Virgil61

Old Well it is, brings back fond memories. It's the central focal point of the campus. My hometown: Recent photo from the Washington state side of the river. Yes, it's as desolate as it looks.

Forgive me for being off-topic but I can't resist, is that an Aussie using an Americanism towards a 'Pom'?

One minor quibble Germanicus, I'd have split training and tactics into different answers. Without question it's training. No army can be continuously successful without it. Everything, especially things like morale and tenacity come from training. Princep's quote above says it all: "Their drills were like bloodless battles; their battles bloody drills." It reflects the same saying the US Army has today; "Train as you fight".

I think it's really in no way analagous to the political and secular revolutions in France and R Russia. This is a much more culturally bound affair. Israel--if that's what you mean by 'Jews'--hasn't had the resources or desire to get into this fight. The closest I saw to a jewish presence were the remnants of a couple of jewish families made up of about 6 elderly people in Baghdad and a Rabbi Chaplain in the US Army. I'm not sure what prizes are there for them to take.

I'd venture to say that by 60 AD the legions were still predominately staffed by Italians or descendents of Italian colonists or retired legion colonies in the provinces--which seemed to have been quite a large number--based in other areas of the empire. Certainly not by Augustus' time so close to the fall of the Republic and franchisement of the non-latin Italic tribes. Remember that legions were staffed by citizens and just over 90 years earlier the first Gallic senator caused quite a stir. I'm sure there were several Gallic tribes, especially in southern Gaul, that were citizens as well as strategically important client tribes in other areas of the empire and certainly quite a few tribal leaders as well. It's a guess of course, but by 60 AD the non-Italian portion of citizens hadn't yet over-whelmed the Italian portion.

I don't think the majority of Shia would turn on the Americans, especially in the south-central areas from Najaf to Al Kut south to Nasiriyah, but a smaller clique run by a Shia imam named Sadr and based out of east Baghdad has always been as much at odds with the US as with the Sunnis. It was his thugs who infiltrated Najaf a couple of years ago when the Marines pulled out and took over the mosques against the wishes of the local Shias. We've sewn a lot of goodwill in many of the Shia areas with a lot of effort being made to build up electricity, water distribution and schools that were left to rot under the Baathists. Not that they love us, but they tolerate us. Certainly the most influential Shia imams outside of Sadr, like Sistani, and their instructions not to interfere with Americans has helped. Your right in the sense it's a two edged sword. The Sunnis are much more secular generally than the Shia, even the Iraqi Christians think so--the Sunni areas are where the majority of them choose to live. Is it worth staying in the long run? Well, we helped let the mess get out of control by some poor decisions made early in the invasion/occupation by Rumsfeld and Bremer. We owe it to help clean it up.

Sunni v Shia attacks have been going on a smaller scale since the aftermath of the '03 invasion. I remember one instance were we arrived on the scene with a couple of Marine LAVs just in time to head off a mini-battle between a Sunni clan that had power under Saddam and a hundred or so p*ssed off Shia ready to even the score. There were countless numbers of smaller reprisals going on as well. I'm not surprised at the Mosque's destruction, it was in a region made up of both populations and whether Iraq Sunnis or Al Queda are responsible something like this was bound to happen. The Sunnis, under 25% of the population, are ticked off, they controlled the power for years and received the benefits. To be blunt the Shia and Kurds with some exceptions got sh*t on for most of that time. When my unit patroled the Shia area of the south for several months we suffered no casualties at all. When we moved north fto the Sunni triangle it was a different story. Intellectually I hope that somehow we can get the Sunnis to come to terms and everyone can bask in the warm glow of a secular liberal democracy. But my gut wishes the Sunnis reap what they've sown, the Shia and Kurds give them the beating they so richly deserve.

As far as the Soviet Union and Russians, go the dirty little secret is that much of the population were complicit in the crimes. Those millions that were sent to the Gulag weren't all arbitrarily picked up off the street due to a list from Stalin's office (although he loved to review and approve thousands of arrests). Countless numbers were given up by jealous neighbors, rivals, and for your benefit, not a few academics reported as spys, counter-revolutionaries and wreckers by their colleagues. One way to get that cherished departmental chair I suppose. Two of my closest friends, both Russians, one a researcher at Wake Forest Hospital and one a prof at UNC-Chapel Hill, are surprisingly ambilavent about the carnage and shake it off with 'that's life in Russia' shrug. Perhaps it's a sort of collective guilt that makes many Russians at least, not up in arms about it. Thankfully there some who feel otherwise. Funny, when I lived in Kiev and worked at the US embassy for a few months in the early '90s there very few Ukrainians were much concerned about the Great Famine. They were more p*ssed off about the destruction of dozens of churches by Stalin and by association the Russians. Go figure.

