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

[J Ford]

Oh bugger off, will you!  For pity sake you do the EXACT same thing and yet 
you get on other people's case about it?

What's your philosophy...do as I DEMAND not as I do?

Sheesh!

And just how respectful are you when you call the President "GW"?  Better 
bone up on your manners there a bit.


J  :]





>From: "Pat Kraut" <pkraut at moscow.com>
>To: "vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] What Would George, Abe, and Genghis Have Done?
>Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:09:54 -0800
>
>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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>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
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