The Goths and The Romans
The new Eastern emperor, Theodosius I (the Great) negotiated a peace settlement though this would not last long. He knew the Roman army had suffered a huge defeat and that they simply did not have enough solders to tackle the Goths. (Remember one of the reasons Romans were constantly fighting was because they had occupied many lands and therefore had to constantly defend them against attacks; their forces were slowly but surely being stretched).
Finally they were given land, which they could call their own, but they were still treated as second-class citizens and their Soldiers were still used to perform all the dirty deeds for the Romans. They were now an integral part of the Roman army and when Emperor Theodosius died the troops rebelled and chose Alaric as their leader. King Alaric then proceeded to attack and eventually crushed Rome in 410 ending 800 years of power.
Conclusion
The morale of this story is rather simple; even the weakest will one-day rise if you constantly keep trampling on their rights and the mighty will fall if they do not understand the limits of their power. If you look at the US currently it is no different from Rome, our so-called Empire is stretching our Army to the Max and at the same time the rights of individuals here are being trampled on. In addition we are still seeking more battles with countries like Iran, which could only stretch our already depleted resources (army) even further. The Goths in this case are none other than the Iraqis and to some extent the Afghanis; almost 3 years later and the Iraqis are still fighting to get basic resources such as clean water and electricity. Whether we are right or wrong is no longer the question the question now is whether they think we are right or wrong; clearly based on the increased levels of violence they think we are in the wrong.
History has repeatedly shown that great powers fail because they fail to anticipate the strength of the weak. Point and case the US completely miscalculated the flow of events; instead of being treated as saviours indefinitely they are being treated as invaders and the level of hate towards the US has increased almost 100fold worldwide.
If history is any thing to go by then it seems just like Rome and the former world power Great Britain, the US is setting the stage to be unseated by a new super power. It seems that generations later we have not changed we are still essentially just barbarians, instead of using swords and knives we use guns and bombs; the outcome is still the same unnecessary death.
One final note and its rather ironical the Visigoths whom the Romans so mistreated were the ones that actually ended up preserving the Roman culture after the fall of Rome.
Wars need to be paid for and in modern times this is done via printing more money, which simply slowly but surely causes the price of everyday necessities and base materials to rise. The rise at first is slow but then it gathers momentum. Since we are printing so much money the effects are going to be large. Almost everything that cannot be printed starts to take off; antique paintings (the prices of these paintings keep shooting up at an incredible pace as indicated by recent auctions), collectibles, rare coins etc. Precious metals such as Platinum, Gold and Silver will also experience huge price gains as more money is printed (these metals provide a hedge against inflation; Silver and Gold are the main ones but platinum is slowly coming into the picture also). The entire commodity sector (grains, metals (base and precious), energy, agricultural products such as grains, dairy, coffee, cocoa etc) will also experience huge gains; indeed some of these markets have already experienced decent gains. Remember though nothing goes up in a straight line so in between expect corrections, which will represent good buying opportunities. Oil is experiencing one such correction at the moment and it should slowly spill over to the full metals sector. Once again we are talking about a correction and not crash.
In the end war does not pay. King Alaric of the Visigoths after sacking Rome decided that he would take the grain producing regions of North Africa. Unfortunately he never made it, storms in the sea destroyed most of his army and he himself was struck by fever and eventually died. The Visigoths carried on moving and were eventually destroyed by the moors. We could go on and on but the theme here is that everyone seems to get corrupted by power. They fight for freedom and then they want more, hence a just cause is now turned into a dirty cause. The eventual result is downfall and defeat.
America is addicted to wars of distraction.
Barbara Ehrenreich 1941-, American Author, Columnist
© 2005 Sol Palha
TACTICAL INVESTOR
15 October 2005