Went to see "300" on the weekend, which probably helped trigger my "War as Spectator Sport" post yesterdsay. My verdict? Interesting fusion of Japanese style with greek stuff, but personally I wasn't a big fan. Not for the reasons that Matt "I wish America was erased from history, and dig that cool hipster Ahmedinejad" Yglesias and the rest of his ilk might offer, though. Mostly, I thought the film treatment too often got in the way of the real thing's innate excellence. Hollywood dudes, when you feel like messing with this stuff, remember: there's a reason these stories are all-time classics. Remember, also: you haven't written any. Frank Miller, love a lot of your stuff; "The Dark Knight Returns" was something special, but...
Steven Pressfield's masterpiece book "Gates of Fire" beats this treatment by several country miles, and will make a way better movie if Universal get off their asses and gives it even a decent script treatment. There's a reason that an awesome combat leader like Col. Kurilla asked for a Bible and Gates of Fire after he had been shot. Kurilla also demanded that every one of his officers read it upon joining the unit.
Still, "300" is doing big box office, the critics be damned. There's a message in there somewhere, but I'm not going to figure it out. Instead, here's a bunch of real history resources re: Sparta, Xerxes, the war, and Greek combat bad-assery....
- Spartan World. Steven Pressfield: "My friend Paul Houston in England has put together Sparta World, a work-in-progress website for Spartaphiles and aficionadoes of all things Spartans. The site is interesting in and of itself (and constantly evolving) and also a great jumping-off point and clearinghouse for re-enactor groups, hoplite fighters, artists, writers, and all other contemporary upholders of the Lakedaemonian tradition and ethos -- and just for the fun of it. Paul invites all interested groups and individuals to contact him, link to the site, and network with their "Peers."
- Ancient History Sourcebook: 11th Brittanica: Sparta. Fine overview of Sparta's rise and fall - a fall occasioned at least in part by inequality of wealth.
- See above, which notes that Sparta has 2 kings at all times. Leotychidas II his half-brother was the other king when Leonidas died at Thermopylae.
- The Ephors were elected officials with the strictest term limits - 1 year term, once in your life, if you're eligible. Not deformed priests. What a dumb, unnecessary story insert.
- The Spartan council is 28 men over 60 (the age at which you end military service, and well beyond average life expectancy), plus the 2 kings = 30. All members elected for life.
- An argument that Sparta was Greece's first democracy. It was more of an oligarchy with royal generalship, IMO, but read and decide.
- Crude map of the battle area. Note that there's more land there if you go visit today... a tourist franchise I'd sure like to have right now.
- Herodotus' description the battle. Mr H is the #1 source. Which includes a key prophecy that was way more important, and cooler, than the BS they shoved in the movie instead. This is what Sparta was told by the Oracle of Delphi. Many think it's why the 300 went - and why Leonidas stayed in place with his Spartans to die covering the Greeks' retreat, after dismissing the remaining allies once he knew the pass was turned:
"O ye men who dwell in the streets of broad Lacedaemon!
Either your glorious town shall be sacked by the children of Perseus,
Or, in exchange, must all through the whole Laconian country
Mourn for the loss of a king, descendant of great Heracles.
He cannot be withstood by the courage of bulls nor of lions,
Strive as they may; he is mighty as Jove;
there is nought that shall stay him,
Till he have got for his prey your king, or your glorious city."
Note that the idea of a Spartan king falling in battle was the kind of statement the would elicit a "she can't be serious, that doesn't happen" sort of reaction.
- Herodotus' twenty-second logos: Thermopylae. And a lot of commentary.
- The traitor Ephialtes was a local of the area, not a deformed Spartan. What's Miller's deal with deformity, anyway?
- My sweetie wondered why an armed Leonidas didn't just skewer Xerxes during the parley and end the war. I would have, but Xerxes didn't go talk to armed enemies directly - he sent envoys, or brought you to him without weapons and with guards in between. But the Spartans did apparently have a go at the emperor - there are several accounts of a night attack on the Persian camp, which contained at least 46 different ethnicities armed with different stuff and speaking different languages. Just imagine the command nightmare, and so it's a perfect environment for that kind of tactic. Besides, what had they to lose? Accounts diverge on whether it was a small raiding party, or all 600 or so warriors (mostly Spartan and Thespian) who remained behind as a rear guard after they knew the pass had been turned. Anyway, didn't work. Good try, though.
