"Dalla pace ci si deve aspettare tutti i vantaggi di equanimità e di guerra dal nulla meno di ansia e disastro."
Simon Bolivar

Every man is the architect of his own fortune and ruin!

It is not an unconventional matter to find that - in the world of international politics - politicians, who ought to know better, spend most of their time doing either nothing at all or falling-out with each other about risible and impractical ratiocination, which more often than not renders their arguments invalid.  History teaches us that if we don't learn from our misguided judgements we are very likely to carry on making the same mistakes time and time again. As an example I would cite Troy's case. In 1250 B.C. Troy was a small kingdom in the northwest of Asia Minor which once upon a time stored up trouble for itself when king Priam and his people considered, at length, what to do with a gift, in the shape of a wooden horse, left by the Hellenes at the gates of the citadel of Troy. Lacoon, a priest of Poseidon, sceptically questioned the real motive for the gift as he could not comprehend the benevolence of the belligerent Hellenes who were at war with Troy, and in his mind the gift concealed an element of perilousness for Troy and its people as he thought that Ulysses( the architect of the Trojan Horse), Agamemnon( the leader of the Hellenic warriors) and their advisers had always been a bunch of congenital deceivers.  Laocoon´s suspicion was disregarded by King Priam, Prince Hector and the elders of Troy and the gift was accepted as a way of thanking Apollo for helping them to defeat the Hellenes. Little did they know that the acceptance of this gift would have had long-term consequences for Troy and its people as it was wrapped up in deceitfulness and baseness. Indeed,that fatal misjudgements gave rise to Troy's nemesis and misfortune as complaisance rule the day.  As they trailed their gift, in the shape of a wooden horse, along the ground to the citadel, Apollo´s face grew sad and tears slid down from it since he knew that the Trojans had sown the seeds of destruction of their own country the instance they embraced that gift from the deceitful Hellenes. It was the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep, that brought Troy its tragic demise as the gift unwrapped itself and delivered a rude awakening to the sleeping Trojans. The Hellenic raiders led by Achilles bolted from the inner part of the wooden horse and ended the life of those who dared to struggle with them.  A fire broke out and Troy began to burn; smoke gushed forth from every burnt wall as the fire walled in everyone in the citadel. A great deal of people perished in the blaze and it blighted the lives of those Trojans who managed to survive the onslaught. The sky became red as if it were impersonating the horror of the tragedy which had brought Troy to its foundations.  Nonetheless, it needs to be said that the demise of Troy did not do the Hellenes any credit in the history of the world as it made them directly responsible for the decimation of an entire ancient civilization.  Rivers of tears flowed down the empyrean face as Zeus commanded the Heavens to shed tears for Troy and its people as a sign of respect for his son Apollo for the lost of his much loved Troy. The wind changed and brought rain in an effort to suppressed the fiercely burning fire but it failed in its purpose.  It must be said that Troy was not set on fire by the will of the Hellenes but by the torch that Paris, son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, and brother of Prince Hector, carried since his conception as Zeus predestined that Troy would burn when Paris had reached sexual maturity and reproduction. It was Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who deviously fixed Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda, and Paris' meeting in Sparta so that the latter could fall in love with the woman in all men´s mind. However, there was a hitch in Aphrodite's envisioning and she must have been aware of it since Helen was already married to Agamemnon's little brother, Menelous King of Sparta, and she would certainly lose her honour by engaging in an extramarital sexual relation with Paris.  Helen shuddered at the thought of leaving Sparta and running away with Paris to Troy as she feared in her heart the wrath of her consort. It was an awkward situation the one she found herself in as she was a very conventional and uncomplicated woman; nevertheless, she kept calm and succeeded in sustaining an inflexible comportment, and after much thought and consideration she abandoned her conservative principles  and decided that eloping with Paris was a mandatory deed of supernatural force called love that she could not fight against with the strength of conventional emotions. The announcement of the illicit elopement was met with rife belligerence in the Hellenic Republic and it marked the starting point of the Trojan War.
In the art of saga, Troy comes top for most people and, into the bargain, the chronicle of Troy's past has been chronicled in books, manuscripts and in the immortal memory of time for the convenience of those interested in a far bygone past, and indeed, this is a subject that has emboldened my interest and has totally captivated my attention, and I will be forever in debt to that talented and cultivated bunch of writers and orators who have pieced together fragments of a prodigious historical and cultural worth and importance for the benefit of people like me and those with similar interest in events of an earlier time to appreciate, treasure and adhere to. It is a fact that the past will always be the path to the time to come and enlightenment as it continues to be the source of inspiration and knowledge but beware since history has habit of repeating itself and often in much the same way as in the past. That said, at the present time, the world is still involved in a lot of things that divides opinions. Currently, at a time of crisis, concord seemed to have lost his steel at the Colombian and Venezuelan fringes amid fears of an unpalatable treaty between Colombia and The United States of America  which presuppose the establishment of American naval and army bases at the host partition lines. As it was expected the Venezuelan government was up in arms and the blame for all the inconvenience has been laid firmly at The United States Government's door. President Uribe and President Chavez have been at each other's throats over impossible solutions and as their bitter feud recently eructed again there is a threatening situation of instability in the international relation of the two countries. Certainly, their relationship has exacerbated with the news of the treaty between Colombia and the USA.  Incontrovertibly, this is an stumbling block for peace in the region but both men might be filled with apprehension as they seem to act at all times out fear in their incompatibility with their resolutions but perhaps the concerns of the Venezuela incumbent President might have a real resonance in the international political arena as he seems to have a reason for dissatisfaction. Nothing is said that has not been said before but if one's ears burn, someone, somewhere, is talking about one. Moreover, it ought to be said that the Venezuela incumbent President chosen compeers in international affairs have not been wisely selected as one is often judged by the company one keeps. Let us hope that common sense prevails over the stubbornness of these two heads of States and open-mindedness is given a fair chance.

P.Figueras