Looking back on the century of war and slaughter that has followed the start of World War I, one is reminded of Pete Seeger’s classic lyrics: “When will they ever learn?” Today, major world leaders behave with much the same…
Tag: World War I
The Wisdom of Lawrence of Arabia
A century ago, during World War I, a British intelligence officer known as “Lawrence of Arabia” deeply understood the Mideast and saw hope for rational politics, but Western imperial ambitions intervened to ensure regional instability, as Bill Moyers and Michael…
Reasons for Intellectual Conformity
In theory, many people hail the idea of independent thinking and praise the courage of speaking truth to power. In practice, however, the pressure of “group think” and the penalties inflicted on dissidents usually force people into line even when…
America’s War-Weary Public
A new wave of neocon opinion is pounding President Obama for failing to keep troops in Iraq and resisting wars in Syria and Iran claiming U.S. prestige and power are in decline but these bellicose appeals are, for once, getting little traction…
One ‘Silent Night’ in the Trenches
Dehumanizing the enemy is a key part of modern warfare, bolstered by the modern art of propaganda, often with the blessing of religious leaders. That was why the Christmas Truce of 1914 was so seditious, as Gary G. Kohls explains.
The Day When War Was Outlawed
When George W. Bush launched an aggressive war on Iraq in 2003, he was violating a host of treaties and international laws, though he would face no accountability. One violated law was a U.S.-sponsored treaty, signed in 1928, that renounced war as…
How Lying Causes Casualties of War
Lying and warfare have long gone hand in hand, a reality that continues today with a U.S. news media that opts for simpleminded storylines about good guys vs. bad guys, the pro-U.S. side against the America-hating side. Such nonsense has caused much death…
Stumbling into Disastrous Wars
The pundits say America’s economic angst will trump worries about war in the Nov. 6 election. However, as Americans learned a decade ago, careless foreign policies can have disastrous consequences, a lesson that ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar also traces…
The Christmas Truce of 1914
It might seem odd to anyone who understands what Jesus taught that the U.S. presidential candidates who most stress their Christian devotion are often the same ones urging more wars. But this defiling of Jesus’s message of peace is not…