discuss on final essay here by 12-12-09

[Christine Choi]

LACC Fall 2009
English 101
Instructor Ed O’Connell
Online section #3226
Christine Choi
12/12/09

Timon is the main character in Shakespeare’s play Timon of Athens and
Alcibiades is an acquaintance of Timon, who is a captain of Athens.
Surprisingly the metaphoric lessons this two characters offer in this
play can be implied to understand a certain aspect of contemporary US
military culture, specifically on an issue of the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan. After the 9/11 attack of terrorist, US government
declared war on terrorists. The stated objectives of the war in the
US are to protect the citizens of the US and allies, to protect the
business interests of the US and allies at home and abroad, break up
terrorist cells in the US, and disrupt the activities of the
international network of terrorist organizations made up of a number
of groups under the umbrella of al-Qaeda (Anonymous, 2009). From the
play, Timon somehow looks very similar to those corporations procuring
the war and the political actions of US at the time of 9/11, meanwhile
Alcibiades reminds of the US military itself. Today’s US military
culture was also well explained in the book, The Limits of Power: The
End of American Exceptionalism, written by Andrew J. Bacevich. His
argument is focused on not only the three illusions of US military
culture and their goals, but also reveals the problems of US military
culture that was shown in recent conflict such as Iraq and
Afghanistan.
In the beginning of the play, Timon is a wealthy man, who enjoys
giving gifts to his friends and sharing his wealth. He believes that
friendship means giving to his friends without expecting something in
return. However, towards the end of the story, Timon gets abandoned
by the friends, who once praised Timon. Timon declares his hatred for
mankind and takes off to the wilderness. He encounters Alcibiades and
provides him with gold that he found under the ground and tells him to
massacre the whole Athenians. Timon’s indignation that is focused on
not just towards the people who betrayed him, but the entire mankind
somehow looks more like the US political scene right after the 9/11
attack from the terrorists. The 9/11 attacks were a series of
coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the US on September 11,
2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four
commercial passenger jet airliners and intentionally crashed two of
the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New
York City, killing everyone on board and many other working in the
buildings (Anonymous, 2009). In addition, the hijackers crashed a
third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the
fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural
Pennsylvania and there were no survivors from any of the flights
(Anonymous, 2009). According to “Wikipedia” (2009), after the 9/11,
the US government responded to the attacks by declaring a War on
Terrorism, invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had
harbored al-Qaeda terrorists. In the play, when senators came up to
Timon’s cave out in the wilderness and convince Timon to come back to
Athens to stop Alcibiades’s rebellion, the action of senators can be
interpreted as the effort of politicians who tries to look for an
ultimate political solution without having a war as a counsel of
despair. By contrast, US government soon declared war on terrorism
and invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of justice, killing
thousands of people including civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the other perspective, the Timon’s role also can be implied as the
corporations which procure the war. In the play, Timon supports
Alcibiades by giving him a share of gold and tell him to massacre the
entire people in Athens. In the play Timon of Athens, Timon express
his hatred towards the Athenians by crying out to Alcibiades, “That by
killing of villains thou wast born to conquer my country… let not thy
sword skip one” (Shakespeare). From that scene, the rage and hatred of
Timon towards mankind clearly projects. If Alcibiades led his troop
and slaughtered the Athenians, Timon might have settled his old
grudge. If goes further, if Alcibiades successfully took over the
administrative power of Athens, Timon might have moved back to the
Athens and start over with people who actually honor him and true to
him. Timon also can exercise his political power since the war was
financially procured by him. In today’s military culture, those
corporations procure every part of war. They support financially,
send weapons, feeding the soldiers, providing transportation methods
and so on. The war can be the most beneficial method of making
profits in the perspective of corporations. For example, weapons
manufacturers such as “Lockheed Martin, Boeing , and Northrop Grumman,
the three largest weapons manufacturers, together received more than
$50 million from the Pentagon in 2003” (Cray, 2009). In addition,
construction and engineering giant received one of the largest
