Robert Fisk's World: From the fourth century BC, words our leaders should heed Thucydides' account of the Spartan war contains a dark and chilling relevance Saturday, 18 October 2008
JOHN LAWRENCE Robert Fisk lets fly in a debate at the Woodstock Literary Festival Let us now praise famous men. And after yet another US presidential candidates' debate of awesome sterility – not to mention their shameless refusal to tackle the real, bloody issues that confront America – I'm referring principally to one of the first journalists to understand war and, so far as he could, to check his sources: Thucydides.If only our masters would turn to his account of the Peloponnesian conflict they might even see their own faces – and their hideous mistakes – in the mirror of his prose.I have to admit that I was inspired to reread the great man's fourth-century BC tract by Professor David Rovie of the Auckland University of Technology, who startled a weary Fisk in New Zealand a few weeks ago by pointing out that Thucydides' work contained all the lessons we need to learn about war, human rights, the treatment of prisoners, the cowardice of politicians, and the cold-hearted decisions of nation states.Thucydides himself said – it is, of course, his most famous quotation – that it was enough for him that his words "be judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future".His work, Thucydides wrote – and I am using Rex Warner's translation – was "not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public but was done to last for ever". Well, he can say that again. How many of our historians or journalists or novelists or playwrights work for those who will (despite the internet) still read them in 2,000 years' time? Tolstoy maybe, Shakespeare, I imagine. But will the historians of our latter-day wars – the Beavors and the Barnetts and the Bullocks, even the Churchills – be read in 4008? Certainly Thucydides would have had no time for newspaper reporters: "prose chroniclers", he sneers, are "less interested in telling the truth than in catching the attention of their public, whose authorities cannot be checked". Ouch.At school, I found the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta, which began in 431BC, a very tiresome affair. Indeed, its miniature battles, in which a modern-day "surge" might involve only 200 men, are pretty boring. But Thucydides was also a soldier; by failing to save an Athenian colony from the Spartans, he was sent off to 20 years of exile. And his account of this ancient conflict contains a dark and chilling relevance today.Take Cleon, who had just passed the motion for a death sentence against the entire male population of Mytilene (all women and children, of course,…

  Barack Obama's peace prize starts a fight Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent 234 CommentsRecommend? (145) Gasps echoed through the Nobel Hall in Oslo yesterday as Barack Obama was unveiled as the winner of the 2009 Peace Prize, sparking a global outpouring of incredulity and praise in unequal measure. Mr Obama was sound asleep in the White House when the Norwegian Nobel Committee made the shock announcement. It said that he was being honoured for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. In a clear swipe at his predecessor, George W. Bush, the committee praised the “change in the international climate” that the President had brought, along with his cherished goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future,” it added. Expert View Scrap the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s an embarrassment and even an impediment to peace Bronwen Maddox Related LinksPrize fools America incredulous over Obama’s Nobel Prize Why Obama should have refused the Nobel Prize International reaction ranged from delight to disbelief. The former winners Kofi Annan and Desmond Tutu voiced praise, the latter lauding the Nobel Committee’s “surprising but imaginative choice”. But Lech Walesa, the dissident turned Polish President, who won the Peace Prize in 1983, spoke for many, declaring: “So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far.” Mr Obama’s domestic critics leapt on the award as evidence of foreigners fawning over an untested “celebrity” leader. Rush Limbaugh, the US right-wing commentator, said: “This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama." Speaking later, Mr Obama said that he was “surprised and deeply humbled” by the unexpected decision and announced that he would donate the £880,000 prize, due to be awarded in December, to charity. “Let me be clear. I do not view it as recognition of my own accomplishments but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said. The Nobel Peace Prize is a notoriously difficult award to predict, but yesterday's decision was clearly a political choice, with three of the past six peace awards going to Bush adversaries. In 2002 the prize went to Jimmy Carter as an explicit rejection of the Bush presidency in the build-up to the Iraq war. In 2005 Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN atomic agency chief who had clashed with Washington over the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was honoured. In 2007 Al Gore received the prize for his warnings on climate change, denounced by President Bush as a liberal myth. The award is also an example of what Nobel scholars call the growing aspirational trend of Nobel committees over the past three decades, by which awards are given not for what has been achieved but in support of the cause being fought for. Thorbjørn Jagland, the committee chairman,…

