Truest statement of the week II

Donald Trump’s boorishness and stupidity always ruffle feathers but almost always for the wrong reasons. Such was the case with his decision to skip one of the World War I commemoration ceremonies held in France. A very public spat with French president Emmanuel Macron may have been the precipitating factor but the tempest is a teachable moment. Focusing on Trumpian mood swings is no substitute for a study of history.
Despite the pomp, circumstance and wreath laying, there is no reason to celebrate World War I. In 1914 European powers squabbled like predatory animals over their various imperialist claims. They all miscalculated and none of them foresaw a four-year long catastrophe that would kill millions of people. When it became clear that the stalemate would only result in more suffering they refused to relent. Instead they accelerated the deadliness of the conflict and developed mustard gas, the flame thrower and aerial warfare.
But the victors eventually got the spoils. Britain and France ended up taking the Ottoman Empire territories in the Middle East and snatching Germany’s colonies in Africa too. They stole Germany’s money and set the stage for another conflagration just 20 years later. The United States got in on the action towards the end of the war and ended up securing its own empire. Woodrow Wilson’s promise of self-determination was never intended to apply to the peoples of the global south, who were expected to accept colonialism without complaint.
One hundred years later the same nations are still making decisions that impact everyone in the world and they still do so with the worst of intentions. The NATO framework that resulted after the great war of the 1940s was a defensive apparatus against the Soviet Union which collapsed in 1991. The end of the USSR should have meant the end of NATO too but instead it expanded eastward right up to Russia’s border.

-- Margaret Kimberley, "The Legacy of 1918" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).