One of these is a failed weapon, the other is a middle-finger to future archaeologists.

1) Due to competition from the Internet, the 21-year project to build and edit a third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary will never be printed. (Link)

2) How much time is too much time teaching high-schoolers about the Holocaust? (Link)

3) A renowned French historian suggests that Churchill ordered the assisination of Mussolini…to cover up some embarassing letters he apparently sent Il Duce. (Link)

4) The Molotov-Ribbentrop non-agression pact of 1939 allied Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – This is apparently all news to many Russians. (Link)

5) At one time, German chancellor Willy Brandt was even willing to speak to Moscow in order to reconciliate East and West Germany. The 1968 Olympics were even proposed to be held in both East and West Berlin. NATO was not a fan of the idea, or of Willy. (Link)

6) CNN presents five cities that have been so staunchly faithful to tradition that visiting them is akin to time travel. (Link)

7) The US birthrate has dropped to its lowest level in History. Global warming, a Muslim president, food preservatives, sun spots, H1N1, West Nile virus, heavy tea partying, BP? You decide. (Link)

8 ) Scholars claim to have rediscovered a lost native Peruvian language on the back of a 400-year-old letter. Has anyone suggested that 400 years ago, a Peruvian may have doodled some gibberish on scrap paper? (Link)

9) World’s oldest beer has been found “chilling” for 200 years on the seabed. (Link)

10) A sometimes cringeworthy (a wink to dear Yeltsin) slideshow of notorious presidential holidays. (Link)

THIS WEEK BACK IN:

- 1957: On August 29th, South Carolina pro-segregation senator Strom Thurmond ended a 24-hour filibuster designed to stall a vote on civil rights. At the age of 104, Thurmond was still in place and almost became interim president with the deadlock of the 2000 elections. (Link)

- 1939: On Sept. 1st, once again the world was misguided enough to think a war would not last very long. Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland and thus began WWII. (Link)

THE LIGHTER SIDE: Cracked.com’s

- “5 Inventions You Won’t Believe Came From War” – Slinky! Attack! (Link)

- “5 Famous Works of Art With Bizarre Mistakes You Can’t Unsee” – There’s no turning back. You’ve been warned. (Link)

End.

Seven years after the United States led a “coalition of the willing” into Iraq, the last US combat troops have left the war-torn country. This is in keeping with President Obama’s promise made soon after his election to remove all combat troops by the end of August 2010. The 2003 to 2010 years of war and tension saw a trillion $ American investment and the deaths of 4,415 US troops (not to mention the estimated deaths of 100,000 Iraqi civilians).

The thing is, as much as we are celebrating this “mission accomplished” moment, US involvement in Iraq is far from over. There still remain 50,000 troops that technically constitute an advisory force to the Iraqi government but don’t be fooled, these troops are still very much armed and very much have the power to use firepower in a case of self-defence. They are even openly mandated with “protecting US interests in the region”. It is clearly a semantic difference to say that there are no more “combat” troops and hopefully the nuance will prevent the remaining soldiers from being targeted so much by insurgents. That being said, it is a significant step at reducing US involvement in Iraq considering the 165,000 American troops that once occupied the country.

Because "omitting the truth" is not lying.

These remaining 50,000 will be out by the end of 2011 according to another promise by the US President. I have no doubt the promise is sincere but former presidents (Nixon, Clinton) have taught me to pay close attention to the words they use. Indeed, the New York Times has reported that the administration will be employing up to 7,000 private contractors and security officers following the 2011 date to continue this protection of interests (and presumably the assistance to the Iraqi people). Be assured that these 7,000 non-troops will be the beginning of a long and virtually endless US presence in Iraq. You see, when the United States finishes their military involvement in a country, they make a habit of leaving behind a very real presence to remind the host country that Big Brother is always watching.

An Almost Pull-out

The Korean War (1950-1953) was, oddly-enough, mostly fought between Chinese and American troops and interests. After a seemingly endless back and forth between Communist North and Democratic South, a stalemate was reached and a line was established delimiting and forming the two countries that today occupy the Korean Peninsula. Chinese and American forces then eventually left to let Koreans finally play a part in their nation building…more or less. We have little information on Chinese involvement in the North but we have detailed records indicating that the American pull-out was less than complete and that there are still 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea. This first example is the least surprising considering the recent belligerence of North Korea and the simple fact that the Korean War is not technically over, a ceasefire was simply signed in 1953.

