This is a very long American article. It starts with how Sparta famous for having mastered the art of war had a few rules. Countries like the USSR, US and Israel have failed to learn from history.
I'm not a historian or particularly erudite but I could see before the Iraq invasion how things were going to go. I still don't know whether they are just that dumb or they have some ulterior motives that I'm too stupid to see. It cannot be just for oil, there could have been less expensive and bloody ways to guarantee an oil supply.
They have certainly managed to break all three of Sparta's war principles and that, as history teaches us, is very dangerous.
The madness started a long time ago. Perhaps, as Israel's invasion empowers the very organizations it was supposed to destroy, and as America's invasion of Iraq draws us closer to a systemic breakdown, and as our repeated attacks teach the world's military small fry how to drive mighty armies to despair, perhaps now a growing universal disgust will bring an end to the sickness of the quick, convenient military solution. We would have done well to adopt the Spartan injunctions, or some version of them: 1) don't let your enemies become too familiar with you, 2) beware invading a people who considers itself freer without you than with you, and above all, be cautious in wishing for war as you might get what you wish for.
How ironic and tragic that even one of the most successful and highly militaristic states in history actually can teach us today about humility and the judicious use of force, when it is we who should be looking back at them and shaking our heads at their single-minded barbarism. And yet it is we who are making the Spartans look good.
