Suez Canal Crisis

Time out now for some random historical meanderings (because it's my blog and I can).

In addition to my long term interests, I also often indulge in various short lived "kicks" where I become incredibly interested in something for a couple days, read all I can about it, and then forget about. I know from conversation with some of you that your minds work the same way. (Mr. Guam and Mr. Bork, I'm primarily thinking of you two).

Of course the invention of the internet has made it a lot easier to sustain these obscure interests, which, especially in Japan, would otherwise have been just passing thoughts instead of one or two day obsessions. (I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Incredible time waster, isn't it? No wonder I've accomplished so little with my life).

Some of these short lived kicks sneak there way onto this blog in some form or another. Many more I never find an excuse to write about. As you already know from the title, today's topic is the Suez Canal crisis.

As a middle and high school student, I knew the Suez Canal crisis by name only. The first time I actually learned the details was at one of my history classes in Calvin, and I remember feeling a bit of pride for my country. I'm not famous for my patriotism, but I think the Suez crisis is one of the rare instances where the American government was the calm voice of reason, and our European allies were out of control.

(The Suez Crisis is one of those little events often not taught in high school history text books, but it should be. It demonstrates everything that calm headed US foreign policy should be, and the dangers of half cocked interventionism by other nations).

In the years since then when late night discussions turn to history and politics here in Japan, I often try and bring up the Suez Canal crisis whenever I think British friends are criticizing American foreign policy to aggressively. (Like many Americans who live abroad, I take the attitude that only I can criticize my own government).

The other night the discussion again turned to politics, I again brought up the Suez Canal crisis, and I found myself debating some of the finer points of the incident with a British friend. I should probably just have let it go, but unfortunately that's not the way my mind works. The other night when I had trouble sleeping I found myself on the internet searching google for videos and documentaries on the subject.

Which brings me to this post. I thought I'd share some of the more interesting links with you. (I know at least some of you are just as big of history geeks as I am).

First of all is this NPR broadcast last year marking the 50th anniversary of the Suez crisis. (You know, despite being in the US at the time, I must have missed all the stuff about the Suez crisis anniversary. I don't remember hearing anything about it at the time). It's a pretty short piece, so if you are going to be surfing the internet and checking e-mail for the next few minutes anyway, why not click on this and put it on in the background?

Also some kind soul uploaded this BBC documentary onto Youtube. To comply with youtube's size limit it is broken down into 9 parts, so you have to keep changing videos (which is slightly annoying). And it will probably be taken down in a couple days when youtube realizes the copyright violation. But until then if you have the time it is definitely worth watching. (Update: I learned a new trick. Just go to this play list page here, and click on play all videos for smoother watching).

Probably because it is the British documentary the American involvement in bringing about a cease-fire is down played a bit, but other than that it provides a fascinating look at the events that brought about the crisis, and its effect on British politics. Even though the parallels to today's war in Iraq would probably have been self evident by themselves, but the film makers do an excellent job of highlighting the comparisons and showing how history has repeated itself. This time around, however, America is unfortunately no longer the sober voice of reason. From a pacifist position, I wouldn't consider Eisenhower a saint, but I think he certainly was a pragmatist and did his best to avoid stupid wars. If only he was still alive today.

Link of the Day
Iraq Summer: Where do we go from here?