There is a letter of dubious authenticity but clear and understandable feeling. The circumstances of the day are not out of line with the contents, but it is so perfectly expressed for our time that one doubts it could be real. Probably it is false; as far as I can tell it dates to a French-language book from the period of the mutiny of the 1er REP of the Foreign Legion. Yet in a way it is more dire if it is a product of our time than of ancient Rome.
"We had been told, on leaving our native soil, that we were going to defend the sacred rights conferred on us by so many of our citizens settled overseas, so many years of our presence, so many benefits brought by us to populations in need of our assistance and our civilisation.It's not just Afghanistan, of course.
"We were able to verify that all this was true, and, because it was true, we did not hesitate to shed our quota of blood, to sacrifice our youth and our hopes. We regretted nothing, but whereas we over here are inspired by this frame of mind, I am told that in Rome factions and conspiracies are rife, that treachery flourishes, and that many people in their uncertainty and confusion lend a ready ear to the dire temptations of relinquishment and vilify our action.
"I cannot believe that all this is true and yet recent wars have shown how pernicious such a state of mind could be and to where it could lead.
"Make haste to reassure me, I beg you, and tell me that our fellow-citizens understand us, support us and protect us as we ourselves are protecting the glory of the Empire. "If it should be otherwise, if we should have to leave our bleached bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware of the anger of the Legions!!"
8 comments:
I read the excerpt in the WSJ last night. Seems it's going to be a mighty cold winter of discontent for Xerxes and his minions if the WSJ's selection is representative of the book.
I mean, is there any possible reason to criticize the president because he injured the rather peripatetic fee-fee of Saint David Petraeus, or to find it unprecedented that a president might wonder whether or not a war he inherited -- and, yes, supported, as a candidate -- wasn't ultimately a futile proposition, or whether his generals were giving him the straight dope. I guarantee you, back in the 1860's, Woodward would have been the go-to stenographer for all those incompetent generals who Lincoln fired. (George McClellan would have loved him.) In the 1950's, Woodward would have been MacArthur's first phone call after Harry Truman canned his ass.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/robert-gates-book-010814
-bc
"Peripatetic"? I suppose he does have a kind of Aristotelian air. But Petraeus doesn't enter into the story here.
The reason to criticize the president is for adopting a strategy he didn't believe in, accepting a military leadership he didn't have faith in, and escalating a war he intended and expected to lose.
As a consequence of that escalation, most of the American men and women killed in Afghanistan have died because of President Obama's orders. Yet he never believed their deaths would accomplish anything, nor did he insist on a new strategy or a new team he had faith in.
Lincoln at least intended to win the war in which he so freely spent American lives. He wasn't sending men to die just to avoid a Democratic victory in the election of 1864. Or a successful primary challenge.
From the link
He writes: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.
Turning foreign policy into domestic politics has long been an attribute of Democrats. In the Senate vote on Gulf War I, only about 5 Democrats voted authorization for the war. That is, about 90% of Senate Democrats voted against Gulf War I.
That was patently turning a foreign policy issue into a domestic one. If a Republican President proposed Gulf War I, it had to be a bad thing, so it was the duty of Democrats to vote against it.
After that, I decided that I would never again vote for a Democratic Party candidate for President. Up to that time, I had voted for Democratic Party Presidential candidates more than for Republicans, though I had also voted third party.
One of the more amusing aspects of this kerfuffle is watching the whiplash as Obama's defenders swing from claiming that Obama "got us out of Iraq" to claiming, "BUT....THIS IS ALL BUSH'S DOING! OBAMA JUST INHERITED IT (before he took credit for it, that is...)".
Afghanistan, of course, was "the good war". The one that Bush underresourced. Obama campaigned on how he was going to change all that. After slamming the Iraq Surge as a bad idea and refusing to admit it had worked out pretty well, he suddenly decided that particular "failed Bush policy" was exactly what was needed in Afghanistan! Then the military had the nerve to tell him how many troops they needed to carry out Obama's Afghan Surge. At which point, Obama proceeded to underresource the effort. Whatever happened to all that "Listen to the Generals!" blather?
Obama's "war of necessity" quickly became the bloodiest part of the Afghan war, and best of all the moron announced our departure date to the Taliban well in advance. And they promptly sat back and waited us out. Duh.
Smart power. It is truly a thing of beauty, or would be if not for all those dead Americans who gave their lives to prop up the President's rapidly diminishing credibility.
I usually don't buy these books, but Gates obviously is pissed, and it will be interesting to see what he has to say.
I doubt Gates has anything to share for profit that I already didn't get for free through the Obama Whispers.
Heh, Xerxes. A strange reference to 300, perhaps.
Obama appears more like the Athenian death panel that sentenced Socrates to death by poison or the Athenian ambitious that got rid of Themistocles.
Petraeus is still a better person than Obama. ALthough that isn't saying much. I lack the direct hostility that many others have towards Petraeus, seeing him as an Obama lackie.
Slightly new prediction. AQ's resurge in Fallujah is primarily due to being funded by Obama in Libya and perhaps even Syria. All those weapons, sold under the table, to topple some pro American dictator that got rid of his WMDs before Saddam did.
Gates got anything on that yet?
Obama's not such a bad guy all in all. I'm sure the Left has even more murderous and sexual orgy making tyrants and dictators ready to replace him.
While reading some of the modern historical rewrites of the Japanese WWII era, from the Japanese perspective, that letter of the Romans sounds really familiar.
Japan too thought it was fighting for Western liberties and to liberate the colonies of East Asia from dominion and slavery.
The people who controlled the Emperor and the politics, however... had no such thing in mind.
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