Dear Editor:

In 429 BCE, two generals commanding an Athenian fleet met with civic leaders of Melos, an Aegean island. Though officially neutral in the Peloponnesian war, Melos was a colony of Athens’ enemy, Sparta.

Rather than attacking immediately, the generals chose to negotiate. Their dialogue with the Melians was brilliantly recreated by the ancient Greek historian, Thucydides. ‘Holding the cards’ (Trump’s words when he insulted Volodymyr Zelenskyy), the unwelcome guests offered their hosts an easy way or a hard way to resolve the situation: Join the Athenian empire and obey their new masters — or die.

Thucydides succinctly and memorably expressed the dilemma thus: “You know and we know, as practical men, that the question of justice arises only between parties equal in strength, and that the strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must.”

The same cynically immoral mindset led Stephen Miller, promoter of the Venezuelan invasion, to state, “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world […] that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Adolf Hitler and his German Armed Forces High Command concurred; Soviet dictators concurred. Vladimir Putin concurs. How did it work out for them? Germany lost 8.8 million lives; Russian casualties from their disastrous occupation of Afghanistan to their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are 1.4 million and counting. German and Soviet wars of choice destroyed their empires. Putin’s fate, like that of the biblical King Nebuchadnezzar, hangs in the balance.

Back to the ancient Melians, who opted to defend their independence: The Athenian invaders besieged and took their city, executed all their men, and sold their women and children into slavery.

In 404 BCE, the Athenian imperialists lost their war against Sparta, partly due to the secession of their colonies. That same year, the Thirty Tyrants took power in a coup d’etat. Does any of this resonate with congressional Republicans?

Bill Hammond

Boothbay