On this 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, let us resolve again to make sacrifices to defend our freedom
Nov 11, 2018 5:00 am By Robert Spencer 4 Comments
Veterans’ Day is November 11 because on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 11AM (Paris time, when this is being posted) on November 11, 1918, the Armistice between the Allies and the Central Powers took effect. World War I had been more peculiar, unnecessary and pointless than most wars, but from it comes many lingering features of the American and international political landscape: the messianic idea of “making the world safe for democracy,†even for people who don’t value democracy or want it; the powder keg of a web of global alliances that can be touched off into a worldwide conflagration by a minor incident; the repeated recourse to failed analyses and refusal to reexamine them, no matter how often and spectacularly they fail; the stigmatizing of all opposition and even outright restrictions on the freedom of speech to crush dissent; and more.
Yet in other ways the military landscape of World War I was profoundly different from that of conflicts today. During the Christmas truce of 1914, the British, French and German soldiers came out of their trenches and exchanged Christmas greetings. In some places they even exchanged gifts and played games together. They respected each other as human beings. They recognized that they shared the same values. Yet this was infrequently repeated in subsequent Christmases; the bitterness of war overwhelmed any impulse to see the opponent as a person worthy of respect.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/11/on-this-100th-anniversary-of-armistice-day-let-us-resolve-again-to-make-sacrifices-to-defend-our-freedom
