The Hundredth Anniversary of the Great War
by John Lawrence, September 14, 2018
A few days ago we celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the end of the Great War, otherwise known as the First World War. The armistice was signed in Paris on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Too bad the war didn't end in 1911, but it hadn't started yet. Armistice Day was transformed into Veterans' Day as wars piled up in the ensuing years, and you just couldn't have a holiday for every war that was fought subsequently.
World War I exemplified the folly of war. There was no real reason for it. It was just everyone wanted a war. So the Archduke of some obscure country was assassinated. Big Deal. That was just an excuse to have what everyone - mainly men - wanted. They hoped to cover themselves in glory and prove their manhood. Instead they died miserable deaths stuck in barbed wire or in muddy trenches having inhaled nerve gas and fighting for their breath. So much for glory.
World War I was also called the War to End All Wars because humanity had finally learned its lesson, so it was thought, and war was just a cause for death and destruction. It proved nothing. It accomplished nothing. People thought we as human beings had finally learned our lesson. But no, how wrong they were. Human beings went on to fight other wars sowing death and destruction down the millennia. World War II was a direct outgrowth of World War I, as the armistice proscribed onerous reparations on Germany as the loser of the war. This created bitterness among Germans who were then fodder for the machinations of one Adolf Hitler. He exploited German bitterness over reparations, and the rest is history.
But Europeans and Americans eventually got smart. Instead of slaughtering each other (after all they were the most advanced cultures on earth in science, technology and the arts), they went on to slaughter poor people in backward countries like Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East. These wars have led to bitterness towards Americans, primarily, as Europe seems to have partially learned the lessons of war: it's not worth it. America assumed the mantle of chief warmonger of the world after the Second World War when Europe was too devastated to fight any longer.
But the legacy of war continues and that legacy amounts to revenge against the chief protagonist of the war similar to the situation in which German resentment at the "peace" settlement of WW I led to WW II. Now its the Middle East that has it in for the US and wants revenge. War lays the ground for future wars as it creates future enemies. What saved Europe after WW II was the Marshall plan wherein Germany was accepted back into the community of nations instead of being burdened with reparations and considered a pariah which was the outcome of WW I.
Maybe there is a lesson here. Help the Middle East rebuild itself. Institute a Marshall plan for the Middle East. Then perhaps there will not be so much resentment that will tend to perpetuate the human proclivity for war. Shovels instead of guns. Infrastructure is good. War is bad. It's as simple as that. But there's no money for that; there's only money for war. Ask the American military-industrial complex. Ask Lockheed Martin. Ask Raytheon. Ask Boeing. Ask Trump who famously said he didn't want to alienate Saudi Arabia because then the US would lose a lucrative arms deal, and Americans would lose jobs. Too much money is at stake so wars must continue.
