only be justified by the good it did to those "imperialized":

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

But imperialism never had those wonderful results, and was never carried out in such a spirit of altruism. It never did any good to anyone except the pocketbooks of the few. So what's the excuse now?

Posted by sunsin | February 18, 2008 2:11 PM

For the original smack-down of Kipling/Joseph Chamberlain/Cecil Rhodes imperialism, I'd reccomend J.A. Hobson's excellent IMPERIALISM, a wonderful liberal critique. For a book that's 106 yrs old, it's remarkably prescient.

Posted by Ben Cronin | February 18, 2008 2:15 PM

Neo-conservatives have never really denied that American hegemony (imperialism) follows from British imperialism. In a 2006 column on the Australian-American alliance, Charles Krauthammer wrote the following:

"An island of tranquility in a roiling region, Australia understands that peace and prosperity do not come with the air we breathe, but are maintained by power -- once the power of the British Empire, now the power of the United States.

Australia joined the faraway wars of early-20th-century Europe not out of imperial nostalgia, but out of a deep understanding that its fate and the fate of liberty were intimately bound with that of the British Empire as principal underwriter of the international system. Today the underwriter is America, and Australia understands that an American retreat or defeat -- a chastening consummation devoutly, if secretly, wished by many a Western ally -- would be catastrophic for Australia and for the world.

When Australian ambassadors in Washington express support for the U.S., it is heartfelt and unalloyed, never the ``yes, but'' of the other allies, perfunctory support followed by a list of complaints, slights and sage finger-wagging. Australia understands America's role and is sympathetic to its predicament as reluctant hegemon."

I think Kipling might have greatly appreciated the phrase "reluctant hegemon."

Posted by Khaled | February 18, 2008 2:26 PM

While I generally agree with you, Kristol's piece is not even about foreign policy. Kristol is invoking Orwell's reading of Kipling to say that the Republicans are the responsible ones because they have been in power and therefore have to think seriously about how to govern, while the Democrats are completely disengaged from the process of governing. It's idiotic, of course, but it has nothing to do specifically with foreign policy or Kipling's defense of imperialism.

Posted by blah | February 18, 2008 2:27 PM

Kipling is probably the finest short story writer in English, and he's remembered for his children's literature, boy's books, and polemics.

Just goes to show.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | February 18, 2008 2:28 PM

I too found Kristol's reading of Orwell woefully silly, but I find your's way off as well. Please, to quote Kristol, "reread" the essay in question. Also, would you classify President Clinton's war in Kosovo as an example of the post-Cold War "resurgence" of imperialism?

Posted by Ben Schwarz | February 18, 2008 2:32 PM

Kristol's editorial is merely abuse masquerading as analysis. He's basically an anachronistic print-based internet troll.

Posted by Vivisfugue | February 18, 2008 2:33 PM

Man what a load of crap that editorial is. Republicans have a grip on reality? Democrats are only about what benefits the Democratic party? Republicans have been the ruling party and democrats the degenerate opposition?

That's a blog post at redstate or NRO. It's good to have voices with different viewpoints but there is no value in partisan propaganda. THere has to be some arguemnt presented with some evidence, not just a string of un supported we are good they are bad statements.

Posted by cw | February 18, 2008 2:37 PM

I think Kipling might have greatly appreciated the phrase "reluctant hegemon."

The neo-cons are reluctant hegemons like Bill Gates is a reluctant monopolist.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | February 18, 2008 2:38 PM

[insert comment about the rotation of Orwell's body in its final resting place]

Posted by Angry Sam | February 18, 2008 2:43 PM

Scott Horton has a more complete take-down of Kipling/Kristol here.

Posted by jim | February 18, 2008 2:44 PM

Maybe the US Government should defend America by parachuting William Kristol's hairy butt down onto the plains of Afghanistan. Anyone remember the other Kipling poem?

"When you're wounded and left on Afganistan's plains/
And the women come out to cut up the remains/ Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains /
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. "

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 3:13 PM

BUY HEADS IN THE SAND!

(i want 2% of all sales!)

Posted by jvoe | February 18, 2008 3:15 PM

There's a lot more where gcochran's quote came from...

