Posted on 09/14/2007 10:53:26 AM PDT by neverdem
The ethnic origins of General David Petraeus are apparently Dutch, which is a shame because there’s something sonorously classical about the family name of the commander of the US forces in Iraq. When you discover that his father was christened Sixtus, the fantasy really takes flight. Somewhere in the recesses of the brain, where memory mingles hazily with imagination, I fancy I can recall toiling through a schoolboy Latin textbook that documented the progress of one Petraeus Sixtus as he triumphantly extended the imperium romanum across some dusty plain in Asia Minor.
The fantasy is not wholly inapt, of course. General Petraeus was the star turn in Washington this week, testifying before Congress about the progress of the surge by US forces in Iraq. Some evidently see America’s wearying detention in the quagmire of Mesopotamia as a classic example of imperial overreach of the kind that is thought to have doomed Rome. Who knows? Perhaps 1,500 years ago one of the forebears of General Petraeus was hauled before the Senate to explain the progress of some surge of Roman forces to defeat the insurgents in Germania.
The US is indeed in the middle of another gloomy ride around the “America as Rome” theme park of half-understood history lessons. The pessimists, equipped with their Fodor’s guidebooks, their summer school diplomas, and their DVD collection of Cecil B. DeMille movies, are convinced it’s all up for the people who march today under the standard of the eagle, just as it was for their predecessors. They see military defeat abroad and political decay at home; they watch as far-flung peoples chafe at the dictates of imperial rule and as the plebs at home grow metaphorically hungry from misgovernment. The only real uncertainty in their minds is who will play the Vandals and lay waste to Washington?
It’s a familiar and very tired analogy, of course. From the moment that America became top nation in the middle of the last century, people have been racing to be contemporary Gibbons, chronicling the decline and fall even as it was supposedly happening. Not the least of the objections to their efforts is that Rome’s domination of the known world lasted about 500 years, and survived more than the odd thrashing or two at the hands of barbarian tribes. In modern America, it’s always the same. Every lost battle or turbulent day on the foreign exchanges and the obituary writers are sharpening their pencils.
The bigger objection is that America is not much of an empire after all. No one pays tribute, no one declares allegiance to Caesar, and what kind of empire is it that owes its foreign subjects a couple of trillion dollars? Still, as Gibbon himself noted in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.” Which brings us back neatly to General Petraeus and the Iraq war.
The antiwar crowd’s efforts to depreciate America’s efforts in the Middle East hit a new low on the first day of the long-awaited congressional testimony, when MoveOn.org, the self-appointed leftwing base of the Democratic Party, took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times that called the commander “General Betray Us” and accused him of lying about the progress of the surge. As stunts go, it was as startlingly offensive as it was politically self-defeating.
Not many Americans – not even those who oppose the war – like the idea of calling their generals traitors. They have a vaguely disconcerting sense that they know where that leads – and it’s not Rome but a rather shorter-lived empire of the 20th century that springs to mind. And so it had the signal effect this week of forcing Democrats to distance themselves from the antiwar movement. Most of them – especially those who harbour presidential ambitions – had to go out of their way during the hearings to emphasise their admiration for the general and his soldiers.
This is good. You can argue about the surge. The evidence is encouraging that the increased US military effort, together with a change in tactics, has reduced the violence in Iraq. On the other hand there are legitimate questions about the long-term viability of the strategy. But if America is to emerge from Iraq with a renewed sense of its global role, you shouldn’t really debase the motives of those who lead US forces there. Because in the end what they are doing is deeply honourable – fighting to destroy an enemy that delights in killing women and children; rebuilding a nation ruined by rapine and savagery; trying to bridge sectarian divides that have caused more misery in the world than the US could manage if it lasted a thousand years.
It is helpful to think about Iraq this way. Imagine if the US had never been there; and that this sectarian strife had broken out in any case – as, one day it surely would, given the hatreds engendered by a thousand years of Muslim history and the efforts of Saddam Hussein.
What would we in the West think about it? What would we think of as our responsibilities? There would be some who would want to wash their hands of it. There would be others who would think that UN resolutions and diplomatic initiatives would be enough to salve our consciences if not to stop the slaughter.
But many of us surely would think we should do something about it – as we did in the Balkans more than a decade ago – and as, infamously, we failed to do in Africa at the same time. And we would know that, for all our high ideals and our soaring rhetoric, there would be only one country with the historical commitment to make massive sacrifices in the defence of the lives and liberty of others, the leadership to mobilise efforts to relieve the suffering and, above all, the economic and military wherewithal to make it happen.
