[Up] [Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Lest we forget




Silence Falls

The echoes die, the smoke-clouds thin and pass,
The cannons are, like statues, dumb and cold:
Silent the crosses wait, and in the grass
The spent shells gleam like gold.
All spent he lay and dreamed till the moment came:
Now, waking with a cry, he looks, all wonder
To see the empty sky hurl down no flame:
To hear no crack of thunder.

                                           Henry Weston Pryce, 11 =
November1918.


At 11 am on 11 November 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell quiet =
after
more than four years continuous warfare. The allied armies had driven =
the
German intruder back, having inflicted many heavy defeats on the Germans
over the preceding four months. In November the Germans called for an
armistice in order to secure a peace settlement.  The allied terms were
unconditional surrender. The quarrel of World War One had caused
mobilisation of over 70 million people. Somewhere 9 and 13 million human
beings lay dead.  One-third of the dead have no known grave. We must not
forget these who gave their lives.

On 11 November 1919, the two minutes of silence was organised as part of =
the
memorial ceremony at the Cenotaph in London. An Australian journalist
toiling in Fleet Street, Edward Honey had proposed the two-minute =
silence. A
South African statesman made a similar proposal to the British Cabinet,
which endorsed it. King George V called for all the people of the =
British
Empire to suspend normal activities for two minutes on the hour of the
ceasefire "which stayed the world wide carnage of the four preceding =
years
and marked the victory of Right and Freedom." =20
=20
Did it?  We, as victors, imposed a humiliation of the vanquished that =
allowed the rise of Hitler.

Few people realise that the in the East the war continued. Estonian
independence owes as much to the noble principles of Woodrow Wilson as =
it
does to the arrival of the British naval detachment to the port of =
Tallinn
in 1918. The British Government supported the Estonian fight for
independence in deeds. Admiral. Sir Edwin Alexander-Sinclair of Freswick =
the
courageous commander of the British fleet did not hesitate to go into =
action
attacking the Bolshevik Navy.

We are now engaged in a new war.  How many wars is this since the peace =
of
World War Two? The current war is the so-called 'War on Terror'.

Arguments are now being presented for sending the youth of Britain and
America and our Allies into one of the most dangerous places in the =
world,
not for the 'War on Terror' but to exterminate the evil Saddam. What has
this has to do with the 'War on Terror'. No proof has been presented; no
smoking gun shows the weapons of mass destruction.  There is no known =
link
between the criminal obscenity of 11 September 2001 and Saddam.

The 22 million souls who inhabit Iraq would probably welcome the end
Saddam's ruthless rule.  In 1980 American forces joined the Iraqis, by
destroying Iranian oil platforms and attacking the Iranian Navy they
weakened Saddam's enemy. The allies of the Gulf War abandoned the Iraqi
people in 1991 when they failed to support the uprising inside the =
country.
Now just across the Iraqi Iranian frontier 40,000 trained Iranian =
fanatics
stand ready to settle and old score with America as it busies itself it =
with
Iraqi and the Arab and Muslin world push us to the brink of extinction.

The 'War on Terror' has been so far a failure. Millions on people in =
America
have had their civil rights hi-jacked. Arab friends have distanced
themselves from the West by western war mongering and sabre rattling. =
War
was made in Afghanistan to eliminate Usama bin Laden.  Has he been
eliminated? His whereabouts are unknown. Bin Laden's shock troops, the
Taliban, sit on their buried arms while as Western politicians wrap
themselves in their national flags for the wrong reasons. Body bags and
burnt youth streaming home to Australia from Bali, American Marines
attacked in Kuwait a French oil tanker assaulted off the coast of Yemen =
are
too high a price to pay for popularity ratings. The CIA and Pentagon =
state
that Al Qaeda ranks are swelling. American Special Forces must guard the
Afghani puppet President who was installed.  You cannot impose =
pluralistic
democracy as an occupying power.

Today the Queen laid a wreath in Honour of our British and Commonwealth =
war
dead. Tomorrow we will have all across Europe two minutes of silence. A
wreath and two minutes cannot pay the debt we owe. Remembering not
forgetting the lessons paid for in the shed blood of the Great War is =
the
only method we can pay the debt.





Sinclair



[ This is the Sinclair family discussion list, sinclair@quarterman.org
[ To get off or on the list, see http://sinclair.quarterman.org/list.html