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Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Sunday, March 30, 2003
Two Kinds of Going to War
Not to make this a matter of national pride or anything; quite the opposite. I wish American troops were fighting a more competent and humane war than their British counterparts; since the vast majority of Iraq's invaders are American, they ought to be setting the gold standard of self-discipline. But the fact is, the Brits have lost more troops to American firepower than its Iraqi equivalent, even when they paste one ft.-wide flourescent Union Jacks on their vehicles. It's funny how you never hear of British troops accidentally killing their transatlantic counterparts, isn't it? And that, sadly, is not the only difference in style between the coalition of the willing's two active members.
A number of reports are piling up in the UK press of nervous and inexperienced US farmboys going trigger-happy around civilians. Commanders in the British Army, man for man the most experienced peacekeepers in the world, have been warning their underlings that "the mark of Cain" would be upon any one of them who did such a thing. Years of bitter mistakes in Northern Ireland have taught them to walk lightly among a hostile civilian population, like that of Basra. They know better than to terrify the locals with clumsy, camera-laden helmets; berets are worn instead. The sole humanitarian relief effort of the war, 200 tons of food and water unloaded at Umm Qasar? Again, I don't want to brag, but it is an entirely British operation.
Meanwhile, what account have the Americans given of themselves? The impression one gets is of a bunch of guys out on an armored SUV road trip, treating the road to Baghdad as a five-lane freeway. They were embarrassingly ill-prepared for resistance -- what, you mean the Iraqis are still allowed to fight after we dropped a dozen million leaflets on them? -- and were shocked, shocked to discover that a vastly outnumbered force would fight dirty, not dress up in the proper uniforms, and indulge in guerilla tactics. That Pentagon leaflet budget would have been better spent dropping historical pamphlets on the Rumsfeld and Franks residences, reminding them how they lost Vietnam. Or perhaps telling a story about another impossibly small bunch of rag-tag irregulars who became so galvanized by the presence of the world's largest army that they kicked it out of their country. It was a little incident called the Revolutionary War. We Brits certainly haven't forgotten that punishing lesson. Have the sons of '76?
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