FROM TROY TO DAMASCUS: SEEING THE LIGHT

War may be defined as the deployment of mass violence to acquire resources of the many to benefit the few. Homer would have us believe that many thousands of Greek heroes left their homes and families for ten years so that King Menelaus could rescue Helen his queen who had been abducted by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. We also learn from Homer of the cunning of the Greeks with their deception of the wooden horse. Ultimately, Troy was sacked in an orgy of extreme rapine and violence. Such base behaviour had to be given a veneer of honour - hence Homer’s paean to heroic deeds and men as mere playthings of fickle Gods who could be blamed for Man’s extreme passions, his successes and failures, his fate. There is a line from Vergil’s Aeneid, which we can equally apply to Homer’s epics: “I fear the Greeks and the gifts they bear”. Perhaps, Homer’s gift to the Greeks was both deception and self-deception? Never look a wooden gift horse in the mouth?

Troy sits at the Southern entrance to the Dardanelles (the narrow straits connecting the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, the dividing line between Asia and Europe). The Gallipoli Peninsula forms the Northern shore, and the name Gallipoli is from the Greek Kallis Polis (beautiful city). More than 3,000 years after the Hellenic fleet landed at Troy, an army of British Colonials in 1915 stormed the beaches of Gallipoli, but this time, there was no beautiful woman to be rescued. The official reason was to take Turkey out of the war and open up a front behind the Germans. The much less heroic truth however, is that Britain wanted the Ottoman Empire’s vast oil reserves and had already divided the spoils before the ANZAC landings. The ‘heroic’ deeds of Lawrence of Arabia were a complete sham: the British helped the Arab tribes throw off the Ottoman yoke in exchange for the British. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France created vassal states to “divide and rule”.

Oil is essential for mechanized armies to wage wars and its control was the cause of both World Wars, and the current mayhem in the Middle East. Both CIA and MI6 have a long history of covert interference in the democratic process in all the Arab countries to “protect UK/US interests”. The current wars since 9/11 were planned well before that event, and needed only an excuse (“casus belli”) to put “boots on the ground”. It is notable that prior to Britain, US and France uniting in their latest unholy trinity to smite Syria, the ruler of Saudi Arabia visited all 3 capitals carrying his Midas cheque-book, spending billions on armaments to continue his war on Yemen, the poorest of all the Arab states.

Damascus has been fought over throughout its existence because of its strategic value. The story we know best is that of Saul of Tarsus: fresh from the stoning of St. Stephen on the road to Damascus, he was blinded by a great light and a voice from Heaven asking “Saul, Saul. Why persecutest thou me?” When we look back to the stoning of Stephen, we find a story of his trial before the Sanhedrin Court for blasphemy at which false testimony was presented. As Stephen was being stoned, he prayed for his persecutors’ forgiveness: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”. One of Moses’ Ten Commandments forbade the bearing of false witness: Fake News, Propaganda and Disinformation is the domain of the CIA.

If we can understand that our own governments lie in pursuit of “national interests” i.e. oil and arms sales, which results in the horrific killing and maiming of millions of innocents, plus thousands of young men duped into killing and dying for their country, then it is clear that our governments’ amorality depends on our gullibility: the same old lie: “Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori”? Democracy is predicated on an “informed” electorate: if all we consume is propaganda, then we cannot make informed choices: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”.

Official Histories are unreliable testimony. Truth is often found in fables e.g. the “Emperor’s New Clothes” invites us to see our leaders as they really are. Orwell wrote in his prophetic 1984: “Those who control the present, control the past. Who controls the past, controls the future.” Perhaps Orwell is like Priam’s daughter Cassandra – the gift of prophecy cursed by no-one believing.

⁽¹⁾ See more about Damascus endangerment by Washington's indecent wars.