Gateway of empires

I'm sick unto death of every article and blog response on our futility in Afghanistan referring to that nation as "the graveyard of empires." Even the estimable Maureen Dowd has not been immune when it comes to falling for that canard.

While it is true that fierce, forbidding Afghanistan proved to be the undoing of the British and the Soviets in the modern era, it is equally true that Afghanistan was the gateway of empires in earlier days. The Persians, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan -- pick your autocrat and your period, they all conquered Afghanistan with varying degrees of difficulty.

Alexander, for example, waged a long, bitter guerilla-style war there. (For an account of this, see Frank Holt's critical "Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan." Those who like their history fictionalized might prefer "The Afghan Campaign" by Steven Pressfield, the man who wrote "The Legend of Bagger Vance" as well as a more general Alexander novel, "The Virtues of War.")

In the end, though, Alexander conquered Afghanistan, as he did the whole of the Persian Empire. To say it was his undoing merely because it was hard would be like saying the Yankees lost to the Red Sox simply because they won 8-7 instead of 8-0.

Yet such is the complete lack of classical education, historical knowledge and thus context in our country that people believe anything they read and repeat it wholesale without questioning it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: History is not the past. It's the story of the past. Without a knowledge of that story, you cannot project yourself into the future.

Far more useful for us in Afghanistan than who conquered whom -- the country's conquerers remained tethered to that region, something we have no intention of doing -- is what other lessons can be gleaned from various campaigns. In the case of Alexander, he was very eye-on-the-prize. For all his romance and questing spirit, he pursued his enemies with a laser-like focus that was truly daunting, as when he tracked down Bessus, who betrayed the Persian king Darius III and thus posed a threat to his successor, Alexander himself.

It's that kind of single-minded determination that could've served us well in the pursuit of Osama bin Laden.

It could serve us well still.

Read Georgette Gouveia's pieces for Westfair Business Publications at westfaironline.com.