The U.S. As Obstacle to Human Progress

[19th century abolitionist William Lloyd] Garrison, like Simon Bolivar or Thomas Paine, was a patriot with cosmopolitan aspirations…he always understood emancipation as a ‘universal’ ideal. That he happened to work in the most obdurate slaveholding country in the Americas did not blind him to the progress of abolition elsewhere….only in the United States would the masters resort to warfare rather than negotiate some form of emancipation.” [Henry Mayer, All On Fire, p. 151.]

More than once in its history, its own self-perception notwithstanding, the U.S. has been an obstacle on the road to the improvement of human society.

Jihadis, Then and Now

England had become the milch cow of the Third Crusade. Every pennyt which could be taxed out of the pockets of the unfotunate people, or tithed or extracted by threat or promise, was being accumulated for one purpose only, to provide Richard Coeur de Lion with the most powerful and best equipped army which had ever carried the cross. England could wallow in debt and suffer the most venal government. That was of no consequence.–Thomas B. Costain, The Conquering Family, 174-175

Pathetic, those Medieval people, destroying the nation’s future and the lives of its citizens to satisfy the lust for power and mindless religious fundamentalism of its leaders.

Friendship or Subjugation

Trying to make peace with the North African enemy King Bocchus, Roman officer Lucius Sulla told the king:

“…no friendship is more advantageous than ours: in the first place, because the distance between us will minimize occasions of quarrel, while not diminishing the effectiveness of our support; secondly, because we already have plenty of subjects, whereas neither we nor anyone else ever had enough friends.”–Sallust, The Jugurthine War/The Conspiracy of Catiline (Penguin Classics, pp.138-139)

Violence Begets Violence

The Roman historian Appian had a nice sense of the dynamics by which a cycle of intensifying violence can lead to the destruction of social order. Perhaps our modern advocates of bombing the enemy into submission should take a look at the old histories…

In this way the episodes of civil strife escalated from rivalry and contentiousness to murder, and from murder to full-scale war; and this was the first army composed of Roman citizens to attack their own country as though it were a hostile power. From this point onwards their conflcits continued to be settled by military means and there were frequent attacks on Rome, and sieges, and every sort of incident of war, because nothing remained, neither law, nor political institutions, nor patriotism, that could induce any sense of shame in the men of violence. – Appian, The Civil Wars (Penguin Classics, 33-34)

Those who believe short-term accomplishments justify the establishment of dangerous precedents, take heed.

Cultural Richness

In the “neat phrases from literature” category, I just found this one amusing:

es un oficio bastante malo

An aging and not too health army officer in love with a 19-year-old beauty who also loved him, said this to his beauty in sympathy for her predicament. [Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and Into the Trees, ch 9.]

Like the hero of the novel, we should all speak numerous languages and decide which one is best for expressing which thought, because one size does not fit all.

Who Controls Armed Force?

“Augustus obtained an important privilege, which rendered him master of Rome and Italy. By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorised to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital. His command, indeed, was confined to those citizens who were engaged in the service by the military oath; but such was the propensity of the Romans to servitude, that the oath was voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators, and the equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.” [Gibbons, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I, p.74 (Everyman's Library)]

Leadership

Commenting on the Tsarist military leadership in August 1914, Solzhenitsyn in August 1914, p. 508 (Glenny translation, previously cited) and p. 467 (Avgust chetyrnadstatogo (Paris: YMCA Press, 1971.) noted, “And before [general] Nechvolodov had summed them up, they had summed him up–as an alien and dangerous presence for the very reason that he was not seeking personal advantage and his actions might therefore prove ruinous to his fellow officers.” [И прежде, чем Нечволодов это понял, уже поняли егоЬ как человека, чуждого их среде, опасного тем именно, что не ищет себе пользы и потомы его действия могут быть разрышутельны для сослуживцев.]