Remember D-Day: It is Russia and US this time

And learn from our past. Could the terrible loss of life and environmental destruction that was World War II been prevented? If we don‘t learn from our past, we are bound to repeat our mistakes; honouring the battle of D-Day and the men who lost their lives should include  answering the question, “how could it have been prevented?”

My aunt lost two sons in the war; she spent almost a decade in mourning. She spoke resentfully of people who got rich during the war while she lost her children. 

So as the US and Russia face off over the Ukraine, what could we learn from World War II?

When someone, a leader or a country says that it wants world domination or implies that it is somehow “above the law”, they mean it! Hitler said it. Now the US says it. 

US exceptionalism was recognized as fact in the eighteenth century; unfortunately the more recent US leadership have mistaken exceptionalism for superiority. Paul Bolt, on taking his position as US representative to the UN said (and I paraphrase) that there wasn’t really a United Nations, the world was governed by one super-power and everyone else had to go along. In fact, the failure to understand the nature of US exceptionalism has lead to universal blindness about the invasions and bombings of more than seven different countries in the last century, the building of military bases in more than 25 countries, the surrounding of China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula – and acceptance of US hegemony at the security counsel. Finally, the United States does believe that it is above the law; it does not accept the existence of the International Criminal Court.

The US wealthy need to keep having wars. They even support the use of drones so the sales of arms will continue but US citizens don’t actually have to get killed. Obama has made threats to Iran, Syria and now Russia – none of which have threatened the US. So the US is on a war path.

Why do we (the rest of the world) stand silent?

1. Denial:  We can’t believe that the world would go to war. Chamberlain so wanted to believe Hitler that he called the “Munich Agreement” of 1938 which “gave” Czechoslovakia to Hitler, a “Peace agreement”.

We can’t believe that there would be unscrupulous people in the arms industry who would lobby for war for their own profit – of course, that’s not what they say.  They say that the war is for “education for the woman”, saving “babies from being thrown out of their incubators” or “to establish democracy”.

We can’t believe that the sales of arms is ethical; we can’t conceive that people have no responsibility for arming terrorists, underground militia, or despotic governments – or for the people killed by the arms from which they profited.

2. Personal Gain: This played a role in the delay with which the US entered WWII. It plays a role among nations currently allied with the US; disagreeing with the US might mean imposition of some new sanctions, some passport hassle or trade issue. Additionally, of course, other countries may have arms industries equally eager to see a war break out. Canada could become very wealthy if a major war occurred in Eastern Europe.

3. Bad-mouthing the US: No one wants to be labeled as “anti-American” partly because the term “American” is equally applicable to Mexicans, Central and South Americans and partly because mostly we like the citizens of the United States even as their government doesn’t represent them on the world stage.

Even so, the United States is behaving like a big bully; it must accept the same rules as everyone else. Why is it in the Ukraine in the first place? Why is it leading the inflammatory remarks towards Russia? Become civilized and behaviour as civilized adults and start negotiating a peace process.

The fact that Russia and the United States both have nuclear weapons means that no one will be left unaffected if war occurs - we cannot afford to just watch the process - we need to be vocal.