Koreans weren't invited...

Japan is a whole other story. Having lost World War II in 1945, Japan went through a difficult period of occupation by US troops and officials, mush like the occupation of post-war Germany. Once the country became stable and the Japanese war mongers were weeded out of government, Japan was once again allowed sovereignty and has since been an independent and staunch ally of the United States. Subsequent US President have been weary of an independent Japan (especially in a region hostile to the US) and have signed a multitude of pacts and agreements that have allowed a permanent US military presence on Japanese soil. Today, there are 35,500 US troops mostly stationed on the island of Okinawa that “protect US interest in the Far East”. The Japanese people are regularly polled to determine their agreement with the American presence and although the majority appreciate the American assistance with standing up to neighbouring China and North Korea, resentment is mounting with countless cases of rogue US soldiers raping, murdering and stealing on their land. In fact, due to these crimes along with accidents and botched training exercise by the United States Forces Japan (USFJ), 1,076 Japanese civilians have been killed. This is another invasion turned pull-out turned guests that just won’t leave.

Finally, we have another similar example but where the United States was not (necessarily) on the winning side. With the March 1973 signing of the Paris accords to end the Vietnam War, the country was unified by Communists leaving only an American embassy and centre for military command. These two remaining bastions had been negotiated in the treaty but strongly opposed. The American presence constituted the “Defence Attaché Office” (DAO) that was mandated to assist the Vietnamese government in rebuilding and of course to “protect American interests in Southeast Asia”. The US army was obliged to pull out all troops from the country, but didn’t really; the DAO still held 50 military troops along with 1,200 civilians and a further 23,000 private contractors, a further exercise in semantics as the Vietnamese saw things. The DAO was probably a long-term establishment but the Vietnamese had other ideas. The American outpost was hit by a rocket in April of 1975 and by midnight of that day, every American citizen was evacuated from both the embassy and the outpost leaving deserted buildings and a country free of American “occupation”.

Mission accomplished?

All in all, there are many benefits to having an armed American presence over the shoulder of a precarious government or an administration faced with many enemies but make no mistake, the United States is not a charity and although have moral goals, aim to get something out of every venture. From Okinawa, Berlin, Kuwait, Guantanamo Bay, Guam and soon Kandahar, the United States may technically “pull-out” but  is gradually assuring a continued global assurance of “US interests”.

End.

Fresh out of History class? (6)

1) The Mosque being built near ground zero is not the only controversy at the site. A touchy subjet to be sure. (Link)

2) Graveyard revelas Oliver Cromwell’s parliamentary army during England’s civil war. Another touchy subject. (Link)

3) California will force railroad companies to come clean about their role in the Holocaust if they want to do business there. (Link)

4) The curse of Von Ribbentrop’s Nazi Watch and how this author will make money off of it regardless. (Link)

5) Just how careful do you have to be when cleaning an original Magna Carta? (Link)

6) It is profoundly disturbing and misguided but history nonetheless. A man teaches kids about American history using guns. (Link)

7) Italy and it’s city of Florence are fighting over ownership of Michelangelo’s David on the grounds that Florence was a country and Italy was not at the time it was created… (Link)

8 ) Russia commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of their space dogs, (Link)

9) while the rest of Europe celebrates 65 years since V-J Day. (Link)

10) A trial date is approaching to decide if Wal-Mart can build near a Civil War battlefield. (Link)

THIS WEEK BACK IN:

- 1920: On August 18th, the US government finally caves in and gives the other half of the population the right to vote. (Link)

- 1998: On August 17th, President Clinton clearly explains what the meaning of the word “is” is. (Link)

THE LIGHTER SIDE:

- “The 6 Worst Jobs Ever (Were Done by Children)” – Mostly because they were easily replaceable. (Link)

- “6 Amazingly High-Tech Ancient Weapons” – We don’t even want to know what the Ancients would have done with today’s technology. (Link)

End.

In Western Canada and the US, fires tragically take lots of trees with them. In Eastern Europe, our (tragic) history goes up in smoke.

1) Model Naomi Campbell has been subpoenaed and testified in The Hague at Liberian Ex-President Charles Taylor’s War Crimes Tribunal. She received blood diamonds from the warlord but seemingly lied about it this week in court as revealed by…Mia Farrow. The saga continues as the country of Sierra Leone want them back for their victim fund. (Link)

2) The US government and military continue to stomp and threaten and go red in the face but website Wikileaks is set to release another 15,000 classified documents on army operations in Afghanistan. (Link)

3) Wildfires raging in Russia and north-eastern Europe have now reached the death camp of Majdanek (Link) and the areas around Chernobyl (Link).