  Iran: UN watchdog suspects more secret nuclear sites  Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, suspects there might be more secret nuclear sites in Iran Photo: AFP President Barack Obama's revelation in September that intelligence agencies had identified a second uranium enrichment site in Iran has raised concern at the IAEA about possible further facilities, according to a report by the Vienna-based agency obtained by Reuters. It said Iran had told the IAEA that it had begun building the bunkered site near Qom in 2007, but the watchdog had evidence the project began in 2002, paused in 2004 and resumed in 2006. Related ArticlesRussia and US in joint push on Iran Iran to respond to West's nuclear offer Russia delays Iran's Bushehr nuclear power station  Iran admitted the site's existence to the IAEA in September. IAEA inspectors also found that Iran had reduced since August the number of centrifuges enriching rranium at its main Natanz site by 650 to 3,936, while slightly raising the total number of machines installed to 8,692. Western diplomats and analysts said the slowdown was probably caused by technical glitches. A senior official meanwhile said the UN nuclear agency believes Iran plans to start enriching uranium at the Qom site by 2011. The official said the IAEA believes that the site will be able to house 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges. A senior international official familiar with the new IAEA report said on Monday that number could allow Iran to eventually enrich enough material to be able to arm one nuclear warhead a year. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies Tehran wants a nuclear weapons programme, saying it is enriching only to create fuel to generate electricity for civilian use.     

 Immigration Bill Reflects a Firebrand’s Impact "Passage of the law, which would, among other things, allow the authorities to demand proof of legal entry into the United States from anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, testified to the relative lack of political power of Arizona Latinos, and to the hardened views toward illegal immigration among Republican politicians both here and nationally."     Read Article   

 US security chiefs tricked in social networking experimentFake analyst gained access to dozens of US security and intelligence officialsDavid Batty guardian.co.uk, Saturday 24 July 2010 17.09 BST Article history A Facebook page dedicated to accused Russian spy Anna Chapman Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images  Anna Chapman need never have bothered with moving to Manhattan to become a sleeper agent for the Russian intelligence service. The experience of another femme fatale, Robin Sage, suggests the 28-year-old spy, who posted raunchy photos on her Facebook profile, should instead have honed her social networking skills.In just a month, Sage made connections with hundreds of people from the US military, intelligence agencies, information security companies and government contractors. The 25-year-old navy cyberthreat analyst was invited to speak at security conferences and offered jobs at companies including Google and Lockheed Martin.Her Twitter profile proclaimed: "Sorry to say, I'm not a Green Beret! Just a cute girl stopping by to say hey! My life is about info sec [information security] all the way!"But there was a slight hitch: Robin Sage did not exist. The pretty cybergeek, supposedly educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a prep school in New Hampshire, was in reality an avatar created by a security researcher to find out how social networking sites could be used to covertly gather intelligence.Thomas Ryan, co-founder of Provide Security, said that despite claiming to have worked professionally for 10 years, Sage attracted dozens of connections across sites including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, including a senior intelligence official in the US marine corps, the chief of staff for a US congressman and several senior executives at defence contractors, as well as an official from the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds, launches and runs US spy satellites.Many of her new online friends shared personal and professional information and photos, which Ryan claims could have compromised corporate and possibly even national security.Ryan, who will present his study at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas next week, told Computerworld: "I had access to email and bank accounts. I saw patterns in the kind of friends they had. The LinkedIn profiles would show patterns of new business relationships."The security analyst told the magazine that the vast majority (82%) of Sage's online friends were men, suggesting her looks lay behind her popularity. His conclusion after completing the study: "The big takeaway is not to befriend anybody unless you really know who they are."