dagblog - Comments for "This time is different"

Despite my great age I have

Flavius — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 03:32:07 +0000

Despite my great age I have no great wisdom. Rightly or wrongly I think human nature doesn't change. Or, maybe more to the point,that we don't learn from our own mistakes. And certainly not from the mistakes of others.

So anything that has happened before is likely to happen again.

Are you suggesting that

Peter Schwartz — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 00:40:00 +0000

In reply to This time is different

Are you suggesting that events will repeat...or won't?

En francais " C'est

Flavius — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 17:46:13 +0000

In reply to "C'est magnifique but is it

En francais " C'est magnifique ,mais ce n'est pas la guerre".

Marshal Pierre Bosquet.

Compare and contrast with Beyond the Fringe,from memory

'Perkins you know how in football nine men can sometimes play better than 10. We want you to be that tenth man.

"It's time for a futile gesture Raise the whole tone of the war. Get in your crate. Pop over to Hamburg. Don't come back.

"Goodbye Perkins. God I wish I were going with you"

Goodbye Sir.Or perhaps it's Au Revoir .

"No Perkins"

"C'est magnifique but is it

artappraiser — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 22:34:35 +0000

In reply to Istanbul enjoys a thriving

"C'est magnifique but is it War? "a French military observer"

This is hilarious, and so French, and I had never heard it before, so thank you for the story.

Istanbul enjoys a thriving

Flavius — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 22:25:34 +0000

In reply to Maybe it's less different

Istanbul enjoys a thriving Australian tourist trade with the descendants of Aussie soldiers killed in Churchill's futile attempt to occupy Gallipoli a "historical' repeat of the similarly futile charge of the four hundred ("C'est magnifique but is it War? "a French military observer" ) .

But conversely the garrison of "western"troops in 1950 west Germany was a non futile tactic to convince the Russians that we would have had perforce a nuclear response if they poured through the "Fulda Gap". Too few of us(and too ill eqipped )to resist but too many for any President to survive politically if we didn't

Maybe it's less different

artappraiser — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 18:01:45 +0000

In reply to This time is different

Maybe it's less different from this other time?

"History" repeats itself differently every time.

History, even very recent

NCD — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:42:07 +0000

In reply to True. But , if you may, that

History, even very recent history, is either misremembered or forgotten by most Americans. If they even knew what happened in real time (c Fox News viewers). History is rarely 'irrelevant', although the establishment media prefers and promotes falsehoods, confusion, and/or short memory in the population. Americans seem to be OK with that, they keep the TV news turned on.

I think it was Emma that had this link to a Ukraine expert, who, from what I could understand, said both Ukraine and Russia have huge economic problems and corruption, they must solve things on their own.

Both have close historical ties. Putin ain't solving it all anytime soon, and satisfying all the groups would be a huge challenge for him, Russia and the Ukraine, and almost certainly beyond the ability of the US or the EU.

True. But , if you may, that

Flavius — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 15:39:17 +0000

In reply to George W. Bush didn't exactly

True. But , if you may, that seems to me irrelevant. Every country has things in its past it shouldn't have done.

So be it. Now what should we do today?

How about 101 Airbrorne occupying Kiev's airport? Wouldn't reverse things in the Crimea. But that may be OK with them. Not true of the western Ukraine.

George W. Bush didn't exactly

NCD — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 14:29:55 +0000

In reply to This time is different

George W. Bush didn't exactly set a high bar for illegal wars with his order to invade Iraq to 'destroy the WMD', which he joked about not finding less than a year later.

As much a thug as Putin is, he's a million or so short of the death total our previous Republican administration wreaked on the people of Iraq.