contracts worth 2.5 billion dollars to help coordinate and rebuild a
large part of Iraq’s infrastructure, and the oil industries such as
Chevron, ExxonMobile and the petroimperialists also were profited by
the war (Taibbi, 2009).
In the other hand, Alcibiades led his troop right in front of the gate
of Athens, but when senators convince him that not everyone in the
Athens are his enemy, rather killing the entire people in Athens, only
kill those who wronged Alcibiades and Timon. From this scene,
Alcibiades reminds of the US armed force, and the senators in Athens
look like the politicians presenting different methods of political
solution without having war. During the war, the prioritized military
aim is to achieve political goal by using the armed force. Since
today’s war projects the financial power right into the military
power, it is the single most important thing to remember that the
recruiting goal has to be achieved in a quick and convenient manner.
Also That military operations must be “brief and efficient in terms of
the human and economic price paid is not merely desirable, but held to
be necessary in order to maintain the support of the American
public” (Erdmann, 2009). However, the war still continues until
today, which means the military force did not achieved its goal in a
quick and convenient manner and did not fulfilled its recruiting goals
yet. Bacevich (2009) also points out that the performance of the
military especially since 9/11 has been unimpressive as measured by
results achieved. He also writes, America doesn’t need a bigger army,
but needs a new foreign policy, which can support the military
assignments more conveniently and consistently with their capabilities
(Bacevich, 2009). David Gold (2009), associate professor of
international affairs program, also points out terrorism imposes
substantial costs on target populations, but there are also
significant costs associated with policies to combat terrorism. He
also says policy responses to terrorism need to be “multi-faceted” and
flexible (Gold, 2009). For example, security policies need to be more
cost effective, in order to both achieve results and to limit the
negative economic consequences of devoting excessive resources to
security purposes (Gold, 2009).
The play, Timon of Athens by Shakespeare introduces two metaphoric
characters, Timon and Alcibiades who mirrors the current US military
culture in the recent issue of Iraq and Afghanistan. Timon left his
town and headed to the wilderness when he was betrayed by his own
friend and filled with anger and hatred towards the whole Athenians.
This character can be implied as to the US political attitude and
decision after the 9/11 attacks towards the terrorists. Also when
Timon gave Alcibiades with loads of gold to support the rebellion, it
somewhat reminds of the corporations which supports the war and
profited by it. In the other hand, Alcibiades’s character looks more
like the US military itself, whose main goal is to fulfill the needs
and complete the assignment as quickly and conveniently as possible.
The war in Iraq and Afghanistan shows the political arrogance and
misjudgment of US government, still continuing the war without
achieving the ultimate political goals. The war is still continued
without any impressive progress, meanwhile US economy crumble down
into pieces. The country is in recession, yet the military budget
still increases every year. On December 1st, President Obama said
that the deployment of 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan is
part of a strategy to reverse the Taliban’s momentum and stabilize the
country’s government (Chhor & Japra, 2009). Many scholars and
political analysts concern about the president Obama’s deployment
decision, considering the negative results from past several years.
Many voices suggests that maybe US does not need a large military
forces or more deployment of troops, but what we really need is a more
flexible yet systematical foreign policy, which actually can support
the military process at its fundamental levels.





References
Bacevich, A. (2009). The Limits of Power: The End of American
Exceptionalism (1 ed.). New York: Holt Paperbacks.
Chhor, A., & Japra, N. (n.d.). Obama receives NATO, U.N. backing on
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Entertainment & Video News. Retrieved December 8, 2009, from
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Cray, C. (2009, June 27). Stop the Merchants of Death.
warresisters.org. Retrieved December 1, 2009, from www.warresisters.org/smod/brazen.shtml
Erdmann, A. (2005). costless wars. America the Vulnerable : How Our
Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism (pp. 48). Bob Land:
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September 11 attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.).
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Third) (New Ed ed.). London: Arden Shakespeare.
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Believe How Low the War Profiteers Have Gone | World | AlterNet. Home
| AlterNet. Retrieved December 8, 2009, from http://www.alternet.org/world/60950