COMMENT: Marty, thank you for that post. You have explained a risk I have not heard from any source. I know you met John McCain. I think you said on stage that you felt like you needed a shower after shaking his hand. Perhaps you will recall, in 2007, while campaigning for president, he was asked a question about the U.S. military and sang the words “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ song “Barbara Ann.” He also said that they would have nuclear weapons by 2009. Here we are in 2026 and still they say Iran is close.
FH
REPLY: I never met someone who was so obsessed with war than McCain. I believe because he was captured and read communist propaganda for the Vietnamese, he had this revenge streak in him especially against Russia because back then they wrongly believed that Russia was behind Vietnam. The Neocon McNamara did his video apologizing that they were wrong. The Russians were not behind it, it was just a civil War.
They turned McCain’s remake of the Beach Boys into a song all about the his dream of bombing Iran.
Our Neocons always assume victory. Their arrogance NEVER considers defeat. The Romans had suffered defeats the understood the risks of war. The Roman Republic suffered several major defeats, but two stand out as particularly devastating, each for different reasons. The single bloodiest day, took place at the Battle of Arausio. If you are asking about the most famous tactical masterpiece that shook the Republic to its core, the answer is the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal’s Masterpiece in 216BC.
It was the Battle of Arausio (105BC) according to the ancient historian Livy, some 80,000 Roman soldiers and 40,000 auxiliary troops and camp followers were killed . This total of 120,000 casualties surpasses the estimated losses at Cannae. The defeat was not due to being out-fought, but to being out-led. While Maximus attempted negotiations, Caepio launched a reckless, unilateral attack on the Cimbri camp. His force was destroyed, and the victorious Germanic tribes then turned and wiped out Maximus’s army, which was pinned against the Rhône River with no escape
The Roman Temple of Janus symbolized the inherent risk of war, which the arrogance of our warmonger ignore. The open doors of the Temple of Janus was an acknowledgment that the outcome of war was uncertain and that the god’s presence was needed to secure a favorable one so Janus was released. This coin of Nero portrays the Temple doors closed, showing brief period of peace.
The coins of Nero bearing the Temple of Janus motif are generally accepted as referring to the peace following the cessation of Corbulo’s campaigns against the Parthians. Therefore, Nero used the image of the temple of Janus on this coin to commemorate the end of the Parthian campaign and the peace treaty. Nero closed the doors of the Temple of Janus in 66AD, for the first time this had been done since the reign of Augustus (27BC-14AD) when the doors were closed three times in 29BC, 25BC and 13BC.