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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (1692)	3/23/2003 2:05:31 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 21614

You wrote: "this will be a bloody conflict with a people that don't want us there AT ALL ", which reminded me that in August Lewis Lapham wrote an article in Harpers Magazine wherein he quoted from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War of 415BC. Quite a mouthful, but this excerpt should look eerily familiar as to what is going on this day: In going to Sicily you are leaving many enemies behind you, and you apparently want to make new ones there and have them also on your hands. . . . [E]ven if we did conquer the Sicilians, there are so many of them and they live so far off that it would be very difficult to govern them. It is senseless to go against people who, even if conquered, could not be controlled, while failure would leave us much worse off than we were before we made the attempt. . . . [T]he next best thing is to make a demonstration of our power and then, after a short time, go away again. We all know that what is most admired is what is farthest off and least liable to have its reputation put to the test. . . . The right thing is that we should spend our new gains at home and on ourselves instead of on these exiles who are begging for assistance and whose interest it is to tell lies and make us believe them, who have nothing to contribute themselves except speeches, who leave all the danger to others and, if they are successful, will not be properly grateful, while if they fail in any way they will involve their friends in their own ruin. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it...