The "surge" of prophecy concerning the latest military maneuvers in Baghdad and the continuing blindness to the levels of death and destruction we have instigated along with the militia groups and jihadists in Iraq, should serve to remind us that we are a bellicose nation unable to grasp the full intent and horror of sacrifice. Constantly the arguments for war, for sustaining war no matter the cost echo through Congress and the White House with little if any determined resistance. We must go to Iraq. We must continue in Iraq. How Greek we’ve become.
The sophist Gorgias, near the end of the Peloponnesian War, recommended that the Athenians and Spartans and all their allies quench their thirst to kill each other by instead launching a crusade against the barbarian Persians. An ancient reminder that going to war is a way of controlling the home front.
John Stewart cracks a joke that Rudolph Giulinai "eats terrorists," but the overwhelming majority of presidential candidates are eager to prove they are quite willing to use force and seem to revel in its quick and easy promise of solution. From Tom Tancredo wanting to nuke Muslim holy sites to Barak Obama vowing to bomb Al Qaeda in Pakistan if Pervez Musharraf won’t (a position held by the Bush administration), and all those who fall in the middle with various schemes of using the military, rare is it to hear a word about how Iraq will be rebuilt (see recent news reports of the failing power grid, lack of water, dismal state of overall reconstruction) or how the displaced intelligentsia and the professional middle-class will be encouraged to return to their country. It is disturbing to watch John McCain, a victim of an unprincipled use of force, reduce the Iraqi conflict to the success of a "surge."
However, in all these statements of patriotism, the human cost of the war is recognized with the most banal of gestures or not at all. In fact, the Bush administration has a history from the beginning of the war (through such luminaries as the President himself, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfkowitz, John Bolton (the list goes on))of dismissing any consideration of death and destruction. Yes, how Greek we’ve become. Here are Agamemnon’s words in one of Euripides last plays Iphigeneia at Aulis (W.S. Merwin translation)
. . . Look: how many ships,
The war fleet, assembled here, the proud men of Greece
And their bronze battle-gear, and they
Cannot sail to the towers
Of Ilion, and seize
The famous citadel, Troy,
According to Kalchas the prophet, unless I
Sacrifice you.
Some strange Aphrodite has crazed
The whole Greek army with a passion to sail at once
To the barbarians’ own country
And end this piracy of Greek marriage.
If I disobey the goddess, if I ignore
The oracle, then the army will sail to Argos,
They will kill you and me, and your sisters
Who are still at home. I have not become
Menelaos’ creature. I am not guided by him.
It is Greece that compels me
To sacrifice you, whatever I wish.
We are in stronger hands than our own.
Greece must be free
If you and I can make her so. Being Greeks,
We must not be subject to barbarians
We must not let them carry off our wives. (1689-1712)
Agamemnon will sacrifice his own daughter, and in fact Iphigenia will willingly go to her death believing that it will save Hellas. The parallels are there: the arguments for military force by the military and so-called military analysts, the exhortations from politicians to defend the homeland, the use of "freedom" as a rhetorical ploy to convince the public that morals are involved in our campaign, the sacrifice of men and women for political abstractions. Some consider Eurpides’ words as a response to Gorgias’ direction to invade Persia, even a critique of the folly of agreeing to a massive amount of destruction in order to right a perceived wrong.
Who or what was the "Helen" beckoning to W. from across the water? A promise of victory, of noble cause, of defending the homeland, of empire, of oil? Whatever the answer, the cost the Greeks suffered in sailing to Troy or what Americans and Iraqis have suffered with this war is not justified by adultery nor a "report" of collusion with a terrorist group.