Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

December 23, 2005

History as it Relates to Today

Nepotism alert: Both of the following articles I'm featuring are by people I know personally. But since I don't make money on this blog, who's going to care?!

Article one: Written by Joseph Morrison Skelly for NRO, it compares the crossing of the Delaware by George Washington and his troops on Christmas Day, 1776 to our mission in Iraq. The opening paragraph:

On the night of December 25, 1776, with the winter wind whipsawing the water, with waves ripping across the bows of their leaky boats, and sheets of ice impeding their path, American soldiers rowed across the merciless river, from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. The city of Trenton was their objective. On the evening of December 25, 2005, American soldiers, like their Colonial-era predecessors, will traverse swift, unforgiving currents, but in a distant land. Victory in Operation Iraqi Freedom is their aim. Perhaps this Christmas, when Americans gather to exchange presents with their families and friends, they can take a moment to recall the heroism of those soldiers who helped to win our independence in 1776 by crossing the Delaware River, and pause to reflect on the courage of those soldiers who are preserving it for us in 2005 by crossing the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq. This simple act must be our gift to them.

Skelly knows both about history and about Iraq. He is a college professor of history in New York City, with a PhD, and is also an officer in the National Guard who recently spent a year in Iraq. I first wrote about him on my blog back in August. Please be sure to read the whole article, as it makes many poignant observations.

Article two: On his site The Anthropogene, John features an article written by Portugese chroniclers regarding the fall of the Hindu city Vijahyanagar at the hand of Muslim invaders back in 1565. The point of the city's existence at that time was to repel Muslims. Alas, the day came when it fell.

The third day saw the beginning of the end. The victorious Mussulmans had halted on the field of battle for rest and refreshment, but now they had reached the capital, and from that time forward for a space of five months Vijayanagar knew no rest. The enemy had come to destroy, and they carried out their object relentlessly. They slaughtered the people without mercy, broke down the temples and palaces; and wreaked such savage vengeance on the abode of the kings, that, with the exception of a few great stone-built temples and walls, nothing now remains but a heap of ruins to mark the spot where once the stately buildings stood. They demolished the statues, and even succeeded in breaking the limbs of the huge Narasimha monolith. Nothing seemed to escape them. They broke up the pavilions standing on the huge platform from which the kings used to watch the festivals, and overthrew all the carved work. They lit huge fires in the magnificently decorated buildings forming the temple of Vitthalasvami near the river, and smashed its exquisite stone sculptures. With fire and sword, with crowbars and axes, they carried on day after day their work of destruction. Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city; teeming with a wealthy and industrious population in the full plenitude of prosperity one day, and on the next seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description.

What does this piece of history have to do with anything? Think about how Vijahyanagar and how it was destroyed: "seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description." 9/11 comes to mind, as do the tactics used by Islamic terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere around the world--killing civilians indiscriminately in an attempt to terrify and destroy.

Read it all and see if you agree.