War sucks part 308,539,485

I watched some awful History channel series on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. It was somewhere between 8 and 12 hours long, I lost track. The reason I thought it was awful is not necessarily because it was a lousy telling of history because I don't know enough to be able to say that.

I hated it for two reasons.

One, because none of the names of the major players were shown in script so I didn't know how to look them up and the scholars interviewed didn't pronounce them the same way. I don't read, write or speak Latin, Barbarian or Hun. Some of the names were familiar, but according to the History channel's pronunciation some of the time I was left wondering wtf, who they talkin' 'bout?

(one name stands out because this is my favorite painting)

Two, because the stupid, gory costumed battle, and pillage scenes were relentless. Jeez Louise, I lost track of how many years went by because time seemed to be measured in battles, invasions, raping and pillaging rather than years. Ho hum, felt like I was watching some stupid action film period piece and I'm not partial to action films, they bore the shit out of me.

War sucks. Human nature sucks. In the Roman Empire series I was struck by how many invasions were instigated by leaders trying to feed their people. There are close to 7 billion people on this planet and most leaders understand that they are in mortal danger if they cannot feed their people.

We as Americans are probably not in any danger of starvation in the short run so why are we in one Godamned war after another?

They go on and on. Ten years in Afghanistan and still...

If you haven't read Pepe Escobar's Pipelineistan series, do it.

Wars destroy military personnel. If only men who send others to war understood that now. I'm thinking that the Roman generals who ended up being Emperors got that.

Ya think Commander Codpiece covers that in his new book? Somehow I doubt it, but then again, in order to save what's left of my sanity I'm reading the Borowitz Report tweets on that subject.