Iraq, oddly enough, US Politics

Against the rules…

I’m out of town, so I’ll be brief tonight. Via “warblogging.com“, I found this “Corpwatch.com” document regarding a serious involvement in US military activities of a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil construction company previously managed by current US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Most of the article is concerned with some sort of public-privqte-partnership in the running of certain logistic activities.

In December 2001, Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, secured a 10-year deal known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), from the Pentagon. The contract is a “cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity service” which basically means that the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send Brown and Root anywhere in the world to run military operations for a profit. … Army officials working with Brown and Root says the collaboration is helping cut costs by hiring local labor at a fraction of regular Army salaries. “We can quickly purchase building materials and hire third-country nationals to perform the work. This means a small number of combat-service-support soldiers are needed to support this logistic aspect of building up an area,” says Lt. Col. Rod Cutright, the senior LOGCAP planner for all of Southwest Asia.”

On an theoretical level, I find this most interesting, as I would have predicted that the nature of transactions conducted by the military on a mission in a crisis area would make it difficult to rely on contractors – even longterm ones – and thus imply the internalisation and hierarchical coordination of all factors necessary. But apparently, a longterm contract seems to be able to handle the organisational problems at hand. Interesting.

On a political level, I am concerned about the impression these contracts will leave, regardless of the fact that

[Dick Cheney’s] spokesperson denies that the White House helped the company win the contract.”

Of course, there are perfectly reasonable explanations for such contracts – maybe Halliburton provided the best offer for a long planned service, maybe other companies are in the same business, in a comparable way, maybe, maybe, maybe – but whatever may or may not be justified in the decision to award them such a contract, the suspicion that the Bush administration does have a private agenda that is at least partly different from its public rethoric is certainly not being refuted by such stories, as the article indicates.

“Critics say that the apparent conflict of interest is deplorable. ‘The Bush-Cheney team have turned the United States into a family business,’ says Harvey Wasserman, author of The Last Energy War (Seven Stories Press, 2000).”

While this is certainly a fringe opinion, I can’t help but wonder why someone like Dick Cheney would not try to avoid stories like by not giving contracts to previous employers at all costs. Including alligations of discrimination against his former employer.

I just don’t get it.

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almost a diary

Wesley Crusher is 30.

If you grew up in a world where teenage boys watched Jean Luc Picard b(a)ldy go where no one had ever been before with his “Next Generation” spaceship Enterprise while teenage girls used to follow “Beverly Hills 90210“, a series designed around the love-life of Brandon, Brenda and, of course, Donna, the virgin (it may come as a shock to those of you who believe in tv, but may I say that a rather credible source once told me that, allegedly, she was not really one…), you will certainly be delighted to be informed that Wesley Crusher, the always nerdy teenage ensign, has his own blog.
Back To Iraq. Some now, Some later.
Well, not the character, of course, but the actor, Wil Wheaton. And I suppose he would not be too delighted to be introduced as Wesley Crusher having read the introductory text to his blog in which he also tells us that Wesley is now thirty years old.

That, my gentle readers, is indeed shocking news and I don’t even want to begin thinking about the ramifications of his statement.

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Iraq, US Politics

Back To Iraq. Some now, Some later.

It’s war –

“[t]he opening stages of the disarmament of the iraqi regime have begun…”

according to Ari Fleischer and as reported by Christopher Allbritton, a former AP and New York Daily News reporter, who is trying to blog-raise enough money to go to Nothern Iraq in three weeks or so and be a truly independent war-blogger. I only recently discovered his blog back-to-Iraq, but I think I like it a lot.

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Allgemein

Blogger & Google.

You probably remember that the acquistition of Blogger by search engine provider Google made the tech-headlines three weeks or so ago. Well, if I remember correctly, the bottom line of most commentator’s reasoning was that google wanted to buy Blogger because the vast content of the blogosphere on their servers would provide important additional input for the Google system of finding and ranking web pages.

May I say that they clearly have a long way to go. And if aynone asked me, my first suggestion would be to think of individual post in a blog as content-units and treat them accordingly in search requests. All those of you with a site of their own will immediately understand what I am talking about when I say that just 5 five minutes ago, someone found my page through a google search for the term “email addresses guestbook of private people in albania”. I do understand that by writing this, I am making this page a prime target for the next person looking for Albanians with internet access.

