Salocin

It's very strange, being a European in the US at the moment. Opinions on both sides of the Atlantic are so far apart and so strongly expressed that it's hard to have a conversation with anyone, from either side, without ending up in a war of words.

Funnily enough, both sets of opinions exist on both sides of the Atlantic - I've heard very strong opinions against American actions in the last few weeks from Americans and Europeans alike. Similarly, the strongest criticisms of French policy that I have heard have come from Europeans. Regardless, the current anti-European and anti-American feelings are good for no-one, and can only lead to worse things.

I'm still reading the texts from EU newspapers and news websites (the BBC is my favourite) as well as watching and reading the US news, and hearing US opinions on the war and on Europe all around me. I've never felt such strong anti-Americanism from Europe, and neither have I ever felt such anti-Europeanism in the US. It's very unpleasant and more than a little worrying.

The BBC is running an article describing how Blair wants to heal the US-EU rift, and how he is not shy of applying pressure to Chirac in order to get him to stop rocking the boat. On the subject of the potential for rapprochement between the US and EU, the BBC explains the concerns of some EU states very clearly:

The suspicion in some EU countries and with some sections of the public, is that this would be an unequal partnership.

They believe the conduct leading up to the war suggests the US would only countenance such a partnership so long as it held the whip hand.

More fundamentally, many do not see the same natural alliance between their countries and the US that the prime minister sees between London and Washington.

What seems to be happening is a complete blindness on both sides as to the perspective of the other. Unable and unwilling to see things from the other's point of view, opinions expressed in this context resort to long rebuttals of arguments made by "the other side". So much for diplomacy.

On the EU side (at least those of the EU that are against war), a number of concerns exist...

• The right of veto of a nation in the UN security council was sidestepped by a nation state. Disagreement exists as to whether this vote was necessary for war or not, and therefore as to whether the war is approved by the security council (and therefore legal) or not, but the sense is that the diplomatic language for war is "all necessary means", and not "serious consequences", which was far too vague a term.
  
• A feeling exists that the US pays little mind to the opinions and desires of others, that the UN is not the deciding entity when the US feels strongly about something, and that therefore the international order doesn't properly or sufficiently counterbalance the power of the US, which ignores international law when it is convenient to do so.
  
• The argument that the UN must stand by its resolutions leads automatically to the question of why resolutions regarding Iraq are acted upon, when resolutions regarding Palestine are ignored.
  

As you can see, much of this is not about Iraq - the transatlantic disagreement is not driven by this war or Iraq's status as the target of hostilities. This is not good, as it implies that the perceived reasons for anti-americanism in the EU will persist after the war with Iraq is over.

On the other hand, the US perception of things is also ignored by the EU...

• The US is the guarantor of peace through the deterrent effect of its willingness to use force where a threat exists. It is the US's safety umbrella that gives certain European states the safety and space to espouse the diplomatic and peace-promoting attitudes it expresses.
  
• If the US doesn't stand up to Saddam Hussein, who will? We know he's a bad person, we know we should get rid of him before he develops the kinds of weapons that will make it much harder to get rid of him, therefore we must move sooner rather than later. Decisively.
  
• The US perceives a threat from Iraq. That threat is believed to be real, significant and in the present. It must therefore be dealt with.
  
• September 11th 2002 may not have any direct links to Iraq, but we know (or have strong indications) that Hussein is seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction. We also know that he has a hatred for the US. While he cannot deliver a missile to the US mainland, it is unacceptable to have him develop such weapons when we know that he will provide them opportunistically to any terrorist group willing to attack the US with them. He is a potential terrorist ally with the motive, and soon the means, to attack the US.
  
• Given the magnitude of the attacks of September 11th 2002, Americans are no longer willing to wait until after the attacks have taken place to tackle the threat.
  
• The French and Russians only want to protect Iraq because they have oil contracts there.

Interwoven with these polarised arguments are other considerations...

