CASANDRA

     There's a lot of Americans who have low cultural knowledge. North Americans. The land pushing against Canada and trying to push Mexico into the Gulf. Mostly it is the red states that give us a bad rep. 
     Back in the opening days of the Iraq-Afghanistan war, a reporter made the comment that this would not end well. It didn't. We overthrew Saddam Hussein, captured him and put him in prison. He was a Ba'athist, a nationalist party, and a Sunni muslem, in a predominantly Shia country, who ruled with an iron fist. The Shia have about 55% of the total Muslim population but the Sunni held more power. Iran, iraq's hostile neighbor is majority Shia. To put that in a way that red-state America could understand, Republicans are the B'athist party, Catholics are the Shia equivolent, and red states are the Sunni, blue states are whatever the unitarian equivolent of Islam is. By the time we were pulling out our troops, our only accomplishment was to have installed a Shia Prime Minister, giving Iraq, with its Shia leadership, more influence in the region. At least we weren't there for two decades like we were in Afghanistan. When we left Afghanistan awkwardly, we left it with the Taliban, the people we went in to remove, in full control. That would be the equivolence of Talibama, excuse me, Alabama in control of the entire nation. So that reporter was correct, it did not end well. But war hawks in this country were eager for a fight and Iraq was a small enough country to beat up on, so they thought. In response to that reporter Rush Limbaugh, known to have no other talents but bloviating, called the reporter a Casandra. And this brings us to the crux of my story on our poor cultural knowledge.
     In the epic poem, The Iliad, which righties know as Troy, Cassandra was King Priam's daughter. She had the ability to see into the future. Her brother, Paris, had been touring the Greek Islands, as young men of wealth were want to do, and came home with the love of his life, Helen. Unfortunately, Helen was one of  king Manelleus' wives and she became "the face that launched a thousand ships". To be fair, Helen may not have had a say in being part of Maneleus household. Women were treated then as they are today among authoritarian societies. 
     Have you ever wondered how a blind poet could write epic poetry in the 9th or 10th century BCE without someone stealing his poetry and calling it their own. Epic poetry is short for, "it ain't short". Imagine if someone stole The Illiad and Oddyssey from Homer. Picture a young fellow writing it down by candle light around a campfire. How was it written, I don't think Greece had Braille back then.
     Back to the story. Cassandra had earlier rebuffed an ardent attempt by a young God, it might have been Apollo. God's, you may remember, are not in the habit of being rebuffed. He punished Casandra by allowing her clairvoyance to continue but she would not be believed. And this is what most Americans forget.
     The Trojan war lasted ten long years. Manaleus and his brother Agamemnon, were willing to destroy their countrymen before he would leave poor Helen alone. At some point Casandra warned her father, " beware of Greeks bearing gifts". King Prium performed the ritual, "yes dear" and went on with the defense of Ilium. Later on, a wooden horse made from a broken up Greek ship was pushed up to the gate of Troy. No Greeks, or their ships were visible, so Prium saw this as a Greek tribute (not a gift) and had the wooden horse pushed inside the gates. Then they celebrated their victory. That night as some were still celebrating and others were sleeping it off, some Greek soldiers, including Oddyseus, dropped down out of the horse statue and opened the gates allowing the Greek soldiers, who had emerged from hiding, to enter Troy and sack and burn the city. One of the Greek conquerors was Ajax the Lesser, son of Ajax the Greater. Many of us today are familiar with their great descendent Ajax the Cleanser. Ajax the Lesser captured Casandra and awarded her to Agamemnon as spoils of war, which may have been how Helen had ended up as one of Maneleus' wives a decade or more earlier. Casandra warned Agamemnon that he would be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, sister of Helen, if he brought her home. Once more she was not believed, and that became another Greek tragedy written by Aschylus, who got the story before the blind poet, Homer.

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