Lest We Forget

Today is Veteran's Day. We should remember the veterans of all our conflicts today. If you don't mind acting like Canadians, Brits or Australians, wear a poppy flower in memoriam.

It is interesting that in the former Soviet Union veterans are honored on Victory Day, the day marking the fall of Nazi Germany in World War II. By contrast, the West remembers its Veterans today (and in America, confusingly, also on Memorial Day, although I am not too clear whether it is specifically veterans killed in combat who are remembered on May 28, or all deceased vets, or just all deceased). Today is the 88th anniversary of the cease-fire that ultimately ended the First World War, and that led to the Versailles Treaties. It was the unwillingness of the Western Powers to uphold these treaties and to occupy and disarm Germany, as well as the fiction generated today that the German military was unbeaten and had been betrayed by Jewish-led Socialists and Communists, that ultimately led to the far more destructive (and better-remembered) Second World War. So today, a day that has become something of a forgotten holiday, should be a day to remember that any conflict can be a lost cause if we lose the political will to properly resolve them. Such conflicts will not disappear, however. They will come back to us, often in a more horrible guise.