Posted on 01/25/2007 5:12:26 AM PST by RAY
HATING HORATIO
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Ancient Rome's greatest historian was Titus Livius, known to us as Livy (59 BC-17 AD). In the Second Book of his monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), he tells the famous story of Horatio at the Bridge.
In 510 BC, Rome was threatened with destruction from an invading army of Etruscans. All Romans living in the countryside had abandoned their homes and fled for protection inside the city. The city walls were heavily garrisoned, but the most vulnerable point was a wooden bridge, the Pons Sublicius, across the river Tiber and into Rome.
When Etruscan forces focused their attack on the bridge, the Roman troops guarding it fled in fear - save for one man, a soldier named Horatius, whom we call Horatio.
"Proudly," says Livy, and all alone, "Horatius took his stand at the outer end of the bridge; conscious amongst the rout of fugitives, sword and shield ready for action, he prepared himself for close combat, one man against an army. The advancing enemy paused in sheer astonishment at such reckless courage."
Horatio bellowed to his fleeing comrades that they burn and chop down the bridge while he fought the Etruscans off. Livy continues:
With defiance in his eyes he confronted the Etruscan chivalry, challenging one after another to single combat, and mocking them all as tyrants' slaves who, careless of their own liberty, were coming to destroy the liberty of others. For a while they hung back, each waiting for his neighbor to make the first move, until shame at the unequal battle drove them to action, and with a fierce cry they hurled their spears at the solitary figure which barred their way. Horatius caught the missiles on his shield and, resolute as ever, straddled the bridge and held his ground.
When the bridge finally collapsed, Horatio fell into the Tiber and was able to swim to safety. The citizens of Rome bestowed upon him every possible honor.
This happened in Rome's youth. What if it had happened in Rome's prime, with its citizens so prosperous they were cynical and spoiled? What if they despised Horatio's solitary heroism, and their leaders and intellectual elite pined for Rome's defeat instead? What if the Roman people hated Horatio for his attempt to save them, rather than honoring him?
For that is the question I had watching the President's State of the Union speech last night. Listening to him, I thought of Horatio at the bridge.
Despite all else upon which we may disagree with him, what blindingly came through last night was that this is a noble man, a heroic man, standing alone against America's enemies and viciously ridiculed and reviled for it. Yet he stands there with graciousness and courtesy, as a gentleman.
He stood there alone and spoke eloquently to a Congress, to a nation, of spoiled brats.
The day of the speech (1/23), a Washington Post/ABC News poll announced that 52% of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of terrorism, when we have not suffered a single terrorist attack in the over five years since 9/11 - and that 57% disapprove of his handling of the economy.
That means that 57% of Americans are clinically deranged. On every measure - the stock markets, corporate profits, employment, inflation, spendable income, take your pick - the US economy is doing astoundingly well. How can people possibly disapprove? Yet they do. Because they are spoiled brats.
There's an old saw that says in a democracy, voters get the leaders they deserve. Bush disproves it - for in him, voters are getting better than they deserve. If they got what they deserved, they'd get Hillary Clinton, and may very well in 2008.
But like Ronald Reagan, Bush's faith in the goodness of Americans has never wavered. Today, I talked with Tony Snow, the president's spokesman, and he explained why:
The most important word the president used in his speech last night was victory. Unlike some members of Congress, those who sat on their hands at the mention of it, Americans want victory. So we are going to give it to them.
This is no time to feel desperate. What we need is a sense of mission, a purposeful dynamism. General Petraeus will be giving regular briefings from now on, and be issuing a progress report on Iraq every two weeks. He'll report on what progress we are having on de-Baathification, disarming the Shia militias, on taking the fight to the bad guys in a very methodical way.
To lose this war is to lose our soul. The soul of our country, the soul of America. If we lose in Iraq, the terrorists will be here, the war will be here and among us. But we are not going to lose. We still have an enormously strong hand to play and we are going to play it.
Conservatives need to understand that our best days are still in front of us, if we proceed with confidence and principle. Ours is an ideology of freedom, and an ideology of freedom is an ideology of joy. Joy and freedom will triumph over fear and cynicism.
Watching Bush last night and talking to Tony today inspired me to believe that this president just may drag Americans back into adulthood once again. A nation that hates its Horatios is already in grave danger of losing its soul. GW's determination to succeed in Iraq may enable our nation to regain it.
We did not go into Iraq for glory, or for conquest, or for monetary gain. We went in to stop someone from acquiring nuclear weapons, at which point he would have been able to threaten a large portion of the Middle East (including Israel) and also a fair chunk of Europe. We also went in to depose a man who was torturing and murdering his population.
Right now Iran is ramping up to get nuclear weapons. Is your position that we should WAIT until they have a nuclear weapon and USE IT?
I take dispute with your claim that we went in to stop Saddam acquiring nuclear weapons. My understanding was that we believed he already had "weapons of mass destruction". Hence the thorough search and subsequent recriminations when it came up empty. I also believe that an Islamic Iraq is more of a threat to Middle Eastern peace than the previous version run by a secular dictator.