A Dead Statesman

I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

-- Kipling

Posted by Stephen Frug | February 18, 2008 3:16 PM

I was incensed by Kristol's invocation of Kipling. Kipling would have had the whole neocon establishment up against the paradeground wall for summary justice. He knew scoundrels when he saw them and knew what they deserved. Kristol besmirches the memory of an honorable man, whatever his imperialism . The effect is rather as if some flack had used Thomas a Kempis to sell hamburgers.

Posted by Dick Mulliken | February 18, 2008 3:19 PM

Heh. "Would have"?? As a matter of fact, he did. Check out this poem.

Posted by sunsin | February 18, 2008 3:43 PM

Poetry, justice and right to one side, the problem with imperialism is that it doesn't pay.

Posted by gcochran | February 18, 2008 4:02 PM

Kristol, once again revealing himself as a shallow, intellectually dishonest, self-serving political hack, "cherry picks" both Orwell and Kipling. And, he ignores, or unknowingly opposes, the Constitutional fact that the Democrats ARE in power in the House of Representatives, and, for better or worse, they will bear responsibility--tactical, strategic, political--or great credit for refusing to blindly rubber-stamp Bush and the Senate's extension of the so-called Protect America Act.

As to Orwell and Kipling, one doesn't have to wander into a book store to search for Orwell's essay, and decide for oneself if Kristol has exposed himself for the cheap propagandist that he is. Here is a URL to the full text of Orwell's essay:
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/Orwell-B.htm.

In case one can't find the time to read through Orwell's essay, here are a few choice lines that apply to Kristol, as well as to Kipling:

Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.

Those who now call themselves Conservatives are either Liberals [in the classic European/British sense], Fascists or the accomplices of Fascists. [The same applies to Kristol and his fellow so-called neo-conservatives.]

Kipling sold out to the British governing class, not financially but emotionally. [Kristol, with his Weekly Standard being bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch, has sold out to the most reactionary elements of the American ruling class financially, as well as emotionally. By serving up this lame opinion piece, he has shown us once again, that intellectually, he didn't have much at all to sell.]

Posted by K. Bloomfield | February 18, 2008 5:50 PM

Kristol, once again revealing himself as a shallow, intellectually dishonest, self-serving political hack, "cherry picks" both Orwell and Kipling. And, he ignores, or unknowingly opposes, the Constitutional fact that the Democrats ARE in power in the House of Representatives, and, for better or worse, they will bear responsibility--tactical, strategic, political--or great credit for refusing to blindly rubber-stamp Bush and the Senate's extension of the so-called Protect America Act.

As to Orwell and Kipling, one doesn't have to wander into a book store to search for Orwell's essay, and decide for oneself if Kristol has exposed himself for the cheap propagandist that he is. Here is a URL to the full text of Orwell's essay:
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/Orwell-B.htm.

In case one can't find the time to read through Orwell's essay, here are a few choice lines that apply to Kristol, as well as to Kipling:

Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.

Those who now call themselves Conservatives are either Liberals [in the classic European/British sense], Fascists or the accomplices of Fascists. [The same applies to Kristol and his fellow so-called neo-conservatives.]

Kipling sold out to the British governing class, not financially but emotionally. [Kristol, with his Weekly Standard being bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch, has sold out to the most reactionary elements of the American ruling class financially, as well as emotionally. By serving up this lame opinion piece, he has shown us once again, that intellectually, he didn't have much at all to sell.]

Posted by K. Bloomfield | February 18, 2008 5:50 PM

It never did any good to anyone except the pocketbooks of the few. So what's the excuse now?

I think you answered you own question.

Posted by demisod | February 18, 2008 5:55 PM

Lewis Feuer's 1986 Imperialism & the Anti-Imperialist Mind is another point of continuity between the defense of 19th-century imperialism & the neoconservative kind.

Posted by KH | February 18, 2008 6:07 PM

Re K Bloomfield's comment "Kristol, with his Weekly Standard being bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch, has sold out to the most reactionary elements of the American ruling class "
-------------
AUSTRALIAN ruling class, actually. Although Murdoch did pick up that duty-free US citizenship.

