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2004-02-11 Europe
Bush keeps France hanging for D-Day
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Posted by Steve 2004-02-11 11:53:26 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Glad to see the Germans can make it. The played a very significant part in the invasion.
Posted by Michael  2004-2-11 12:37:13 PM||   2004-2-11 12:37:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Well, kinda. If it wasn't for them there wouldn't have been an invasion.
Posted by tu3031 2004-2-11 12:45:00 PM||   2004-2-11 12:45:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Don't even show up. Screw the frogs, it's a perfect way to let them know "next time you're ON YOUR OWN"...
Posted by mojo  2004-2-11 12:55:52 PM||   2004-2-11 12:55:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 I agree, mojo!
This was our party, then Chirac invited the Krauts, who, as tu3031 rightly points out, necessitated the whole invasion, not to mention starting the war.
Screw the Weasel Axis--hope Bush stays home.
Posted by Jennie Taliaferro  2004-2-11 1:08:29 PM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com]  2004-2-11 1:08:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Dubya should offer to Kerry and some other people from the Congress the chance to represent us. They wouldn't be able to pass up the photo-op and opportunity to take a few shots. Eventually, it would backfire on them, as Americans (all but the incredibly toolish intellectual elitists) have innately figured out that the Phrench would rather see us burn than join us in achieving anything on the Int'l scene.
Posted by .com 2004-2-11 1:11:27 PM||   2004-2-11 1:11:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 What is Schroeder supposed to say? "Thank you for kicking the Nazis' butt. Many Germans died as a result, but thank you nonetheless." Seems strange to commemorate something that resulted in the death of many your fellow citizens.
Posted by Rafael 2004-2-11 1:19:34 PM||   2004-2-11 1:19:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Uh guys, I disagree. I'm as disgusted as anyone with the French, but this is a ceremony to remember our war dead. It would be wrong to dishonor them just to bitchslap France. We can do that economically.
Posted by BH  2004-2-11 1:44:11 PM||   2004-2-11 1:44:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 BH - You're right. Much as I'd like to give Chirac his due, you (and I think it was both JFM and TGA who correctly, but gently via logic, upbraided the hotheads like me last time this came up!) make the most important point: honoring those who died there to make us free today.
Posted by .com 2004-2-11 1:54:24 PM||   2004-2-11 1:54:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 BH, sorry, but I couldn't disagree more.
I cannot see honoring our war dead in the presence of the Germans.
Those fine men wouldn't have been killed if it weren't for the Germans. PERIOD.
The Allies-minus the French--should have a separate ceremony.
(My dad served in the Army for 3 years in Europe in WWII, BTW.)
Jaques Chirac invited Schroeder on purpose to embarrass President Bush.
And if the Krauts are invited, why not the Russians???
Posted by Jennie Taliaferro  2004-2-11 1:57:25 PM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com]  2004-2-11 1:57:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 It makes some sense to invite the former enemy to the ceremonies marking the peace. At least when you have won. :-)


But these are not peace ceremonies. I find utterly repugnant the idea of inviting the people who killed the poor guys who are lying in those graves. Bush should not show there, Blair should not show there and, since there where a few French who died on D-Day (the people of Commando Kieffer, Resistance, pilots) I think no French other than Rat Chirak should show at those ceremonies.

Posted by JFM  2004-2-11 2:30:48 PM||   2004-2-11 2:30:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Jennie, I'm not sure what bothers me most about your response - the implication that people can't change, or the implication that current generations must be held accountable for the crimes of their forefathers. Either prospect gives me the creeps.

I don't know how Schroeder's presence would "embarrass" President Bush. But I would be deeply embarrassed if my president declined to honor our heroes merely to count coup on an assface like Chiraq.
Posted by BH  2004-2-11 2:35:58 PM||   2004-2-11 2:35:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Anyone remember Clinton's pathetic appearance a few years back....If I recall he looked lost....I remeber this one scene where a flower had fallen over and he went over and straightened it up. The reason it fell over is because the dead GI's there were turning over in their graves at having him there. That was pathetic....I'm done.
Posted by dataman1 2004-2-11 2:43:51 PM||   2004-2-11 2:43:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 This is some very tough territory.

Should politics be involved in this ceremony? No.
Should we forgive subsequent generations? Yes.
Should we forgive Chirac? No.
Should we honor our dead, for they are truly heroes? Yes.

