In a passionate defense of his Iraqi War policies at the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Kansas City, Missouri, President Bush dove head first into one of the taboo political pools of American history: The Vietnam War.
“Accusing Congress of planning to ‘pull the rug out from under’ American troops in Iraq and blaming the American pullout from Vietnam more than 32 years ago for millions of deaths in Cambodia and Vietnam, he said the withdrawal struck a blow to American credibility that lasts to this day.
‘Then as now, people argued that the real problem was America’s presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end,’ Bush said before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention here. ‘The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be…’
‘The president is drawing the wrong lesson from history,’ said Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, whose brother John F. Kennedy oversaw some of the early American troop escalations in Vietnam.
‘America lost the war in Vietnam,’ Kennedy said, ‘Because our troops were trapped in a distant country we did not understand supporting a government that lacked sufficient legitimacy with its people.’ ” (1)
Signor Machiavelli, in his seminal work of “The Prince,” devoted Chapter V to the following theme: “Concerning the way to govern cities or principalities which lived under their own laws before they were annexed.” Let’s examine some of his thoughts on the matter.
“Quando quelli stati, che si acquistano come è detto, sono consueti a vivere con le loro leggi e in libertà, a volergli tenere ci sono tre modi: il primo, ruinarle; l’altro, andarvi ad abitare personalmente; il terzo, lasciàgli vivere con le sua legge, traendone una pensione e creandovi dentro uno stato di pochi, che te lo conservino amico…”
“When those States, that are acquired as stated, are used to living with their own laws and in freedom, there are three ways for those who want to hold them: the first, to ruin them; the next, to go there to live as they do; the third, to let them live with their own laws, taking a tribute (payment) and creating there a small State controlled by very few, so that they stay friendly to you…”
“Ma quando le città o le provincie sono use a vivere sotto uno principe e quello sangue sia spento, sendo da uno canto usi a ubbidire, da l’altro non avendo il principe vecchio, farne uno in fra loro non si accordano, vivere liberi non sanno: di modo che sono più tardi a pigliare l’arme e con più facilità se gli può uno principe guadagnare e assicurarsi di loro. Ma nelle republiche è maggiore vita, maggiore odio, più desiderio di vendetta: né gli lascia, né può lasciare, riposare la memoria della antiqua libertà; tale che la più sicura via è spegnerle, o abitarvi.”
“But when the cities or provinces are used to live under a Prince and his bloodline is killed off, being on one hand used to obey, and on the other not having the old Prince (Monarch), among themselves can’t find another, they don’t know how to live freely: in this manner they are late to take up arms, a Prince can win them over and secure them for himself with more ease. But in the republics there is more life, more hate, more desire of vendetta: that doesn’t allow them to put the memory of their old freedom to rest; such that the safest way is to extinguish them, or to live there.”
Source: “Il Principe, Biblioteca Italiana, Universita degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza,” V.
The Prince, Chapter V, translated by Steve Amoia.
Reference
(1) “Bush defends Iraq strategy with comparison to Vietnam,” International Herald Tribune, 23 August 2007.
Copyright © 2007 by Steve Amoia.
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