Return of the Roman Legions

Or should that be the Caesarian Legions? As after all, the Legions - originally a professional army loyal to Rome - were perverted by Caeser into what amounted to a mercenary army beholden only to him ... or any other Emperor (or would-be Emperor) that came after.

(As a side-note, most people consider the days of the Roman Empire to start around 25 BC, when Caeser crossed the Rubicon and put the Republic to the sword. Well, yeah, the Empire started then. But Roman civilization had been around for centuries before, and had amassed most of its power, and conquered most of its territory, during the republican period. The beginning of the imperial system marked the decline and fall of Rome, not its greatest height.)

Anyhow, in his most recent post in his ongoing series laying out the Bush regimes crimes against the US military (link to Part 1), David Brin points out the similarities between what happened to the Roman legions, and what's happening to the American military right now, with the professional army being undermined while Blackwater, the largest mercenary force in the world, is steadily built up. Scary shit.

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