[Vision2020] What Would George, Abe, and Genghis Have Done?

[debismith at moscow.com]

Indeed, if his time were the 1955 in which his advisors and supporters live. Unfortunately for 
George, that time has passed, as should military, economic, and social decisions based on a 
world which has moved forward 50+ years. The global situation is far different, the technological 
advancements have changed many things, and the socioeconomics of a world market are far 
different. Yet this administration continues to behave exactly as if they haven't caught up. 
Those who support them likewise are living in a past which created the current state of affairs. 
Those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past....History has not changed, though it 
has been twisted. What was, was. What is, is. Somehow, the current occupant and his 
advisors have confabulated the two, repeating the mistakes, learning nothing, refusing to 
acknowledge reality, and taking their supporters along for the ride into idiocy....
Debi R-S


From:           	"Pat Kraut" <pkraut at moscow.com>
To:             	"vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Date sent:      	Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:09:54 -0800
Subject:        	Re: [Vision2020] What Would George, Abe, and Genghis Have 
Done?

[ Double-click this line for list subscription options ] 

What arrogance to believe that you could possible know what these
people from history would do considering how much history has changed
since they wrote, talked did anything! They were the leaders for their
time....GW is for this time.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill London" <london at moscow.com>
To: <nickgier at adelphia.net>; <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] What Would George, Abe, and Genghis Have
Done?


My thanks to Nick and all those who forward interesting articles like
this one to V2020. For me, V2020 has become an auxilliary newspaper,
with these cherry-picked features BL




----- Original Message ----- 
From: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 11:33 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] What Would George, Abe, and Genghis Have Done?


> December 29, 2006,  10:22 am
> The New York Times
> What Would Genghis Do?
>
> The Los Angeles Times op-ed page convenes a panel of four historians
> to
discuss how a great military leader of the past might have handled the
Iraq war. Joseph Ellis, writing about George Washington, acknowledges
the ridiculousness of the exercise, . . . [but]still takes a stab at
finding a usable history lesson from Washington’s life. He writes: >
>     Like the British decision to subjugate the American colonies,
the Bush decision to democratize Iraq has been misguided from the
start. The administration never appreciated the odds against its
success, and it disastrously confused conventional military
superiority with the demands imposed on an army of occupation. > >    
No man in American history understood those lessons better than
Washington, who viewed them as manifestations of British imperial
arrogance, which he described as “founded equally in Malice,
absurdity, and error.” If dropped into Baghdad, he would weep at our
replication of the same imperial scenario. > > Harold Holzer, the
author of “Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech that Made Abraham
Lincoln President,” finds the lessons easier to draw. He writes: > >
    So what might Lincoln do today? > >     First, focus on the real
enemy: terrorists. When advisors suggested he start a war with England
merely to woo patriotic Southerners back into the Union, Lincoln
replied: “One war at a time.” He also rejected adventurism against
French-controlled Mexico. Today Lincoln would fight only the war that
needs fighting. > >     Second, embrace flexibility. Seek the right
generals, strategies, troop levels and weaponry, and be willing to
change course and personnel swiftly. > >     Third, communicate
objectives with frequency, passion and precision. No one can match
Lincoln’s eloquence, but no president should abandon Lincoln’s
commitment to engage the public. > >     Fourth, spend more time at
the front. Lincoln visited the troops often, absorbing their pain and
boosting their morale. Maybe his case was better, but his manner of
symbolizing it was best. > >     Finally, abandon the notion of divine
will to justify war. Even the pious Lincoln came to realize it was
fruitless, even sacrilegious, to invoke God as his ally. “In great
contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of
God,” he lamented. “Both may be, and one must be, wrong.” As
Lincoln understood: “The Almighty has his own purposes.” > >
Adrian Goldsworthy, author of “Caesar: Life of a Colossus,”
suggests that Julius Caesar would have won the war but that the United
States might not prefer to have Caesar in charge. After all, “He
left Gaul to make war on his own country.” > > But if not Caesar,
how about Genghis Khan? Jack Weatherford, author of “Genghis Khan
and the Making of the Modern World,” thinks the Mongol empire
wasn’t as tyrannical as it is remembered. Weatherford writes: > >   
 The Mongols spared anyone with a craft, such as carpentry, writing,
pottery, weaving or metal working. They fiercely enforced religious
freedom, which created an essentially secular state. In Baghdad, they
gave many of the caliph’s palaces to Mongol allies for more
practical uses. They lowered taxes for merchants and eliminated them
for religious, medical and educational professionals. They educated
women along with men. For all subjects, they instituted harsh laws
enforced equally under nearly incorruptible officials. > >    
Fundamentalist Muslims look back at Mongol secularism as a scourge.
But, although U.S. rule in Iraq has produced a constant flow of
refugees, particularly religious minorities, out of the country, under
Mongol rule Christian, Muslim, Jewish and even Buddhist immigrants
poured into the newly conquered Iraq to live under the Great Law of
Genghis Khan. It was said that during this time a virgin could cross
the length of the Mongol Empire with a pot of gold on her head and
never be molested. > >     By the time of the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq, the political achievements of the Mongols had been forgotten,
and only the destructive fury of their wars was remembered. Yet under
the Mongols — and the legacy of Genghis Khan — Iraq enjoyed a
century of peace and a renaissance that brought the region to a level
of prosperity and cultural sophistication higher than it enjoyed
before or after. Any country with a bent for empire could do worse
than learn from Genghis Khan. > > > >
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