Obama at Flanders Field: Lessons of World War I ‘speak to us still’
President Obama laid a wreath at the World War I memorial at Flanders Field on Wednesday, noting the war that tore apart Europe still echoes in conflicts 100 years later.
- A handout picture released by the Chancellery of Belgium’s Prime Minister shows (L-R) US President Barack Obama, Belgium’s King Philippe and Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo visiting the WWI Flanders Field Cemetery in Waregem on March 26, 2014. Obama paid his first visit ever to the European Union headquarters in Brussels, cementing US-EU opposition to the takeover of Crimea after slamming Russian expansionism as a “sign of weakness”. (Prime Minister’s Chancellery/Benoit Doppange/AFP/Getty Images)
“The lessons of that war speak to us still,” Obama said in his first stop since arriving in Belgium late Tuesday.
The president is in Brussels for a summit with European Union leaders. He’s also slated to meet with NATO’s secretary-general and deliver a speech at the Palais des Beaux-Arts.
The itinerary, like much of Obama’s European trip this week, is expected to be dominated by talk of a new threat on Europe’s doorstep. Obama and European leaders are to discuss Russia’s armed seizure of the Crimean peninsula and how the West can prevent Moscow from moving further into Ukraine. – Kathleen Hennessey, Los Angeles Times