And while I cavil about Israeli billionaire Haim Saban's malign effects on the Democratic Members of Congress, it's worth remembering that Haim wouldn't have a pot to piss in if Murdoch had not bizarrely chosen to give Haim a $Billion for a few guys dressed in tights whose acting range was limited to saying "Green Power!" "Red Power!"

You would have thought Murdoch would have simply created a TV show in imitation of Haim's Power Rangers -- after all, my understanding is that Haim's show was in imitation of a Japanese show.

The Raj suckered us into WWI. WWII. Into overthrowing the legal government of Iran and installing the Shah via a CIA coup.

And, according to George W, into Iraq. "The British have discovered that Saddam Hussein has tried to acquire uranium..."

If you're wondering why Murdoch is going too so much trouble to promote US imperialism, reflect on the fact that 20 million Australians have 3 BILLION Asians just to the north -- ready to move as soon as the US Navy withdraws to home ports.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 6:24 PM

Wow -

I guess Irving Kristol's son doesn't see any Irony in talking about Bush Jr. though the lens of the author of 1984.

Posted by Wicky | February 18, 2008 6:25 PM

Clarification: When I referred to the Brits suckering us into WWII, I was referring to the war in Europe.

William Stephenson, head of British intelligence in North America, recounted in "A Man Called Intrepid" how the Brits were aghast at Pearl Harbor --fearful that America would focus its energies in the Pacific.

Stephenson boasted of how he manipulated Hitler into declaring war on the US by feeding false information to a pro-German Member of Congress that Roosevelt was about to attack Germany --knowing that the Congressman would feed the info to the German Ambassador, that Germany would declare war, and that Roosevelt would have to respond.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 6:30 PM

Dick Mulliken's right; I erred in including Kipling -- who is indeed a master of the short story, a deeply humanist writer with an eye for flaws -- in the company of Rhodes and Chamberlain.

Also, his inscription for the unidentifiable/missing remains for British and Commonwealth war graves in Belgium and France (he lost a son in it) is emotionally devastating:

A Soldier of the Great War
Known Only Unto God.

He was an honorable guy, you're right about that. He was neither a Rhodes or a Chamberlain, so consider this an official take-back.

Posted by Ben Cronin | February 18, 2008 6:35 PM

Well, if you want Kristol to be ignored it's probably better to ignore him.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 18, 2008 6:45 PM

What could be more Orwellian than Kristol describing the Republicans as "responsible?"

Posted by Aatos | February 18, 2008 6:55 PM

uh Don, it kinda sounds like you would have preferred it had the US stayed out of WW2 in Europe

Posted by novakant | February 18, 2008 6:56 PM

If you really believe in the 'White Man's Burden' and the myth that the lesser races are 'half-devil and half-child' then of course you will agree with Bill Kristol. But, if you are a decent human being you will have to listen to others, treat them as equals, and stop dropping bombs to 'shock and awe' them into submission. A better governance does not mean using brute force.

Posted by masmanz | February 18, 2008 7:21 PM

Re novakant's comment "uh Don, it kinda sounds like you would have preferred it had the US stayed out of WW2 in Europe"
---------
Actually, what I prefer is that the US government wages war based upon a clear-sighted view of US interest -- not because of some MI6 con game.

There was no need to intervene while the British Raj, the Third Reich,and Stalin's Workers Paradise were tearing each other apart. We could have dealt with whomever survived later. Especially when we had a enemy attacking us in the West.

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 7:51 PM

Kristol is much like Kipling as described by Orwell. One must suspect that Kristol unconsciously recognized himself in those portions of the essay he conveniently ignores in service of his partisan hachmanship.

Take this, for example:

Kipling spent the later part of his life in sulking, and no doubt it was political disappointment rather than literary vanity that account for this. Somehow history had not gone according to plan. After the greatest victory she had ever known, Britain was a lesser world power than before, and Kipling was quite acute enough to see this. The virtue had gone out of the classes he idealized, the young were hedonistic or disaffected, the desire to paint the map red had evaporated. He could not understand what was happening, because he had never had any grasp of the economic forces underlying imperial expansion. It is notable that Kipling does not seem to realize, any more than the average soldier or colonial administrator, that an empire is primarily a money-making concern. Imperialism as he sees it is a sort of forcible evangelizing. You turn a Gatling gun on a mob of unarmed ‘natives’, and then you establish ‘the Law’, which includes roads, railways and a court-house. He could not foresee, therefore, that the same motives which brought the Empire into existence would end by destroying it. It was the same motive, for example, that caused the Malayan jungles to be cleared for rubber estates, and which now causes those estates to be handed over intact to the Japanese. The modern totalitarians know what they are doing, and the nineteenth-century English did not know what they were doing. Both attitudes have their advantages, but Kipling was never able to move forward from one into the other. His outlook, allowing for the fact that after all he was an artist, was that of the salaried bureaucrat who despises the ‘box-wallah’ and often lives a lifetime without realizing that the ‘box-wallah’ calls the tune.

