Ah, history what could we learn from it?

This past Saturday we marked an important anniversary, well yes I imagine some people celebrated wedding anniversary or other joyous occasions (sorry if it is not) but the anniversary of which I am referring to is the 65th anniversary of D- Day. Why should you care? Well for starters it is important to remember the sacrifices of the young men and their efforts to Liberate Europe and overthrow the Nazi Regime. In no way do I intend to cheapen their actions and memories through this post as I am truly appreciative and respectful of what they did.

There is not doubt that the Normandy invasion and the root motivation of the Allies during the Second World War was noble and a just. There are aspects as to how the war was fought and the way the world was shaped that are not as black and white. As you all should know it was out of the ruins of the Second World War that the world we know developed for good and bad.

People’s perspective on history affects the way that they view the world today; this is true for individuals and for countries. For me there are two main ways to understand history: patriotically and preferably striving to understand the larger picture. This is not to say that one should not take pride in their countries accomplishments rather they should acknowledge darker sides of their past as well.

Being a history buff I decided to watch a DVD I got for Christmas one year called "World War II" this 5 disk box set contains the "Why We Fight " propaganda series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight). As I was watching the Normandy invasion and other videos I was struck by the difference in Propaganda for WWII and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Obviously the media climate is different today but what struck me more was the important role that history played in the "Why We Fight" series.

Unlike the propaganda, er sorry news reports leading up to the invasion of Iraq the people behind "Why We Fight" deemed it necessary to give a history lesson on the nations they were at war with and the ones they were trying to help. An effort was made to link past occurrences to current action, at the same time as they were condemning the positions of Germany and Japan they were explaining what exactly lead up to their aggression so one could understand where their enemy was coming from. Oddly by seeing enemies’ motivation our own position was strengthened and further justified. Obviously this is propaganda, so some inconvenient facts were left out or under emphasized but over all the films gave more credit to the ability of citizens to make the right decision than current efforts to promote military action. Where the likes of fox news (and CNN) offered no real truth or background on our ‘enimies’* in their coverage. In a weird way it seems as if we were safer in the day when Government was in control of our news of war.

* Al-Qaeda are obviously the enemies of the west but there is not real effort to understand why they are willing to die in a fight against us something that I think would be useful to know.