It is 1711.

Spain and England have been at war for eight years, a war that would not end until 1713.

A group of merchants, anticipating the end of the war, approached the cash starved English government and offered to buy part of the national debt. The government would guarantee to pay the merchants 6% annually until they bought the debt back. In addition, the Government would give the merchants a monopoly of the trade routes to the South seas. This was a lucrative prospect, for it would open up trade with the rich Spanish colonies in South America.

A company called the South Sea Trading Company was born.

It was anticipated that great fortunes would be made, however returns from one or two primarily slave-trade voyages were disapointingly small. In 1718, Spain and England were at war again, and prospects of returns on investment were virtually nil.

This didn't stop the merchants from selling shares in the company however, and an impressive list of trade concessions offered upon the cessation of hostilities seemed just too good to be true. Some of the concessions on offer in particular should have rang warning bells however,

The last concession in particular is worthy of note. People went literally mad. On a promise, people hocked the family silver and borrowed fortunes to buy shares which the merchants gladly sold. The price of the shares spiralled, and even noteworthies such as Sir Isaac Newton, desperate for a piece of the action, joined in the madness.

In 1720 the bubble burst. People had begun to realise that the South Sea Trading company consisted of nothing more than a promise of money at some supposed time in the future but was actually producing nothing. Only a handful of trading voyages had ever been made. Many fortunes were lost and families ruined.

There is a popular delusion that a majority must know what is best.

This often untrue.

The tech-stock crash of the beginning of this century was a classic example. As someone working in the computer market at the time, I could not believe the madness around me, but must confess to having to bite my lips as people bragged how much money they were going to make, from internet start-up companies. But I kept telling myself, in the face of the madness, that these companies weren't offering anything new, weren't producing anything, didn't even have offices or equipment.

Again people lost fortunes.

It is 9/11 2001.

Al'Qeda launches a devastating attack on US soil and the world is in shock as they see the Twin towers crumble and some 3,000 people's lives lost.

Someone was to blame, the dangerous phrase 'a war against terror' was coined and sure enough a target was found. The hunt was on for Al'Qeda and Afghanistan was invaded in an act of angry revenge.

The campaign was a limited success, but Osama remained at large, and there was a palpable feeling, especially in the US, that not enough had been done to thwart terror. A madness descended within the already dangerous red-mist.

People wanting to believe that there really were a clearly defineable enemy, in clearly demarcated borders, began to jump on any evidence that suggested Saddam's Iraq was connected with terrorism. Poor, sometimes invented intelligence was seized upon, and brandished by intellectually impoverished administrations, notably Bush's and Blair's, impoverished by the fanatical sense of their righteousness and destiny. On the flimsiest of evidence, and ignoring the sage advice of most of the world, a 'crusade' was launched against Iraq.

There were no WMDs. Saddam was a threat to nobody than himself. The Coalition in their unseemly and unecessary haste, had made no plans for post war Iraq.

Today, Iraq lies in smoking ruin. There is a civil war there as Iraqi kills Iraqi, most of the country is not in the coalitions control, not even all of Baghdad. Innocent Iraqi people and innocent coalition sons and daughters are being slaughtered daily in the dusty quagmire.

Yet few in the US administration have learned the lesson yet. Bush still claims that getting rid of Saddam was the 'right' thing to do. Few mourn Saddam's demise, but as the carnage of the dogs of war spiral out of any control and with no prospect of an end, one thing is obvious.

There is a righteous madness that has seized the US administration in particular, and in their pitifully ignorant zeal, their unplanned haste in invading Iraq has all but destroyed the reputation of the US in the eyes of the world, destroyed the lives of many more people than perished in 9/11 and have destroyed whatever prospect of defeating Al'Qeda and similar organisations for the foreseeable future.

We would do well to listen to the lessons of history, and I end this by returning to the South Sea Bubble, and a sobering observation:

yechydda,