March 17, 2006
 
COMMENTARY: ‘Ab Urbe Condita’ : A Book George Bush Did Not Read – or Maybe He Did!
 
By Cicero
Special to Huntington News Network
 
29 BC was a year when Titus Livius (Livy) (59 BC - AD 17), embarked on his life-long mission - writing of a 142-volumn book about the history of Rome. Entitled Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), the book was published in installments and indeed took Livy most of his life to finish. While it covered from the beginning of Rome to the golden age of Augustus, Livy died before things started to deteriorate.
 
All empires start small and build on both economic and military successes, Rome, England, Napoleonic France and now the United States.
 
History does repeat itself and failure to understand its implications for the present usually spells doom. Rome used its force of arms to build an empire that stretched from England to modern Turkey and North Africa; it lasted approximately a thousand years, and then collapsed.
 
England saw its empire thriving from the sixteenth century through the middle of the twentieth century until the sun set on its brazen attempt to proselytize the world with its brand of culture. Napoleon Bonaparte dreamt he had the answer for everything, a dream that led to his fatal attempts to bring, by force of arms, his form of freedom to many nations with him presiding as the supreme ruler.
 
While the basic theoretical concept of world harmonization is intellectually satisfying, it is unrealistic and in no case justifies use of force for its achievement – people of every nation should have the freedom of choice regarding their form of government and their version of freedom and democracy, and not be forced to accept what is externally imposed upon them.
 
In the 1960s and ‘70s, the United States had another misguided policy in Southeast Asia in Vietnam that was proven disastrous for many. Today, Vietnam is choosing its own future and Americans are flocking to invest, do business and take vacations – the main difference between now and then is that the people of Vietnam have now decided what is good for themselves, something that they chose by rational thinking instead of being imposed on by the United States or any other foreign powers.
 
The leaders of the United States should learn not to impose its ideals and morals upon others. If these ideals and morals are indeed useful for others they will decide on their own to acquire them. No nation, group or individual wants to have these concepts imposed on them by an outside force or an internal dictator.
 
We should give our fellow homo sapiens an opportunity to chose and make their own mistakes, and interfere only when we are really threatened. As modern genetics studies indicate, we are all really closely related and its been only approximately 70,000 to 100,000 years since a small band of our ancestors left Africa to form all the peoples and nations that now exist. We should realize no one in that original small band of people was thinking of anything else but staying alive and enjoying life – I do not think that has changed.
 
Today, the Bush Administration seems to be dedicated to pushing its form of morals and ideals to govern not only our citizens but also the rest of the world’s population. It is our fault if we and the Congress let this happen, so we must make our voices heard that this is not what we want since it goes against the basis of our freedom of choice. Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to bring the benefits of the French Revolution to others, but only brought death and misery to others and the French – substitute George Bush for Napoleon and American for the French and we have what is happening today.
 
It is interesting to note that Livy in his history has the founder of Rome, i.e. Romulusm, saying:
"Go," said he, "tell the Romans that it is the will of heaven that my Rome should be the head of all the world. Let them henceforth cultivate the arts of war, and let them know assuredly, and hand down the knowledge to posterity, that no human might can withstand the arms of Rome." Maybe George Bush read this in his Yale days and determined that he some day would found a new world order, just like Romulus founded Rome. Well if we continued to follow the current path then very likely a future historian would write a book entitled “The Rise and Fall of America”.
 
Let us hope that by changing our path sooner rather than later we can avoid repeating history and falling like Rome.
 
Editor’s Note: In the 1952 movie “Five Fingers,” James Mason played the valet of the British ambassador to neutral Turkey during World War II. He was a German spy who went by the code name “Cicero.” His intelligence information – including the date of D-Day – was excellent, but fortunately for the Allies, the Germans didn’t believe him, thinking him a double agent.
 
The film was based on real events. The alternate title of the movie is “Operation Cicero.” The Roman political figure, orator and philosopher Cicero was a champion of the traditional institutions of the Roman Republic and the enemy of autocracy, including the politics of Julius Caesar and Pompey.