HISTORY AIN'T FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

      I like history in all of its many permutations, even the stuff that makes republicans cry. Especially the stuff that makes republicans cry. History is rarely that upward line trending  towards justice. Every advance is followed by a struggle to return to what the villains of history grew up with, that mythical time when things will be great again. The optimist will say that we are still progressing, and sometimes we are. But we haven't changed all that much. The difference between ancient history and recent history is the implements used at the time. The people that wield those implements have not changed, demanding their right to possess implements of war but lacking the wisdom to use them. As Mark Twain once said, "history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes". Case in point, Mike Flynn.

     Lt.Gen. Michael Thomas Flynn was an early adopter of using Artificial Intelligence in counter-intelligence operations. He seems to have been very good at his job. The job of being artificial, if not intelligent. For one reason or another he fell from grace during the Obama administration and retired from the Army. As a civilian he was paid by RT, Russia's Foxnews, $45000 to give a speech in Moscow. No problem, he was a civilian. What could possibly go wrong? For perhaps the very reason he fell from grace with President Obama, he was elevated to prominence in candidate Trump's campaign, eventually becoming National Security Chief, Trump, being the awful piece of offal who believes foreign policy is best conducted by owning the libs.  His assignment lasted about five minutes. His rapid fall from that lofty position was the result of a secret meeting with Russia's ambassador, Kislyac. Even more fascinating was that Trumps first Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, the guy least regarded by those of us on the left to have integrity had...integrity.

     Flynn is one of a long string of people who experienced hubris on a world-wide scale. Money and power. Perhaps Mike Flynn pissed Jeff Sessions off.

     Back about 2500 years ago, during the Pelopponesian War, there was a fellow whose career rhymed with Flynn. The boundaries of the known world were smaller then. His name was Alcibeides. Battles in those days were fought by soldiers lined up shoulder to shoulder in ranks three-feet back from the rank in front (or whatever the equivolent of three feet was 2500 years ago). The armies would be shield-to-shield with their opponents, pushing against the ranks their spears poking into the rank behind the front rank, aiming not to kill but to wound, thus spilling blood on the ground making it slippery and weakening the front ranks with wounded men. It was Alcibiedes claim to greatness that he had the brilliant idea to provide a cavalry with men skilled with slings and javelins to attack the flanks of their opponent. He may not be the only general to have this idea, but by dint of the History of the Pelopponesian War, written by Thucidides, he is remembered. Had he remained focused on the cavalry he might have been remembered as a great military leader, maybe as great as Pericles. Greed and power.

     Alcibiedes had ambitions of breeding cavalry horses of superior abilities for the needs of his regiment and retiring to a posh mansion. Athens being only one city-state on a peninsula and a group of smaller islands tenuously held together, there just wasn't enough land for a horse ranch. During the Peloponnesian war, fought between Athens and Sparta, Alcibiedes made up his mind where he thought his horse ranch should be. A place with plenty of land and not many people. He decided to convince the council of the Athenian city state to devote half of their navy to sail, with a sizable army, around the Pelopponesian peninsula to the Mediteranian sea and into the Ionian Sea, where the army would be offloaded, before the triremes would sail into the Bay of Syracuse and lay siege, biding their time until the armies could show up and trap the enemy army between them.  The Bay of Syracuse was on the south-eastern corner of Sicily. It was going to be a great naval victory against a bunch of Sicilian rabble. Attacking Sicilians, what could possibly go wrong?

     Apparently everything. Those Sicilians were the distant relatives of Don Corleone. The Athenian fleet sailed in at night when the moon was dark. Some sharp-eyed lookout, or perhaps leaked intelligence, alerted the Sicilians and a long chain of barges were pulled across the opening of the bay and set ablaze, trapping the Athenian fleet with only a narrow opening where the current would push the tri-remes into the rocks on the northern corner. The naval strength of the Athenian navy was its mastery of ship-handling in open ocean. They now had no room to maneuver. Almost the entire flotilla, consisting of half of Athens ships, was destroyed. The ships were burned or taken, the crews captured or killed, and the army trapped and captured. Alcibiedies, the great cavalry officer, knew nothing about naval maneuvering, though the sea strategies of the time were not much different from his cavalry maneuvers, just on water. A funny historical incedent: in the middle ages a Norman king captured Sicily with 300 men.

     Good news for Al, he escaped and made it back to Athens. Bad news for Al was that the Athenian council banished him from Athens. What else could he do? Alcibeides fled to Sparta where he offered his military skills to the Spartan Army. At some point he offered his lovemaking skills to the wife of Agis II. Agis may have been only the second, but he was one of two kings of the most powerful army in the Meditteranean Sea. So Alcibiedes left the Spartan conditions awaiting him and offered his skills to Darius II of Persia. Persia was preparing to go after Sparta once Athens had been defeated and Sparta weakened, and Al's skills were sorely needed. The problem was that his inability to keep his tunic properly closed was discovered by one of Darius' governors whom he had cuckolded. So, we once more see Alcibiedes taking flight. Not the same kind of flight as Icarus, though we can assume he had a great fall. Later he made his way back to Athens. Presumably they needed his  strategic skills. We do not know if he was able to keep his tunic fastened. We lost track of Alcibiedes at this point, though we can be sure he was not the recipient of the military honors with which we remember Pericles. And so Alcibiedes is remembered for his poor judgement and not for his military or sexual prowess. And that brings us to Michael Flynn, Q-anon follower and yet another reasons for republicans to cry. At least he has kept his tunic closed. We think.