Armistice Day

Armistice Day.  We now call it Veteran's Day, as a way to honor those who served.  But, in America, we've lost the true meaning of the holiday.

There are many cemeteries in Europe in which are buried the bodies of soldiers who died in World War One.  This was the first global war in our world's history, although most of the killing was done by the European powers and their proxies.  It was considered "the war to end all wars", and yet, there was another world war within a generation.

What is it about humanity that leads us into war?  Could it be the nature of the Alpha Male is getting out of hand when large populations are involved?  I have no idea. But one would think that as a species, we'd have learned how to dampen this tendency in humans.  Sadly, we haven't yet learned how to do this.

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We have one political party which has had a collective myopia, being hawkish about getting into war, but with no clear plan of what to gain from making that war.  Have they learned anything from the lessons of 11/11/1918?  I doubt it.  They were responsible for us squandering billions of dollars in Iraq, claiming that we needed to make that nation "Safe for Democracy".  Does anyone think that Iraq became better off because of our involvement? And then, this party wanted us to invade Syria and remove another dictator.  Do they want to keep getting us involved in areas of the world, where a potential removal of our troops (once there) would create worse problems than had we not invaded in the first place?  Do they want "Forever Wars" only to keep the Military-Industrial Complex profitable?

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Wars should be rare things, not forever things.  America has made the big mistake of empire - we're using war to get our way in the world, and this is a tool that becomes much more expensive over time.  In addition, history has shown us that a propensity towards war is the sign of a dying empire.  Instead, we should be using diplomatic and economic power to get our way, to keep this empire.  It's one of the better ones that have existed, as it did help people become free and prosper around the globe.  But we can't make all the world safe or prosperous - the people and their cultures in areas that we have influence must want what we want for this to happen.  That's why Iraq and Syria were failures for us.

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The fields of Europe hold many a cemetery from both world wars.  Can we afford to add fuel to a fire which may result in another world war?