In that war, our trumpet called retreat.
Today, some of our pundits and cheerleaders speak in hopeful turns about the collapse of the European Community. Some want to see debt-ridden Greece be divided into a "Good Greece" and a "Bad Greece."
Divide and rule is the oldest axiom for power elites.
In recent years, we divided Bosnia into two states that continue to battle and hate each other.
There were calls in US policy circles to divide Iraq into three, hoping the Kurds could keep the Arabs in line. That proposal failed.
We supported Kosovo independence from Serbia even as we learned that members of their government were running drug gangs
Africa has long been balkanized along with the Balkans.
A part of Sudan has now become a separate country, Southern Sudan. There's even talk of splitting Libya into an Eastern Libya where the oil wells are and a Western Libya. That is, if Gaddafi clings to power.
The idea of a long hoped for unity deal between the Palestinian movements, Fatah and Hamas is an anathema to policy makers in Israel and Washington.
They prefer them to fight amongst themselves and kill each other.
Keeping the Palestinians divided has been a US objective ever since the West colluded with Israel in creating the Islamacist Hamas to compete with Yasser Arafat's nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO.) Israel's supporters slam Hamas for not recognizing Israel which, of course, refuses to recognize Hamas despite its victory in a democratic election.
Leave it to a liberal hawk like Martin Peretz, publisher of the New Republic who put the disunity doctrine into words back in 1982. He advised Israel to deliver Palestine a "lasting military defeat" that would "clarify to the Palestinians in the West Bank that their struggle for an independent state has suffered a setback of many years." Then "the Palestinians will be turned into just another crushed nation, like the Kurds or the Afghans," and the Palestinian problem - which "is beginning to be boring" - will be resolved."
"Crushed nations" are what we seem to like, especially when they become dependant on us and march to our trumpets.
National unity is something our leaders support in the US, but only up to a point overseas.
Even theBattle Hymm has even become controversial.
The great American singer Judy Garland wanted to dedicate the song to President Kennedy after his assassination but CBS refused to allow her to do so on her own program.
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