And this:

How far does Kipling really identify himself with the administrators, soldiers and engineers whose praises he sings? Not so completely as is sometimes assumed. He had travelled very widely while he was still a young man, he had grown up with a brilliant mind in mainly philistine surroundings, and some streak in him that may have been partly neurotic led him to prefer the active man to the sensitive man. The nineteenth-century Anglo-Indians, to name the least sympathetic of his idols, were at any rate people who did things. It may be that all that they did was evil, but they changed the face of the earth (it is instructive to look at a map of Asia and compare the railway system of India with that of the surrounding countries), whereas they could have achieved nothing, could not have maintained themselves in power for a single week, if the normal Anglo-Indian outlook had been that of, say, E.M. Forster. Tawdry and shallow though it is, Kipling's is the only literary picture that we possess of nineteenth-century Anglo-India, and he could only make it because he was just coarse enough to be able to exist and keep his mouth shut in clubs and regimental messes. But he did not greatly resemble the people he admired. I know from several private sources that many of the Anglo-Indians who were Kipling's contemporaries did not like or approve of him. They said, no doubt truly, that he knew nothing about India, and on the other hand, he was from their point of view too much of a highbrow.

Posted by Dr X | February 18, 2008 7:58 PM

Kristol is much like Kipling as described by Orwell. One must suspect that Kristol unconsciously recognized himself in those portions of the essay he conveniently ignores in service of his partisan hachmanship.

Take this, for example:

Kipling spent the later part of his life in sulking, and no doubt it was political disappointment rather than literary vanity that account for this. Somehow history had not gone according to plan. After the greatest victory she had ever known, Britain was a lesser world power than before, and Kipling was quite acute enough to see this. The virtue had gone out of the classes he idealized, the young were hedonistic or disaffected, the desire to paint the map red had evaporated. He could not understand what was happening, because he had never had any grasp of the economic forces underlying imperial expansion. It is notable that Kipling does not seem to realize, any more than the average soldier or colonial administrator, that an empire is primarily a money-making concern. Imperialism as he sees it is a sort of forcible evangelizing. You turn a Gatling gun on a mob of unarmed ‘natives’, and then you establish ‘the Law’, which includes roads, railways and a court-house. He could not foresee, therefore, that the same motives which brought the Empire into existence would end by destroying it. It was the same motive, for example, that caused the Malayan jungles to be cleared for rubber estates, and which now causes those estates to be handed over intact to the Japanese. The modern totalitarians know what they are doing, and the nineteenth-century English did not know what they were doing. Both attitudes have their advantages, but Kipling was never able to move forward from one into the other. His outlook, allowing for the fact that after all he was an artist, was that of the salaried bureaucrat who despises the ‘box-wallah’ and often lives a lifetime without realizing that the ‘box-wallah’ calls the tune.

And this:

How far does Kipling really identify himself with the administrators, soldiers and engineers whose praises he sings? Not so completely as is sometimes assumed. He had travelled very widely while he was still a young man, he had grown up with a brilliant mind in mainly philistine surroundings, and some streak in him that may have been partly neurotic led him to prefer the active man to the sensitive man. The nineteenth-century Anglo-Indians, to name the least sympathetic of his idols, were at any rate people who did things. It may be that all that they did was evil, but they changed the face of the earth (it is instructive to look at a map of Asia and compare the railway system of India with that of the surrounding countries), whereas they could have achieved nothing, could not have maintained themselves in power for a single week, if the normal Anglo-Indian outlook had been that of, say, E.M. Forster. Tawdry and shallow though it is, Kipling's is the only literary picture that we possess of nineteenth-century Anglo-India, and he could only make it because he was just coarse enough to be able to exist and keep his mouth shut in clubs and regimental messes. But he did not greatly resemble the people he admired. I know from several private sources that many of the Anglo-Indians who were Kipling's contemporaries did not like or approve of him. They said, no doubt truly, that he knew nothing about India, and on the other hand, he was from their point of view too much of a highbrow.

