In 157 BC, the Roman statesman, Cato The Elder (for whom IIRC, the Cato Institute is named) would end each speech that he gave in the Roman Senate with the words [i][b]'Carthago delenda est![/b][/i] ('Carthage must be destroyed!')

He realized that so long as Carthage existed to harrass the Roman Republic, his country would never find true greatness.

Now go read Jonah Goldberg's commentary on the NationaReviewOnline website, entitled 'Baghdad Delinda Est':[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg041802.asp[/url]

Here's a legally permissible snippet:

[size=4]Baghdad Delenda Est[/size=4]

There's a legend, probably apocryphal, that the sharp bend in the border between Saudi Arabia and Jordan is the result of a slip of Winston Churchill's pencil while drawing up the dividing line between the two countries. Apparently, some folks believe Churchill was a bit sauced-up and couldn't draw a straight line. Others contend that Churchill's elbow was bumped.

The important thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't matter if the story's true. [b]Even if the line were precisely how Churchill wanted it, it would be no less arbitrary.[/b] The Europeans who designed the Middle East weren't like prospectors, shaking the dirt away in their pans until the gold nuggets of eternal nation-states appeared before them. They drew their lines out of self-interest. Even the Marxists and Arab apologists like Edward Said would agree that's true. This map of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 shows how the British and French wanted to divvy up the region.

Opponents of Israel, like Mr. Said, love to point out that it is a creation of Western imperial powers, an unnatural, inorganic construct imposed by distant exploiters. This Zionist implant, they argue, has aroused the fury of the Arab body politic; anti-Jewish rage is simply a natural immune response to imperialism. Suicide bombers, this theory holds, are antibodies. Remove the foreign matter, and the normally peace-loving Arab and Muslim metabolism will return to normal.

There are some obvious problems with this analysis, the first being the notion that the region has any history of being peace-loving in the way we understand the phrase in the West. Peace in the Middle East has always — always — been imposed from above or without, not attained from within. Indeed, that the Islamic Middle East no longer has a ruling empire, caliphate, or dynasty, is one reason it is such a mess. [b]Unable to accept the fact — and it is a fact — that the region is ever shrinking in the rearview mirror of the West, it has grown hobbled by rage[/b]. As David Pryce-Jones has eloquently argued, the Middle East is what anthropologists call a "shame society." In such societies, Jones argues, "the acquisition of honor and the converse, avoidance of shame, are the keys to motivation."

Eric The(CheckItOut!)Hun[>]:)]

"Delinda"?  Egads!  [i]O tempora!  O mores![/i]
[V]

Eric, go to the blackboard and write "[i]Carthago [b]delenda[/b] est[/i]" one hundred times or we'll have to have you disbarred. [;)]

Sorry, [b]Renamed[/b], my spell checker doesn't extend to Latin! [:D]

I even copied it wrong from Goldberg's headliner!

Eric The(Nuts!)Hun[>]:)]

I dated a girl named Delinda when I was in junior high school, and I think she said SHE was from Carthage.

Never tried est, but I read about it.

Latin?  Isn't that what they speak in Latin America?  I'm pretty sure that the Ancient Romans spoke Romanch.

Vice-President Dan Quayle once said, "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people."

Finally, a non-Israel topic posted on the Board and it's on Page Four in a couple of hours!

I have much better luck with my Israeli posts!

Ask [b]garandman[/b]![:D]

Eric The(Astounded)Hun[>]:)]