There is no escape — we pay for the violence of our ancestors.– Paul Muad’Dib

My Take – Has it ever occurred to anyone that we are still fighting the wars between England and France from the 1700’s?  Every war I’ve ever studied had its roots in the war before it, in a grand linked list of carnage and revenge.  The American Revolution was precipitated by the aftermath of the French and Indian War.  France went bankrupt at least in part because of its participation in our Revolution, which brought about the French Revolution and Napoleon.  The wars of Napoleon disrupted the balance in Europe and brought about the Franco-Prussian War and World War I.  World War I lead to the rise of Communism and World War II. Those two pestilences brought about the Cold War and most of the conflicts of the past 50 years.  Heck, the “War on Terror” we’re fighting now is nothing much more than us trying to deal with the aftermath of the collapse of European colonialism in the Mid-East, Asia, and Africa.

What we need to understand is that the decisions we make now are going to echo through the generations to come, and we should proceed with caution.