President Trump visited France where among the rise in nationalism and increase in militarism, with much of the work being done by US policies that has the potential to lead to a major conflict on the scale of a third global war, he eulogized the dead in World War I:
Eschewing global politics, President Donald Trump paid tribute Sunday to Americans who lost their lives in World War I while avoiding references to current tensions with allies.
“The American and French patriots of World War I embody the timeless virtues of our two republics,” Trump said during a gloomy, rainy day at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in Paris.
Trump spoke of the horrors that Americans, the French and others faced in places like Belleau Wood, and the ultimate sacrifices that so many made in fighting for freedom. Suresnes holds the remains of 1,541 Americans who died in World War I, which ended 100 years ago Sunday.
“It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended,” Trump said. “We renew our sacred obligation to memorialize our fallen heroes.”
At one point, Trump – criticized for skipping a cemetery ceremony Saturday because of rain – lauded guests who watched the speech while under shelter “as we’re getting drenched … you’re very smart people.”
Trump also lauded the physical condition of at least one surviving veteran, telling him: “I hope I look like that some day – you look great.”
The cemetery visit capped a weekend trip to Paris devoted to events marking the centennial of the armistice that ended World War I. Trump returns to the White House on Sunday night.
At an armistice ceremony earlier in the day, President Emmanuel Macron of France appeared to be referencing Trump’s “America First” foreign policy as he denounced “nationalism” that too often encourages countries to engage in conflict.
“Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” Macron told a gathering of world leaders that included Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Macron told fellow leaders they have a have a “huge responsibility” to defeat modern forces that threaten a “legacy of peace” from the two world wars of the past century.
“I know there are old demons coming back to the surface,” he said. “They are ready to wreak chaos and death.”
If Trump took the comment personally, he didn’t show it publicly. In his cemetery speech, Trump called the earlier event “very beautiful” and “well done.”
Trump also paid tribute to Veterans Day back in the United States. Noting the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, he tweeted that “we honor the brave HEROES who fought for America in the Great War, and every Veteran who has worn the uniform and kept our Nation Safe, Strong and FREE!”
The president’s appearances came a day after he took heat for canceling a Saturday trip to another cemetery, one near Belleau Wood. The White House cited rainy weather, saying it would have created problems for the choppers that would have ferried the president.
“Even if the helicopters couldn’t fly, he could’ve driven,” said Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “He must just be afraid of a little rain.” (source)
When I criticize President Trump, I do so not because of party lines, but in the context of the policies he is pushing for. Indeed, Trump is not unique, but he is a continuation of those who came before him, acting as a machine operator for a much larger plan, of which the purpose is to start a Third World War.
The last president to stand against these policies in any serious way was President Kennedy. All presidents since then- Democrat or Republican -have in some way advanced the same plan by either direct actions or by setting up conditions under which the same actions seen today could eventually happen.
Under Trump’s tenure, the following things have happened:
–More and serious calls for war against Iran and direct American intervention
–The permission for the remilitarization of Germany
–The permission for the remilitarization of Japan
–The continued expansion of war into Syria
–Inviting known neo-conservative terrorists into the Trump Administration
–The massive expansion of strong anti-Russia positions, including the military expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia
–The rise of American nationalism
Again, it’s not as though the processes leading up to these things were not happening before, or the conditions were not being set up. I am not “picking on Trump,” but rather noting that his claim for being “different” than “those other” politicians is not true in the fundamental sense, as the basic philosophy already guiding US Policy is continuing without any fundamental changes to its intended goal of a war with Russia and a breakup of that nations into a series of small and able to be controlled vassal states. The goal is, for lack of a better phrase, about world domination by a small coalition of powers working together in an oligarchic fashion. This was also the major conflict of World War II, for as it has been noted, the US and NATO support of National Socialism and the German adaptation of the American eugenics programs to the Third Reich does not mean a difference as far as philosophy was concerned, but rather it was an internal fight between socialists for who would “lead” the others in the world in the same way that dogs in a pack will fight with each other for position.
Basically, Germany and Japan wanted to control the world in the West and East respectively, America told them “not while we have a say,” Germany and Japan said “Let’s bring it on”, the USA “put both of them in their place,” and then after built them back up and worked with them and gradually brought them to a point where they could “do their own thing” and the USA will help them, but just acknowledging that US interests will not be interfered with. All agree on destroying Russia, so united around their common hatred of her, they are again preparing for war against her in the name of the same philosophy as before.
National Socialism never died. It never even went dormant, but just rebranded itself under covert operations as being “pro-democracy” and “anti-communist” except for the terror-type “stay behind” units which were funded as a part of the same project. What was hidden before is merely coming to public view now.
This is the great concern, that a war is not merely a potential future, but it is the future being planned, and given the magnitude of the past two world wars, it has the potential to dwarf them both in destruction and horrors.
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It is good to remember the dead on Veterans Day, and all those who died in foreign wars, as conflicts are real and do happen.
The best way that one can honor the deceased veterans is to stop making more of them, because most wars are nothing but rackets for wealthy banking interests where, as Smedley Butler noted, profits are measured in dollars and losses in lives and broken families.
Talk is cheap. At this point, it is not for “the politicians,” but the common people to stop supporting policies that cause unnecessary militarism and conflict abroad and domestically, as the politicians are just reflections of the average man on the street.
Stop feeding the war pigs.