Ancient Roman Proverb Quotes
Vae Victis Woe to the vanquished
Ancient Roman Proverb
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Halsey was a big supporter of the use of the Atom Bomb against Japan. His ships had battled the Japanese navy from Pearl Harbor to Japan’s eventual surrender and had seen the cruelty of the Japanese occupation and aggression throughout the Pacific. His ships were the first to be sunk by Kamikaze suicide pilots at the Battle of Leyte Gulf where over 3000 American sailors were killed in the battle that finally destroyed the Japanese Navy’s ability to wage war.
The American Revolution was being debated, and few saw the long range implications of the independence of America. Fox was one who did.
The specific context of the quotation was the Navaho Indians enmity towards Kit Carson which extends to the present.
This speech was officially prepared and read to the six Indian tribes of the Iroquois Nation. The purpose was to persuade the Iroquois Indians to stay neutral (see {583726}) in the coming conflict with England. The Iroquois had traditionally traded peaceably with the colonists and on many occasions the colonists and the Iroquois had fought against the French and other Indians. Unfortunately, a Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant, had traveled to England and been educated there. He, following the conventional wisdom of the day persuaded most of the Iroquois tribes to join the obvious winner—England—and fight on their side. Only the Oneida tribe resisted Brant’s advice, and joined the revolutionists. The result was a civil, fratricidal war of not only white, but also the Iroquois Indians who had been at peace with each other since any could remember. When the colonists won, the Oneida were warmly embraced and participated in New York and other colonial life and activities. The relationship was so good that a little over 200 years later the average earnings of the Indian in New York State exceeded that of the average white man. The other 5 Iroquois tribes however were attacked and driven out of their traditional territories and they fled with Joseph Brant to English Canada where they have not yet fully recovered their important place in the society.
America had more than one ancient exemplar of the problem of the Iraq War. The great Carthaginian General Hannibal was brilliant in war but tended to lose the benefits of victory by lack of planning and poor administration and geopolitical strategy. He could never “win the peace.” See {589454} for his view of the two phases of conflict.
He was a realist who foresaw that even though the South had been militarily defeated, there were those who would persist in their efforts to retain slavery or a de facto form where freedom is the form but subjugation was the substance. It would be Jim Crowe and terrorism in the form of the KKK and a successor to Lincoln who was very sympathetic to the aims and culture of the Southern Rebels.