But until today, there was no particular reason to list my page in the results for this search apart from the fact that the words “Albania” and “Email” once appeared in the same HTML document.

And you know what’s even weirder? The person looking for Albanians found my site through this search even though it is listed on page three of the results! My search rank for this particular search is 28! Assuming that he/she did not directly jump to link #28, my page was not the only one misinterpreted by Google. It will certainly be interesting to see how things will change as BLOOGLER gets going.

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compulsory reading, Iraq, US Politics

A gruesome In-Between Tuesday.

What a weird day. A day so in-between. Between the announcement of the verdict and its execution. Between the certainty of war and the doubts about its justification.

Watching the media report about the imaginary ultimatum that Bush announced last night was even a bit surreal, especially given Ari Fleischer’s declaration that US forces might enter Iraq even earlier in case Saddam Hussein would clearly state he would not leave Iraq. What does he expect of the Iraqi dictator? A collect call to the White House?

More surreal things have been going on today. Some of the very same EU foreign ministers who met in Brussels to discuss the post-war humanitarian help for Iraq will fly to New York tonight to meet at the Security Council tomorrow in order to discuss the Weapon Inspectors’s disarmament schedule, even though the last weapon inspectors have been flown to Cyprus today. I have to say, this does strike me as slightly shizophrenic.

And it’s risky – imagine the Willing starting to fight during the meeting. Embarrassing doesnt even begin to describe the consequences. But that’s just what might happen if the US should feel the meeting is intended to corner it even further. And what else should it be good for? Oh wait, maybe the Iraq ambassador to the UN, Mohammed A. Aldouri, will use a statement about anthrax-alligations to scare the US forces even further that Iraq could indeed use whatever is left of whatever WMDs it once had. I really can’t see what this meeting is good for. Pictures of sulking foreign ministers in a powerless Security Council will not help anyone, least of all the United Nations. Thus, if war has not started by then, maybe tomorrow will be even more surreal than today.

Earlier, I listened to Tony Blair speak in the Commons. He wasn’t as good as usual, one could literally sense his lack of sleep. But his speech in itself was not all that important. The vote was. And as expected, the British government’s position was confirmed by the House – despite Robin Cook’s applauded resignation. In the end, the rebellion was bigger than last time, but smaller than feared – or hoped for – on either side – 139 Labour MPs dissented. Done. I bet Blair asked Bush to let him get some sleep and see his son before starting the war.

One of the good things of in-between days is that they are a great time to reflect about things. As today was the Iraq-War-In-Between-Day, I thought about the imminent war on Iraq.

My reflections were triggered by a chain email that my good friend Sabina sent me today. It included a link to a site with horrible, gruesome pictures of victims of war. You can find this link at the end of this post.

I am linking to the site because with yet another war looming over our heads and the American forces’ inclination to “shock and awe” their enemies, these pictures are an important reminder of the reality of warfare; of the fact that weapons, however intelligent, are intended to destroy and to kill. They are a stark reminder why there so many people oppposed to any military action, for whichever reason.

I am not one of them. In my opinion, there are instances in which war can be necessary despite the horrors it will inevitably inflict on everybody involved, innocent or guilty, old or young. Sometimes, only horror can end horror, if philosphically just or not. The allied invasion to end the nazi dictatorship in Europe is often cited to illustrate this. The US-led NATO attack on Serbian forces ethnically cleansing Kosovo, however ineffective it was or was not, is another. So what about Iraq?

To state that there are possible cases for war inspite of its horrors implies the necessity to explore any possibilty to avoid armed conflict. Not just to go the last mile of diplomacy, but far beyond. I know that this a problematic statement, given that much of what is going on these days is high-profile game theory, and, of course, sometimes threats have to be executed to remain credible.

A few hours ago, Tony Blair was laughed at in the House of Commons when he he made that point by comparing the current situation to the Munich conference of 1938, when the civilised world thought it had appeased Hitler, while all the effort really signalled that the great powers would not care enough to forcefully oppose him. The problem at hand is that both, Blair and those who laughed at him, are right – and wrong.

Of course, it is historically untenable to compare the question of disarmament/regime change in Iraq to Hitler’s aggressive, ideologically rooted expansionism. But, on the other hand, people still react to the incentives they face. And Saddam Hussein has only been forced into cooperation with UNMOVIC because of the credible threat of a war signalled by almost 300.000 US and British troops prepared to march towards Baghdad and use their Daisy Cutters on the way.