- The total Greek force at Thermopylae was around 4,000. As for Sparta, they sent 300 Spartans, plus 700 allied Lacadaemonians from the nearby states they controlled in the Peloponesian League. 300 wasn't an unusual number to send, either - the Spartans were part of the Hellenic League/ Corinthian League, which contained 31 Greek polis' out of several hundred. All of them had agreed on war already, and given the Spartans battle command. Many sent similar numbers, or fewer. To make things worse, many Greek city-states had offered the king of Persia earth and water in submission - but Sparta and Athens had indeed thrown the Persian Empire's messengers into pits, and invited them to gather some themselves.
- Athens pretty much had to do that, since they knew the invasion was in part aimed very specifically at them. Digression: Athens' problem was that about 28 years back, during a period of political instability amidst an Athens-Sparta spat (not that one - The Peloponesian War comes some time after Thermopylae), a delegation had offered earth and water in submission to Persia as a way of protecting themselves. But things changed, and Athens won some skirmishes, and who had authorized those guys anyway? So they essentially withdrew their pledge. Then, to make it worse, Athens sent naval ships a few years later to aid Greek revolts on what is now Turkey's Aegean coast. To the Persians, this was deceit of the worst kind. Xerxes' role as Ahura-Mazda's servant was to represent Truth/Light against the Lie/Darkness. Liars must be punished. Liars must not beat the servants of truth. But they had, at Marathon. His father had passed the job of making all this right on to him. Making things right meant crushing Athens, no matter what they said this time. Athens knew this.
- Herodotus.co.uk offers "A Commentary on Xerxes," which is really some of the larger background around Thermopylae, and the critical follow-on naval battle at Artemisium. Which sets up the famous naval battle of Salamis, in which Athens is saved (the Persian Empire burned it down but could not keep it).
- Here's how the Persian Empire's Grand Army worked. Tons of guys, many of questionable usefulness, still need food, water and gear. Every day. And don't forget all the slaves, concubines, entertainers, and other detritus. But a force that big can never "live off the land" as it goes. Hence the merchant ships who supply them. But the merchant ships must be protected, or the whole army starves. Hence the warship fleet of triremes. But triremes aren't stable, and must be beached at night like uber-canoes. Hence the big honkin' army to secure beach-heads as they go, tied to the sea from which their supplies come. Any one component fails, and everything fails. That's why the Persians keep having to go home, and come back a few years later. And why Salamis was the end for the Grand Army, though a sizeable force by Greek standards remained behind until dealt with at Plataea.
- Historians disagree as to the Grand Army of the Persian Empire's size; Herodotus gives figures in the millions, many serious historians say between 250,000 - 500,000. There were about 46 different ethnicities present as detachments. When a guy like Xerxes asks his slaves for troops (and his satrap governors were so described, let alone his subjects), not sending enough is a good way to get in trouble. Trouble is usually fatal. So, beaucoup troops gathered from all over an empire that reached into Arab lands, Central Asia, and the doorstep of India. There was also a grander political element to the concept, in that each contingent could go back home and tell their people about being part of this really, big, honkin' army. The idea was that it would offer them a comprehensible representation of the empire, and also of how unwise it would be to fight it. Doesn't make for maximum military effectiveness, though. Just imagine trying to give even simple orders to that crew.
- Xerxes was coming for all of Greece, hence the general demands of submission to all and sundry. Not to mention the big, honkin' army. The Persians weren't the monsters portrayed, and kept their huge empire together with a smart and tactful system. But Xerxes is the guy who reportedly had the ocean whipped as punishment when a storm broke his pontoon-bridge across the Hellespont (strait between the Black Sea and Aegean). Any Spartan king who gave such an order would have been removed, but of course the "divine" Persian kings were bound by nothing at all. The Rule of Law was a huge difference between the Greek states and Persia, even more so than freedom.
There's also the story of the Persian noble who asked Xerxes to allow his youngest son to stay behind in Persia. Xerxes, unamused, agreed - and the Grand Army marched out through his remains, half of which sat on each side of the road.
The whole Ahura-Mazda bit about always telling the truth... probably stopped at the god-emperor's doorstep, if you were smart.