Posted by Dr X | February 18, 2008 7:59 PM

I was only able to read a small bit of Kristol's latest before teh stupid shorted out my keyboard, but it seemed to me his main point was that Republicans, because they're for unlimited secret spying on Americans, have a positive program for human progress, while Democrats, because they're against it (some of them, anyway), don't.

Posted by Alan in SF | February 18, 2008 8:06 PM

Re: Don Williams's:
"There was no need to intervene while the British Raj, the Third Reich,and Stalin's Workers Paradise were tearing each other apart. We could have dealt with whomever survived later. Especially when we had a enemy attacking us in the West."

What a warped view of history. From idealistic economic, and military standpoints, Nazi Germany was a much greater threat to U.S. interests than Japan. The draft, the Lend Lease Act, and the Atlantic Charter, all instituted in 1940, were a recognition that the U.S. was going to have to go to war against Germany, sooner or later. The U.S. could not stand idly by and see the island of Great Britain fall into Hitler's hands.

As to Stalin, his evil was exceeded only by his willingness to sacrifice millions of his troops on the Eastern Front; every dead Russian was one less dead Tommy or GI; every German soldier, dead or alive, on the Eastern Front was one less that the Western Allies had to contend with in North Africa, in Italy, and, ultimately, on the Western Front.

From a realistic, and/or cynical view, WWII was about the same thing as the "War on Terrorism": control of the world's resources, especially petroleum. The ultimate strategic goal of the Axis alliance was to take control of the oil fields of the Middle East, plain and simple. The Afrika Corps attacked to the East, to drive the British out of Egypt and move on to Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, a "nation" that was the creation of Standard Oil and British Petroleum.

The fabled Battle of Stalingrad was actually a struggle by Germany to facilitate its campaign through the Caucusus on another front to reach the oil fields of the Middle East. (I've recently read that the the Sixth Army was sacrificed at Stalingrad to facilitate the withdrawal from the Caucusus of another entire German army.)

In Iran, the "old Shah" (father of Shah Reza Pahlavi) was overthrown because he had gotten too cozy with Hitler, and Iran was jointly occupied by Soviet, British, and American troops to keep Iran on the side of the Allies, to counter the German military threat, and to provide a route for military supplies to reach the Soviets.

The China Burma India theatre of operations (CBI) was in large part to keep the Axis powers from achieving their goal of a link-up through South and Central Asia.

In comparison to all of this, Japan was seen as a secondary threat. They bombed Pearl Harbor and occupied the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island to prevent the U.S. from coming to the aid of Britain and France as the Japanese attacked and occupied their colonies in Southeast Asia. It wasn't British chicanery that led the U.S. to decide to devote close to 90% of our resources to defeating Germany.

So, in some ways, we are fighting for the same things today that we were fighting for in WWII--control of petroleum. The difference, as I view it, is that there is no nation in existence that is a credible threat to cut us off from our supplies of petroleum. Every nation that produces petroleum depends for its well-being on selling its oil to the West, including present-day Iran. A major problem is that all of them, ALL OF THEM, including our closest "allies," contribute money to the radical fundamentalist Muslims, and to the Arab "resistance" in Palestine, in large part probably, to buy protection from such forces threatening their own stability.

Despite the desire of the "rogue" and "friendly" oil producing states to keep collecting dollars and euros, the neo-con state of mind wants to resume the "Great Game" of the 19th Century, relying on military force and the real threat of military force to obtain and expand Western control of the petroleum and natural gas reserves of Central Asia. In that sense, both Iraq and Iran are not objectives in themselves, but stepping stones to a massive military presence that would keep the Central Asian "stans" in line, and out of the orbit of Russia. A tall order, something the Brits couldn't accomplish, and something that would be horrendously expensive, in blood and treasure, as well as raise the specter of a new nuclear standoff with Russia.

