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Here’s the link to an article about the 1914 Christmas Truce and its relevance today to the “war on terror.”

Copyright © 2005-2006 DaShlom. All Rights Reserved. Contact the author at dashlom (at) gmail dot com for reprinting and republishing or site linking requests.

Christmas 1914 and how This isn’t Your Grandparents’ War

The first year of the War to End All Wars, was shockingly brutal for all sides. The accepted rules of combat from the previous century were shredded by technology: the machine gun, the tank, mobile cannon. Gas attacks, which helped birthed the Geneva Convention had yet to be committed.

On Christmas day, 1914, Germans and English, at various places along the front, stopped fighting. They came out first to bury their dead in shared prayers, then went on to talk (most Germans knew some English), trade tobacco, pipes, buttons and other momentos, and sing and even pray together. German barbers even shaved English troops during the ten day truce. Even after the truce was expired, some troops on both sides tried not to kill their erstwhile trenchmates.

This was the last global conflict of the nation-states. By World War II, the conflict had shifted from pure national supremacy back to the US’ Civil War: industrial and financial dominance and national fascism1.

Our enemy bears no resemblance to our German foes, now turned full partners in democracy and cold, international industrial might. They don’t share our values of war, of life (theirs, their constituents, or their enemies), aims, goals. We have nothing they want, other than our subjugation or extinction. They have things we want, and have raped them for decades to get, and we Western nations are now reaping this bountiful crop.

This “war on terror” is truly the Jihad and Crusade, terms villified by both sides for its loaded terms. The emperor has no clothes. The fanatics backing terror will not come out of their trenches to sing Kumbaya on an emotional basis. And if they do, beware the blades behind their backs and bombs strapped to their torsos.

There are some similarities. Innocent civilians are caught in the middle. Cynical military leaders use ‘martyrs’ on one side, and socioeconomically hungry citizens on the other to do their bidding2. And the grinding war itself has little point, cannot be resolved by force, and seems to be intermidable.

World War I ground to a halt in part due to the Allies finally strangling the Axis powers’ industrial might: oil, machinery and humans. It ended also in large part due to the influenza pandemic that was slaughtering close-quartered troops at a rate far in excess of any human cannons or machine guns.

Europe suffered from demographic cratering. Due to the sheer devestation and the magnitude of this high-impact war, the societies were able to rebuild — only to lash out less two decades later in nationalistic angers partly fueled by the nature of the initial defeat.

This low-impact, slow-motion war gives both sides endless opportunities to rearm, learn from their tactical mistakes, and, at least on the terrorist side, fill in the gaps in their ranks with new martyrs, disempowered, emasculated virgins in this world looking to make their first score with their counterparts in the next.

The question is: is the West willing to really fight for victory, or keep the sniping up?

Economically, international corporate-nations with ties to all sides of the conflict are profiting by the tens of billions; it’s not in their interest to fight this war to conclusion. Why rebuild a school once if you can rebuild it three times? If the current infrastructure destruction in Iraq continues, it will be importing gasoline like some other major oil producers, a clear added bonus for these “reconstruction firms.” This is the ugly military-industrial complex of which President Eisenhower warned.

Politicians have loved the war until recently: fear sells votes. The turnover in the US House and Senate were as much about absolute corruption as the Iraq War. War is great for a country’s economy: the huge post-WW II boom was fueled by the technologies and capacities built up during the war3.

I’ve heard many Americans cut the Gorgian knot and point to the obvious solution: Do not to abide by Western rules of conduct; instead follow that of the enemy. Attack with full strength, quickly cause maximum, lasting damage, and ensure that whatever population is left rebuilds by our rules, not theirs.

That might have worked in Iraq at the start of this war. Now, it would resemble a sore loser tossing a board game into the air, scattering the pieces, when play does not go his way.

There is something to be said, however, for overwhelming, drop-that-20,000-ton-bomb- and-then-invade-with-200,000-soldiers force in small areas. If the United States is to be taken seriously, it will need to be serious, pervasive force, with specific objectives and a take-no-prisoners attitude.

Right now the administration doesn’t have the guts to make that decision, and generals may not have the force strength to take that decision. Maybe some variant of the H5N1 flu will come to our aid. God forbid.

Happy holidays.


[1] Hitler’s rise to power was funded by industrialists who saw the money to be made in a war-oriented German economy. America didn’t want to get involved in the foreign war because it was not economically expedient. Like England until the Nazis got too close, it was seen as better to let the various powers fight their own war. Japan attacked the US in part because it was threatened by Washington’s oil (energy) sanctions — a turnabout on America’s oil policies of today.

[2]Even after joining, many US soldiers’ families rely on food stamps or other aid, as the pay, even with hazardous duty bonuses, is not sufficient to raise a family. Non-citizens join the US army in hopes of citizenship — which is granted posthumously in some cases.