1. Does the US participate in international entities by choice?
There's an argument that says that the US is capable of going it alone, that it has the economic and military might to coerce the rest of the world into following it. If this is true, then its membership of entities such as the UN and NATO is entirely by choice, a voluntary concession to multilateralism. If these entities tie it down, it will inevitably reconsider the multilateral nature of its relationships, and turn them into bilateral relationships with "coalitions of the willing", since it has no need to be on good terms with all of the rest of the world.

2. What are everyone's motives regarding Iraq?
A lot of mud has been thrown on this issue, and people assume that some of it sticks. France and Russia have companies with oil contracts in the region, and that fact, combined with their resistance to armed invasion, is deemed sufficient to conclude that their motives are entirely driven by economic interests. On the other hand, the accusation that Bush is doing this solely because he wants to "finish the job his father started", or because America's new foreign policy requires a show of strength against a defeatable enemy. While there may be grains of truth in the above, they actually fall under the guise of conspiracy theories, because the stated motives of the parties concerned are clear. We do not know that France's motives are based on Elf's contracts, neither do we know that George Bush is attacking Iraq because his father did. Since we don't know, we should withhold judgement. Instead the allegations above are brandished as emotional weapons in a war of words.

So where does that leave me, and my opinions? I am unwilling to be drawn to either extreme, since I don't feel comfortable with the arguments of either side. Unfortunately, given the tone and nature of the conversations I get into, there's very little middle ground to stand on. When I am heard to disagree with a point of view, my point of view is automatically assumed to be at the other extreme. I have to assume, since I actually hold a reasonably healthy respect for those parties at both sides of the argument, that as time passes, moderation will sneak into the opinions voiced.

In the meantime, my only advice to those in the midst of such arguments is that words like "apologist, peacenik and warmonger", and comparisons to historical figures such as Hitler, are all wholly inappropriate, and have no place in a civilized discussion. The two sides have been goading each other with barbed words, and look where it has brought us.

PS. While I'm on the subject, if you haven't already heard of it, Blogspot is hosting a weblog of a 29-year-old in Baghdad - it makes for interesting reading : Where is Raed?

When Seth Goldberg opened his luggage after going through Seattle's Sea-Tac airport, he realized that he was busted - a customs agent had discovered his guilty secret. The Seattle Times reports.

In 1984, Big Brother watches your every move. Your opinions are controlled and examined through a system of remote supervision and via the threat of being turned in by your neighbour. The authorities ruthlessly crack down on anyone not toeing the line, and believing in those things that further the party line.

Sorry. I got the date wrong.

Poor Seth Goldberg discovered that a customs agent had gone through his luggage and found a note from Customs explaining that it had been searched. In his bag were two "No Iraq War" flags he had bought in New Jersey. They were still there, and on the note from customs was the handwritten note, "Don't appreciate your anti-american attitude!".

Maybe he should consider himself lucky that he didn't get arrested, seeing as government officials now consider it unpatriotic to not believe in the actions of the government, and the US now has the "Patriot Act" to strip away the basic human rights of miscreants of that ilk.

I talked myself into it, and joined a team of close friends who are getting up at the ungodly hour of 5:30am twice a week to get into a long, thin, unsteady and frankly flimsy boat, and rowing it up and down the Schuylkill river as dawn breaks. As temporary lapses of sanity go, it was particularly enjoyable.

This is not to say that it was without cost - I was so drowsy in the first lecture of the day that I felt the need to apologise to the professor at the end. I seemed to get a little better as the day wore on, but my attention span shrunk considerably, which doesn't help when you're trying to build financial models or preparing a course in business acquisitions.

Nevertheless, despite the blisters and the uncomfortable shifting in my daily schedule, I feel very proud of myself, for having finally taken on a little exercise, and trying a new sport, I just hope the blisters heal in time for me to go back on the water on Thursday. I'd most like to show you what the boathouses along the Schuylkill look like, especially at night - they're very pretty and magical, especially when you can't see the colour of the water.

