We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps -- millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.
We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.
The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.
Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Pointe de Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.
Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life...and left the vivid air signed with your honor ."
Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love.
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
The information on Operation Jedburgh is only recently coming to light. Their service was crucial in Normandy. The book also provides some insight into the history of the development of the CIA.
Second, for a powerful history of the Army Nurses, see the book And if I Perish, Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee
This book mostly follows the nurses in the European Theater of Operations, including their service in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy, in great detail. Speedy Glidewell has become my personal heroine.
A group calling itself a supporter of worldwide jihad has praised two bomb scares that happened in Helsinki this past weekend on an internet discussion forum.
On Friday morning, police cordoned off an area in the Pasila district after a home-made device was found. Early Saturday, a petrol bomb was thrown into the yard of an unmanned service station in another part of the city. The group said online that it hoped fresh attacks would succeed.
The Finnish Security Police (SUPO) says it is taking the matter seriously but does not wish to speculate for now.
SUPOs communications director said that police are responsible for investigating the incident, but that SUPO would give its expert assistance if a terrorist link was revealed.
Naturally we are employing our own channels. Previously we have not had such threats to civilian targets, she noted. No one was apparently injured in either incident.
The internet message was ascribed to Abu Sulaiman al-Nasser, who is considered to be one of the most followed al-Qaeda bloggers in the world. The same name was connected with a recent online threat made against Finnish peacekeepers in Afghanistan.
Evan Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe, published this of the message on his Twitter feed IntelTweet: "On Friday, a homemade bomb was found in the capital of Finland Helsinki... We ask Allah that the next bomb is successful." Kohlmann says the message was "another apparent terror threat to Finland, written in both Arabic and Finnish."
Continued on Page 47
ATHENS - Tens of thousands Greeks rallied in central Athens on Sunday to denounce politicians, bankers and tax dodgers, as the government prepared to inflict another bout of austerity demanded by its international lenders.
"Thieves - hustlers - bankers," read one banner as more than 50,000 people packed the main Syntagma square outside parliament to vent their frustration over rising joblessness as austerity bites, blaming the crisis on political corruption. Turnout was the biggest so far in a series of 12 nightly rallies on the square inspired by Spain's protest movement.
Amidst a sea of splayed hands waved at the parliament building -- an offensive gesture for Greeks -- one demonstrator raised a placard reading "Bravo Yemen", whose president underwent surgery in Saudi Arabia for injuries suffered in a rocket attack on his palace.
Police put the crowd at 50,000 by mid-evening, but numbers continued to grow as dusk fell over the Greek capital. Another banner drew comparisons with rallies early this year in central Cairo which ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "From Tahrir Square to Syntagma Square, we support you!" it said.
The cabinet of Prime Minister George Papandreou is due to discuss on Monday an economic plan, which a senior government official said would impose 6.4 billion euros of budget measures this year alone, on top of austerity already imposed under Greece's original international bailout agreed last year.
The medium-term plan includes tax increases while the international lenders are pushing for a crackdown on widespread tax evasion. The black economy is thought to be around 20-30 percent of gross domestic product. The extra austerity is the price for a new bailout agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund to replace the old one, which has proved overoptimistic in assuming Greece could resume borrowing commercially early next year.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/06/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11139 views]
Top|| File under:
#5
We have a lot of the same 'Stupid Idiots' over here in the U.S. who will react simularly when we are forced for end some of the entitlement programs we have. Greece is just a preview of what's to come.
#6
Fine Greece. Lets let all the bankers close up shop, liquidate holdings, and take their money and leave. Your society will collapse. Good luck with that.
Posted by: The Other Beldar ||
06/06/2011 10:50 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Just a note....
All the Greek banks should shut up shop, they're all bankrupt.
#2
How many governments have the left lost in the past year? Ireland, Canada, New South Wales in Australia, the local elections in Spain, Catalonia in Spain (semi-autonomous region), Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia, Lithuania. Sweden re-elected a center-right government. The EU Parliament moved to the right.
The "progressives" are in global retreat. As the lose office, they lose influence and they lose money.
#3
Now that all they can do is be the Austerity Guys, and it's guaranteed pain and suffering for the next decade if not more, _sure_ they'll give the conservatives a chance...
#4
Humala won inPeru by pretending to be right of what he is, just like obooboo. Did not hurt that he ran against the Peruvian equivalent of Nixon's daughter. When you the likes of him, ooogoo and evoooooo bounced in South America the trend will be for real...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/06/2011 17:50 Comments ||
Top||
#5
when you see. Unh..
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/06/2011 17:50 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Dear Sir,
That's what happens when one tries to indulge the Muse of Clever Names.
#7
It doesn't matter which bunch of seat warmers gets in, Portugal is now simply a vassal state of the IMF and the ECB, who will be running the show. The indentured servants will only have one function, namely to line up and donate their pound of flesh as required.
To think that Dominique could now be Czar of Portugal, if only he could have kept his grubby hands off that maid in New York. And who knows he may have been able to institute Droit du seigneur as a fringe benefit.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
ATHENS - Tens of thousands Greeks rallied in central Athens on Sunday to denounce politicians, bankers and tax dodgers, as the government prepared to inflict another bout of austerity demanded by its international lenders. 