Good catch. It crossed my mind to post something similar earlier. Government attempts at regulating hate speech are very carefully scrutinized by the courts and difficult to implement. Generally, as you've said, as long as you aren't advocating actual violence or intimidation you're untouchable by law enforcement and the court system.

To be fair, the Kuwaitis are the only ones who gave Americans a thumbs up as they drive by or stop and talk with us. I've found that those who've gone to school in the US, quite a few of them really, are still very pro-American. The plight of Arab Christians, especially in Egypt and Iraq, is pretty sad. We were in civilian clothes in Cairo and were accosted by a group of friendly young Egyptian girls. It turned out they were Christian and had the Coptic cross tatooed between their thumb and forefinger so as to identify them if they were kidnapped by muslims while children. Pretty harsh.

I respectfully disagree with that statement. I come orginally from Lebanon, I lived there for 10 years, I've been to Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, UAE and Pakistan. I'm a christian by religion but an arab by ethnicity, I know the culture well growing up around muslims and especially during a civil war. One thing I noticed in my country and the other countries I visited, there is a clear majority that are absolutely fundamentalist and a moderate minority. From my experience I would estimate it to be 65% hardliners and 35% moderate. In terms of their hatred towards jews, I would say 85% despise them and 15% accept them. These are my own rough estimates but I do think a westerner's experience may be different than mine. Usually, what typically happens in an interaction, your average muslim citizen might give the impression he is open minded to the westerner just to impress him, but when the westerner turns his back, that same muslim will go to his friends and curse the hell out of him and his country. I've personally witnessed this on many occasions. I think people make a serious mistake when they try to be politically correct about the numbers of fanatics, it hides the real problem, which is not that the minority is supporting terror but rather the majority wants it to happen, and thats exactly why the terrorists keep increasing in numbers. They have a majority supporting them. A lot of the moderates emigrate to the west, thats why most muslims living in the west are open minded. I've spent quite some time in the ME myself; Egypt, Saudi, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq. I hesitated to go down this road, but your experience there reflects mine. I'm not convinced of moderation's hold on a large part of the Arab Islamic population.

So many choices. Pertaining to Roman history, obliterate the Goths at Adrianople or the Turks at Manzikert so thoroughly they cease to be effective opponents at least for the short-term. Discover the ambush about to occur at Teutoberg Forest. Maybe saving Constantinople.

You have my sympathy. Arguing with European anti-Americans makes me see red--to have to deal with stupid American provincialism simultaneously would leave me in the mood to jail everyone! (I am assuming you weren't the one hauling up the old 'poor dental hygiene' argument, right Virgil? Please!? ) I have to admit I did, but I think I added a decent enough twist. While making fun of Americans and their poor skills at geography one asked me where the state of East Virginia was (he claimed to have stumped an American soldier once with that question). I answered it was right next to the UK School of Dentistry. Edit: Apologies to Pertinax, Princeps, Andrew Darby and the rest of the UK contingent who I hold in high regard (and who's dental hygiene is I am sure immaculate) but one has to defend one's country.

It does make him an idiot not worthy of sympathy in my mind. Looking at it from the perspective of Germans it's a bit different. Anti-semitism--if what Goldhagen and a few other historians have stated are true--was rife in Germany before the Nazis took power. It didn't just rise from the Hitler and company, and we know the ultimate outcome after they took the reigns. From the perspective of a civilized culture that has to bear the burden of the end result of anti-semitism and responsible for the gold-standard of genocide I see the rationale and argument for holocaust denial laws. Perhaps the Austrians by virtue of cultural affinity share that sentiment. Viggen could chime in on the validity of that better than myself. As for Islam, perhaps a few laws against against the demonization of Christians and Jews might be in order(not likely or effective I know). Not a bad insight to see the connection between the cartoons and Irvings jailing, but really, the death of 6 million Jews and another 6-10 million Poles, Gypsies, etc aren't in the same league. The Islamic world won't see that I'm sure. Admittedly I'm not prepared to argue dispassionately regarding them. I frankly feel, at best, a stoney indifference and at worst nauseous disgust towards that religion and culture. Two tours there are still a bit fresh, maybe in time. That's actually the best point against the laws and some anti-holocaust threads on another site back it up. I chose not to link to them, but it's scary reading, although they're a bit disgusted that he tried to apologize and pray for the victims. Look, I know I'm not arguing a popular stance regarding free speech, I'm even contradicting my own strongly held beliefs in that area. Maybe I'm in a reviling mood tonight, I just spent two days going toe-to-to with some Brit soldiers on another site attacking the U.S. Army's performance in Iraq that ended up with accusations of gun-toting 'merican nuts, slavery, inbred Southerners and counter-accusations of poor dental hygiene, English slavers and Boer concentration camps. Irving makes a pretty good target you've got to admit.