4) Swedish peaks are named by the first person to climb them. Come visit and hike the slopes of “Zyklon B”, “Kristallnacht”, “Little Hitler”, “Creamatorium” and “Swastika” to name a few. (Link)

5) Israeli archaeologists have found the world’s most expensive gold coin. It comes from Greece’s Hellenistic period of Eastern Mediterranean domination but opinions differ on whom the woman on the coin is. (Link)

6) Millions of 19th and 20th century testaments have been made public. Among them, we discover that Karl Marx was seemingly true to his ‘shared wealth’ ideology and died penniless. (Link)

7) Mark David Chapman, currently serving his 30th year in prison for the premeditated murder of John Lennon, is up for parole for the sixth time. To be continued… (Link)

8 ) Viking graves often contained rectangular stones for no particular reason. Archaeologists and historians now think they were “thunderstones” or lucky talismans representing Thor’s hammer. (Link)

9) While Hiroshima gets all the attention, residents of Nagasaki marked the 65th anniversary of their bombing on August 9th. (Link)

10) The UK’s oldest home has been discovered to be 11,500 years old, at a time when Britain was still connected to continental Europe. (Link)

THIS WEEK BACK IN:

- 1974: On August 8, Richard Nixon, evading impeachment over the Watergate scandal, resigns as President of the United States of America. (Link)

- 1940: On August 13, what the British call “Eagle Day” marked the beginning of the tide-turning Battle of Britain over the Channel between Nazi Germany’s Europe and the British Isles. (Link)

THE LIGHTER SIDE: Cracked.com’s…

- “8 Historic Symbols That Mean The Opposite of What You Think” – Are you saying that hippies don’t understand why they wear a Che Guevara T-Shirt?! (Link)

- “5 Real Historical Death Stars (Complete With Ridiculous Flaws)” – Sometimes you just hope for the best. (Link)

End.

Ahmadinejad likes to think the West is stupid

Now that the World Cup of soccer has been won by Spain, much of the world and virtually all of North America will promptly forget about the sport altogether whereas they were buying merchandise and crowding bars as early as 7 AM to watch North Korea versus Senegal just a month ago. One person that has not forgotten and that used the World Cup as a topical addition to a seemingly endless speech last week is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Specifically, the President attacked the Western World’s belief in the divination powers of Paul the Octopus.

To refresh your memories or inform you outright, Paul was the name of an octopus that was routinely given a choice between feeding in one of two containers, each of which had a national flag on it. Feeding from a country’s container, It surprisingly picked Spain as winner against The Netherland for the final but also uncannily predicted the outcome of all seven of Germany’s matches correctly.

Magic!

Now I am a strong believer in coincidence and don’t necessarily believe that the octopus is magical. President Ahmadinejad on the other hand thinks that the Western World strongly believes in the precognitive powers of Paul and thus Paul is not only “spreading western propaganda and superstition” but also is a symbol of “all that is wrong with the Western World”. In fact, his speculation goes as far as affirming that our Western leaders strongly believe in Paul (as opposed to the teachings of Allah (peace be upon him) in this case): “Those who believe in this type of thing cannot be the leaders of the global nations that aspire, like Iran, to human perfection”.

Now I believe this is a misunderstanding. Barack Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and even Vladimir Putin do not think that Paul the Octopus is a prophet, a vizier or the reincarnation of a divine being. The octopus will (probably) not be drafted to the White House in order to determine a timeline for the Afghanistan pullout. Paul is a cute sideshow act and nothing more.

"hmmm... so universal healthcare and delicious shellfish for everyone"

On the other hand, if President Ahmadinejad wants to criticize superstitious Western leaders that seemingly appreciate democratic councils and think tanks as much as Ouija boards, he only has to crack open one of our history books.

(I feel I should add a disclaimer here that by ‘superstition’, I am not including any religious beliefs that have been a common point of guidance for world leaders for millennia and are thus not ‘strange’ or ‘extraordinary’.)