- The Immortals. Opinions differ and sources are sketchy, but most agree that they were probably an elite royal guard, likely composed of Persian nobles (who were a distinct minority in their empire). Some say there were always 10,000, with new recruits added to replace any losses. Hence immortal as a corps. They would most likely be better-looking than average, not deformed or with teeth filed. No idea whether they wore masks. I'll go out on a limb and say "probably not Japanese ninja-style ones like the movie," but it would have been an effective approach and in keeping with the theme of the unit. Some believe the Immortals and the elite "Apple Bearers" (so named due to counterweighted spears with a ball on the butt-end) contingent that Alexander the Great encountered were one and the same.
- If you want an excellent analysis of why and how Xerxes failed, and much more besides, read "The Anatomy of Error: Major Military Disasters and Their Lesson for Modern Strategists" by Barry K Strauss and Josiah Ober. Fantastic book, see esp. the chapter covering Rome's Jugurthine Wars - but really, read the whole thing.
- Turns out there is another fusion of Japanese and Greek out there. The International Hopology Society. They study combat and societies, and were founded by Major Donn F Draeger (USMC Ret., 1922-1982), who took up permanent residence in Japan in the mid-1950s. Astoundingly, he gained membership to the Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai (Japan's oldest cultural organization for the study and preservation of classical martial arts and ways). Draeger then founded the International Research Section (IRS) of the Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai to make these studies available beyond Japan, and in the 1960s he gave it an international focus and changed the title to the International Hoplological Research Center. In the 1990s, they were a major adviser to Steven Pressfield re: Greek hoplite warfare.
- And of course, no treatment of the 300 would be complete without David Blue's treatise on heroism: "Achilles Last Stand: The Primal Heroic Response." It's easy to watch heroes... but what does it take to BE one? David has some answers.
The March of the 10,000
Finally, note that Greek bad-assery was not limited to Spartans. I commend to you another classic, Xenophon's March of the 10,000, otherwise known as "Anabasis," or the "March Up Country." The story? 11,000 Greek hoplite mercenaries get hired by Cyrus the Younger in 401 BC, about 80 years after Thermopylae. He wants them to fight in a civil war against his brother Ataraxerxes II. They march to Cunaxa in... well, today it would be Iraq, and fight. Cyrus the Younger's side wins! Cyrus is killed in the fight. Oops.
Negotiations are held with representatives of Ataraxerxes II, so everyone can go home now. The Persians demand the hoplite's weapons. They tell the Persians to "Molon Labe" (in a more polite way) :
"It was now about full market hour when heralds from the king and Tissaphernes arrived. These were barbarians with one exception. This was a certain Phalinus, a Hellene who lived at the court of Tissaphernes, and was held in high esteem. He gave himself out to be a connoisseur of tactics and the art of fighting with heavy arms. These were the men who now came up, and having summoned the generals of the Hellenes, they delivered themselves of the following message: "The great king having won the victory and slain Cyrus, bids the Hellenes to surrender their arms; to betake themselves to the gates of the king's palace, and there obtain for themselves what terms they can." That was what the heralds said, and the Hellenes listened with heavy hearts... After him Theopompus3 the Athenian spoke. "Phalinus," he said, "at this instant, as you yourself can see, we have nothing left but our arms and our valour. If we keep the former we imagine we can make use of the latter; but if we deliver up our arms we shall presently be robbed of our lives. Do not suppose then that we are going to give up to you the only good things which we possess. We prefer to keep them; and by their help we will do battle with you for the good things which are yours."
A parley is invited. The Greek generals attend, and are murdered. The troops say "f@#$ this!", elect new leaders, then vote to burn their baggage train and fight their way home to Greece. From Iraq. Through the Persian Empire.
In under 2 years, they do exactly that. Later, a guy named Alexander hears this story, loves it, and thinks "Hmmm....."
Good article. I saw 300 this weekend as well. It was just what it was. A movie about a comic book. It was shot frame by frame to look like one comic book frame after another. Stylistically it easy interesting. It was a perfect piece of adolescent fantasy.
The racism was rampant. The Demonizing of the Persians was ridiculous and how anyone could get a message of any consequence out of this is beyond me. Unfortunately, this kind of comic book view of the world seems to be shared by the Neo Cons.
As far as "The Anatomy of Error: Major Military Disasters and Their Lesson for Modern Strategists" is concerned, I think the 8th and last chapter, "No Second Alexander: Why Julian's Persian Expedition Failed" is the most germane to our present situation. They sum up Julian's failings as follows;
"...intellectuals and experts thought themselves impervious to the dangers of which others warned."
