Letters to the Editor
tblue
Published Letters: 20 Editor's Choice: 1
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Instructive Historical parallels: the Spanish Armada (1588); Athens' invasion of Sicily (413 BC)
[Read the article: War, chaos and Bush's faith]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One reason the Spanish Armada’s invasion of England failed was that King Philip II of Spain was a religious fanatic who believed that God wanted him to remove the “infidel” Protestant Queen Elizabeth from the throne. He assumed that since he was doing God’s will, God would ensure that all the innumerable variables that had to be just right would be properly arranged to guarantee a Spanish victory.
Both of King Philip’s key commanders, the Duke of Parma and the Marquis of Santa Cruz, advised Philip that his plan for invading England was unworkable, because it required that a myriad of uncontrollable variables fall out perfectly in order to effect a rendezvous between the Armada (commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia after Santa Cruz’s death in 1588) and the Army of Flanders. The Armada was to transport the army across the Channel to England, and then back them up as they secured their position for a march on London.
Parma's army would not be able to come out into the Channel to rendezvous with the Armada, and the Armada could not get close enough to escort the army through the blockade of English and Dutch warships. Furthermore, Channel waters were treacherous, and the Armada would have no friendly harbor in case of trouble.
But Philip was convinced that God would arrange good weather and adjust other circumstances to ensure Spain's success in this "holy war."
The result was, of course, a disaster for Spain and began the decline of Spain as a great European power, as well as the end of the Spanish monopoly in North America and in Portugal's Asian empire.
Athens’ defeat in a similarly wrongheaded and disastrous invasion of Sicily by Athens in 415 BC, proved to be the crucial turning point in the Peloponnesian War. The impact of Athens’ defeat in Sicily was devastating. Two hundred ships and thousands of soldiers—much of the city's total manpower—were lost. Athens' enemies on the mainland and in Persia were encouraged to take advantqage of Athens' vulnerability, and rebellions broke out in the Aegean.
Of course, the idiots who are supposedly leading us don’t think they have anything to learn from history. Bush himself, whose obviously unearned undergraduate degree was in history, is probably entirely unaware that such historical examples even exist. I doubt he has ever read a word about either of these failed invasions, and I doubt that his advisors are aware of them, either. These people don’t read any more than they consult reality when making their plans. They really do believe that they create their own reality through sheer force of will and exercise of power.
We all know what happens to those who fail to learn the lessons of history.
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Finances are probably a large part of the problem
[Read the article: Are men spoiled rotten?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Recent news reports have pointed out that young men cannot expect to achieve the same economic security their fathers did by the time the reach 30 or 35. My guess is that most young men are afraid to start families because they can't afford to. By the time they can afford to, they are 45-50 or so. By that time, they are aware of their mortality and probably more interested in having children than they were when they were scrambling desperately to get started in a career, pay off their huge student loans, and build up some security.
My son will be 28 in November. His fiancee is 26. He is afraid they might not feel financially secure enough for her to get pregnant by the time she is 30, which is her line in the sand. But 20 years from now, he would probably be well positioned to afford a family.
I imagine they will have their kids despite financial fears, but I certainly can understand why young men are afraid to have a family, and why older men now want to have the families they didn't dare have when they were just starting out in their careers.
And many young women, all too aware of the ticking of their biological clocks, simply cannot wait for young men to feel financially secure enough to have a family with them. They might choose the older men simply because those are the ones willing to have kids with them while the women are still young enough to be able to breed. Unfortunately, a woman has a much shorter shelf life than a man where breeding is concerned.
I know of one 26-year-old woman who broke up with her boyfriend of five years, even though they had always planned to marry once they finished grad school, because he admitted that it would be at least 5 or 6 years before he would feel safe starting a family. At age 26, she didn’t feel she could risk waiting that long, because she really wanted two kids, and she was all too aware that after age 30 a woman’s fertility declines rapidly.
Immediately after breaking up with him, she married another man whom she liked but didn’t love. He was willing to have a kid right away, even though he was only 28. If she couldn’t have found a man in her age group to have kids with, I don’t doubt that she would have looked among older men for a willing partner to start a family with.