That’s the only really workable analogy between the US and Rome. When Rome fell, the world went dark for the best part of a millennium. America may not be an empire. But whatever it is, for the sake of humanity, pray it lasts at least as long as Rome.
Would also disagree with your comment about racial homogeneity. A culturally homogeneous society would have an easier time at having a common government. Values, tradition, and culture are not tied to race; it is just that those cultural mores tend to be passed down through families, and hence ancestral group (race--even in the vernacular--is too broad a term) tends to be tied with culture. The seemingly successful assimilation of Germans and eastern Europeans in the mid to late 1800s is testament to how the state can also instill cultural values (via saying the Pledge of Allegiance, encouraging English, peer pressure, etc.). Probably not a popular idea on FR, but that's the case.
And--you'll probably be expecting this--also disagree with the government's decision to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act. Population explosion or not, China traditionally has had around a quarter of the global population--largescale immigration from China to the United States would be immense either way. But immigration was not immense. The United States saw a few Chinese come over and overreacted. Will agree with you that assimilation would be easier to apply on a western European than an Asian, but still of the opinion that heavily skewing quotas to allow in a glut of northern and western Europeans, limiting eastern and southern Europeans, and severely restricting the amounts of non-Europeans coming to these shores was a bad idea then, and would be now. This is because you don't know whether or not an immigrant will assimilate.
You can find Chinese immigrants who struggle not just to use proper English, but to mimic the local accent and word choice to a figurative tee. They try to act as American as they can.
Conversely, you can find British immigrants--far closer culturally to Americans than even Bohemians--who insist on keeping their accents, their mannerisms, and even their written language.
Furthermore, the Chinese, once being here for seven years, could apply straight away for citizenship. The Briton might not even intend to become an American in a million years.
If immigration should be restricted, then restrict immigration equally across the board. If immigration has to be cut off, then cut off all immigration. But don't cherry pick countries (as opposed to more specific groupings of people) from which immigration is acceptable and others from which it is extremely bad.
One major exception to this would be immigration of Muslims, but this would be for all Muslims, not just from Muslim-majority countries. Some countries, such as France, might not keep tabs on who is or isn't a Muslim. If a simple questionnaire asking a potential immigrant's religion is not allowed by French law, then ban all French immigration. And conversely to that, an Afghani Christian should have the right to at least apply for a visa to the United States (they should also be able to go for asylum, too).
For those (to 'all') who are thinking of Muslims pretending to be Christians to get to the United States, they could be quizzed on Christianity (this would also weed out a lot of nominal Christians) and asked to eat or touch pork (personally would pet a pig, but--currently--not eat pork).
Anyway, that's opinion coming from here.
What Wilson et. al. did was accelerate the transfer of bureaucratic authority to the Filipinos, which increased the power (and corruption) of Filipino politicians.That was precisely the problem. Wilson's purpose, led by Bryan, was to wash his hands of the Philippines. Filipino independence was just cover for the political goal of reversing Republican policy. Harding returned to the old McKinley policy of slowly implimenting a stable democracy through development of infrastructre, the rule of law, and a functional middle class. Not that it worked, but it seems certain that a more prolonged transfer of power would have yielded better results.
Fortunately I did not go to a nest of liberalism, but to a fine engineering school. I will admit I skimped on my humanities work...
My own experience is second hand. Many fine teachers there, but the average graduate cannot tell you the difference between a Sunni and a Shia, or between a Catholic and Protestant for that matter. They are either bathed in the glow of multiculturalism or dunked into the professor’s personal passion.
Remember Me -- An extrodinary tribute to our troops --
Defeat at Any Price (Why Petraeus's testimony was a nightmare for the Democrats)
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
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Actually yes, since the world uses the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. Until this very year, as one example, the world has had to purchase dollars in order to purchase oil contracts. And like the Romans, we have debased our dollar/denarius to the point that we are going to lose our status. To continue the example: Iran is now selling oil to Japan directly for Yen. This may seem a small point, but it is anything but.
America isn’t Rome, but the barbarians are real.
Although there are many differences, it is exactly right to point out the importance of the similarities. And there are even some big ones in the military.
As Rome moved from a very citizen-involved military to an auxiliary-based army and finally to mercenaries, our military is perhaps following an analogous path.
One of the first steps of this was the change in recruiting focus to "money for college"--it's no wonder they didn't receive as many people whose motivation was service if they didn't appeal to that population in ads. Now, the signing bonuses are at record levels--despite our Active Duty military being only 1/25 the size of WWII's...and the population much larger. I don't mean to besmirch those who stay in because of these bonuses, but I do think that there's some analogy to resorting to mercenaries rather than sense of duty. As an aside, I see that others are mentioning this, although with a different spin, perhaps.