But however important the lessons of history are, they do not really tell us about the future. The latter is, indeed, unknown.

Regime change in Iraq is desirable. And I know that some argue that ‘real’ disarmament is only possible in conjunction with regime change. But given the recent rather positive record of Iraqi cooperation, I believe it was unwise to let the US military calendar determine the political agenda. Even if I accept the possibilty of war as last means, I do not believe that the Weapon Inspector process had arrived at that stage.

However much I agree that Iraq will be better off without the current regime – regardless of the world’s suspicion that the US administration is pursuing a secret agenda of its own – I do not believe that the risks of not fighting this war outweigh the risks of fighting it, especially if one thinks about the days after.

The latter aspect has two finer points. The first one is general – while I believe that it is entirely possible to come to a different conclusion, I don’t believe that violently removing Hussein will jump-start Iraqi democracy. The most promising element of the latter calculation is the demographic srtucture of the middle east: increased alphabetisation and education could indeed have important positive effects. But however young the region may be on average – this is a generational project and so far, no one has offered any convincing reason why ousting Saddam would result in a short cut to modernity for a society in which power is still structured by tribal affiliations, and in which distributional conflicts will in all likelihood result in severe ethnic clashes without strong, and thus likely violent, central control. Moreover, if Iraq is to remain in its current borders (as the US has promised Turkey, which is not too thrilled about the thought of an independent Kurdish state South of the territory inhabited by its own Kurdish minority a majority of which seemed to have at last accepted the idea of living in Turkey, according to one German ARD television correspondent in the area) one opressive regime will likely have to be replaced by another one. But in the end, all that is speculation.

The second finer point I am referring to is of specific nature. Even if I would agree that benevolent ‘colonialism’ and hierarchical modernisation is the right long-term policy, I do not believe that the current US administration is the one to lead the way. Look at Afghanistan. It may be less violent than during the Taliban-Nothern Alliance war, but outside of Kabul, it’s the Warlords’ territory again. Take this and the recent diplomatic record of the Bush administration and it will become very difficult to factually support their policy.

Thus, to cut a long story short, in my personal estimation, all this adds up to the conclusion that this war is not (yet?) necessary.

Even NYTimes columnist Thomas Friedman shares this view, but none the less supports the war for he believes in the Western Prometheus, arguing that it is a war of justified choice, albeit not one of necessity. Here, I can’t follow Mr Friedman. Why would anyone choose war if it is not necessary? Even the most adamant hawks would always claim that fighting Saddam is necessary to achieve their argument of the day.

Ironically, Mr Friedman makes this point in order to explain to the American public (and their government) why international support is so important in this case – when he is in fact explaining some of the reasons for the lack thereof. A large part of the global opposition to war believes exactly this – that the Bush administration has chosen a war – without ever really explaining why it is necessary to pay the price, most importantly, in blood.

I believe there’s a lot of moral clarity in this rule of thumb: As long as a war is not really, really necessary, don’t fight it.

And in case anyone is still undecided about the fundamental truth of these last words, check the link my friend Sabina sent me – but I have to warn you with a necessary disclaimer: if you click on this link, be prepared to be shocked to your core by pictures of death inflicted by war. Don’t click on the link if there are kids or any other people looking at your screen who won’t be able to deal with what they will see. I’m *not* kdding here.

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compulsory reading, Iraq

Downing Street, Number 1441

Robin Cook, former British Foreign Minister and since June 2001 Leader of the House of Commons [and in this position the immediate ministerial superior of Ben Bradshaw, the MP in whose Parliamentary office I worked in 2001] resigned from the British cabinet as as a consequence of Tony Blair’s apparent decision to send British troops to war solely based on UNSC resolution 1441 – [from Blair’s reply to Cook’s letter of resignation – ]

“The government is staying true to Resolution 1441. Others, in the face of continuing Iraqi non-compliance, are walking away from it.”

I’m sure he wasn’t referring to Cook with that last sentence, as he is clearly not walking away. Quite to the opposite, he literally rose through the ranks of the House to deliver his resignation speech from the back-benches.

If you have 11 minutes, watch his speech. Actually, watch it even if you don’t have 11 minutes.

Cook eloquently lays out the case for more inspections and against warNow! in what the BBC’s political correspondent Andrew Marr claims was –
“[w]ithout doubt one of the most effective brilliant resignation speeches in modern British politics.”

