This year occasions the centennial of the beginning of World War One and I can’t throw off the glum feeling that Americans have learned absolutely nothing from the conflict.
There are thousands of young American men from the farms of Nebraska to the fishing villages of Oregon to the streets of Brooklyn who now rest in cemeteries in France. Their bodies are riddled with German machine gun bullets because an Austrian archduke was murdered by a Serbian assassin sparking a war in which a British ocean liner was sank off the coast of Ireland. These men’s lives were thrown away by the stupid politicians that led them and the arms merchants and bankers that led the politicians. The war was a waste. The Central Powers were never a threat to America, never attacked America, never conspired to attack America, and never had the means to attack America. And all the war did was create the chaotic conditions that paved the way for more wars, revolutions, and economic upheavals.
The recent downing of a Malaysian commercial plane in what’s now a Russian/Ukrainian war zone is a great tragedy. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the United States and the posturing and preening anent this tragedy, hailing from both the Democrats and the Republicans, is nothing more than an example of why the United States, considered the wonder of the world and the greatest nation in history back in 1945 when my father and uncles were young soldiers and sailors, is now deemed a bully, a buffoon, and a thug. Let’s not turn this disaster into another Lusitania.
Paul Manton
