Tom Reiss Quotes
Napoleon's plan was for his army to arrive in Egypt not as conquerors but liberators. Landing in Aboukir Bay on July 1, 1798, the French captured Alexandria the next day, overcoming the surprised Mamelukes - the despotic local rulers - with a combination of modern artillery and infantry tactics.
Reiss, Tom. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo. Crown Publishers, 2012.
There was a major policy split between Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Vice President / Secretary of Defense. The latter, together with a number of neoconservatives, had been advocating invasion of Iraq and aggressive use of the military. Virtually all of these advocates had never served in the military and had no experience with war. Secretary Powell, in contrast, fought in Vietnam, was a General in the Gulf War, and served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wilkerson, his Chief of Staff at the State Department was also a senior military officer who had seen war and sent men into battle. They were much more reluctant to use military power unless the nation's vital interest demanded it. Hence, the quotation.
The commander complained of the brutal behavior of Bolivar and the revolutionaries, but the atrocities committed by the Spanish forces were even worse and both sides fought with techniques that had no civilized restraints.
Chile with help from San Martin had ejected the Spanish. O’Higgins, the Chilean leader had joined up with San Martin and served under his command. The sectional rivalry bothered men like Carrera. Instead of seeing all the South Americans fighting the Spanish as allies as O’Higgins did, Carrera and his brothers refused to join a government of unity and they and their troops were just as dictatorial and cruel as the Spanish had been. O’Higgins gave Indians and Blacks equal rights with whites which distressed the aristocratic Carrera’s. Finally the Carrera’s tried to set up their own government, and the new Chilean government disarmed their militia and executed two of the three Carrera brothers who were leading the militia troops who were little more than thieves and brigands.
In 1832 the President sent Edmund Roberts, a New Hampshire sea captain, to arrange commercial treaties with Asian countries such as Burma, Indo-China, Siam and Japan:
Ironically, when he attacked Athens in 480 BC, the Athenians under Themistocles, abandoned the city—see {612656}—and lured the overly-confident Xerxes into a sea battle at Salamis where the Persians were totally destroyed. A few public buildings of Athens were burned, but before Xerxes could fulfill his vow, he was defeated and had to retreat to Persia.
He conquered Korea in an act of blatant aggression, but got bogged down in a complicated occupation. He died before the Chinese part of the plan could be carried out. However, ever since China, Korea and other Asian countries have distrusted Japan and her aggressive intentions and history. The horrible Japanese record of aggression and atrocities of WWII solidified that anti Japanese sentiment which still exists to some extent.
Tom Reiss is an American author, historian, and journalist. He is the author of three nonfiction books, the latest of which is The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (2012), which received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. His previous books are Führer-Ex: Memoirs of a Former Neo-Nazi (1996), the first inside exposé of the European neo-Nazi movement; and The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life (2005), which became an international bestseller. As a journalist, Reiss has written for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