Racism against who? Aryans?
Joe,
Great post, especially as it makes a subject that few study today accessible and, dare I say, interesting. One nit to pick, however, triremes usually beached at night but not for the reason you state. There's actually two reasons, the ships (especially the Athenian variety) were basically giant rowing shells. 150 rowers, 30 assorted Marines and crew if I recall correctly. On a 40 ton craft, there wasn't much room for extra stuff. They had to beach to rest and eat. The second reason was the lack of a truly waterproof sealant. The ships rapidly became waterlogged as seen in the final acts of the Athenian siege of Syracuse in 413.
Last, there was a good article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a couple days ago
March 25, 2007
Lessons Of 'The 300'
A society that does not value its warriors will be destroyed by one that does
By Jack Kelly
A low-budget movie with no recognized stars that presents a cartoonish version of an event that happened long ago and far away is a surprising box office hit.
The movie is "The 300," about the battle in 480 B.C. at Thermopylae between Greeks and Persians. Its opening grossed more than $70 million, more than the next 10 highest grossing movies playing that weekend combined.
"The 300" has been denounced by the government of Iran, and the battle it describes was cited by former Vice President Al Gore in his congressional testimony Wednesday as inspiration for Americans to fight global warming. That's a lot of buzz.
"The 300" has plenty of violence, sex and the largest number of ripped abdomens ever seen on the silver screen, which doubtless counts for much of its appeal. But there is more to it than that.
"The 300" is a simple story of good versus evil. A handful of valiant Spartan warriors, inspired by love of country and love of liberty, fight to the death against a foreign oppressor. (Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.)
The reality is more complicated. The contemporary society Sparta most closely resembled was Nazi Germany. The actual 300 were more like the Waffen SS than the Minutemen. The Persian was the most benign of ancient empires. Its founder, Cyrus the Great, is praised in the Bible for having freed the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.
The Persians had reasons to be peeved with the Greeks. Some 20 years before, ethnic Greeks in what is now western Turkey revolted. Athens sent troops to help them. They sacked the provincial capital of Sardis, killing thousands of noncombatants.
The Ionian revolt was quelled, but King Darius' efforts to punish the Athenians came a cropper in 490 B.C. when a Persian force of 25,000 was routed on the plains of Marathon by a Greek force less than half its size.
Darius was succeeded by his son, Xerxes, who was determined not to make Dad's mistake of sending too few troops. He assembled an army of 250,000 men and a navy of 6,000 ships. To oppose them, the Greeks had an army of about 10,000 commanded by King Leonidas of Sparta, and a navy of 380 ships, commanded by the Athenian statesman Themistocles.
Leonidas made his stand at Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass which prevented Xerxes from bringing his vastly superior numbers to bear. But a traitor showed the Persians a path through the mountains behind them. Leonidas learned of the treason in time to get most of his troops out of the trap. But he, his 300 Spartans and about 1,100 soldiers from Thespia and Thebes chose to remain, to fight to certain death.
Leonidas' last stand didn't prevent the sack of Athens. (It was Themistocles' naval victory at Salamis a month later that forced the Persians to withdraw.) But it made for a great legend, which is why Leonidas is better known to history than is Themistocles, a fascinating figure who was a combination of Winston Churchill and Lord Nelson.
Despite its oversimplifications, "The 300" is good history. The three battles of which Thermopylae is the most famous marked one of the greatest turning points in world history. Had the Persians succeeded, democracy would have been strangled in its crib, and the Hellenization of the ancient world never would have occurred. We may never have known Plato, Aristotle or Euclid.
"The 300" is soaked with the masculine virtues of courage, honor, patriotism and self-sacrifice, and the camaraderie that exists among fighting men who have been through a shared ordeal. These are little valued in Hollywood or contemporary society, and there is a hunger for them. This, I think, is the key to the movie's appeal.
We need to rediscover these virtues. At once the most preposterous and the most dangerous of contemporary beliefs is "nothing was ever settled by violence."
A cursory reading of history makes it clear that virtually every important development in the history of mankind has been, for good or ill, a product of violence. Every empire that's ever arisen rose by force. Islam was spread by the sword. Christianity is a religion which preaches (and often practices) turning the other cheek. But the Christianization of Europe got its jump start at the Milvian bridge, and was preserved from Islamic conquest at Tours, Lepanto and Vienna. The United States, the most pacific of great nations, was born in revolution.
