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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (465323)	1/16/2012 9:57:02 AM
From: Stan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793968

Is it not the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan that is so formidable to invading armies to render it unconquerable? From what I've read, Rome decided that Wales was too mountainous to continue their campaign throughout that country.

To: skinowski who wrote (465323)	1/16/2012 9:59:04 PM
From: alanrs	2 Recommendations Respond to of 793968

"Every time there is a conflict, there is Fear of Escalation. We are afraid to cause the end of the world." We could have a long conversation about fear. I was reading about the Stoics and Cynics this afternoon while my grandson was snowboarding. There is a lot of fear out and about, of a lot of things. The Stoics and Cynics say "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself", or was that some old English guy. Both actually. "They did this not because they enjoyed killing, but out of a certain understanding of human nature." The Romans had it right. World War II is a perfect example, we killed a whole lot of Germans and Japanese, knocked their countries down to rubble. And then it was over. Germany and Japan are now not at all likely to do that again and are close allies, probably for many generations. How Romanesque of us. Since then we've lacked the will to impose our will, which is what war is about as far as I can tell. We go to war now with no intention of imposing our will, often with a murky idea of what our will even is. I assume somebody knows all of this and yet persists. War has got to be about something, if it's no longer about winning I wonder what it IS about. Makes me want to go reread Eisenhower's farewell address. ARS