Short Stories, Long Odds

Marcus Porcius Cato (for you antiquity buffs out there - Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor) used to punctuate every speech, motion, and point of order on the floor of the Roman Senate with this phrase. It means, basically, “Carthage must be destroyed.” He would append it to every declaration. Imagine.

“We recommend that taxes shall be raised on olive exports and, further, Carthage must be destroyed.”

If you hadn’t guessed, Cato the Elder was the Roman Senate version of Sam Brownback - the first NeoConservative. More Spartan than Roman, he spent the first part of his life pursuing conquest for the Empire, quite unlike today’s hawks; the balance was spent in service to state, applying his strict moral judgment to everything from visiting Greek Ambassadors to how much money women should be allowed to accumulate, from state honors to how many guests could be at a party. He served in the Roman Army as an officer and tribune, fighting in the Second Punic War and at the battle of Thermopylae.

So, nearing the onset of the Third Punic War, again spurring Rome on to the offensive, Cato the Elder hauled his 80-year-old body on to the floor of the Senate and decreed: Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam - Moreover, I recommend that Carthage must be destroyed.

If this feels familiar, it should. The same old song is starting to play again, this time about Iran. I’ve talked about Iran many times here. Seymour Hersh is talking about Iran now because, apparently, Bush And Pals have been talking about Iran for some time.

The march for freedom continues and now the focus in the West Wing, whether you want to admit it or not, is regime change in Iran. I wasn’t sure if it would be Iran or Syria first, but I realize now that the distinction means little - Syria and Iran are teaming up to monkey wrench the works in Iraq, but Iran has a shot at getting the bomb and Syria doesn’t, or at least Syria doesn’t have an infrastructural shot at it. They are basically one and the same, governed by virulently anti-Western fundamentalists. Iran is calling the hand of the West and we, for good or ill, are gearing up to respond.

Israel bears mention, because Israel is going to catch something in all this. They have a habit of pre-emptively striking against anyone that looks at them funny. That’s fine, and within Israel’s purview. They are, after all, surrounded by countries that don’t like them very much, and many times have had to aggressively defend their own borders. This doesn’t mean that Israel is the Wayne Gretzky of the Middle East. They certainly get up to shenanigans all their own.

As a further bit of information, you should know that we’re borrowing an incredible amount of money from China and against our own currency’s futures, and an attack against Iran would raise China’s ire. China buys a lot of oil from Iran. Russia is also a big fan. If China were to call one portion of our debt to them, we would go bankrupt and default on international loans. Defaulting on a loan is one of the major earmarks of political instability within a country. It means bad things for a lot of people.

So that brings me to this: how have we come to be here? The answer, unfortunately, is that we let it happen. We have continually rolled over for our politicians and taken arrow after arrow despite being usually disposed of better sense. The list of problems for the current administration continues to grow, and by the time we’re done its going to make J. Edgar Hoover’s exploits at the FBI look like a cakewalk. You thought Nixon was bad? Or that Reagan was shameless?

The problem with zealots is that they don’t know there’s something wrong with them. When Bush feels like stopping Iran will be his legacy, and that no one other than him will have the courage to do it, well, ok. Guess why we’re drawing down troops in Iraq. Guess why Iran traded all of its international currency holdings for gold. Guess why the surveillance net gets larger in a country now mostly ruled by the paranoid. The drumbeat for war, for the stripping away of civil rights and privacy, is as loud as any have been since Roman times, but for some reason we the people don’t hear it, don’t understand it, or don’t care.

America is not a guarantee. There is no promise written anywhere stating that my kids will get the same America that I got, although it may be a little worse for wear. Our vulnerabilities to external economic forces are trumped only by the danger caused by what we’ve been up to lately. We are in trouble and things don’t seem to be getting better.

A few years ago, I started thinking that I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself. I am possessed of a hard-bitten patriotism and, in my own private way, I see a future for America with the potential to surpass any period in the history of our country. I see that potential, and for the last four years or so, I have watched as that potential has been mortgaged and disregarded. I have watched it happen, and I have complained and hollered and tried to point it out.

Now I’m scared and I’m angry because the hits keep on coming.

There is another Latin sentence which you should think about: Non semper erit aestas.