So is there an honorable and rational way to deal with this? I don't pretend to have the answer. Very difficult to separate out the factual from the emotional - and proceed from there. This is actually important, IMHO -- so I sincerely apologize for tossing in my stupid comment earlier.
Posted by .com 2004-2-11 2:53:06 PM||   2004-2-11 2:53:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Jennie would you feel the same way about Gettysburg? Seperate but equal ceremonies? If so, we may have issues.
Posted by Shipman 2004-2-11 3:00:48 PM||   2004-2-11 3:00:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 My uncle died in Belgium, Battle of the Bulge, 101 Airborne. He's been dead a long time now, and doesn't really care one way or the other if we "honor his memory" by kissing up the the frogs.

But I don't like the idea. Screw 'em, and everybody that looks like them.
Posted by mojo  2004-2-11 3:07:35 PM||   2004-2-11 3:07:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Right idea Dataman1, but I believe that was a small US flag at an American Battle Monument (military cemetery) in Italy where each grave had been adorned with a flag on Memorial Day. And, the reason it was laying there is because someone in his entourage laid it down so Clinton could be photographed picking it up.
Posted by GK 2004-2-11 3:08:49 PM||   2004-2-11 3:08:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 For obvious reasons I can salute D-Day better than many other Germans. 20 years ago the then federal president Richard von Weizsäcker summed up the paradox of defeat and liberation of May 1945.
The heros of D-Day made their way to Buchenwald...that's all I can say. And I salute those who didn't make it.
Yes many Germans died in Normandy. Many more would have died without D-Day.
Without the second front the Wehrmacht could have hold out much longer in the East. Years longer? Millions more of Jews and others would have died in the camps. And maybe Germany would have had Hiroshima, not Japan.
No, D-Day celebration should not be about political bickerings. And I don't see Schroeder embarassing GWB either. If Schroeder is still chancellor in June btw.
The D-Day veterans of both sides have made their peace long ago. You should, too, JFM.
Posted by True German Ally 2004-2-11 3:15:38 PM||   2004-2-11 3:15:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Another point is that Chirak had no right to cast invitations. It would be as if Israel invited some nation to ceremonies about teh Battle of Britain based on teh fact there was one Israeli pilot in it.
Posted by JFM  2004-2-11 3:16:39 PM||   2004-2-11 3:16:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 It might be more appropriate for Schroeder to host a ceremony to be held at Rheims, France
on the 7th day of May next year. That was the world's finest hour.
Posted by GK 2004-2-11 3:17:36 PM||   2004-2-11 3:17:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 True German Ally

This is not intended to be a slam, just information

Not maybe but definitly. The original plan was that simultaneous nuclear strickes were to take place on both Germany and Japan. Fortunately for Germany, the war ended when it did.

Posted by Michael  2004-2-11 3:31:33 PM||   2004-2-11 3:31:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 TGA

One thing is to invite Germany to the 11/11 ceremonies (peace, even if it was defeat for them), another one is to invite them to D-DAY (a battle, where people died), one thing is to have joint ceremonies for a battle against Imperial Germany and another one is to have joint cermonies for a battle against pure Evil. And one thing is to invitate Germany ot whoever we want for 11/11 since France made most of the fighting and the dying in WWI, and another one to cast invitations for D-DAY where France had very few people in the ground and thus Chirac has lost an occasion to shut up.
Posted by JFM  2004-2-11 3:35:47 PM||   2004-2-11 3:35:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 JFM, IMO, the presence of the German Chancellor at the D-Day ceremony is more meaningful than at a peace ceremony. It's one thing to have a gathering of the leaders of all the countries that participated in WWII so they can make speeches and whatnot. But having the leader of Germany participating in a ceremony in honor of those who effected Germany's defeat is about the most absolute repudiation of their past that you could get. I think it should be encouraged.
Posted by BH  2004-2-11 3:48:37 PM||   2004-2-11 3:48:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 BH, let me relate what I'm saying to another experience.
I visited Nagasaki, Japan on an Asian trip in 1988: I was on a Greek ship with mostly Americans, but people from other countries, too.
Some of the Japanese tried to make we Americans uncomfortable because the USA had never placed a "peace statue" at Ground Zero where the bomb dropped as so many other countries had.
At the time, I felt bad about being American and felt almost personally responsible for all the people who died when we bombed them.
In the years since, particularly since 9/11, when I've really studied the war and understood why we had to deal the Japs a punishing blow to end the war and shame them out of the shame-based Shinto culture, I feel pretty comfortable about dropping the bombs on Japan.
It ended the war almost a year earlier and saved perhaps a million American lives of a whole new generation of soldiers.
Now, I hope we never, ever put a "peace" statue in Nagasaki or Hiroshima.
And I'm glad to see the Japanese have changed and become such close allies and friends of the US today.
To answer Shipman's question about Gettysburg, the situation's anomalous to WWII Japan, even though I'm a Southerner and my sympathies until a few years ago would have been with the South.
The South had to punished and shamed. as with Grant burning Atlanta and Richmond, to teach us a lesson.
Slavery was wrong and the Union was worth preserving, but I still get kind of touchy when it comes to states' rights sometimes.
A lot of stubborn and "well meaning" Johnny Rebs died at Gettysburg, but it had to be done.
And I had ancestors who fought and died in that one.
I still don't want to honor our WWII war dead with the Germans standing there smirking.
Nazi Germany wasn't really humbled the way the Civil War South and Shinto Japan were; the German people got a pass and all the horrors of the death camps were pinned on the Nazis, when it was the general Anti-Semitism of all the Germans that made the camps possible.
And from their behavior during the last 3 years, it's not clear at all that either the French or the Germans have "changed" and learned the lessons they should have learned from both WWII and the Cold War.
End of rant.
Posted by Jennie Taliaferro  2004-2-11 3:49:19 PM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com]  2004-2-11 3:49:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 BH

