{"id":554,"date":"2014-04-03T09:12:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T09:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/04\/did-president-obama-whitewash-world-war-i.html"},"modified":"2014-04-03T09:12:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T09:12:00","slug":"did-president-obama-whitewash-world-war-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/04\/did-president-obama-whitewash-world-war-i.html","title":{"rendered":"Did President Obama “Whitewash” World War I?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
That\u2019s the accusation of this article in The Progressive<\/a>, as linked to by Best of the Web Today<\/a>. <\/div>\n

They report,<\/p>\n

President Obama just went to Flanders Field in Belgium to pay homage to those who lost their lives in World War I.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But rather than use the occasion to point out the idiotic hideousness of that war, he whitewashed it, praising \u201cthe profound sacrifice they made so that we might stand here today.\u201d \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0He saluted their \u201cwillingness to fight, and die, for the freedom that we enjoy as their heirs.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0But this was not a war for freedom. It was a triumph of nationalism, pitting one nation\u2019s vanity against another. It was a war between empires for the spoils.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, annoyingly, there\u2019s no opportunity to comment on this article \u2014 because the comment that\u2019s begging to be made is this:<\/p>\n

Barack Obama did not \u201cwhitewash\u201d World War I. \u00a0It\u2019s a complex war, full of stupidity and the product of a political situation that has justly been labelled a \u201ctinderbox\u201d, but ultimately, the Germans did<\/i>\u00a0invade Belgium. \u00a0Were the Belgians to just stand aside and welcome their new occupiers? \u00a0Were the British and French to further abandon promises of protection, or perhaps let Germany enter France as well?<\/p>\n

And the article links to no other reporting about Obama\u2019s speech, or his visit in general. \u00a0Did he address the complexity of the situation? \u00a0One 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.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ve found the full text<\/a>. \u00a0Basically, it\u2019s short, it\u2019s fluff, it\u2019s meant to promote the bond between Belgium and the United States, just as a feel-good stop.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s the accusation of this article in The Progressive, as linked to by Best of the Web Today. They report, President Obama just went to Flanders Field in Belgium to pay homage to those who lost their lives in World War I.\u00a0 But rather than use the occasion to point out the idiotic hideousness of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDid President Obama "Whitewash" World War I?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's the accusation of this article in The Progressive, as linked to by Best of the Web Today. 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