Some Perspective on Peace

By Colin Browne on 11/17/2010 @ 09:30 AM

Tags: Middle East

Matthew Yglesias at the Center for America Progress blogs:

When folks like me start waxing eloquent about world peace and cooperation, it’s easy to dismiss us as utopian. [...]

Let us give thanks that the most brutal and blood-soaked border in the world is quiet [...]

Who am I talking about? The Germans and the French, of course.

It is now 65 years and 9 months since an army crossed the Rhine River bearing fire and sword. This is the longest period of peace on the Rhine since the second century B.C.E., before the Cimbri and the Teutones appeared to challenge the armies of the consul Gaius Marius in the Rhone Valley[...]

France is still France, Germany is still Germany, and the continent still has various problems. But the problem of war has been abolished, just as it has on the US-Canadian border, between the United States and Japan, and in other portions of the globe.

Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that peace really is possible.