It is the soldier, not the priest, who protects freedom of religion; the soldier, not the journalist, who protects freedom of speech. History teaches that a society that does not value its warriors will be destroyed by a society that does.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio.
What, a mention of a movie and a discussion of the actual history around "300", and a mention of Anabasis, without a corresponding mention the movie inspired by that historical event, The Warriors ?
I'm looking for a good translation of the Anabasis, any recommendations? Websites are good, but I want something I can read at the gym.
Since we're talking about history books, may I recommend Persian Fire by Tom Holland? It's an account of the Greco-Persian wars, including Thermopylae and all the others. He also goes into the founding of the Persian empire, and the founding of democracy in Greece. It's a good read, very informative.
It's a misnomer to indicate Salamis forced the Persians to retreat. Xerxes left certainly, but his army under Mardonius remained for another year with perhaps 300,000 men, even burning Athens again and shovelling dirt over the rubble. It wasnt until the Battle of Plataea that the Persian main force was routed in one of the most lopsided slaughters of military history.
300 certainly gave an inexcuseably short shrift to Salamis, which is too bad. Thermopylae made Salamis possible by delaying the march of the Persian army for 7 days, to which the fleet was tied. Had that battle taken place earlier it is very likely the tricky good timing that allowed Aristides to join Themistocles and the allied navies together and fight the Persians with the perfect tide after a sleepless night wouldnt have come off. Its one of those rows of domino type things.
Again, reviews weren't horrible, only decent. Which sounds more or less your feelings were on this too Katz. My wife is avoiding Miller after 'Sin City' (can't totally blame her...), and my Boston drinking budies aren't interested in going. So I'll probably wait for it on DVD.
I am usually quite inflexible with either science or history facts, but I found the film inspiring for today's people (beyond the obvious female & gay public). I think the movie is well balanced and I liked it.
Personally my biggest regret is against meteorological questions: I missed the Mediterranean sunlight.
Mark (#6) You're right that a Persian Empire army remained behind, and that compared to the Greek forces, it was considerable. "3 to 1 odds... not bad for Greeks!" And all that.
But it wasn't the Grand Army, it was a small remnant of it. The Grand Army was indeed finished, as one more naval loss by the warships = open season on the merchantmen, which would = starvation and death for most of the Grand Army. Think Napoleon's retreat from Russia, folks, but worse. So Xerxes left what he was prepared to risk - and lost what he risked, since the Persians never found a tactical answer to Greece's armored hoplites. Indeed, for various reasons, quite a few of which were connected to their absolutist system, they NEVER found that answer.
Fascinating, lengthy, and multifaceted review of "300" here by 'Michael Blowhard' of 2blowhards.com. Some good comments, too.
TOC (#1), your reading choices are good ones. Your understanding of your political opponents... not so good, descends into comic book style itself.
You may believe them to be wrong, and argue on that basis - but the one thing you can't credibly say is that their view of the world is shallow. Right or wrong, it's certainly a hell of a lot more thought-out what anything we're seeing from the disorganized and crooked crew across the aisle. And it sure beats the Brent Scowcroft idea of "go back to depending on my (unstable) employers the Saudis, while they export hate and terrorism around the world."
The correct approach is increasingly looking like "none of the above." But understanding that requires an understanding of the flaws in the neoconservative position. Which first requires a rigorously correct statement of that position. As opposed to a comic book approach.
A topic for another thread, though. Let's keep the focus of this on the Spartans, and the sourcebooks. I recommend reading ALL chapters of "The Anatomy of Error," so readers - read both sections and decide for yourselves.
Tyrian:
Well that rules out Loeb Classical Library - the Cadillac of Xenophon, but available in hardcover only, I think. You don't want to be spotted at the gym reading a hardcover book. Not unless you're really into Spartans.
Get thee to a Borders and you'll find a ton of paperback translations. Anabasis is often used as a text for beginning Greek students because of Xenophon's straight-forward style, so there are lots of translations and if you get too picky the guys at the gym are going to start shoving you into the lockers.
J Aguilar (#8) I'm sure it's very inspiring to the gay public. I wonder which small country's production of body oil the film optioned.... Anyway, Gen. Pace is entitled to his personal opinion - but he may wish to reflect on the fact that Sparta did just fine on the battlefield, and that their most famous setback after Thermopylae included being, as one Winds reader put it, "out-gayed by the Theban Sacred Band."
