-- Posted Sunday, 13 April 2003 | Digg This Article
The Greek historian, Plutarch, gives us a sketch of the life of the Roman Consul and General Marcus Crassus. Crassus propelled by enormous greed, was reputed to be the wealthiest man in Rome. His wealth acquisition knew no civil or moral bounds. He amassed large property holdings by means of fire, war and other public calamities much like a modern day lawyer searching the tax delinquent rolls. He owned vast numbers of silver mines and the slaves to work them. He parlayed this wealth into a public standing, was a skilled orator, and a cultured man well read in history and Greek philosophy.
Elected as Consol in 70 BC with Pompey the Great, he became a shrewd but perfectly unscrupulous politician. In 60 BC, under the lead of Julius Caesar, Crassus and Pompey agreed to divide the rule of Rome among them with the formation of the First Triumvirate. Each was given a providence to rule with Caesar to have Gaul, Spain to Pompey, and Syria to Crassus.
Plutarch records, “Crassus now seemed to be transported right out of his senses”. He had no intention of limiting his rule to merely Syria. Longing for military victories on a scale with Pompey and Caesar, he proposed to conquer Parthia (modern Iran) and to even venture as far as India. This drew considerable opposition in Rome from those objecting to making war on people who had done no apparent wrong to Rome and who were bound by a treaty of friendship. After enlisting the help of Pompey to get the expedition underway, Crassus left the seaport of Brundisium amid wintry storms and lost a considerable number of ships. He enjoyed some success at first by occupying some cities in Mesopotamia and wintered in Syria. After stern warnings from Parthian envoys, Crassus began the campaign to take the Parthian capital, Seleucia. Using treachery and by engaging the legions from a safe distance with mounted archers, the Parthians annihilated all but a remnant of the Roman force. Crassus died a horrible death. First, his son was killed battle and his head paraded on a pike. Then, his troops revolted, and insisted that Crassus negotiate a truce with the enemy where he was treacherously killed. His head was cut off, mouth filled with molten gold as a symbol of his greed, and later used as a prop in a tragedy by Euripides. Perhaps the gods allow a man but one vice and Crassus had already used his allotment with his enormous avarice.
Scott McConnell wrote an informative expose in the American Conservative magazine called the Madness of Empire in which he describes the plans dating from 1998 of a newly formed group “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC). Its founders are virtually all the big names in the Bush foreign policy team. A PNAC book, Present Dangers, calls for a “benevolent global hegemony” in five areas of the world. In the Middle East it targets Iraq, Iran, and Syria with regime change, American bases and favorable governments installed.
We have now seen the avarice: with the oil companies swooping into the Iraq oil fields; last week, Rumsfeld remarking gleefully about 3 million barrels per day of oil production and reserves to last over a hundred years; Halliburton receiving a 4 billion dollar uncontested government contract in Iraq; Richard Perle (PNAC) resigning after his conflicts of business interests in the Middle East became known; then signing on to a $725,000 contract with the defunct and fraudulent Global Crossing to negotiate its sale to the Chinese. Surely someone is needed to get government approval for this security breech reminiscent of the Clinton transfer of rocket technology to the Chinese.
And Bush, a man with an uncanny ability to foresee the future, has now launched the country into pre-emptive wars of aggression. It seems all so clear to him. “The terrorist threat to the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed”. And in a Nostradamus moment of clarity, “We are acting now because the risks of inaction would be far greater”. Bill Bonner of Daily Reckoning has a saying for this: “He was seldom right, but never in doubt”.
Plutarch records “ the Parthians had not the least intention of engaging the Romans face to face in regular battle”. No army in the ancient world could match up to the Roman legions in regular battle. We can anticipate the endless struggle in the Middle East will not be fought in conventional terms. One can easily imagine that the Bush visions of the future are about as clear as those of Crassus as he set out to conquer the East.
The Greeks had a wonderful saying, “ For whom the Gods would destroy, they first make crazy”.
-- Posted Sunday, 13 April 2003 | Digg This Article
Historical Roman and American Parallels - For whom the gods would destroy …