If there were marchs in Germany with penitents flogging themselves like in some catholic countries for teh Holy Week then that would be a repudiation, but why it wouldc be a repudaition for Germany to have those who carried the Nazi uniform treated the same way that the good guys?
Posted by JFM  2004-2-11 4:11:44 PM||   2004-2-11 4:11:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 JFM, exactly! Thank you!
You are a thoughtful, sensitive person and I appreciate the fact that you can relate to the way some of we Americans feel about this very emotional issue.
We not only gave American blood and treasure to liberate France and to defeat the madman Hitler, but we spent more blood and treasure keeping Western Europe free from Soviet aggression for 50 years and look at the thanks we got from France and Germany in just the past year for all of our care and trouble.
Rien. Niente. Nada. Just stabbed in the proverbial back.
The idea of President Bush having to look across the graves of American war dead (from both WWI and WWII) at the arrogant countenances of Herr Schroeder and his buddy Jacques is just de trop. Too much.
And who is Hamlouie Mekachera??? Do NOT tell me that the German defense minister is descended from Arabian Muslims!
Posted by Jennie Taliaferro  2004-2-11 4:22:51 PM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com]  2004-2-11 4:22:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Mrs Taliaferro

For all of France's sins at the end of the War, the survival rate for France's Jews was the highest after Denmark, two times higher than Belgium and three times higher than Netherlands and many, many times more than in Czechoslovaquia or Poland.

One thing is what Vichy told to the Germans, another one is how the orders were "interpreted" by the chain of command, a third one is what the
"soldiers and NCOs" in police and gendarmerie decided to do and a fourth one was the cooperation of the population.

