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2004-01-09 Middle East
Survival of the fittest
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Posted by tipper 2004-01-09 12:01:59 AM|| || Front Page|| [11132 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 ...The important difference is that Augustus Caesar didn't have a Praetorian Guard who went with him everywhere carrying a scroll with the launch codes.

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2004-1-9 12:57:32 AM||   2004-1-9 12:57:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 But the difference is that the Romans didn't have a loonie left sapping their will to fight.
Posted by JFM  2004-1-9 1:34:56 AM||   2004-1-9 1:34:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 With all due sensitivity.... Rome was destroyed by BARBARIANS I know some barbarians and trust me Arabs aren't in the same league.
Posted by Shipman 2004-1-9 10:01:24 AM||   2004-1-9 10:01:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#4  Rome was destroyed by BARBARIANS I know some barbarians and trust me Arabs aren't in the same league.
Why, thank you, Ship! I didn't think you noticed! 8^)

Truthfully, we "barbarians" get a bad rap. We're not too good in the PR department, concentrating on what we do best - raping, pillaging, looting, and destroying. Call it primitive urban renewal. Actually, it's a name tossed around, kind of like "kike" and "slopehead" and other derogatory terms used to assign the most brutal and unkind behavior to people we don't appreciate or wish to associate with - the "uncouth". Every society needs a few barbarians, especially when things get nasty. If we get too civilized to carry the war to our enemies, instead sit back and merely try to keep the losses from getting too much out of hand, we've already lost. We need to have the will to go after those that hate us, and show them, emphatically, that, no matter what they THINK they can do, we're meaner, badder, and more capable of inflicting upon them what they think they can inflict upon us. If necessary, we need to prove that brutality has not been bred out of us, but is only thinly controlled by a conscience that considers every man equal, and none superior. We haven't done that in the Arab world yet. We need to. I would suggest the total destruction of Fallujah as an example. Let them, and the rest of the world know, that we will not be squeamish in this war, and we WILL fight to win. If that means getting totally barbaric in dealing with our self-appointed enemy, so be it.
Posted by Old Patriot  2004-1-9 11:33:16 AM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm]  2004-1-9 11:33:16 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 The western Empire fell to the Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, etc. because they had
1) split the empire and had a civil war.
2) Begun using large numbers of germanic troops.
3) Moved the capitol to Ravenna (yech!)

And because they stored wine in lead-lined jars.
Posted by mojo  2004-1-9 11:56:33 AM||   2004-1-9 11:56:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 "the Romans didn't have a loonie left sapping their will to fight"

Actually, all those ancient Mediterranean societies (Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians) had analogues to many of the types of poltics we see today: conservative, "progressive", rich elites, populists, etc etc.

I am reading Kagan's "The Peloponnesian War" right now, and I keep mentally tying to fit the leaders mentioned there into their modern counterparts. Not possible to easily do with, for example, Pericles: wealthy, intelligent, charismatic, inspiring speaker, and proponent of empire. Haven't seen that combination in the US for a while....
Posted by Carl in N.H. 2004-1-9 12:40:25 PM||   2004-1-9 12:40:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Carl: JFK.
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-1-9 1:37:45 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com]  2004-1-9 1:37:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 {barbarian's} a name tossed around, kind of like "kike" and "slopehead" and other derogatory terms used to assign the most brutal and unkind behavior to people we don't appreciate or wish to associate with - the "uncouth".


The ancient Greeks who coined the word had a very specific meaning - the barbarians were those who did not speak the language of the civilized world (as the Greeks saw things). Many non-Greek people had at least some Greek they used for trade purposes. Those who had none, were people who were disconnected from the economy, political relationships, art and thought of the Mediterranean.


In that sense, to call most of the Arab (and non-Arab Muslim) world "barbarian" is to use the word in a similar way. At least, that is part of what this author meant, I think. Not just that they don't dress or eat like "us", but that they are disconnected from and have no stake in preserving the more advanced cultures and economies of the world. Instead, they live on the fringes and in some cases, subsist parasitically.

Posted by rkb  2004-1-9 1:57:54 PM||   2004-1-9 1:57:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 RC: yep, JFK is the closest I could come up with in the American milieu. I think Churchill is a better fit for a modern Pericles (not sure about the charisma bit however, unless old fat bald cigar smokers were considered sexy in the 1940s). The key problem with JFK/Pericles comparison is that JFK was not around long enough for an extended crisis (as opposed to a brief crisis like Cuba)
Posted by Carl in N.H. 2004-1-9 3:04:55 PM||   2004-1-9 3:04:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Churchill's not bad; charisma's not all looks, after all.
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-1-9 3:40:17 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com]  2004-1-9 3:40:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 I could easily envision Bill Clinton as Alcibiades...Kegan book was fascinating, wasn't it? Macedonia followed (much later) by Rome ends up picking up all the marbles after Athens and Sparta finish beating each other up....

________________borgboy
Posted by borgboy  2004-1-9 4:01:56 PM||   2004-1-9 4:01:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Yeah, Alcibiades is an interesting character, and not in a good way. Kagan is respectful of him so far (I am not finished with the book) but previous accounts I have read and studied about the subject depict him as an essentially amoral and chaotic force. Alcibiades' charisma got him out of the many jams he got into, which is certainly Clintonian...
Posted by Carl in N.H. 2004-1-9 4:41:04 PM||   2004-1-9 4:41:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 I thought the Greeks came up with the word "barbarian" by making fun of the speech of non-Greeks and near-Greeks like the Macedonians, which they described as "barbarbarbarbar..."
Posted by Phil Fraering 2004-1-9 6:52:52 PM|| [http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com]  2004-1-9 6:52:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 "the Romans didn't have a loonie left sapping their will to fight"
Maybe not, but the Sasanids, the first Empire to fall to Islam, certainly did.
"Kavad’s reign also saw the rise of Mazdak, a Marxist predating Marx himself by about 1300 years. Mazdak who was Kavad’s close friend, started preaching his ideas of communal life and collective life almost immediately after Kavad took the throne. This was the time that the Sasanian society had been fed up with the increasing power of the Zoroastrian clergy and had started creating alternative cults such as Zardoshtegan. Mazdak’s ideas; therefore, managed to attract a lot of attention, especially since the emperor himself supported the modern day prophet. It is disputed that the actual founder of Mazdak’s cult was a man called Zardosht-i Khvargan who was a follower of Maani. Thus, in a sense, Mazdak can be assumed as a person who revived and updated Maani’s ideas two hundred years after him. Mazdak’s ideas, other than preaching the collective life style, was based on self-discipline and hardship, along with kindness towards the strangers."

Posted by tipper 2004-1-9 11:02:33 PM||   2004-1-9 11:02:33 PM|| Front Page Top

11:32 Lucky
06:45 Super Hose
00:04 Rick
23:53 Super Hose
23:51 Super Hose
23:40 Super Hose
23:35 Super Hose
23:30 Old Patriot
23:30 Super Hose
23:27 Super Hose
23:24 Super Hose
23:21 Super Hose
23:17 CrazyFool
23:14 Super Hose
23:12 Observer
23:02 tipper
23:01 Super Hose
22:59 Barbara Skolaut
22:53 Super Hose
22:53 Zhang Fei
22:48 andrew k
22:45 andrew k
22:43 Observer
22:42 Atomic Conspiracy









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