While I am not too sure what his resignation as well as his speech will mean for tomorrow’s Commons vote on Iraq, I am sure it will have some effect. The Parliamentry opposition against warNow! will likely rally around him as he has pointed out that he is very much committed to a continued Blair leadership of the Labour Party.

Recently, it seeemed that Blair supporters have been able to rally back-bench support for the government’s case given that some OldLabour MPs had speculated a bit too publicly about a possible leadership challenge on the day after.

Cook is offering NewLabour back-benchers a convenient way to show their opposition to Blair’s position on Iraq issue without signalling to the remaining OldLabour faction that they would suppport a leadership challenge. This, the BBC online’s Nick Assinder believes, will not help Tony Blair’s sleep tonight –

“The prime minister, who was not in the chamber, may have felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as Mr Cook ended with a call for the Commons to stop the war with its vote on Tuesday night.”

I doubt Blair will lose his case tomorrow, but chances are, a majority will clearly depend on Conservative votes. I guess no explanation is needed as to why it is a huge problem for a PM to be backed by the opposition instead of his own Parliamentary party.

But even in case the rebellion will be less pronounced than commentators expect, and even if the war will take a favourable course – I doubt Blair’s decision to invest almost all his political capital into supporting the US government’s case for regime change will ever pay off. Even without a possible future leadership challenge, Blair will never again be the political star he used to be. Governing will be a lot harder for him in the future than it has been before. There will be too many people wanting to cash in the blank cheques he had to sign for support.

I suppose, the days when flashing a personal invitation to Downing Street was in itself an important political property have passed. Certainly interesting times on Whitehall.

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Iraq, US Politics

Tongues Against Terror

Freedom Kissing - Tongues Against Terror

A very European joke I had in mind since I first read about those Congressional “Freedom Fries”… should anyone be interested in a larger version, let me know. I thought it would be a good idea to post it before making fun of the US Supreme Commander would likely make me an enemy combattant and strip me of my human rights. Besides, the next weeks very likely are not going to be too funny, as warNow! will probably begin Tuesday or Wednesday night.

As for those 24 last hours of diplomacy, I still think there’s a slight chance to preserve peace for the time being, peacefully disarm Iraq through UNMOVIC and, most importantly, allow W a face saving withdrawal.

Any second resolution would have to involve a common global threat of military action against Saddam Hussein’s regime – France, Germany, and Russia would have to accept some version of the British bullet point list and commit themselves not only to political support, but also to significant military engagement in a future war, should UNMOVIC not decide at the agreed date that Iraq’s compliance is in the 99th percentile (100% is impossible, as there will always be misunderstandings that could then be used by one party or the other to back their non-agreed-upon actions – recent stories about how the US forged intelligence and how the latest British Iraq dossier has its main origin in a political science paper – don’t get me wrong here, I studied that myself – it’s just that you would assume that MI6 has more resources than a library). Basically, it would involve to credibly back up the European formula of war as last means.

In this case, I believe, it would be hard for Bush and even more so for Blair to renounce this offer. And more time would, first and foremost, allow everyone in the game to reposition themselves and explore new options – apart from Saddam Hussein, given the scrutiny that he is under these days.

So will it happen? I doubt it. Mostly because personal stakes have been now chained so firmly to national positions. Just imagine Schroeder or Chirac trying to explain this to the German or French public. Moreover, if everyone believes that the US would not accept a positive UNMOVIC verdict in the end, US unilateral action would be even worse for global governance than it will be now when everybody can still pretend that resolution 1441 does indeed offer some legal recourse for lonely unilateralists.

So it is very unlikely that tomorrow’s UNSC session will yield something like the strategy I sketched above. But don’t say that diplomacy is dead until it really is.

May the force be with them.

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Allgemein

Paulo Coelho Says Thank You

Paulo Coelho Says Thank You

This morning I discovered the German version of the following letter to George W. Bush by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho [biography in German] in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Thanks to google and newsallergy I discovered an English version, which I do not intend to withhold from you, my gentle readers.

I have highlighted the parts I find most interesting, for they eloquently illustrate in a few words just how badly the US administration handled their diplomatic agenda.

No surprise, some *very* informed, rather atlanticist scholars of international relations, like Christoph Bertram, currently head of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, start to accept the idea that one of the non-disclosed reasons for the current US policy on Iraq is to teach the rest of the world a lesson. Tonight, on ZDF television, he said something along the line of – [i]f the only remaining superpower is having trouble making a case that the veto players would buy, then it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this was the original intention.