Secret powers or superstitious pitfalls

Beginning our adventure at Versailles on the throne of Napoleon, the petit caporal shot up through military and political ranks in a short two decades to survive the French Revolution and impose his reign on most of Europe. Up until his final imprisonment in 1815 and death in 1821, Napoleon had (rightfully) relied on councils of nobles, bourgeois, generals and (wrongfully) family for advice but his actions were also often directed by two things: his fear of cats and the number 13. Whereas he would simply outlaw cats where he lived, his triskaidekaphobia seriously affected his tenure with such things as a professional fourteenth dinner guest on hand for whenever the table only had 13 patrons to the military operations that could never be conducted on the thirteenth of the month.

Venturing further into the esoteric, Mary Queen of Scots reigned from 1542 to 1567 and many accounts indicate that she made important decisions based on her tarot readings.

Moving on to a time where superstition was both the last thing to base decisions on and the only source of hopes, both sides of WWII had documented beliefs in superstition. Winston Churchill surrounded himself with cats that allegedly brought him good luck while he battled the apparent dark influences of the number 13, Friday and travel in general. Similarly across the Atlantic, President Roosevelt hated travelling along with Fridays and the number 13. One wonders how the two Allies met so often considering the restrictions (and we have records) of both men whom ‘could not’ travel or do much of anything on Fridays or at times that had anything to do with the number 13. Like Napoleon, FDR would go so far as to have his secretary on call as a fourteenth in case he was one of thirteen dinner guests around a table. On the Axis side of things, Hitler was terrified of cats and had them banned from all Nazi installations. His quest for the occult, including the search for the spear of destiny said to have pierced the side of Jesus Christ, became legendary but did not do much to help him in the end. I’m starting to see an unexpected pattern that cats are key to victory.

What won the War: Soviet numbers, American strength and cat power.

Keeping with America, the long tradition of democracy and transparency explains why we have so many documented superstitions for US presidents. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) believed in his dreams as visions and legend has it that he witnessed his own assassination days before it happened. He would go so far as to announce positive news about Civil War battles before messengers arrived because he had already ‘seen’ the good omens. The very superstitious Lincoln lives on today; it is said that he haunts a wing of the White House and roams the halls at night.

President McKinley (1897-1901) wore his lucky red carnation at all times on his lapel. He would frequently give the carnation to people he met to bestow the good luck unto them but had to drop everything afterwards in order to get another one. It was (probably) a coincidence that in Buffalo during the Pan-American expo, he gave his carnation to a young girl and was then promptly shot. He died eight days later convinced the lack of a carnation was to blame.

Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was positive he saw a UFO and proudly said so during his political campaign. He even promised to declassify all documents pertaining to extraterrestrial activity were he ever elected president. Speculation has it that he simply saw a particularly bright planet Venus but the man was convinced. Election seemed to have changed his mind as he never spoke of the matter again. On the other hand, he never declassified anything on extraterrestrial life so the possibilities are that there was nothing or something to hide…

Finally we have the granddaddy of all superstitious world leaders as recorded by history. Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). His wife Nancy consulted sporadically with an astrologer, a common thing following the more esoteric times of the 60s and 70s. What was definitely uncommon was that President Reagan came to rely on the astrologer, one Joan Quigley, for executive decisions. The president was reportedly trying to avoid a curse that saw the death or assassination while in office of all US presidents elected in 1840, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1940 and 1960. Following John Hinckley’s assassination attempt on Reagan in May of 1981, Mrs. Quigley became (by many accounts) the second most important person in the country after the President. Reagan’s former chief of staff even went on to confirm that the President’s schedule had to be routinely confirmed with the astrologer for final approval. In effect, when protestors in the eighties proclaimed that the White House wasn’t listening, they had no idea…

In conclusion, President Ahmadinejad accuses the wrong Western leaders of superstition and gives way too much credit to Paul the Octopus. With varying degrees, from President Truman’s lucky horseshoe in the Oval Office to President’s Reagan’s executive seer, superstition has been taking out the punch out of democracy for centuries now. We believe these leaders represent the people but they might just as well rely on the stars, their phobias and their gut feelings to lead a country. All in all, I agree with the Iranian President that superstitions are a bad thing for world leaders but whereas he and I see these things as ridiculous, frivolous and downright insulting at times, that is only because we do not believe in them.  The same argument and logic could apply to religious beliefs but that is a topic for another blog.

End.

Planes over New York have not been a very good thing (altough it might be an awesome band name).

