In yet another fit of U.S. imperial pique on an international scale, I read today with dismay that France, Germany & Russia were conspicuously not invited to an initial planning meeting for a multi-country “stabilisation force” for Iraq. Has the global political situation always been this childish and petulant?

I’m increasingly resigning myself to the dismal realisation that it’s always been like this. As the “might is right” mentality gains widespread political acceptance around the World, and pro-neocon pundits regurgitate past precedents of imperial tyranny (and my “homeland” Britain wrote large sections of the book on the subject) as justification, it’s more & more obvious that we haven’t progressed very much politically in the last two or three thousand years. How sad that a quote by Thucydides referring to the Peloponnesian War written more than 2,400 years ago is still relevant and much-quoted today:

“The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”