As for Iran, I consider any country with a radical Islamic leadership and nuclear weaponry to be a clear danger which may well merit a pre-emptive strike. However, we must be absolutely certain that it has the weapon(s), and not merely suspect it through half-baked intelligence. It's not sufficient simply to have "good intentions" when starting a war. Most errors are made sincerely and with the belief that the right thing is being done.
Do not let the media rewrite history for you. I realize when people get busy, memories fade, and the constant drumbeat of media lies can get into one's brain.
Remember the phrase "I will not wait while dangers gather"?
As far as Iran, I hate to tell you this, but NO intelligence is ever certain. No President is omnicsient; only God has that power. We make decisions based on the best intelligence we can get.
Iran, however, isnt hiding much of anything, are they? They are telling us that they are going to acquire a nuclear capability. They are telling us that they are launching a satellite missile. My personal opinion is that they are trying to bait us into an ambush, which is why the President is being so careful. However, there doesn't seem to be much doubt that they are working towards nuclear weaponry.
And since North Korea already has nuclear weapons, what are we to do with them?
I do not envy the President's responsibility. He alone has the burden of keeping this nation safe; to him the final decisions fall. He doesn't have the advantage of hindsight, nor the luxury of second chances or do-overs if he is wrong. He has to rely on the best intelligence he can get, which isn't always accurate, and he has to look into the faces of families who have lost loved ones in this fight.
I do not think he made this decision recklessly nor without the consideration of morality, despite what many think. I also think he is doing what any president of normal moral fiber and intelligence would have done in the same situation.
How easily people forget the months after September 11.
"we don't know exactly, and that's the problem."
He went on to state that "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."
However, with regard to chemical and biological weapons, I believe that the determination had already been made that Saddam was stockpiling those. When I used the term "weapons of mass destruction", I was using it to include both nuclear and biological/chemical weaponry. It was the failure to locate the supposed chemical and/or biological weapons which provoked strong debate.
The nuclear question was indeed up in the air.
If anything, that further strengthens my belief that this was a misadventure.
A good History lesson.
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods,
-Horatius by Thomas Babington Macaulay
I just wanted to mention a few things:
1) Saddam was not secular. The media has tried to spread that particular lie and it's unfortunate that so many people bought into it and that the administration didn't have a spokesman who could go on national television to tell the truth about this matter.
Saddam wrote out the Koran in his own blood. It took him three years. He carried the Koran to his hanging. That doesn't sound terribly secular to me.
2) There were two primary reasons we went to Iraq:
Fear expressed by the UN itself and every single intelligence agency in the world was convinced he was working toward a nuclear weapon and had reconstituted his WMD program AND because of his ties to Al Qaeda.
Back in the 1990's, the media wrote frequently about the world's alarm at the growing relationship between Saddam and OBL and AQ. Links to that and more about the relationship here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1698371/posts
You probably remember the president saying shortly after 9/11 we weren't going to just go after the terrorists but those who harbored terrorists? Well, Saddam was considered the ATM to terrorists. In fact there is a newspaper article by that title.
Saddam was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program. Joe Wilson told Congress privately a different story that he told them publicly. Sen. Roberts has said as much on national television. Roberts has stated that Wilson confirmed the CIA's fear that Saddam was trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger.
Also, every single person charged with finding Iraq's WMD program has speculated that it's entirely possible they were shipped to Syria before the war. You will probably recall that Colin Powell showed the UN and the world watching satellite video of convoys of trucks leaving known WMD sites (according to the UN they were known WMD sites) and headed to the Syrian border.
John A. Shaw, a former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said Russian Spetsnaz units moved WMD to Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
"While in Iraq I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives," Mr. Shaw told NewsMax reporter Charles Smith.
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong was deputy commander of Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In September 2004, he told WABC radio that "I do know for a fact that some of those weapons went into Syria, Lebanon and Iran."
In January 2004, David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group which conducted the search for Saddam's WMD, told a British newspaper there was evidence unspecified materials had been moved to Syria from Iraq shortly before the war.
"We know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Mr. Kay told the Sunday Telegraph.
Also that month, Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who defected to an undisclosed European country, told a Dutch newspaper he knew of three sites where Iraq's WMD was being kept. They were the town of al Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria; the Syrian air force base near the village of Tal Snan, and the city of Sjinsar on the border with Lebanon.
In an addendum to his final report last April, Charles Duelfer, who succeeded David Kay as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said he couldn't rule out a transfer of WMD from Iraq to Syria.
"There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation," Mr. Duelfer said.
In a briefing for reporters in October 2003, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper Jr., who was head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency when the Iraq war began, said satellite imagery showed a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion.
"I think the people below Saddam Hussein and his sons' level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," Lt. Gen. Clapper said.
You haven't heard much about these reports, because they contradict the meme that Saddam either had no WMD, or destroyed it well before the Iraq war began.
There are few countries where people are not oppressed to some degree or other by a maximum leader whose personality cult reigns supreme or by some ideological system. The closest is not 90 miles from Miami. Is it our mission to "liberate" them all?
I've heard the various theories as to why no WMD were found. They don't alter the fact that none were. As I pointed out in my first post, I'm not among those who are accusing the president of having ulterior motives. I think this was simply a bad call.
