Every Christmas we are inundated with songs such as “let there be peace on earth.” The song and its sentiments are shared among many. So, what happened to peace?
Perhaps, the best example of laying down arms for a moment of peace is reflected in the Christmas Truce of World War I. As Judge John V. Denson noted ,
The Christmas Truce, which occurred primarily between the British and German soldiers along the Western Front in December 1914, is an event the official histories of the “Great War” leave out, and the Orwellian historians hide from the public.
It was, in itself, an act of rebellion since mingling with the enemy was considered an act of treason.
So, it comes as no surprise that historians wish to hide that peace could be achieved without our masters and overlords (the government). The common man does not wish for war and people will do everything in their power to avoid it. As portrayed in the World War I novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony — Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?
Much of the same response happened on the western front. As Eddie Rickenbacker became a rebel and took to the air to watch the greatest blessing to mankind 100 years ago on Armistice day, peace. He wrote:
it was 11:00 A.M., the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I was the only audience for the greatest show ever presented. On both sides of no-man’s-land, the trenches erupted. Brown-uniformed men poured out of the American trenches, gray-green uniforms out of the German. From my observer’s seat overhead, I watched them throw their helmets in the air, discard their guns, wave their hands. Then all up and down the front, the two groups of men began edging toward each other across no-man’s-land. Seconds before they had been willing to shoot each other; now they came forward. Hesitantly at first, then more quickly, each group approached the other.
Suddenly gray uniforms mixed with brown. I could see them hugging each other, dancing, jumping. Americans were passing out cigarettes and chocolate. I flew up to the French sector. There it was even more incredible. After four years of slaughter and hatred, they were not only hugging each other but kissing each other on both cheeks as well.
Star shells, rockets and flares began to go up, and I turned my ship toward the field. The war was over.
That quiet, peaceful Christmas and the day of Armistice 100 years ago are evidence that the common man does not wish for war. As Afghanistan enters its 18th year, children that were born when the war started can soon sign up to fight in it. If there is one thing we know about Afghanistan, it is that we don’t know why we’re still in Afghanistan. How many, men, women, and children must die before it ends? The truth is not what they are telling us, and this war will only end when the common man rises up and demands an end to it. As Lew Rockwell once said:
We don’t oppose the state’s wars because they’ll be counterproductive or overextend the state’s forces. We oppose them because mass murder based on lies can never be morally acceptable.
If wars are started by lies, the truth is the antidote. As the song goes “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”
