By Stephen Pizzo: Eyes Wide Shut!

If folks in power spent less time spinning the present and more time learning from the past we'd all be better off. I'm not going to carry on about all this Syria business, you'd have much smarter opinions if they cared more about history than they do about their audience ratings. And I think they'd also have less to say, not more. I certainly am finding that to be the case as I spend more and more time immersed in fully-baked history and less time listening to half-back current event coverage. Because the more I learn what the human race has already learned from the past, the more time I spend thinking about similar situations facing us today. And a lot less talking ourselves into trouble and a lot more thinking about how to avoid trouble we should know awaits, would be a welcome change, don't ya think. So, to the bottom line. From GW Bush to Barry Obama the US has held tightly to the notion that we can somehow "straighten those people out in the Middle East." All we have to do is get rid of their totalitarian leaders and let the people speak their will. So we did just that in Iraq and Afghanistan and, guess what, the people spoke their will, only it was "wills," plural. Oh, and they were ready to kill to get their ways. If our leaders were students of history,or for that matters, students of anything other than getting re-elected they might have stepped back sooner and said something like: "Hey, you know what? That entire region looks a lot like what would become Great Britain looked like way the hell back during Saxon and Norman times, a rag-tag collection of semi-primitive tribes that hated one another more than they even hated outsiders. Maybe we should just step back and wait, let that region cook for few more decades before we try to do any serious business with them." That thought certainly came to my mind this morning while reading the opening chapter of Macaulay's "History of England," when the following sentences slammed into my aging grey matter: Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of the preceding events is the history of the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sustained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no country has the enmity of race carried farther  in England. In no country Have A nice Monday. Steve. About author Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer. His web site is News For Real. Vote Result.