History Repeating
Recently I’ve been really thinking about our (The US as a whole) purpose for fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Officially we are over there for the protection and safety of our nation. The goal being to keep the terrorists from having safe bases and launching points. That’s why we went to war in those countries, and that’s why we are still fighting there.
The goal is valid, and the reasons we went to war are still pressing. And even though many people disagree with the war, if we had it to do over again, I’m sure we would go to war again. We really don’t have a choice if we want to keep living the way we do. So we have to fight this war. No matter how much we may not want to.
The problem is, that we just can’t win it. The only thing we can do is fight the war. We could lose it by quitting, but we can’t ever win it by continuing to fight. So what are we doing? We are fighting a holding action to keep people we see as “modern barbarians” down.
And that has some chilling parallels to history. Specifically the Roman Empire. In the later years of the empire, the majority of the empires military was used almost exclusively the keep barbarian tribes and nations out. Rome worked hard to keep the barbarians weak and disorganized. The barbarians wanted Rome’s land and riches and were a constant threat to Rome’s security. If they remained weak and disorganized, then they couldn’t threaten Rome.
In our case, the “modern barbarians” aren’t interested in our land, but they do want our influence and riches. Western culture is influencing and infecting their societies. Which ultimately threatens their traditions. Furthermore the West(and the US in particular) is rich. Far richer than most of the rest of the world. So they attack us. And our answer to their attacks, is the same as the Roman answer. We attempt to hold them down. To keep them from being able to attack us, we station troops in their nations and territories.
Sure we try to educate them and change their society. We try to make things better for them. But it really isn’t working. Largely because change in their society is one of the reasons why they are fighting us. So the only thing we are really accomplishing is keeping them from having the capability to attack us. The scary thing is, that it didn’t work for Rome, and it is unlikely to work for us. And even worse, none of us can think of anything better to do.