America needs to recognize the enemy. It is not secular dictators like Hussein. They come and go and the danger vanishes when the man himself perishes. Ideological wars, on the other hand, outlive their current fighters and continue until the philosophy itself is discredited. Our enemy is a violent theology rooted in Islam. Hussein himself was a total non-factor in this battle, in my opinion. Once upon a time he was in fact, our man on the front lines when he waged war against a neighboring Islamic state which had just embraced fundamentalism. Khomeini's Iran was our enemy then too and we stood back and applauded while Saddam gassed and bombed women and children. If he is evil now, he was evil then.
American foreign policy ebbs and flows with the vicissitudes of the moment. It always needs to be measure against the teachings of our faith.
2. I refuse to wait until the other side strikes first, when it comes to nuclear weapons. That was okay in during the Cold War, when mutually assured destruction kept everyone's fingers off the trigger. When dealing with the terrorists, however, we are in a whole new world, because they don't care who or what we hit in retaliation. All they care about is killing lots of us.
3. How is it that you think that Iraq is worse off than before Saddam? The Kurds certainly aren't. Most of the country is far better off. Baghdad is a violent cesspool, but I imagine that will be cleaned up within the year.
4. The misery of the Iraqis wouldn't have ended with Saddam's death. Besides his too evil sons, there were plenty of generals like Chemical ALi who were ready to take over. The misery would have continued.
As far as the misery in the world, no, we don't have the resources to take on all of it. But when the source of misery is also a threat to the safety of a good portion of the world, I don't see what else is to be done.
In an age of radicals trying to get nuclear weapons, I don't think waiting until we are 100% certain is the best policy, especially since the event that might convince us is the detonation of a nuke in a major American city.
Once again: Saddam was NOT secular. He wrote the Koran in his own blood. Does that sound secular to you?
And you think that Iraq wasn't a threat to the United States? You might want to re-think that. You do know that
Clinton and his entire administration thought Iraq was a thread and said so when they signed the Iraqi Liberation Act which called for regime change.
Two of the 1993 WTC bombers were ultimately captured and had Iraqi passports. Another bomber, Abdul Rahman Yasin, was never captured and took refuge in Iraq. You knew that, right?
Laurie Mylroie charges that global "terror networks" such as bin Laden's al Qaeda are nothing more than decoys, "false flag" operations which provide cover for our real enemies.
Mylroie is a leading expert on Iraq. She has taught at Harvard University and the U.S. Naval War College, and is currently an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. During the 1992 presidential campaign, she advised Bill Clinton on Iraqi affairs.
Former CIA director R. James Woolsey is one of several high-level intelligence officials who have endorsed Mylroie's theory that Iraq masterminded both World Trade Center attacks.
In her book The War Against America, Mylroie notes that James Fox, the FBI official in charge of investigating the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, fingered Iraq as the chief suspect. However, Fox noted that the bombing appeared to be a "false flag" operation -- an attack that is deliberately designed to appear as if someone else did it.
The rank-and-file terrorists involved in the plot were Muslim fanatics from Egypt and Palestine. They were true believers, men who followed orders and asked no questions. In short, they were the perfect patsies.
Former CIA director R. James Woolsey agrees that the 1993 World Trade Center attack bore all the earmarks of "a classic false flag operation," in which the mastermind escaped, while leaving "a handful of Muslim extremists behind to be arrested and take the full blame."
Also in keeping with the "classic" false flag pattern, the mastermind of this attack had little in common with the co-conspirators. His name was Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and he was no Muslim fanatic. Yousef was a professional intelligence operative, indifferent to religion, a dapper dresser, womanizer and dedicated nightclubber, who often cursed like a longshoreman in fluent English when annoyed.
He was also an Iraqi agent, according to Mylroie.
That would be one of the more optimistic assessments I've heard recently. Even the President himself refuses to give a timeline. I notice you didn't mention our Christian brothers and sisters. Have you seen what's been happening to them? Many are fleeing the country. According to one of the bishops, half of Iraqi Christians have fled since 2003. Those remaining are congregating in enclaves for protection. Nothing that results in an increased suffering of Christians is ever a step forward. "Liberating" Muslims at the expense of Christian suffering is not an exercise in which America ought to be involved, in my opinion.
The Baker-Hamilton report was succinct. "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.
I doubt if anyone knows where Iraq will be in one year.
I am more optimistic than you because I read the troop blogs. Yes, the Baker group said things were grave and deteriorating. In Baghdad, things ARE bad. In Kurdistan, things are good. You have to look at the whole country.
Would you judge the whole USA by the situation in South Central Los Angeles?
Are you reading any of the other replies to you above, such as the excellently documented one by Peach?
I've read a variety of conspiracy theories about 9-11.
I won't be rude, but simply will say good night.
Again, I won't be rude, but lets just say that's an .....interesting.....theory.
The whole Islamic world is in an uproar. Terrorism is occurring from Indonesia in the east to America and Europe in the west. Fundamentalism is on the march. Iraq is not the mastermind of this chaos, but it is certainly now caught up in it.
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