If the French authorities, police forces and population had had half the enthousiasm for hunting Jews they had in say, Poland, there would have been far, far less Jewish survivors in France. So why aren't you bashing those who deserve it first?
Posted by JFM  2004-2-11 4:26:35 PM||   2004-2-11 4:26:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 So it basically sounds like Jennie holds todays German responsible for yesterdays sins. Pretty shallow and very shortsighted really. I assume as a white Southern then you will gladly pay for the sins of your forefathers? Your experience in Nagasaki is apples and oranges to this by the way. Why don't you wait and see what the Germans do at the ceremony before getting on your holier-than-thou high horse and casting judgement? I lost both grandfathers to that war and I as an American don't have a problem. I'll wait and see what will be said before I cast my judgement. So get over yourself.
Posted by AllahHateMe 2004-2-11 4:43:34 PM||   2004-2-11 4:43:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 JFM, i find myself in a rather weird position, but you are forcing me to defend German soldiers now. The large majority of German soldiers (especially in France) didn't wear "Nazi uniforms" but Feldgrau. I am sure that you as a very educated French know what this means. These were drafted soldiers, they were not asked their opinion, they were sent into France and then ordered to fight the invasion. Many may have favoured the Nazis, but by 1944 most of them were probably thinking how to survive the war.
You may also note that Mr Schroeder is too young to have been a Nazi, he may be as obnoxious as hell but he's not responsible for WWII.
Germans had to cope with a dreadful past and they certainly preferred to ignore it in the 50s and 60s. I think they have come quite a way ever since Willy Brandt knelt down in Warsaw (and he was a resistance fighter).
Yes we could have done more. We have certainly done more than Japan...
And JFM, don't get me started on Vichy, please. Jewish body counts simply don't cut it for me... there is too much to be said here.
Yes Michael, I know that Germany WAS a nuclear target. And re Hiroshima and Nagasaki... as terrible as they were, it spared the Japanese total destruction. The firebombing of Tokyo was "conventual" but probably not any better and Japanese towns would have ben systematically flattened. Only the A-Bomb was a shock big enough to make them surrender. It probably saved millions of lives (remember some Japanese still continued "fighting" on deserted Pacific islands for decades).
France and Germany are thinking about joint passports and you STILL think a German cannot attend D-Day ceremony?
Hamlouie Mekachera is French-Algerian btw.
Posted by True German Ally 2004-2-11 5:39:34 PM||   2004-2-11 5:39:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 Goes to show that even after 60 years, there is still much emotion, at least from those who pay attention. IMO, I say invite the Germans, and that Bush should go, and then tell them (not remind them) exactly why it is they're gathering there...and I mean school them real good - tell them to stand up and fall in or sit down and STFU because it is how we conduct ourselves now in the WOT that honors the fallen and what they sacraficed for.
Posted by Rex Mundi 2004-2-11 5:40:56 PM||   2004-2-11 5:40:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 Granted it is true that when it came to rounding up the Jews the Poles display exceptionial enthusiasm what does that have to do with what happened in France under Vichy? Heck, the Italians had an even better record, if that actually means anything. Best ofter Denmark, althought I thought it was Norway.

Anyway, re the Germans at the D-Day memorial, there are some places and times when you are just not wanted under any circumstances. This is one of those times and it has nothing to do with what Germany or Germans might or might not be today.

Kind of like inviting the father of the murderer of your wife to a post trial victory celebration. Maybe not a really good example, it makes my point.

Posted by Michael  2004-2-11 5:46:53 PM||   2004-2-11 5:46:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 Say what you will but it is extremely awkward for Schroeder to attend. But imagine now, if Schroeder said no to Chiraq's invitation. The reaction would be equally negative as his attendance.
Posted by Rafael 2004-2-11 6:03:46 PM||   2004-2-11 6:03:46 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 I still don't want to honor our WWII war dead with the Germans standing there smirking

I Luv ya... but BS is BS.
Posted by Shipman 2004-2-11 6:26:16 PM||   2004-2-11 6:26:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 The Froggies saved my uncle (a bomber crewman) after his plane put down in Normandy, so I suppose that's an excuse for going.
Posted by Hiryu 2004-2-11 7:21:58 PM||   2004-2-11 7:21:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 When I lived in Germany while serving in the AF our landlord was a man who served in the German Army and was in Stalingrad. He would never say much about the war but occasionally he would start talking. Now his wife, she was more than willing to talk about the war. I remember many things she told me but one of the strongest points she made was that had he not served he would have been sent to a camp or worse. I also remember the miniseries The Holocaust being shown on german tv while there. After the showing many Germans were calling in to the station in tears about what they learned. And most of those were Germans who lived during the war.

I cannot lay the blame on those who are now alive for what their ancestors or even fathers did. And I can't blame the common soldier either. It was a war that had to be fought and I thank God that we won. I visited Dachau and cried. And now I'm thankful GWB liberated Iraq and I cry for the thousands who were butchered by Saddam. But I will not blame the common Iraqi soldier nor the Iraqi civilian for the horror of Saddam.

This is something that though we must never forget, we must not allow ourselves to be blocked by something in the past to come between establishing a good relationship. That relationship has been damaged in the recent past, for good reason, but this is not part of the equation.

I think GWB should go and speak eloquently about the liberation of Europe and the liberation of Iraq and how we must work to never allow this to happen to future generations. And how today we can move beyond the past and work together to ensure that mass slaughter never occurs again.

Posted by AF Lady 2004-2-11 9:24:29 PM||   2004-2-11 9:24:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 I think Germany and France should be there.Why?So the prez can point at Chancellor and say them boys died kicking your ass so don't try takeing the world over anymore.Then point at Chirac and say them boys died saving your ass so quit being a punk.
Posted by djohn66 2004-2-11 10:08:56 PM||   2004-2-11 10:08:56 PM|| Front Page Top

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