What grates for many Australian and New Zealanders is recent attitude from allies seeking to glorify war, celebrate slaughter and killing, and using service days to pivot into raw self serving grift:
The day that we now recognize as Veterans Day began at the end of World War I, when the armistice that turned into a lasting peace took effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. In 1954, after veterans of World War II and the Korean War had joined the ranks of returning military personnel, Congress changed the name of the U.S. commemoration from “Armistice Day” to “Veterans Day.”
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a veteran who had served as the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and who had become a five-star general of the Army before his political career, later issued a proclamation asking Americans to observe Veterans Day: “[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
In our day it has become a tradition for political leaders to honor veterans on this day, and today was no exception. Trump delivered a Veterans Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery, although he broke with the tradition of nonpartisan speeches and ended his speech with a defense of his war on Iran and a celebration of the attack on Venezuela that has given the U.S. control of its oil fields.
“We’re taking out billions and billions of dollars of oil and all sorts of other things. Be hundreds of billions very soon,” Trump said. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it, and we paid for the cost of the war many, many times over already.” “To the victor belong the spoils, they used to say,” he continued. “But you can say it again with us under this leadership.”
Also unusual was the president using the solemn day of remembrance to raise money.
Bone Spurs Lame Duck à l'orange is no friend of ours.