"Charlie Wilson's War"

Charlie Wilson was an important American politician. He is mainly known for his efforts in the cold war and the war in Iraq. Wilson just died (10th of February 2010) and in this occasion we watched the film called "Charlie Wilson's war." The film is about the most recognized part of his career, namely the battle of the war.

The Soviet-Afghan conflict was a violent war during the period of the Cold War. There were attacks from 1979 up until 1989. Communist Soviet wanted to conquer Afghanistan in order to make it a part of the Soviet union and presumably to show the USA that they were a strong power. After being appointed to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defence he visited a refugee camp in one of the Soviet occupied territories of Afghanistan. He there experienced what terrible consequences the Soviet army had put on the Afghan people in the refugee camps. He met children who were amputated because on mines which they thought were toys, starvation, sickness, hatred and a lot of need. He therefore decided that the USA had to do something in order to help them. He therefore suggested that they would provide Mujahideen and with ammunition. Mujahideen was a group of Afghan oppositionists of the Soviet government of Afghanistan. The purpose for giving the weapons was for them to shoot down Soviet helicopters. It was a complicated operation which had to go through many links and persons due to the risk that Soviet would find out Afghanistan had received support from the USA. The mission succeeded and Soviet never managed to take over the power of Afghanistan.

However, there were downsides to this operation which I do not think the US government is particularly proud of today. After the Afghan people had fought against the Soviet communists the country was completely ruined and in desperate need of aid to both people and to build the country up again. But the Americans had already helped Afghanistan and withdrew from the country. This was a mistake. As Wilson's famous quote puts it so nicely: "These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame." In the cold water of the Soviet and Afghanistan the well known political movement, Taliban, came into existence. It was also at this point that Obama appeared as a dominant leader. They were angry that the USA were leaving all responsibility behind when they left Afghanistan. They used the weapons and power Americans and Charley Wilson had given them and formed fundamentalist groups who strongly oppose the USA and the western world. This is an ironical twist to a story which originally had good intensions.

In my opinion the film portrayed Charlie Wilson very well. I feel that I learned a lot about him just watching it. In addition to experiencing how he was like as a political person we get to know about his personal life as well. He was find of women and alcohol and lived a rough life. I definitely recommend this film. It teaches the viewer a lot about an interesting man in American politics as well as how one man can change so much if he has the guts, wish and interest in what goes on in the world!

If you want, you can watch the film trailer here

The relationship between China and the USA - New topic for my senior project

This is very last minute, but I have decided to change my senior project topic. I have worked quite a lot collecting information about Obamas foreign policies but I could not quite find a proper structure to it. Additionally it became too wide and I realised I do not have the time or capacity to cover such a complicated topic.
I therefore decided to choose one aspects of the American foreign policies, namely the relationship between the USA and China. This is an important issue of the years to come. These are some of the questions I will cover:

- Why is the relationship between USA and China so important today?
- How has the relationship between the nations developed historically?
- How is it today? (Chinas economy is decreasing rapidly. USA has a massive debt to China.)
- What are the prospects of the USA/China relationship? (Climate, defense, weapons, economics, international power and recognition, form of government etc.)

I have the whole weekend to work on this project, so I think I'll be fine starting from scratch such a short time before deadline :)

Working on Senior Project

After over sleeping, falling over while running to the bus stop, waiting an hour in ten minus for several buses that never came I decided to walk back home before my horrible karma could ruin even more this Tuesday morning. The absence registration system even works in a stupid way which makes it more beneficial for a student to take a day than 3 hours off.

So today, I have primarily been working on my senior project. As mentioned earlier I am writing a senior project on Obama’s foreign policies, USA’s political role internationally with emphasis on Obama’s status as a world leader. I have studied which ideologies and ideas are behind the Obama administration’s foreign strategies. I have found out quite a lot and it amazes me what you can find out through Wikipedia. (Although you have to be critical as anyone can publish his or her article there) I have found material in which I can use to compare the basic ideas behind Bush’s and Obama’s foreign policies. Additionally I have made a disposition of my senior project article. This will make it a lot easier to put the whole text together at the end.

I am very much looking forward to see what I can learn from such a project and I am working eagerly as this is a topic that interests me :)

I have read the first chapters of "The Catcher in the Rye"

Currently I am reading the well-known novel The Catcher in the Rye. It is the only novel written by author J.D Salinger and it was published in 1951. More than 65 million samples have been sold and the book has been translated to nearly every language in the world. The plot is about an American teenage boy who goes to New York after being expelled from his school, Pencey Prep.
Seeing how famous this book is I was and still am curious about it. Wanting to read The Catcher in the Rye rather than The Road (which were our other option) I started a few weeks ago and have now read 13 chapters.

To be honest, I am a bit disappointed. I have read nearly half of the book already and it has not really given me anything yet, not even the wish to carry on reading. I will finish it, however. Salinger is good at making his characters appear very much alive compared to former books I have read. We get to know the main character, Holden Caulfield, easily and suddenly it feels like we already know him. However, I do not identify with him at all. Normally I find it easy to empathise with the fictional characters but not this time. This is merely my fault though, and not about the quality of the book. To say that I am exited to continue my reading would be an exaggeration. Still, there are loads of chapters to be read. Perhaps the next few of them will catch a bit more of my interest.