Declare an armistice in Gaza and Lebanon and make Veteran’s Day Armistice Day once more in the U.S., says Gerry Condon.
A German trench occupied by British soldiers of the Cheshire Regiment near the Albert-Bapaume road at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. (U.K. Government/Public Domain)
By Gerry Condon
Nov. 11, declared Armistice Day at the end of World War I, is celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day. Understanding why requires us to recall World War I and its aftermath.
World War I was an international conflict, 1914-18, that embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the “Central Powers” – mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey – against the “Allies” – mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy and (from 1917) the United States.
The war was unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused. Over 15 million people were killed – both soldiers and civilians, and over 25 million were wounded.
The First World War ended in November 1918 when an armistice was declared at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” marking a moment of hope and the promise of peace. It was also a moment of great sadness and a sense of great tragedy.
Many people prayed this would be “the war to end all wars,” and that Armistice Day would serve as an eternal warning never to repeat the past. But then came World War II.
After the end of World War II and the Korean War ceasefire, veterans’ organizations pushed the U.S. Congress in 1954 to switch the holiday’s name to Veterans Day, a day to honor those who fight in war. (It is still called Armistice Day in Britain.)
Could it be that – having emerged from World War II unscathed and more powerful than ever, the United States was not ready to abandon militarism? Whatever the intention, the holiday’s meaning was turned on its head – a day for war instead of a day for peace.
The national organization Veterans For Peace has been working to Reclaim Armistice Day as a day that is dedicated to ending war once and for all. Veterans lead Armistice Day activities around the country, many incorporating the ringing of bells at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.” Now the veterans group is also calling for Peace in the Middle East.
The looming threats of climate catastrophe and nuclear annihilation have been overshadowed this year by Israel’s horrific ongoing genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza – up to 50,000 killed, 70 percent of whom are women and children. For thirteen months straight, unspeakable atrocities have filled our screens and haunted our consciences.
We can see clearly that the U.S. government is complicit in Israel’s merciless ethnic cleansing. The bombs that Israel drops on Palestinian children are made in the USA and delivered by the U.S. government. U.S.-backed Israeli wars have now expanded to the Palestine’s West Bank, to Lebanon and to Iran, risking a wider war, possibly even a global war that could “go nuclear.”
According to Wikipedia: Scholars trying to understand the cause of World War I “look at political, territorial and economic competition; militarism, a complex web of alliances and alignments; imperialism, the growth of nationalism; and the power vacuum created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire.”
One hundred and six years after the end of World War I, another such deadly concoction is brewing. War is permanent. Genocide is on TV. A desperate empire is pushing human civilization toward a tragic end.
This year, Veterans For Peace is calling for an Armistice – a permanent Ceasefire in Palestine, Lebanon and throughout the Middle East, and for an end to U.S. arms shipments to Israel.
“When U.S. bombs stop dropping on Palestinian children, the genocide will end,” said VFP Vice President Joshua Shurley.
The 39-year-old veterans’ organization, with chapters in over 100 U.S. cities, recently issued a statement in support of Israeli and U.S. soldiers who refuse to take part genocide, illegal wars and war crimes.
Gerry Condon is Vietnam-era veteran and war resister who is a past president and a current Board member of Veterans For Peace.
11, 11, 11. And who won won, won? No one.
Because the whole debacle was the machinations of the grandparents or great-grandparents of today’s empire craving neocons and neolib economic royalty.
The outcome of WWI? Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany; so WWII and the Cold War. Plus the “winners” of WWI, the western elite, who after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire carved up the Middle East (more accurately, western Asia) to suit themselves. The battle there continues.
In the U.S. the Wilson administration came up with the Sedition (later repealed) and Espionage Acts. The latter explicitly meant to criminalize any expression of dissent about WWI and the U.S. government’s support for war. It was a blatant violation of the 1st Amendment that prohibits government from making such laws. Obama used the Espionage Act (against whistleblowers) more than any other U.S. President and it served as the justification for what was done to Assange.
Eugene V. Debs, the labor leader, dared to say publicly in June 1918: “The working class have never yet had a voice in declaring war. If war is right, let it be declared by the people–you, who have your lives to lose.” Debs also said support for the war was nothing more than about profits for Wall Street. Both the Progressive Republican Robert La Follette and former President Theodore Roosevelt strongly opposed any regulation of free speech, even if by radical dissenters. But Debs and dangerous people like Quakers, Mennonites, Seventh Day Adventists, and other conscious objectors were sent to prison.
For us, the working class, de facto the 80% who aren’t of the D political base of professionals and administrators nor of the R plutocrats, the lesson is clear. Dissent = treason. Domestic programs must be sacrificed. We’re to be used, not heard. Econ cannon fodder for the neolibs, actual cannon fodder for the neocons to preserve their illusions of unipolar empire.
“How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
— “Blowing in the Wind”, by America’s Nobel Prize for Literature winning poet, Bob Dylan.
Never again!, indeed. But Jesus tried to teach the same thing 2 millennium ago, and the Christians still fight wars in the name of the Prince of Peace.
The US ruling establishment is addicted to militarism as a way to expand its control over the earth’s resources to be extracted for Wall Street profits. That’s why the holiday is about thanking former soldiers for their service to empire. Follow the money.
Let’s give peace a chance.
Every $ spent on F35’s and submarines is a lost opportunity
The WEST is falling behind, because we refuse to acknowledge Russias security concerns and try to give China any respect. It’s our main source of affordable consumer goods.
