Post-WWI Pacifism and Today’s

Dan Blatt writes an interesting contrast between Verdun and Fallujah:

As we remember the hundred of thousands who were killed or maimed at Verdun, we need to bear in mind how much we have learned from that horrible encounter — and its aftermath. We know the horrors of war and that bloody sacrifice does not necessarily lead to an honorable conclusion. The “war to end all wars” failed to live up to its supposedly defining expression.
There are already signs that we are reaching a more honorable conclusion in Iraq. Just over a year ago, American troops fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq war, clearing the city of Fallujah of the terrorists who had taken over in the aftermath of the defeat of Saddam’s tyranny. In the November 2004 battle for that city, our armed forces suffered 70 dead and 600 wounded. As soon as our troops cleared the terrorists out, they welcomed the people back and have since then been working with them to rebuild the town….
The victors of this war have clearly learned from the failures of the victors of that nearly century-old war. Even so, we need to keep in mind the question that Dave Kane (like Norah Vincent and myself, a graduate of America’s finest small college) asked, whether “the benefits for this improvement are worth the costs in blood and treasure.”
As we remember Verdun in the midst of the current war, let us resolve to achieve a victory so that, unlike the aftermath of that bloody battle, the next generation will not have to sacrifice as this one has.

The aftermath of World War I’s failed Wilsonian ideals bred a pacifism in Europe and the U.S. that had some merit. However, the pacifism that continues in much of Europe and the U.S. today has little merit, following the defeat of the two gravest threats to Western civilization and freedom – Nazi and Communist – and the real liberation of hundreds of millions of the formerly oppressed. Its mutation into or false-beard of virulent anti-Americanism – after decades of selfless sacrifice of our youths and wealth to liberate more and protect Western values -- is even less meritorious, but rather despicable.