Since 6 million Jews living in the Western countries, Poland, Ukraine, etc., were slaughtered for nothing more than being born Jewish perhaps that's a special privilege I'd be prepared to allow. I suspect collective societal guilt is involved in these laws--read "Ordinary Men" by Christopher Browning or "Hitler's Willing Executioners" by David Goldhagen. Irving knew the law in Austria, knew he'd been at odds with it and chose to go there anyway. He's got only himself to blame, I suspect he enjoys the aura of martyrdom it brings to the eyes of quite a few. I've lurked at a few sites sympathetic to holocaust denial and white-supremacy (I slow down to gawk at car wrecks as well), he's a hero to them.

This is similar to one of Peter Heather's observations of what occurred in Late Antiquity when the Dominate began to centralize control at the local level and how it effected cities. No incentives were left for elites to contribute to local civic life as they opted instead for positions in the Emperor's beauracracy and dramatically different demands on their efforts.

I was born in Italy on an American army base--Italian-American father and Italian mother. Believe it or not I recieved a draft notice when I turned 18 from the Italian government. Did you grow up anywhere around San Fran's Italian community? My family's a part of the original small community in Portland, Oregon.

You have a point. Certainly while not in garrison and on the move pasta wouldn't be a choice. In garrison if they had time on their hands it might be a bit of a different story. Speaking as one who's spent hours helping his Abruzzese mother prepare homemade pasta. Interesting. One common (and excellent) contemporary Italian pork product called proscuitto is heavily salted and preserves easily. There are several others. I wonder this or a forerunner made up part of an Italian soldier's diet.

Looks like an interesting read (cheap plug offered up). I'm curious about a couple of 'dying' languages with special interest to those of us who are interested in Roman history, perhaps they aren't your area but I'll ask anyway. I'm assuming much of the population may be descendents of those who lived under Roman rule and fled to Wales during the Saxon incursions, if true, is there a Latin influence or loan words in the Welsh language and do you think efforts to reinvigorate it will be successful? Something that fascinates me is the fact that Greek is still spoken in two small areas of Italy (Griko ), remnants of the scores of Greek settlers in southern Italy from the ancient era. The last speakers number maybe in the low tens of thousands and apparently speak a language that may more closely related to old Greek. Are you aware of this population and, though the prospects for survival seem bleak to me, what's you take on it?

Thanks, I think you'll enjoy it, it's a good read. I've already spotted grammatical errors, omissions in mentioning his use of primary sources and a few other things. Uggh.

I get the sense it's a slowly dying sport, well maybe dying is too strong. I've no statistics to back it up but I can't help but think that the various player strikes and shutdowns in the MLB (nine over the last thirty years) have significantly impacted popularity.

Is this the meaning of soup sandwich? Exactly, great site. Nice photo on the upper left, I think I've been that guy before.

I saw one special on one of the discovery/history/A&E channels on the Battle of Chalons where the computer animated legions were in lorica segmentata--about two hundred years after they stopped wearing it. Just recently there was a special on the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest which was a bit of a soup sandwich.

One could probably expect it to happen in the poorer areas, Christian or not, when mouths to feed could have been a problem in hard times and a potential son in the fields was worth more than a daughter. Not to draw this off-topic but it hasn't died out today if stories about the effect of China's One Child Policy are true.

The only thing I can think of is that they probably may have had to anchor the ship in place or somehow grapple it to the sides of the defensive works to keep it stationary and stable while soldiers tried to assault the walls. That might give the defenders time to 'hook' the ship, one could assume the crew wasn't expecting it and didn't react in time until the ship was hooked. Just a guess.