I'd so much like to get back onto a boat - leaving the BVI behind was tragic, and I can't seem to shake the sea legs, every time I stand or sit still long enough, the surrounding scenery begins to pitch and roll as if on a boat, and the knowledge that this is purely driven by my brain does nothing to alleviate the sensation. What's more, when this happens in an enclosed room (like a lecture theatre, for example) it can make me feel quite ill. Irony is getting seasick on dry land after a week at sea. I was only on the water for a week, and expect the feeling will fade by tomorrow.

I just had a fantastic spring break in the BVI, where 30 of us chartered a keelboat and 3 catamarans, and cruised the islands for a week.

Imagine if you will, 4 boats with 30 people, moored or anchored next to each other most nights, sailing from island to island with a group of friends manning the sails and destocking the fridges.

Starting from Tortola, our group visited many of the islands (including Anegada) and a couple of restaurants (Willy Thornton's, Foxy's Bar, The Loose Mongoose), as well as partying the night away on shore, at sea and in anchorages and moorings for 7 days. What a great holiday!

The bad weather has been getting me down, but I'm going sailing in the BVI for a week, and hopefully we'll bring the sun back with us when we return. Scenes of a snowed-under Philadelphia, however enchanting, will have to wait until next year before repeating on us!

Bigger version of the image in the title....

And the view from the center of Rittenhouse square...

I found a reference to this article on another weblog and couldn't resist posting it. I'll keep my personal opinions to myself on this one, as I think the article (from CNN) speaks for itself.

UPDATED: It sounds like, when you read the actual police report the two people wearing the shirts were actually protesting and stopping people. If this is the case, I feel less annoyed with the store, they have every right to prevent a protest inside their property.

I've finally gotten over the stupid pride I felt at having designed this all on my own, and now realize that it's probably time I rethought the design of the site.

So all of you who browse the site but never post - you know who you are - let me know how I can improve it, what's wrong with it, so that I can do an informed and educated redesign at some point. You can comment to me in private or can generate discussion by leaving a comment.

Things I'd like to change...

• The "navigate" box on the left isn't very intuitive, and the quite significant difference in importance between, for example, the "film reviews" section and the "random stuff" section doesn't come through.
  
• The right hand side of my screen is cluttered with admin functions, but i recently realized that other users don't see much there at all. So I have space to play with.
  
• I'd like to automatically link back to blogs that send people my way - so you'd have a box with automatic links to the last 5 or 10 weblogs that had referred someone to me. I'd have to maintain a database of weblogs or artificially exclude Google, Hotbot, IMDB etc that send me loads of hits.
  
• Nobody uses the advertising function, even though it's free. I have no idea why. Any ideas? Maybe my site is too low on the rankings in google and others for people to think it's worthwhile.
  
• I have some semi-permanent content in mind in the form of some longer posts that contain more of a discussion or treatment of something near and dear to my heart - I think it's important to beef up the content, because the weblog/film-review stuff is good, but insufficient to populate the site.
  
• I have to rewrite a lot of the interface for admin functions, the text is too small, boxes for entering articles too narrow, and it doesn't scale too well beyond a certain point.
  
• Not sure about the colours any more. The green is kind of Slashdot-influenced, but I don't go there that often anymore, and it makes the whole site a little grim.
  
• Thinking about changing my no-pictures rule. Bankwidth isn't even close to 10% of my maximum, and they add colour to the journal entries.
  

Please feel free to comment on that lot and to add anything you think is useful.

I'm in the middle of exam week. Advanced Corporate Finance yesterday went better than expected, but then again everyone said that, so it'll get harder to do well. Legal Studies today, Linear Programming Tomorrow and e-Commerce Strategies last weekend.

But the reward will be Spring Break, and sailing in the British Virgin Islands. I can't wait!