Embracing nationalism dishonors all US veterans

As it did 100 years ago to the day, France took center stage Sunday in a worldwide salute to the honor of millions of veterans and to the success of international solidarity in ending the first truly global military conflict on our planet.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump joined dozens of other world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe on the Avenue Champs-Elys es in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice to end “The Great War.” That milestone event also serves as the foundation of America’s national observance of Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, on Nov. 11. (Because the holiday fell on a Sunday this year, the official federal observance of Veterans Day takes place today.)

The major allies of the First World War – France, Great Britain and the United States – signed an accord with Germany and its allies to cease hostilities at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 in France.

In so doing, they also rescued democracy from the throes of autocratic totalitarian rule. Indeed the democracies of France, Britain and Belgium could not have survived without the Allied victory, to which the robust support of some 2 million U.S. troops strongly contributed.

The ongoing value of such tightly cohesive Western cooperation weighed heavily Sunday in the remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron at the featured centennial event in central Paris.

As the host of the weekend-long commemorative events of the end of the war, Macron sounded a powerful and sobering warning about the dangers of renewed nationalist tendencies throughout the world and of nations that attempt to put themselves first above the collective good.

“The old demons are rising again, ready to complete their task of chaos and of death,” Macron said.

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying ‘Our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious things a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values.”

Those poignant remarks appeared to be aimed directly toward Trump, who has proudly described himself as a nationalist and has served as principal architect of a rigid “America First” policy agenda in trade, international relations, immigration policy and other domains.

In Paris, the American commander-in-chief epitomized those anti-democratic values by isolating himself from other Western leaders and by boycotting several joint commemorative events with other heads of state.

DANGER OF ISOLATIONIST DRIFT

That behavior goes hand in hand with the American president’s willingness to shatter decades and even centuries of diplomatic and military alliances with other freedom-loving nations of the Western world. Such policy and practices, if allowed to continue, could very well drift this nation closer and closer to the dangers of isolationism.

We would therefore hope that the president would see both the historic and contemporary value of forging and protecting strong bonds with those nations that share our values. Without the alliances formed among Allied forces in World War I or World War II, who knows what additional destruction and carnage may have resulted? Who knows how the course of Western history may have changed – most likely for the worse?

Veterans from throughout the nation and the Mahoning Valley have formed lasting relationships themselves with their comrades in arms from other countries. As we salute those honorable, duty-bound U.S. veterans today from conflicts up to and including today’s Afghanistan war, we also salute those soldiers from other countries who stood side by side with them as allies or coalition partners.

The Mahoning Valley has a long and proud history of such cooperation. Take, for example, the Youngstown Base Hospital 31, which was established in Contrexe-ville, France, by about 300 volunteers from Youngstown’s medical community, including 85 physicians and 64 nurses. Its medical and surgical units treated about 8,000 American, British, French and other World War I combatants wounded from March 1918 to the end of the war.

Many of those soldiers and others throughout history suffered life-altering injuries because of their valiant efforts to defeat nationalistic regimes. On this official Veterans Day in the U.S., those who seek to glorify nationalism only defile the bravery and sacrifice made by so many of this nation’s proud and freedom-fighting war heroes.