Not 1 US Soldier Died in Hostile Action While Occupying Japan: Why?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tor Larson

Pancho....

Can't say I've read the book mentioned but a lasting peace with belligerents after the 2nd Punic War? Don't think so. If the author thinks there was a peace after the war then he needs to do some research.

There was no lasting peace after the 2nd Punic War. Hannibal anally ripped the Romans a new one from 218BC until he was recalled back to Carthage to bail their asses out in 202- Scipio was at their gates. Hannibal met with Scipio and then they had a smack down at Zama which Hannibal lost- poor, weak cavalry, no allies.

During his 16+ year visit to Whopland Hannibal whacked over 100,000 Romans, ruined southern Italy (it still looks bad) , and did it all with a mercenary army that remained loyal to him until the very end. The cause of the 2nd Punic War? Roman greed, fear, and treaty breaking. Roman forced the war on Hannibal and Carthage.

After Hannibal/Carthage lost the war they Hannibal remolded Carthage, paid off her debt to Rome, and got her back on her feet...way ahead of schedule. Jealousy and fear of a repeat war caused the Romans to go after Hannibal again. He fled east and tried his best to fight Rome any way he could. He knew Rome sucked ass and would be the downfall of everyone in the Med. He ended up taking poison years later- he was buried in Turkey.

Rome always feared Carthage and in 149BC they forced a war with Carthage. It only lasted 3 years and they murdered, raped, and burned Carthage to the ground- without provocation. Just a few hundred thousand died or were sold into slavery- pretty normal for Rome.

Rome still holds the record for destroying more civilizations than any other power in history- Celts, Iberians, Carthaginians, Belgae, British, Picts, Germans, Egyptians, most Italian tribes, Etruscans, Greeks, etc. Imagine going from a genocidal maniac like Caesar to Mussolini. Italy hasn't done well militarily since that empire fell 1600 yrs ago. At least they have great pasta, ice cream, and make a fine shotgun. I've been there many times. Nice place to visit but I wouldn't want them as an ally.

I missed this before, but shortly:

After the 2nd Punic War, carthage was done waging aggressive war. It submitted to the authority of Rome, stopped foreign adventures to expand its empire, crucified pro-war leaders and concentrate on what it did best; trade. the 3rd Punic war was simply Roman paranoia; Carthage submitted to them at every step, up to and including disarming themselves and giving all their weapons to the Romans. Didn't stop the Romans from burning Carthage down to the ground, but Carthage itself was not responsible for the 3rd Punic war and didn't deserve what it got.

Point was, the 2nd Punic war settled the matter, for all intents and purposes. Carthage held no major grudges against Rome, didn't attempt to usurp Rome's power and stopped military expansion.

Edit: And for those asking how this compares to today's conflicts, people who think that we're fighting primarily against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or "terrorists" would have been thinking that we were fighting Aviation, the SS and Rommel's troops. ie, they miss the actual center of financial and ideological expansion for Islam as a Political System (Iran and Our Buddies the Saudis.)

To be fair, no public figure has been saying that, lest we wage a war based on national interests with a clearly defined enemy and win condition instead of "yeah we're basically gonna be over there off and on forever."

We've handed the enemy two gigantic wins in the past 10 years - helping them rebuild Afghanistan while handing the country over to the Taliban v2.0, and turning Iraq, which however brutal was not in the main part of the Islamic political system, over to them as well. Now we're spending billions of dollars helping our enemies build up the countries, which we will leave and which will become very quickly more radical until they resemble the old Taliban and/or Iran.

We continue to hand them victories by supporting largely Islamic revolutions which will result in countries much more eager to support attacks against Israel and the US.

In my view the last 10 years has basically been a string of political blunders turning the massive resources and firepower of the US against itself.