He’s not the only one. More and more people are starting to wonder if a US administration could indeed act as diplomatically unskilled as this one has simply due to incompetence or if there’s something else going on. Personally, I am undecided what would be worse.

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman clearly belongs to the first group of people, [as does W’s dad, Bush 41, by the way] the ones that do not want to believe that more than incompetence is at stake – I guess he’s still pro warNow!, but he’s not so sure anymore…

Some days, you pick up the newspaper and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Let’s see, the prime minister of Serbia just got shot, and if that doesn’t seem like a bad omen then you missed the class on World War I. Our strongest ally for war in Iraq is Bulgaria – a country I’ve always had a soft spot for, because it protected its Jews during World War II, but a country that’s been on the losing side of every war in the last 100 years. Congress is renaming French fries “freedom fries.” George Bush has managed to lose a global popularity contest to Saddam Hussein, and he’s looking to build diplomatic support in Europe by flying to the Azores, a remote archipelago in the Atlantic, to persuade the persuaded leaders of Britain and Spain to stand firm with him. I guess the North Pole wasn’t available. I’ve been to the Azores. It was with Secretary of State James Baker on, as I recall, one of his seven trips around the world to build support for Gulf War I. Mr. Baker used the Azores to refuel.”

And when I watched CNN Newsnight at some point last week, I was startled by the fact that some senior political correspondent, whose name I have forgotten, told the American public about the longstanding neoconservative plans to invade Iraq – as if this were some kind of news. Well, I guess it must be, to those whose worldview only consists of CNNmomentstm. So probably Paul Krugman is summarizing the current informed and semi-informed US media climate rather accurately by saying –

“[o]ver the past few weeks there has been an epidemic of epiphanies. There’s a long list of pundits who previously supported Bush’s policy on Iraq but have publicly changed their minds. None of them quarrel with the goal; who wouldn’t want to see Saddam Hussein overthrown? But they are finally realizing that Mr. Bush is the wrong man to do the job. And more people than you would think – including a fair number of people in the Treasury Department, the State Department and, yes, the Pentagon – don’t just question the competence of Mr. Bush and his inner circle; they believe that America’s leadership has lost touch with reality.”

That’s clearly what Maureen Dowd has been saying over and over –

“Everyone thinks the Bush diplomacy on Iraq is a wreck. It isn’t. It’s a success because it was never meant to
succeed. For the hawks, it’s a succès d’estime. (If I may be so gauche as to use a French phrase in a city where federal employees are slapping stickers over the word “French”..:”

Maybe history will tell. But likely, we won’t have the time asking her while being busy rebuilding Iraq. I know that mocking W is not too difficult, which is, I would like to add, why I have often resisted to do so – insisting that mockery would likely result in underestimation.

But now I don’t know anymore.

Anyway, over to Paulo Coelho.

Thank you, George Bush, the Great Leader.

First of all, may I thank you for showing all of us the danger which Saddam Hussein represents. Perhaps many of us might have forgotten that he used chemical weapons against his own people as well as against the people of Iran. Hussein is a blood-thirsty dictator, and certainly an embodiment of evil in the world today.

However, that is not the only reason why I am thanking you. In the early months of 2003, you helped show us, sir, many important things about the world, and it is for this that you have my gratitude. I was taught as child to always say “thank you” to someone who has done me a favor, and it is in that spirit that I write these words.

Thank you for showing us all that the people of Turkey and their Parliament are not for sale, not even for $26 billion dollars.

Thank you for showing us clearly the enormous abyss which exists between the decisions taken by leaders of nations and the true desires of their people. Thank you for helping us see with painful clarity that whether it is José Aznar of Spain or Tony Blair of the UK, that our so called elected leaders don’t have the slightest regard or respect for the fact that over 90% of their population are against war. Thank you for allowing us to witness the ease with whichTony Blair was able to blithely ignore the largest public protest held in England in the last 30 years.

Thank you, because your insistence on war forced Blair to go to Parliament with a plagiarized dossier which consisted of notes written ten years ago by an arab graduate student. As a result we were able to witness the unbelievable farce of Blair insisting that these notes represented “proof” gathered by the British secret service.

Thank you for for making Colin Powell descend to the ridiculous by showing the UN Security Council photographs, which a week later were publicly denounced by Hans Blix, the weapons inspector responsible for verifying the disarmament of Iraq.