[3]The difference today is in debt and trust. Whereas in WW II Americans were exhorted to save gasoline, grow their own vegetables and be more frugal, President Bush exhorts citizens to keep up their level of spending (debt) and consumption. That’s critical because we are not short so much of supplies as we are of the movement of money in our economy.

From the Mouths of (Jewish) Babes

My daughter, to a school friend trying to convert her (named Christian, lest there be any doubt): “I know you’re trying to save me like, from the burning flames of hell, but… I’m okay.”

Apartheid — A Stinking Rose by Any Name

Former President Carter is a naive fool, playing into the hands of both a cynical media and an equally cynical antisemitic Arab PR machine.

Jewish leaders protesting Carter’s use of apartheid are self-delusional at best, lying at worst.

Israel has generally treated not only the West Bank and Gaza residents (however they want to refer to themselves) as something a little better than cattle, and something definitely less than human for over thirty years. I’ve seen it, anyone who’s lived or worked in the agricultural, construction, or industrial sector has seen it, and anyone denying it is lying.

Israeli arab towns and cities get less economic, social, cultural, infrastructure, tourism, security and every other support available to their Jewish — and even mixed ethnicity — cities. Go drive up a street in Deir Al Assad, then take a spin in neighboring Karmiel. Check out the practice soccer pitches in Haifa, the drive up to Massadeh on the Golan Heights (officially annexed by Israel years ago).

That’s not to say that there aren’t great people, companies and relationships that transcend these terrible and institutional practices. But the norm is a form of apartheid. Carter’s blunder is to let the media equate the concept of apartheid with the level of apartheid. Israel, at its worst, was far better a master than the South Africans. Just writing that sentence makes me cringe, but it’s a true, qualitative statement.

And Carter using that statement turns a possible discussion about the non-revolutionary ways out of the quagmire that is the Middle East into a firestorm of fury about the players, guilty and innocent, that have to survive it.

President Carter should stick to building houses for the homeless, and American rabbis should stick to helping their constituents. Neither seems qualified to engage in this current discussion.

Blinded by the ADA

A federal judge mandated that currency should be distinguishable by the blind, as an acquiescence to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

My spouses, comment: “Great, but when are they going to get around to helping the blind see the traffic lights so they can drive?”

It’s true that there are possible solutions to give currency a better readability to the visually impaired. Bills could be different sizes, they could be notched, holed, or braille punched. But these non-visual cues would actually aid in the defrauding of the blind if they come to depend on these features. Right now they have no assumptions, beyond trusting the giver, that they have the correct currency. In a system where the braille might be correct for the denomination, they would depend less on their trust in fellow human, and more on an artifice that is much more easily modified than all the watermarks, threads, microprint and other visually-oriented rigamarole.

From a legal perspective, it also would put a huge burden on the federal court system. If a person gives the incorrect change to a blind person, short changes them in effect, that’s misdemeanor theft. If they modify the currency to defraud someone, that’s federal counterfeiting charges. There’s really no way to push that kind of law down into the state or local systems, since currency is, well, federal.

Added to all this is the cost to change every one of the American currency manipulating machines. Counters, sorters, currency reading machines, ATMs. Sure, it can be done: all these sorts of equipment are used around the world, where there are lots of countries with differently-sized and -colored bills. But the cost to do all this, the user acceptance, is incredibly painful and will actually help counterfeiters defraud Americans even more.

All in all, I think marking currency for the blind is a bad idea.

The handicapped (differently abled, challenged, et al) are just that: working in a world where everyone has some kind of limiter that keeps some part of them from operating at 100%. Short, tall, fat, color-blind, dyslexic, dispeptic, depressed, manic, obsessive-compulsive, sloppy: you name it, someone has it.

Of course, people who are blind, deaf, or do not have even usual range of motion of legs or hands are at especial disadvantage. And the ADA has done a great job of ensuring that handicapped accessible spaces are the norm, not the exception (although that may be due to the “ahah!” moment of businesses, realizing that those in wheelchairs have credit cards too).

In the matter of currency, I think adapting ‘reading pens’–small form-factor OCR readers–is a better solution than overhauling the entire treasury system. Just as we ensure that parking spaces nearest building entrances are reserved for the handicapped, we should ensure that the blind have cost-effective access to these kinds of reader tools. And, if they can’t afford them, then the government (federal, state, local) should ensure there is a program for them to be either given away, purchaed, or lent.

An even better solution would be smart card readers or credit swiping machines that have the ability to vocalize transactions. That would keep cash out of the loop, and the blind consumer more in control over their money. Banks could provide blind users with free smart card or debit card services above and beyond sighted users. After all, it would drive both loyalty and keeping more cash where they can get their greedy hands on it.

And keep the currency, as with automobile driving, focused on the sighted user.