I also suspect that Queen Gorgo's character, much as it got in the way of the movie, is the capstone piece that turned this film from "nice bods" to "love it" for many women. Demographics over story, but I have to admit - her character was cool.
Personally, I prefer Pressfield's Arete, Dienekes' wife: even tougher and even more independent, but also more human. Hopefully, folks will either read Gates of Fire, or Universal will keep her in the movie, and people will get to see what I mean.
Snowflake (#3). I like Jack Kelly - but Sparta was NOT Nazi Germany, or anything close.
For starters, Sparta had a rule of law to which the king was subject. Something that distinguished it very sharply from its contemporary in Persia, as well, where everyone was Xerxes' slave. Leonidas had Spartan "Peers." Much more than just a semantic distinction there.
Sparta trained you and that training included Spartan values, but they did not demand that you follow a comprehensive party line on every minor thing. It was a harsher and more focused example of a normal state for its time, but blurring the distinction between such states and the 20th century inventions of totalitarianism obscures many of the key distinctions that make those totalitarianisms so especially virulent and evil.
This is one of those holdovers from the Cold War, where the whole Athena-Sparta dichotomy was brought into the debate (with the West as Athens) and so Sparta took on a tinge it does not deserve. It had real faults and issues that destroyed it in the end, and surely those are enough.
If you want a REAL example of proto-totalitarianism from the Greek age, you have to read Plato's Republic. from which one can, in fact, trace in lineal intellectual descent waypoints like the French Revolution, as well as key totalitarian/politicist thinkers like Marx, Lenin, and Mussolini.
Other than that, Kelly had some good points... part of our way out as a civilization is indeed to promote the very virtues he cites.
I'm glad "300" is having some success, therefore. I just think "Gates of Fire," which has been optioned to Universdal Pictures for some time now, does it way, way better.
Glen, guys aren't allowed in the locker room, so this isn't really a worry for me...If Loeb is the Cadillac, I'll start with that one. That it's hardcover is a bonus, because it will rest easier on the read-out panel. Thanks!
#11 from Joe Katzman
Thanks for the compliment on my reading sources. I have read a ton of stuff by the neo Cons and it is a comic book mentality. It is not very subtle. It sees things in black and white and it is extremely uninformed from an altitude below 30,000 feet. My biggest thing against this coterie of blunderers is that they are not conservative.
Chapter 8 is a perfect mirror of our fiasco in Mesopotamia.
TOC -- I think in a few short years you will long for the Neo Con gambit, that overthrowing tyrants could jump-start modernity in the Middle East.
The process of propping up dictators had obviously failed, see 9/11. So had "realism" and "deals" and "peace initiatives" etc. All failed since 1972 (when Arafat ordered kidnapped US diplomats murdered in the Sudan and the US fearfully covered it up to preserve Arafat as a "partner for peace" ..).
Because the alternatives to the Neo Cons are brutally ugly:
1. Drifting and not responding to aggression till we lose a city and MUST respond by killing a nation or two (otherwise we will simply lose more cities).
2. Employing ala Putin mercenaries to wage wars on their own people, see Chechnya, with no limitations whatsoever. As Putin said after Beslan, the weak get beaten and we were weak. Thus his program of being "strong" the corollary which is killing all domestic critics. See Alexander Litivenko or the NBC analyst shot outside his home.
To sum up, partying like's it 1999 only results in the loss of US cities and a counter-response that kills nations. The other alternative is a brutal repression with mercenaries.
Neo-cons look a lot better to me. They at least tried something to avoid wholesale slaughter. Grozny makes Baghdad look like Switzerland.
#17 from Jim Rockford at 4:47 am on Mar 28, 2007
Well, I can understand how you feel about the Neo Cons since your comic book view of the world coincides with theirs.
Destruction of U.S. cities, killing a nation or two, employing ala Putin mercenaries, the only other alternative is brutal repression with mercenaries.
It is all that simple and the choices are all that extreme. This is exactly what is wrong with Neo Con foreign policy. I is a muddleheaded, over simplification of the world that finds its basis in fear. WE are not the Russians. Chechnya is not Iraq.
