Today's quote from Thucydides

See if you can pick up the historical metaphor. Around and around we go. (Thucydides, by the way, is considered 'the father of history'. --Dan)

In the winter [416-15 BC] the Athenians resolved to set sail again against Sicily with larger forces... They were for the most part ignorant of the size of the island and its inhabitants, both Hellenic and native, and they did not realize that they were taking on a war of almost the same magnitude as their war against the Peleponnesians...

Nicias had not wanted to be chosen for the command; his view was that the city was making a mistake, and on a slight pretext which looked reasonable, was in fact intending to conquer the whole of Sicily—a very considerable undertaking.

So he came forward to speak, hoping to make the Athenians change their minds: "...I think that we ought not to give such hasty consideration to so important a matter and on the credit of foreigners get drawn into a war that does not concern us... [T]his is the wrong time for such adventures and the objects of your ambition [gold, treasure and military bases] are not to be gained easily. ..."

"[E]ven if we did conquer the Sicilians, there are so many of them and they live so far off that it would be very difficult to govern them... The right thing is that we should spend our new gains at home and on ourselves instead of on these exiles who are begging for assistance and whose interest it is to tell lies and make us believe them ... who leave all the dangers to others and, if they are successful, will not be properly grateful, while if they fail in any way they will involved their friends in their own ruin. ..."

When the news reached Athens [of defeat], for a long time people would not believe it. ... And when they did recognize the facts, they turned against the public speakers who had favored the expedition ... and also became angry with the prophets and soothsayers and all who had, by various methods of divination, encouraged them to believe that they would conquer Sicily.

--Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Books VII and VIII

This quote was in John K. Cooley's recent book, "An Alliance Against Babylon: The U.S., Israel and Iraq" (2005). The book is excellent, really an unparalleled account of an old hand in the Middle East over many decades, and I recommend you check it out (and if you buy it through the Amazon link, I get bling!).

More later. I have to run around and do a lot of stuff today.