Our experience in Iraq, the intel on Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the fact that recent war games have shown, repeatedly, that an attempt to use naval force to occupy the Iranian side of the Straits of Hormuz and the Iranian shores of the Persian Gulf would result in a resounding defeat for the U.S., including the loss of eight capital warships, among them two aircraft carriers, have vividly demonstrated the impotence, the anachronistic nature of such a policy.

The real problem now is not the military consequences of extricating ourselves from Iraq so much as the resulting domestic political difficulties, be the next president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces a Rebublican or a Democrat. Which, sadly, brings us back to what others have posted about the military adventurers' talent for converting an ignominious failure of their policy and its resounding rejection by the electorate into a return to credibility by screaming about the stab in the back that grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory.

Posted by K. Bloomfield | February 18, 2008 10:01 PM

1) Not a bad summary, Mr Bloomfield. Except that I think the German invasion of Russia was to seize the Caspian Oil field around Baku.

2) Churchill planned to bomb the piss out of the Azerbaijan oil fields if the Nazis made it that far -- using bombers based in Iran.

The Russians were aghast --given that they depended up Caspian oil to run their tractors and would face massive famine if their fuel supply was lost.

3) One of the reasons the Russians fought so desperately at Stalingrad. Churchill certainly knew how to motivate an Army. However, Stalin remembered how casually Churchill was prepared to sacrifice millions of Russian lives.

Via his spies, Stalin also knew that the US was secretly developing an enormously powerful new weapon in a secret Manhattan Project -- and not telling him, their ally --even as millions of Russian soldiers were being sacrificed in battle.

4) Something out history books don't mention when discussing the origins of the Cold War and Stalin's "aggression".

Posted by Don Williams | February 18, 2008 11:59 PM

How can we expect our students to properly interpret literature when a certain President used a Born in the USA as his campaign theme song all the while the song was about the abandonment of the loyal American soldier in Vietnam once they got home?

This also reminded me of a recent story I read about Michael Douglas. A rich broker he ran into told him how much Gordon Gecko inspired him to enter into the trading and investment business. Douglas was shocked that anyone would be inspired by Gordon.

I think it is proof that a lot of people read these novels or watch movies more for the voyeristic look into the lives of those more fortunate and blessed with either more money or more exciting lives, regardless if the artist is trying to point out how shallow and empty those lives really are. Face it - we all want to live like Gordon Gecko, just not be Gordon Gecko. And that I think in the end is what these kids are expressing.

Is it foolish and empty? Perhaps. But, I think what is missing is that even if you didn't try to reach for material success and social acceptance into certain circles, most of our lives are fairly shallow and void of true meaning aside from just making it day to day, having decent friends, and trying to have enough enjoyable moments in our lives to make the overall drudgery of everyday living pass by.

Posted by Brad | February 19, 2008 2:02 AM

"The fabled Battle of Stalingrad was actually a struggle by Germany to facilitate its campaign through the Caucusus on another front to reach the oil fields of the Middle East. (I've recently read that the the Sixth Army was sacrificed at Stalingrad to facilitate the withdrawal from the Caucusus of another entire German army.)"

"1) Not a bad summary, Mr Bloomfield. Except that I think the German invasion of Russia was to seize the Caspian Oil field around Baku."

Capturing the Baku oil fields certainly would have been a huge strategic victory for Germany (partly because it would deny this oil to the Soviet Union), but this doesn't explain the battle of Stalingrad or the sacrifice of the German Sixth Army. If the main goal were the Baku oil fields, why not bypass Stalingrad, especially after it had been largely abandoned by the Soviets and was bombed to rubble by the Luftwaffe? For that matter, why the simultaneous assaults on Moscow and Leningrad?

More likely answers were suggested by Antony Beevor in his epic study Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege. Hitler was convinced that the Soviet Union was like a rotted building that would collapse if he kicked the door in. When that didn't happen, there was no logical military reason to sacrifice the 6th Army on the outskirts of Stalingrad. Hitler just didn't want to concede the objective, knowing that if Germany retreated from the Volga, that would be its high water mark and it would never return.

Posted by Fred | February 19, 2008 9:44 AM