1) August 6th will mark the 65th anniversary since dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. It also marks the first time that a United States representative attends a commemorative ceremony there. A tense and awkward day is a coming. (Link)

2) Coming soon: A 3D movie of Warsaw being destroyed during WWII. (Link)

3) Up to 7000 graves at Arlington Cemetery have apparently been mislabeled due to clerical errors. Of all the things to slack off on… (Link)

4) By 2012, we should have online access to the collected works of Winston Churchill. (Link) In the meantime, you could buy his fake teeth (Link).

5) Filmmaker Oliver Stone states “Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust”. Needless to say people aren’t happy. (Link)

6) The UK has reintroduced Ancient Greek as a compulsory class in several schools. This heavily complicated and heavily dead language may not have its place in high-schools at the expense of more basic subjects. (Link)

7) The Swastika has officially been declared a universal symbol of evil. Glad we finally have that straightened out. (Link)

8 ) A massive statue of Christopher Columbus has finally found a home in Puerto Rico after being rejected for two decades. Why? “Too ugly”. (Link)

9) Cambodia has finally given out it’s first sentence to prison chief Duch of Pol Pot’s 1970s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. (Link)

10) Rome was famously sacked in 455 AD by the Vandals and the new vandals (mostly anti-pope) are being compared to them. (Link)

THIS WEEK BACK IN:

- 1945: On July 28th, dense fog over New York City led an American bomber straight into the Empire State Building. (Link)

- 1911: On July 24th, archaeologist Hiram Bingham discovered the long-lost and fabled Incan city of Machu Picchu. (Link)

THE LIGHTER SIDE: Cracked.com’s

- “6 Things From History Everyone Pictures Incorrectly” – Feathery velociraptors would somehow have made Jurassic Park substantially less terrifying. (Link)

- “6 Acts of Propaganda That Backfired Hilariously” – What could go wrong with flying low passes with Air Force One over New York City after 2001? (Link)

End.

Both MacArthur and McChrystal dissented from their Presidents but only one of them did it with a stylish pipe.

This past month, the general in charge of allied troops in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal resigned (was fired) by President Obama due to criticisms made by the General and his aides that appeared in a Rolling Stone Magazine article entitled “Runaway General”. They had let comments and insinuations fly about VP Biden, UN envoy Richard Holbrooke and the Obama administration in general while being interviewed by a journalist for the publication. Unsurprisingly, everything made it to print and once the article made it to newsstands, it was not long before McChrystal was summoned back to Washington, dismissed and effectively forced into retirement. This is but one of many battles of egos between an American Head of State and General in charge of their armed forces in US history. As we will see, through differing priorities and the eternal battle between military and civilian authority, the US has a distinctive history of bouts at the top that resulted in embarrassment, public bickering and the eventual dismissal of the nation’s top soldiers.

As if the BP disaster and the American economy weren't enough.

“The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system”, President Obama reacted to the McChrystal article by stating something that American Presidents have wanted to make abundantly clear for centuries now, namely that the American President is the Commander in Chief of the US Army. All generals, no matter how many stars adorn their lapel, must answer to the highest office in the land. As such, President Obama swiftly replaced McChrystal with General Petreus, former leader of the Iraqi taskforce (that was so incredibly successful). That being said, the Obama administration assured us there would be no change in the mission or method of the allied forces in Afghanistan so the change in command is unsubtly just a message of the President’s supreme authority of the armed forces. Some have even speculated that the White House finally got the opportunity it needed to justify sacking General McChrystal. Highly esteemed in the army and beloved by the Afghan government, McChrystal was not at his first faux pas with the media. In 2009 for example, the General publicly sent out his evaluation of the Afghan mission, the immediate need to redirect troops there and the vital need for the President to focus more on this country. This in fact “forced” the President’s hand to act due to the public pressure that ensued. The senate even asked for his head on a platter but McChrystal’s circumventing of official channels was not enough to dismiss the decorated soldier. The repeat offense against established policy has finally been dealt with; in much the same way as in the past.

If we go back to the nineteenth century, we find out that Honest Abe Lincoln had a similar problem. His generals kept losing to the secessionist South and kept disagreeing with the President on how to conduct the Civil War. This is why he ended up dismissing General McDowell…and General Meade…General Hooker…General McClellan, General Pope and General Burnside. Lincoln’s administration briefly questioned the carousel of passing generals that were being put aside at a time of great need but the President prevailed by replacing them with General Ulysses S. Grant. The North won and Grant went on to be President himself. As for the dismissed generals, one gave us the Sideburns and another the term for army accompanying prostitutes.

Lincoln had more forethought in military decisions than in theatre choices.