I’m so disappointed in Canada slavishly parroting US policies
We should all be better than this.
PEACE
David
A good start would be to simply start calling it Armistice Day again.
I agree! Peace now.
Russia’s missile technology could change the nature of warfare if Russia so chooses. Whereas before the leaders who start war are mostly far from the front lines and out of harm’s way Russia could use its missiles to take the war straight to their door. Make sure they may be amongst the first to die in the next war by bringing the front line all the way back to where they are. It wouldn’t take many hits or near misses before they realise the danger they’re in and the risk will continue as long as the war does, and before long many will start calling for peace.
It’s a big cultural change for some countries to attack leaders instead of armies but the west does it, and if the other side targets our warmongers the personal risk might not be acceptable to them. Many of our hard-core war hawks were once hard-core draft dodgers, so to move the risk across to them might mean armies facing off against each other can become a rare thing.
There is an old maxim, attributed to Napoleon, who won a few battles and wars, despite the English calling him a dictator while they fought to restore the Bourbon monarchy. “Never interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake.” — Napoleon. Perhaps the modern version would include —- never kill a leader who is constantly making mistakes.
That occurred to me when Biden and the rest of NATO’s leaders decided to symbolically have a ‘summit’ in the Baltic States. Missile attacks are a numbers game, and I don’t know how many missiles it would have took and thus what the cost would have been, but it certainly seemed to be within Russia’s capabilities to hit that meeting if they had chosen to do so. Such would obviously have started a direct war with NATO, but if taking out the leadership had value, it was available as an opening gambit and Russia already viewed themselves as ‘in conflict’ with NATO. But, as unlikely that it seems that the modern, corrupt west can come up with a competent leader, it was always a chance. So, why kill the fools who are making mistakes and losing the war?
The resistance in Lebanon apparently felt differently. They put, I believe it was a ‘drone’ instead of a ‘missile’, through Netanyahu’s bedroom window. This of course after Netanyahu has collected many scalps. Now Netanyahu rarely sees sunlight, as apparently he lives and works in an underground bunker and no longer gets to enjoy his giant hilltop mansion with multiple swimming pools.
But, its a gang war notion that killing the other gang boss wins the war. It relies on the idea that the subordinates have no loyalty and high corruption and thus will make a deal. When dealing with movements (Americans probably need to look up that word), it makes no sense as the movement keeps on without the leader. War is about beating the enemy’s military first, and in modern war, trying to take out the ability to build more military. Kill a leader, and the next one takes its place, as long as you are not talking about a gang boss.
On the origins of World War I, I would recommend for serious consideration a book called “Hidden History: The Secret History of the First World War” by Gerry Docherty and Jim MacGregor.
I found the book to be rather plausible. Its basic argument is that an elite in Britain, initially headed by Cecil Rhodes, decided that Germany was becoming a serious economic and commercial rival to Britain and that it should thus be hit by a ruinous war.
This was standard English strategy for centuries. England always had a strategic priority the prevention of the rise of a strong European power. Successively, Spain, France and then Germany all formed European empires that the Brits felt could challenge them and were thus a threat in the peaceful English mind. English military and strategy was against each, from the Spanish Armada to the long, long Endless Wars with France and its Sun King, before the target icon shifted to Germany when Bismarck unified the nation. England’s attitude towards Russia today shows that some things never change.
Nothing much hidden or secret about this, but I guess that makes a good book title in some publisher’s mind. Its also not a secret that Britain is and always has been ruled by an elite, and that their ‘winner-take-all’ democracy was always designed to keep the elite firmly in control. The elites are still in control in Britain, and that’s another thing that does not change.
There is a lot hidden and secret about World War 1, so hopefully the book exposes a fair bit of that. World War 1 was the War for Democracy where the Press was banned from the battlefields and Secrecy was King. Being a reader of history, I’ll have to go look for it. :) One other book that has stuck in my mind has a similar title, “Myths of the Great War”, by John Mozier.
Thank you for responding.
I will probably look out for that book which I had not previously heard of.
Hello Tony, my grandfather volunteered into the NZ Expeditionary Force, headed to the middle east (?) and Europe. He survived but never recovered and died young. I’ve spent the last 2 decades trying to track down how such an atrocity could have been committed, and kept hitting inscrutable justifications. When I came across the Cecil Rhodes connection it sounded the most plausible to me as well.
You may find this of interest – Robert Newman’s History of Oil. hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sehmmzbi3UI&t=12s
Its a comedic take on why troops landed in the middle east, rather than Europe.
Thank you very much for your comments.
How the former colonies such as New Zealand were brought into the war is covered in that book.
Yes! Let it be Armistice day again. And return Mothers’ day to its original antiwar meaning too!
Return Labor Day to May 1st!
As an eleven year veteran, it is my opinion that the slogan “Never Again”, should be changed to “Until Next Time”. Because there always is a ‘Next Time’, isn’t there.
Further, those of you who sport those silly ‘I Support the Troops’ ribbons should realize that the only ones they’re supporting are the makers of the goofy little ribbons. If you truly support the troops, you would write or call your local parliamentarian to demand they ‘Bring the Boys (and girls) Home from wars of choice. The Russian/Ukraine civil war was provoked by us, NATO. A war of choice to try to defang Russia. Most NATO countries including Canada, where I am from, are supporting a Palestinian genocide through weapons sales. Palestinians do not threaten us. No army, no navy, no airforce. We do this to support a criminal government in Israel for their territorial ambitions.
Never Again? Tis to laugh.
Exactly to the point!