Did President Obama “Whitewash” World War I?

They report,

President Obama just went to Flanders Field in Belgium to pay homage to those who lost their lives in World War I. 

But rather than use the occasion to point out the idiotic hideousness of that war, he whitewashed it, praising “the profound sacrifice they made so that we might stand here today.”  

 He saluted their “willingness to fight, and die, for the freedom that we enjoy as their heirs. 

 But this was not a war for freedom. It was a triumph of nationalism, pitting one nation’s vanity against another. It was a war between empires for the spoils.

And, annoyingly, there’s no opportunity to comment on this article — because the comment that’s begging to be made is this:

Barack Obama did not “whitewash” World War I.  It’s a complex war, full of stupidity and the product of a political situation that has justly been labelled a “tinderbox”, but ultimately, the Germans did invade Belgium.  Were the Belgians to just stand aside and welcome their new occupiers?  Were the British and French to further abandon promises of protection, or perhaps let Germany enter France as well?

And the article links to no other reporting about Obama’s speech, or his visit in general.  Did he address the complexity of the situation?  One suspects that the entire speech was a perfunctory stop, and perhaps done with only a shaky understanding of the history of World War I, or even a confusion between this and World War II.

UPDATE:

Now I’ve found the full text.  Basically, it’s short, it’s fluff, it’s meant to promote the bond between Belgium and the United States, just as a feel-good stop.