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Well, Odysseus didn’t actually kick them out, did he? Do you remember
what actually happened? Odysseus could have ordered them out upon his
return. He could have announced his approach and had them gone before he
arrived. Instead, he disguised himself and entered his house
unannounced. He secretly hid all the weapons except those for himself
and his son and loyal servants. He secretly blocked every door. The
suitors were unarmed and trapped when Odysseus revealed who he was and
started murdering them.
The suitors offered to more than repay him for what they had stolen
from his house, to apologize, to try to make things right. Odysseus, who
had a goddess making sure he succeeded in every detail, declined all
offers and murdered every man but those his son said were loyal. He
beheaded. He tortured. He dismembered. He cut off faces and cut out
organs and fed bits of people to dogs. And then, seeing as how he was on
such a glorious killing spree, he asked his wife’s head servant whether
any of the servant women had been disrespectful or misbehaved in any
way. Those who had were quickly identified, and Odysseus murdered them
immediately.
And there was a cute reunion scene with his wife, and everyone lived happily ever after, right?
Well, actually, there’s a bit of the story we tend to overlook.
Odysseus realized that the giant pile of corpses in his house had
friends and relatives who would seek revenge exactly as barbarically as
he had. So his goddess friend cast a spell of forgiveness on all of
them, and by that means there was peace.
Now, in the world of the myth one might well wonder why Athena didn’t
just cast that spell on Odysseus the day before, let the suitors repay
him, and skip the blood bath. But in the world of reality, one must ask
whether our masters of war believe Athena is going to help them too.
They revenge themselves with righteous brutality on various dictators
who have lapsed in their loyalty or death squads that have lost their
utility, and the blowback is predictable, predicted, and tragic. No
goddess ever shows up to cast a spell of forgiveness on victims’ friends
and family.
War supporters know there’s no goddess in their fight, but often they
begin to imagine that the other side will find forgiveness by seeing
the justness of the war against them — although I don’t believe there
are any examples of this actually happening.
War propaganda maintains that the other side only speaks the language
of violence, so violence will communicate to that other side our
grievances, our suffering, our justifiable outrage, and our desire for
peace. But of course, violence is not a language, not even when dressed
up in Homer’s art. A language is a substance that can be thought in.
Violence cannot embody thought, only fantasy.
The happy little war that turned Libya into hell three years ago was called Operation Odyssey Dawn.
There have been many admirable suggestions put forward to name Obama’s latest war:
Operation Enduring Confusion
Operation Rolling Blunder
Operation Iraqi Liberation
Operation We’re Indispensable – Guess What That Makes You
Operation Unchanging Hopelessness
Operation Rolling Blunder
Operation Iraqi Liberation
Operation We’re Indispensable – Guess What That Makes You
Operation Unchanging Hopelessness
But I think the appropriate tag for a mission based on the idea of
special holy goodness and power, the idea that mass killing of civilians
is justified by outrage at killing of civilians, and the notion that
everyone will forgive it afterwards so it won’t just make matters worse,
is Operation Odysseus’ Butcher Shop.
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