Since 9/11 and the Bush Doctrine of seeking to attack a country or group simply because it might be a threat in the future, I have been thinking of the similar philosophy of the burgeoning Roman Empire and those haunting words of Cato the Elder, who would end every speech with a version of "Carthago delenda est" (Carthage must be destroyed). Then the Roman general Scipio Aemelianus took his troops and made it so. Indeed, the Punic Wars of Rome seem to have served as a kind of harbinger for what Bush and the USA adopted as primary tactics, and that mindset still resonates as some have been calling for ISIS to be destroyed. And then, once it is dealt with, scorched earth and all, they'll start thinking like Scipio and want to salt the battlefield (in some modern form) for good measure.
I suppose I can be called to task for comparing Carthage to a relatively amorphous terror group, especially since Carthage was actually destroyed and Iraq as a substitute for al-Qaeda and Wahabbist Saudi Arabia was not destroyed in the same scorched earth/salted battlefield sense, but instead al-Qaeda or some form of it transmogrified or morphed into ISIS. However, for both Rome and the USA, neither Carthage nor Iraq question posed an actual threat but was rather perceived as a possible threat, that possibility being used as an excuse for attacks made for ulterior reasons that the public might not so easily support.
In a more direct sense, Gaza might be seen as a closer correlative to Carthage, perhaps indirectly cautionary for the USA as an ally of Israel. But, more cautionary for the USA and Europe was using the pretense of imminent threat as an excuse for attacking countries who posed no actual threat or for bombing regions where terrorists are located, when the actual reason was more of a question of economic hegemony and mercenary profiteering, a matter of cynical “qui bono” and never a one of preserving and protecting the higher aims of liberty, equality, or democracy.
However, now that ISIS has proven to be more of an actual threat to Europe, the parallel with Rome is more apt than ever although the idea of destroying an amorphous terrorist group that hides itself among various civilian populations seems rather irrational. ISIS delenda est; but the question is, where is it? And what will have to be destroyed in order to root it out? The entire Levant? The entire Middle East? Then what? All Muslims living in western countries? It gets to be a reductio absurdum of really sinister proportions.
Rome also exhibited too much arrogance, to the point of hubris, as over time it became an empire gradually declining, with each emperor becoming more and more willful, eccentric, and decadent... until at last, Rome fell. Can we say that the warmongers, the profiteers, and western leaders are now also arrogant and willful because there are no real checks and balances to keep them in line?
I am also reminded of Nietzsche's cautionary words to this effect: beware of fighting monsters lest you become one. Sometimes I think we came out of the war with Nazi Germany and somehow turned into a neofascist monster state as a result of that engagement. Now it looks as though it has turned into a never-ending cycle, like morphed shades of a rather grotesque eternal recurrence of empire, crusade, torture, and terrorism.
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