The expeditionary force sent to Mesopotamia is ineffective, because it lacks direction. The Neo cons had a policy in Iraq that amounted to our invading, being treated as conquering heroes, setting up a government and making Iraq a democratic beacon in the ME.
The reality is that they had no idea about Iraqi society, grossly underestimated the political and ethnic fissures there, put us in a position where we are supporting the Kurds in opposition to our long standing allies, the Turks and the minority Shiites against the majority Sunni in the Arab world, enhanced the power of Iran, seriously strained our relations with Western Europe, emboldened our enemies, etc.
"I think in a few short years you will long for the Neo Con gambit, that overthrowing tyrants could jump-start modernity in the Middle East."
I don't think so.
Joe:
Great post, and thanks for the numerous literary references!
Precisely. Then again, I can't imagine there's any real stomach for producing the kind of movie about Thermopylae that I'd like to see, in today's adult-child Hollywood culture. It may have always been thus. Plato warned against taking actors and epicureans too seriously over two thousand years ago.
I honestly can't think of what "none of the above" would be. I mean, I don't think one needs to precisely follow the PNAC critical path, but I just don't see how we get out of this mess without expanding the franchise for liberal government all-but universally. The ability of small disguntled groups alienated by authoritarian regimes steeped in anti-liberal sentiment to exercise a "veto through mass-destruction" will only grow, not diminish. I'm not even sure that the expansion of liberalism will do the trick, but as far as I can tell it's the only game in town. And absent a credible threat of force even bribery wouldn't work...
And by the way, the opposition of our so-called "liberal left" to the expansion of liberalism reveals its not-so-liberal character. Jonah Goldberg is said to be working on a book that reveals the fascistic origins of the modern multi-culti left. The idea makes intuitive sense. And the same virus made it's way into the Arab world at around the same time...
It's also possible to lose the imperceptible strain of insight that connects ancient and modern conceptions of the ummah. The way I see it a charismatic-oriented society (as opposed to a society led by a charismatic individual) simply wasn't as dangerous in a world that lacked some of the critical technology to impose totalitarianism. But the Spartans pushed it about as far as was possible in that constrained environment.
Again, perhaps the critical insight isn't so much about totalitarianism as about a dialectic between rational-oriented and charismatic societies that could inform our growing dilemma.
#19 from Demosophist at 6:56 pm on Mar 28, 2007
Great follow-up post.
Yes, hopefully, Joe Katzman (#13)
BTW, I've been hearing this week comments such as I am sure they were not just 300 , That is simply a legend , etc from acquaintances leaning toward left. I think the message that three hundred free men can tacke hundreds of thousands of slaves has been transmitted loud and clear and the average person easily gets it, even though for some of them is a bit itchy!
I consider this a great success of all the people involved in the production of '300', which may become even greater if the interest toward those episodes of the triumph of the Western Civilization increases.
Saw 300 a second time this weekend, and I think I "got" it with the second viewing. To complain about its historical inaccuracies or about it being over the top is like complaining that "Miracle on 34th Street" doesn't tell the historical story of the real Saint Nicholas. True, but completely beside the point.
Miller & the film-makers weren't trying to tell us "how it was". They were trying to tell us HOW A SPARTAN STORYTELLER WHO SURVIVED THE BATTLE would have recounted the tale prior to the Battle of Plataea. The exaggerations and omissions make perfect sense once you realize that point.
More of my thoughts on this are here.
Coming late to the party (or at least thread), but good read, and excellent comments.
One question: TOC, your disdain for "neo-con" policies is evident, and you obviously see the world in a very subtle, complex, and sophisticated fashion. Clearly nothing is as it seems to those of us who look at a rock and see a rock.
What, pray tell, is the "solution" to the mess in Mesopotamia that doesn't involve complete capitulation and dhimmitude for the West?
If the US leaves Iraq tomorrow, is that a good or bad thing? Could you share your powerful analytic capabilities and insight to share with us the consequences of this?
Should the US become isolationist, to prevent the corruption of the world, because the US is clearly the worlds more corrupt, vile and evil empire known in all your extensive travels of historical literature?
Let's be frank; kvetching without offering an alternative solution is simply mental masturbation. Something the Democrats have been doing for a long time, as well as most "liberals" (how I love that fallacy of that label). for a long time.
Propose a plan, support it, and defend it in the market place of free ideas, and I might be swayed to support you. But bitching about "...black and white view of neo-cons..." without an alternative proposal is getting real old...