Further on and once again in a time of war for the US, Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy had to contend with the popularity, stubbornness and, some might say, paranoid insanity of General Curtis LeMay. This general was a strong proponent of the “Nuke the Soviets Now” camp for most of the 50s and 60s, which gained him some strong conservative admiration for a time. When the United States entered French Indochina to battle one of the longest and most frustrating engagements in American History, his aggressive and impulsive comments earned him less such praise and he was promptly fired. LeMay proposed a plan to firebomb AND carpet-bomb North Vietnamese cities (not military bases but cities) and to drop two nuclear devices on the main administrative centres. The subordination of military to civilian elected government in this case seems to have averted nuclear war.

Following the Vietnam War, President Jimmy Carter had his own McChrystal in the person of General John Singlaub. This General wanted American troops stationed in Korea since the fifties to be better used abroad. President Carter insisted that the American troops protecting the Korean ceasefire (The Korean War has officially never ended) were an important instrument to keep the peace in the Far East and a show of good will on America’s part. Singlaub wanted none of it and disagreed…publicly. In March of 1977, President Carter simply announced that, as his boss, he was firing General Singlaub for overstepping his bounds and failing to respect the President’s authority.

He may have been president for only 4 years a long time ago and the poster boy for humanitarianism but Jimmy Carter was once an unmistakable hard-ass.

Finally, the granddaddy of all Presidential-Top soldier confrontations came following the Second World War. President Truman already had the difficult task of replacing Franklin Roosevelt (a 4-term President) as the head of state but he also had to maintain the authority of the White House in a country where soldiers had become heroes of legend. While General Eisenhower had led the Allies to victory on the beaches of France (and would later be elected as president), General Douglass MacArthur had been the victor of the Pacific and annihilator of the Japanese Imperial Fleet. He was lauded as hero of the American people (and way of life) and hailed as a liberator in Japan. He was one of very few Generals in American History to be given four stars, the highest ranking achieved by a soldier in office. This last general however was not ready to play politician and would see the pacific as his personal responsibility. Thus when the Korean War erupted in 1950, no one else could even be considered to lead the American (NATO) forces against the Communist invasion of Korea.

The Korean War was a conflict of exchanges. One month the Americans had pushed on to the communist capital, another month South Korea was reduced to a beach on the southernmost point of the peninsula. What was described as a battle for Korean unification was in all actuality an American (NATO) capitalist South Front battling a Soviet funded and China manned Communist North Front. Not many Koreans were involved at all (except the ones dying on the fields). Macarthur became increasingly frustrated with the involvement of global communism in the affair (especially China’s). He openly started calling for Chinese withdrawal, criticizing White House pacifism and eventually promoted a plan to invade and bomb China with atomic weapons. Of course Truman could not afford to fire MacArthur but did what he could to keep him in line. He avoided open conflict with him, met many times in private with the General and issued a directive that all military officers be required to clear all public statements with the State Department and that they refrain from speaking to “newspapers, magazines and other publicity media”. MacArthur responded by not speaking with the Press, but with China instead. While President Truman worked on a ceasefire agreement, General McArthur issued an ultimatum demanding that China surrender to him personally. Enough was enough and the General was fired.

General MacArthur was very close to Asia.

Many Presidents have struggled with high-ranking officials that appear larger than life but it always comes down to the basic structure of American democracy. Whereas both men always seem to act in the best interest of the country they serve, The President must always hold the ultimate veto because he is elected by the people. The electorate directs government and thus directs the army. Despite official statements and the pomp and circumstance that has accompanied these honourable discharges, President Truman sums up the true spirit of these confrontations with a statement to Time Magazine in December 1973: “I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.

In conclusion, I evoke the present story of Obama versus McChrystal because another high-ranking official went against the party line this week but in North Korea. Kwon Ho Ung, Pyongyang’s envoy responsible for talks with South Korea for many years, was deemed a failure because he failed to keep worldwide opinion from turning against Kim Jong-il’s government. He was “dismissed” by firing squad on Monday. There are seemingly worse things than being dismissed in the public eye. One thing that seems obvious and omnipresent in the different ideological governments of the world: there remains a hierarchical structure in every government and a constant tension between civilian and military institutions. Whereas this results in military coups and army-conducted revolutions here and there, the American government has succeeded in maintaining the submission of military heroes to the people despite the delicate dance of egos and insidious fights for authority among the great men of the past few centuries.

Other civilizations were less successful.

End.