The Treaty of Versailles was very mild compared to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which the Germans imposed on Russia:
The Germans had nothing to complain about.
The collapse of the USSR was because of Reagan’s military buildup. No, no, no. A thousand times no. Had Gorbachev been the ruthless bastard that Stalin was, it would be alive today. After three old guard leaders dropped off in short order, the appointment of a reformer was the beginning of the end.
The cake is a lie.
That the Battle Of The Ironclads (or The Battle of Hampton Roads) was fought between The Monitor and the Merrimack.
The Merrimack was a US (Union) steam frigate. After a fairly successful attempt to scuttle her, the hull was captured by the Confederates and the ship rebuilt. It was commissioned as the C.S.S. Virginia.
As it is, even the folks who live there and should know better, can’t seem to get it right. Twenty years ago, a new bridge-tunnel was opened in Hampton Roads, about a mile from the site of the battle, and named the Monitor Merrimac Memorial Bridge Tunnel.
Not only did they get it wrong, the didn’t spell ‘Merrimack’ properly.
My take on this one is that it is ‘partly true’ - in that “salting” really happened, but there is no proof that the Romans did it to Carthage.
It is true that there were various symbolic types of desecration used since ancient times to desecrate properies belonging to a particularly hated enemy - and two of the “popular” ones were (1) symbolically driving a plough over the property; and (2) symbolically sowing that property with salt.
Note that both were ritual, symbolic actions. The desecrators did not intend to literally make the territory unihabitable or sterile - they were merely symbolizing uninhabitability or sterility - so no need for lots of salt (a handful would do). There is an example, presumably indicating an actual practice, of this symbolic use of salt in Judges (9:45):
Biblical commentary notes that the practice is recorded elsewhere in the ancient middle east (including some more modern examples):
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/judges/9-45.htm
That said, there is no contemporary evidence that the Romans did this at Carthage - but it isn’t impossible.
For one, of course, the Cartheginians would have been familiar with this practice, so the Romans could have thought to give them “a taste of their own medicine” so to speak - that is, use a form of desecration familiar to them. Or it could be that the myth evolved quite independently of the Romans, because historians were familiar with the ritual from the Bible and other sources.
To call it the Virginia would in my opinion legitimize the CSA. It was a stolen US naval vessel and we don’t have to recognize the name that the brigands gave to it. To use or not use the “k”, that’s another matter.
And I think this is one where the counter to the original myth has taken on myth-like connotations of its own. It is untrue that the USSR solely collapsed because of the US military build-up. However, it is equally untrue that the military build-up had nothing to do with the USSR’s collapse.
Even a commonly cited Atlantic article can’t completely deny the secondary effects of the arms build-up, though that’s the point of the article:
“Solely responsible?” No, of course not. “Not at all responsible?” No, of course not either. The answer lies somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.
I hadn’t even encountered that and similar things until Reagan’s eulogies, but encountering “Reagan was responsible for engineering the economic downfall of the USSR” left me cross-eyed for a while; some of them fell barely short of adding single-handedly, sooo… what’s the point of having such a large apparatus if you then have to put your underwear on the outside and save the world all by yourself? I’m still wondering whether people making that particular claim would be the kind who claims that the US never, ever, ever intervened in another country’s political affairs, or at least they’d have the consistency to claim that whenever the US did, it was for that country’s own good.
Still gotta go with the “not at all responsible”. The USSR was a third world country trying to maintain a first world military. They were in way over their heads before Reagan took office.
That seems to be the thing for a lot of myths, or debunked myths. If Columbus wasn’t a hero who single-handedly discover find the New World and prove the world was round then he must have been a drooling mouthbreather who ate children. If someone finds out that what they were taught wasn’t 100% dead on, they seem to wildly swing in the other direction.
I don’t disagree with you there. But it’s easy to maintain your existence as a 3rd-world country with a 1st-world military when your enemies are working on strategies of “detente” and “containment”, assuming your continual existence for decades to come, than when they go into “evil empire” and “military buildup” mode.
I suspect AK84 is referring mostly to rank and file foot soldiers, whereas Nava is referring to leaders.
The Soviets were hardly a “third world” country (they very concept of a “third world” was made in opposition to them). Nor did the military buildup bankrupt them (it didn’t help). The USSR economy actually grew considerably until the 1970’s. It was then when the shittiness of their economic system fucked them in the ass. The Soviets had a brilliant technological base. Unfortunately, they were unable translate that into products that could actually be used by the world at large. Agriculture was poor and unworkable. They were relient on the high prices of oil to keep cash flowing in. Unfortunately,come the mid 1980’s and the fall of prices, their economy had lost its last support.
But he was a lucky dumbass, he believed that the Earth was 25% smaller than actuality. Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth. Columbus did do his research but failed to take into account that an Arabic astronomer might use Arabic measurements.
Is there any reason to think that, whatever effect SDI may or may have had on the Soviet collapse, it was in any way intentional? The naive liberal view of SDI is that Reagan thought lasers were cool and spent zillions of dollars on big lasers that the scientists knew would never work. Is there any chance he was actually spending zillions of dollars on big lasers that HE knew would never work all as part of some brilliant geo-economical endgame?
The educated terrorists aren’t the rank and file of the large insurgent groups, either, they’re the ones operating in the West.
…OOT: operating in or recruited from the West.
A recent article in El Periódico de Catalunya, an interview with four Muslim immigrants, mentioned the issue that those who had children (the three women) had seen that the messages their children get about “being a Muslim” from outside the house are a lot more oppositional, radical and confrontational than what they get from the household; one of them specifically mentioned the difficulty of finding Muslim groups that she’d be comfortable encouraging her child to join. Given that she’s got a PhD in Chemistry from a Spanish university and works managing several travel agencies, I assume the kind of Muslim immigrant whose response to finding out the Production Manager is a woman is “I’m not taking orders from a whore” isn’t interested in having her but may be very much interested in having her child. Those children face the conundrum of being told that they have to choose between being Muslim and being from whatever they’re from - I find that a false duality, but apparently many people have problems with that kind of thing. Add the converts who as so often happens are more radical than anybody who’s grown in the religion and you’ve got several sources of recruits who are both educated and easy prey.
Thanks for the mention of “third world.” The First World consisted of the Capitalist allies of the USA. The Second World was the USSR, their vassal states behind the Iron Curtain, Red China–& Cuba. Everything else was The Third World–undeveloped countries which we might aid to keep them out of Commie hands. Or we might just aid the Rightist dictators who ran them–because they weren’t Commies!
All those terms are historically obsolete. If you mean undeveloped, say undeveloped.
This isn’t even the worst myth about TR and the Spanish-American war. The truth is that the real fighting in Cuba was done by professional soldiers, in particular the negro regiments, and Teddy was more interested in making a name for himself and his troops than he was in giving credit where credit was due. The Rough Riders were a bunch of amateurs in fancy cavalry outfits who had to be rescued by the real soldiers when the going got rough. Didn’t stop Teddy from claiming all the credit and then badmouthing the poor colored troops who had to risk their lives to pull his fat out of the fire. Makes me question every single ‘fact’ associated with TR.
What did he say about the black guys?