Thermopylea Redux

     I can't wait to see "300". As a Marine, it is the ultimate tale of the Warrior's Sacrifce. However, the recent debate on whether President Bush is Leonidas or Xerxes is ludicrous.
     The question, posed by a reporter, is indicative of two things, namely, an obvious antipathy to the truth of history and an invidious activism to the detriment of the President. The latter is indeed much more generic a propensity in the Old Media, but the former may very well contribute to the latter. A general lack of understanding (or could it be a deliberate, selective misinterpretation based on a subjective bias) has given us a media that continually judges the present against a tweaked, misconstrued, misinterpreted, and even warped historical standard. If anything, President George W. Bush is Leonidas, and this, this war in Iraq, is our Thermopylea.
     Where once a despotic nation from the East, Persia, threatened the young republics and city-states of the West, now a despotic ideology, Radical Islam, yearning for a return to the practices of it's predecessors, threatens the democracies of the world.
     Where one lone nation, Sparta, stood against the might of the Persian Empire, ideologically and militarily, as one-time allies succumbed to bribe, flattery, and terror, becoming subjects of the enslaving power of the Persian Empire, now one nation, our nation, leads a half-hearted band of allies in a war against the fanatics, as nations succumb to the economic carrot of the region's oil riches, or capitulate in terror to the demands of the fanatics, as France, Russia, Germany, and finally Spain seek to undermine the actions of the United States.
     Sparta led a half-hearted band of allies into conflict in one battle, in a stalling tactic, to allow the city-states time to form an alliance. The battle of Thermopylea, in it's horrendous climax, was succesful in turning the tide of war against the Eastern foe, and soon the Persian army was completely repelled and defeated.
     The world waits for the outcome of our battle. Iraq is our Thermopylea, for if we fail here, we fail to unite the world behind us, and if we fail to unite the world behind us, we will surely fail to defeat Radical Islam. If we hold here, if we make our stand and hold the line, here is where the tide turns. The world will see that Democracy and Freedom are stronger than slavery and oppression.
     This is what the Old Media has failed to learn or chooses not to recognize. Xerxes thought to enslave the entire world under an ever-expanding Persian Empire. Leonidas fought to preserve and regain the right of every human to live in freedom. If anything, Usama Bin Laden is a modern Xerxes, for George W. Bush is truly a Leonidas.
     Molon Labe, and Semper Fi.


     To Steven Pressfield, thanks for Gates of Fire.