February 17, 2010

Wasteful, stupid wars.

War's have been used to settle differences among men since the beginning of time.

Howard Fast relates this story in his novel, The Immigrant's Daughter.

From the words written by the Greek playwright Euripides almost two and a half thousand years ago, spoken by the Trojan woman Hecuba after the Greeks sacked Troy.

"I was the mother of brave sons. They were not ordinary children, but the pride of Phrygia, beautiful children. No Trojan or Greek or Barbarian mother could boast such children. All these I have seen killed by the spears of the Greeks; I wept on their coffins and cut my hair to it's roots. Before my eyes, my beloved husband, Priam, was murdered, butchered in his own house. My city was captured. This I saw and watched. My daughters, whom I loved and raised for good marriage, they were taken from me to be whores for strangers. No hope ever to see them again,no hope, and myself--to crown my misery, I shall be taken in bondage to Greece, a slave in my old age, to die a slave."

Many years later, but no smarter, we conclude one war in Iraq and seque directly into another in Afghanistan. Hecuba, we haven't gotten any smarter, we still squander our people and our treasures on war.

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