And now, the US law has been changed to allow the military to go out and recruit foreigners... Already, about 100 of the deaths of US service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan have been non-citizens.
Shame.
multilineal cultural evolution which birthed relativism...rubbish
there is no doubt that while the world is different and we are different....more benevolent to be sure, yet there are similarities between us and Rome:
Jared Diamond ...more rubbish...
We are decaying from within and from allowing our borders to be wide open.
There is no doubt that inability to enforce one’s border is paramount and this is where we are quite a bit like Rome though their invasion was from the north mostly and better armed (I hope)
Governmental fiscal irresponsibility....another common theme.
The rise of homosexuality...i know the social libs here will scoff but at least in the west this has been a clear signal repeatedly.
Dissolution of a united belief system or dare I say religion. Nations that lasted the longest had shared views on the almighty. It’s an adhesive folks of course today laugh at since we are so much smarter today.
There are some other comparisons too. For me, if the host culture is willing to kill one in four of it’s offspring for convenience then there is no way in hell that civilization can stave off the “barabarians” period. I believe we are living that right now.
So while unlike Rome in many ways....we are like them in others....though I’m uncertain how they were on abortion. Since they had no birth control as effective as ours, it may have been less an issue.
Thanks for the ping!
I believe the whole Dark Ages label which used to be rather innocuous is now used to demean Western Civilization while at the same time to trumpet other non-Caucazoid civilizations
ala Boas and Diamond
the Dark Ages were not dark.
they were latin mostly pre-printing press
sack of 455 was Vandals...under Geseric (sic)
the Hell Angels and Satan’s Slaves sacked Rome later
that BBC article is awful flimsy......the Maine is about all they have as their proof od imperialism to compare with centuries of Roman conquest?
hardly the same
Great Britain was appropriately enough much more like Rome but....more benevolent.....
Rome was pretty tough on folks
see Appian Way Decorations
Lion food
How to rape and pillage after a siege of a foe that has no value to you except logistic...annihilation
what Rome did well was build, build, build and keep a records.....lol....that brings another Reich to mind
that benchmark can get distorted eh?
geez man....that ball came from way left field.......
aren't the "territories" allowed to vote on it themselves?
given the Philipines throwing us out in recent years, looks like we made the right choice
btw....Hawaiians are brown too...just bigger
If California was made independent in 1850, and closed American bases in 2000, would that have been a good choice for the United States to give California full independence?
Look at history, you might not approve of all that you see, but it's there in all its black, white, and gray ugliness (or beauty, as that may be).
lol...the way California has gone since 1980, one could argue a resounding yes.
you would do well to look beyond European descended racism as a reason for so much
I don't recall if you are Filipino or not but most Filipinos I've known were not so worried about all that.
we used to have a great half Filipino freeper here called Goetz_von_Berlichingen and he had great posts and scoffed at all this blame whitey nonsense....he let over Iraq...he was one of my favorite cogent posters
your homepage is race obsessed and essentially calls out those who disagree with you as racist....please explain to me how you got so? and the notion that Southerners stopped the Filipinos from being a state? you have no evidence of that...non at all, just conjecture and that assumes northerners are not racist.
are you aware where most of the Klan was in the early 1900s during Wilson's day?
I know you mean well, but who got to you so? college? mean white guys?
I don't disagree with you on everything....not by a long shot but your perspective is just as hardened as those you deride
Let me astound you by my mastery of trivia. First, the Dark Ages, strictly speaking, is a term devised by English historians to describe the history of Britain during the 6th Century. There is almost no documentation of this times before the Roman Mission reached Britain; what we know comes from Beade. The legend of Arthur is set during this time. Second, there were actually a lot of books availble during the Middle Ages, although they were expensive. Those monks, or whoever, were busy fellows. I have seen a copy of a “Paris” Bible of the 13th Century, a volume about the size of an ordinary Bible today, wriiten in Latin. I was amazed to see a book that looked like a printed Bible. And they were published by the thousands. Every friar in Europe seemed to have had one.
>>OMGosh...just had to ask how you can listen to Coast to Coast?? When it comes on the radio I can’t turn it off fast enough. Bleh. I’m sorry, but the people calling in to that program are INSANE!!<<
No argument here. On the other hand, I love to watch “Doctor Who” and enjoy science fiction, both well-written and adventures starring Captain Kirk. C’mon, it’s entertaining listening to the remote viewing guy tell me that he’s seen the Antichrist in the alternate universe, or that superstorms will demolish America, or that little grey men with reptilian helpers are here to assist humans. Or eat them. Or something. LOL
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