Sauron,

The Russians were on the moon first. Not manned, but the Luna 7 moon vehicle landed on the moon surface on october 7th, 1965. It proved the moon was not made of Cheese, information which was gratefully accepted by NASA as this meant they had to stash more food in the Apollo capsule for the US’ manned landings.

JY-HKJ

Nope, that registration is no coincidence:
Hussein, King of Jordan.

Sauron,

If you don’t call Vietnam a defeat and take Nixon’s words for it that the US achieved peace with honour, i guess you can’t really say anything about France’s defeats. I know Vietnam was lost because the US governments refused to counter the Vietnamese human resources with any effect, but it was a defeat. Simple as that.

Mind you, i wasn’t defending or even apologising for communism in my above post. Not each and every post of mine with the C-word is Communist propaganda 😉

Geforce,
(sorry Sean, í’ll be going completely off topic here)

You should know the reasons for no German official settlements in the Americas better than that! Political inertia due to division in the era between Friedrich Barbarossa and the Reformation, then political division because of religious differences (which lead to the Thirty Year War), no decent access to open sea for any of the post-1648 German states, Continental expansion by Prussia rather then sea-going expansion… Only during the late 1800s when Germany was reunited did they finally start colonising, but by then only little was left for them.
Of course, plenty German settlers left for the New World, but this was never a state-organised trip but rather individual or because of religious reasons (plenty of weird Dutch and German Christian cults still survive in the US, btw).

As for coming up with Hutchinson: i beg to disagree with you on the value of his work. While it gives some interesting insights and possibly gives a nice introduction on thinking on an international level, i think the Clash of Civilisations is an overly simplistic and naieve essay. Nothing more, nothing less. Hutchinson’s way of picking a few predominant factors in a number of cultures and then using those to define ‘civilisations’ is rather shortsighted, IMHO. While he has a point in describing the Western civilisation and to a lesser extent the Arab-Islamic (but which he uses on non-Arabic nations as well which i think is only one mistake), some of his other ‘civilisations’ are not so clearly defined, yet he presents them as such because otherwise his whole theory would collapse. For example, his definition of the Eastern-European Orthodox civilisation seems to me like he has invented it himself just to be able to explain the Cold War with his theory. Yet if you check his definition of the Orthodox Civilisation (un-enlightened, long lasting feodal system, very recent development of an economical middle class) Spain, Portugal and Latin America also perfectly apply. Yet this doesn’t fit with his geographical division, so he makes up another one for Latin America… His whole theory is much more the result of certain constructions to make it fit rather than the result of observing the world.

If you compare the current situation of the West vs Islam and compare it with the West vs. Orthodoxy (in it’s communism days), you will hopefully see that the West is far less able to communicate with “Islam” as it was with “Orthodoxy”. Yet according to Hutchinson both these situations are equally fundamental as they both are civilisational clashes? Give me a break!

But where can you put Hutchinson then? Simple:

Nobody helps me when fighting my brother.
My brother helps when me fighting my dad.
My dad helps me when fighting the neighbourhood.
The neighbourhood helps me when fighting the rest of the town i live in.
With the other people from my town, we fight other towns in the area.
All our towns together are allied in our struggle against the local government.
Our local government helps us in our struggle against our national government.
The whole country helps me when bickering on our neighbouring country.
Together with out neighbouring countries with similar religion/political systems/ideology, we’re united against countries who have other standards

Ergo: Hutchinson describes nothing more than the top stair of a very, very large pyramid of power factions united in a global Balance of Power. If you think the world is purely organised according to a Balance of Power-system you might agree with Hutchinson – but that doesn’t explain why the world has ever allowed the US to become the world’s sole superpower.

Unfortunately it’s been a while since i read Hutchinson, but i’ve debated his statements for hours on end… i’m really convinced, you know?

Edit: forgot the following bit:

Sean,
“Bomber-Gap myth? Explain? Are you referring to the inflated opinion of the Soviet bomber force’s numerical strength in the 50’s and 60’s? PR was great in the Cold War.”

Well, it were Curtis leMay’s RB-45/Canberra/U-2 overflights over the Soviet Union which revealed the massive number of intercontinental bombers the Soviets had in the 1950s. Even though the CIA couldn’t find those massive numbers of Bears and Bisons.
Unfortunately for fearmongers like LeMay and others, you know very well by know how many Tu-95 and M-4 bombers were ever in service with the Soviet Union…

More Zippo-quizzes! They’re fun!

Finesse? I don’t think there is a translation. The word is just not used in American English, i think it’s in fact an unknown concept.

However, the US has a very effective word and concept which it prefers to use where other countries/languages use something akin to finesse.

Firepower.
Massive firepower.

As long as the subject of the massive firepower doesn’t have too much firepower itself, of course. Like those bloody Somalians.

That 4 months period is based on Blix’ estimates how long he would need to bring his mission to an end as was demanded by the UN: if Iraq cooperates the way it is now, four months will be a good period to asses if war can be avoided or not. If you ask me, it’s less arbitrarly as the US and Britain’s sudden March 17th deadline. No deadline has ever been put forward on any UN resolution regarding Iraq, so i don’t see the big deal.

Okay, you Americans don’t want to fight when it’s warm. Fair enough. So if the war comes, it won’t be for oil, it won’t be for democracy, it won’t be for WMD, it will all be just about the weather 😀

Exactly my thoughts, Sauron! France is no better than the US. Actually, i think they have quite a lot in common – not in issues, but in attitude.

….eating breakfast or dinneeeeer
or snack lunch in the hall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all

Good one Zip.

Frank,
I do like mountains, but i can also have a lot of fun in flat, boring, grassy lands. As in Russian steppes, not Dutch polders 😉