For the past little while reading here and there, I've learned that the Libyan supremacy will be different than Iraq et alia because it is different. I find the logic of this position unassailable depressing. It's like the whole of the American political class, or nearly so, has been hypnotized by Dr. Evil and ordered to follow two paths, bombing things and being "fiscally responsible" -- by the way bets on the percentage of the hypnotized who know what that phrase means?, leading to the same end point: America's terminal decline.
Lot's of people point to Marius' rise or Sulla's assassinations, the general corruption of Romes political/military leadership, or the continued violence between the Optimates and the Populares as the proximate cause of the Roman Republic's decline[1], for me it's always been the failure of the Senatorial class to recognized that the Gracchi Brothers' reforms were both necessary and just.
Right now it looks like our "leaders" glanced glancingly at the world's problems and decided that the best solution is more poverty with a side of increased piles of rubble.
[1] One thing to keep in mind is that the Republic stumbled along for some time after all this and another thing to keep in mind is that the Empire did fine and dandy for a long time, so decline and fall isn't really the issue; rather it's transformation into something new and, in many regards, something considerable less salubrious.
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