SO BEGINS WORLD WAR IV?

[Geee]

American Spectator:

Is World War IV on the verge of beginning? With President Obama in the role of the reluctant leader whose actions have invited global catastrophe?

 

As the 100th anniversary of what is known to modern history as World War I is marked, it is perhaps time to recall that once upon a time the “Great War” as it was called in its day was known in the aftermath as “the war to end all wars.” The phrase was associated with President Wilson, who also said the U.S. needed to join the fight in Europe to “make the world safe for democracy.”

 

It wasn’t the war to end all wars, and most certainly it didn’t make the world safe for democracy. Today the war that raged between August of 1914 until November of 1918 has eternally attached to it the Roman numeral I. By September of 1939 what would become known as World War II was launched. Almost immediately following that war’s conclusion on the decks of the USS Missouri in September of 1945, the Roman numeralless Cold War began. But with repeated hot conflicts from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan, with murderous confrontations stretching from Europe to Asia, Africa, Central and South America, a better appelation might be World War III.

 

What do each of these conflicts have in common? All began with events that were far from American shores, events that went on for years or decades before a trigger-pulling, explosive event that launched the war in question. And in each and every case as events proceeded there was a segment of the American population of the day, sometimes a majority, that looked at what was happening and simply didn’t want to get involved. Believing — always wrongly, as it would turn out — that the events in motion could never involve them if they simply chose to not involve themselves.

 

But why? Why does a belief that is so repeatedly shown to be wrong — with such devastating consequences — surface time and time again in not just American history but human history in general?