Thank you, because your position on war resulted in the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Dominique de Villepin, in his speech against war on Iraq, being honored by a standing ovation. This is an honor which, if I am correct, has only happened once before in the history of the U.N., and that was during a presentation by Nelson Mandela.

Thank you, because due to your strenuous push for war, for the first time the Arab nations of the Gulf, usually so divided, have found a reason to unite and have recently issued a joint resolution in Cairo condemning your proposed invasion. You have brought about a unity of opinion amongst the arab nations, that they had not achieved on their own.

Thank you, because as a result of your administration’s rhetoric blasting the United Nations as “irrelevant”, even the most undecided and reluctant nations have been inspired to take a position against your country’s attack on Iraq.

Thank you for your extraordinary foreign policy. Attempts to defend your ambitions have caused British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, to attempt to argue a case for a “moral war”, and with each attempt lose more international credibility.

Thank you for attempting to divide Europe, which after a century of war and upheaval has been fighting for unity. This was a warning clearly seen by all of us, and it will not be forgotten.

Thank you for finally managing to achieve what few have managed in the past century: to unite millions of people, across the continents and give them a common cause to fight for, even if that cause is the exact opposite from yours.

Thank you for letting us feel that even if our words are not being heard, they are at least being repeated. This will give us strength in the future.

Thank you, because without your esteemed help, we wouldn’t have known the extent to which we were capable of mobilizing. Perhaps this appears useless today…but it will serve us in the future.

Thank you.

So, now that the drums of war seem to beat with unstoppable ferocity, I want to add an insight, words uttered by an ancient European King to a would-be invader:

“May your morning be glorious and May the sun shine brightly on the armor of your soldiers, because in the afternoon I will defeat you.”

Mr. Bush, thank you as well for visibly trying to stop a movement which has already begun. We will pay attention to the feelings of impotence, and the sensations it arouses within us. We will learn to deal with those emotions, and we will transform them.

In the meantime, may you enjoy your beautiful morning, and all the glory that it may bring you.

Thank you, because I know you will not listen to us, nor take us seriously. Know, however, that we have listened to you and heard you clearly, and we will not soon forget your words.

Thank you, George W. Bush, the great leader!
Many thanks to you.”

The writer, Paulo Coelho, is the author of “The Alchemist”, amongst other works, and is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Arts & Letters. A Folha de Sao Paulo, March 8, 2003

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Iraq, oddly enough

To Strip Or Not To Strip.

Bayeux Tapestry.This is funny. Someone at “ChristianScienceMonitor.com” is mocking the “Freedom Fries” America and wonders what would happen if the French decided to prohibit the use of French words in American English (Blogdex #2 currently!).

Of course, we all know that the French (or any other group of people who are native speakers of a certain language) do not literally own their language in any meaningful or even enforceable way – actually, I can only think of one polity where I suppose the legislative could seriously contemplate to extend copyright to such a degree… I guess you know which one I am talking about.

Moreover, French was not invented by the Académie Francaise (however much l’Académie would probably like this idea)… Quite comparably to all other languages, it took a long time to become the French we know today… But anyway. If it reads like this –

It is time for English-speaking peoples folk to throw off this cultural imperialism lording-it-over-others and declare say our linguistic freedom. It is time to purify clean the English language tongue. It will take some sacrifices hardship on everyone’s part to get used to the new parlance speech. But think of the satisfaction warm feeling inside on the day we are all able to can all stare the Académie Française in the eye and say without fear of reprisal injury: “Sumer is icumen in….”

– if you strip modern English of the linguistic consequences of the Norman conquest of 1066 (beautifully depicted on the world’s oldes comic strip, the Bayeux tapestry), imagine what would remain of English without its German(ic) roots? Since “English [predominantly] descends from the language spoken by the Germanic tribes that invaded Britain during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages…” I’m no expert in etymology – so I am just guessing here – but I figure the above sentence would probably look somewhat like this…

It is time for English-speaking folk to throw off this cultural lording-it-over-others and say our linguistic freedom.
It is time to clean the English tongue. It will take some hardship on everyone’s part to get used to the new speech. But think of the warm feeling inside on the day we can all stare the Académie Française in the eye and say without fear of injury: “Sumer is icumen in….”

Just another reason for continued linguistic cooperation, I suppose ;-).

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