[Fwd: Iraq Dispatches: Inside Abu Hanifa mosque during attack]

[James E. Henderson]

Lan Barnes wrote:

>On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 09:40:22PM -0800, James E. Henderson wrote:
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>>The Roman Republic (res publica, the thing of the people) lasted about 
>>1,200 years; the Roman Empire that followed it lasted about 1,500 years. 
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>I may be splitting hairs here (I'm re-reading Gibbon, so I'm thinkin'
>about this stuff), but I see a significant and important difference
>between empire (one country ruling one or more others w/o
>representation) and a kingdom/constitutional dictatorship (one person
>ruling without any checks or balances and some accepted method of
>succession). The two are frequently mixed (USSR, the Roman Empire after
>Augustus) but are not necessarily the same (England, pre-Caesar Rome, us
>right now, although who knows where we're headed).
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>I think both empires and kings are a Bad Idea, but for different
>reasons.
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For the time, place and circumstances, the Roman Empire was a good 
solution to the developing conditions. As such, I would call it a Good 
Idea ... but conditions have changed, making it no longer workable.

>>Our country has been around for about 215 years. Iraq under Saddam was 
>>about the same as Mesopotamia under Gilgamesh 8,000 years ago. They seem 
>>to prefer a strong leader.
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>This is one of the few places where I do believe that things have
>changed. I might posit (James, you'd be better at remarking in this)
>that the evolution of historical currents seems to be accelerated by the
>increased speed of broad communication. Anyway, things seem to go a hell
>of a lot faster these days.
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At one time, conditions changed more slowly and solutions remained 
workable longer. But, just as the invention of agriculture changed the 
land, making it impossible to revert to the hunter-gathering stage, 
either culturally or physically, so has our technology wrought changes 
impossible to reverse. The whole world will have to learn to live with 
them. Much of the world, barely out of the stone age, has yet to learn 
that they can't go back to their idealized "golden age". The rest of the 
world should be looking for viable solutions, too.

It isn't just communications, either. Rapid transportation has brought 
back the possibility of widespread disease killing off the race before 
we can control it. Avian flu is just a warning shot. My son accuses me 
of being isolationist but I believe we are underestimating a very real 
danger. We have to develop regional independence at the same time we 
develop our world-wide community.


James