Posted on 02/10/2003 3:01:02 AM PST by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:12:02 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
February 10, 2003 -- COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France - They stand only 3 feet high, but they're towering mountains of sacrifice.
I'm standing in the American Cemetery. Gray clouds hang low as if in mourning for the nearly 10,000 young Americans buried beneath crosses and Stars of David that stretch as far as the eye can see.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
So when President Roosevelt went before the Congress of the United States and declared that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a day that would live in infamy---he just didn't know what he was talking about.....
That statement is arguable, but I grant you that they were a tremendous help.
That being said, do you not think that the US has repaid that debt many times over by now?
The United States was not building weapons of mass destruction in 1941 to either invade its neighbours, nor to supply terrorists.
Sorry, madamoiselle, your analogy does not stand up under rational scrutiny.
Ivan
Yes, and that is exactly what is so unforgivable as far as the French are concerned.
I'm stating that in both World Wars the contributions of the United States to the European theatre must be put in their proper context; hardly an heretical belief--although it may get me burned at the stake around here in the current atmosphere of sulpherous anti-Europeanism (AKA self-hatred).
And which context is that?
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,74903,00.html
The original source is Rusk's memoir. (de Gaulle said nothing after Rusk, at the conclusion of the meeting, popped the question.)
Allow me to supply the matches and the kerosene to pour over your head. You habitually post random posts on here which have near-zero intellectual content, rather, they are just random musings intended to be incendiary. Rather like Maureen Dowd.
I doubt you are she. But a Maureen Dowd impersonator is rather pathetic to see.
Ivan
Are you on something? From what can see and read, it is anti-French, German and (now) Belgian-ism, not Europe as a whole. And even if it were, why would that be self-hatred?
While I do agree with FReepers about the current selfishness of the French in regard to Iraq, I know at least SOME residents of France (Normandy, anyway) are (or were) grateful for our help in the past. While visiting this area in 1995, we saw many signs posted in front of homes - in both French and English - that said: "Thank you America!" and some that said: "Thank you, USA - We will never forget". These signs were hand made (not unlike our rally signs!) and were most likely left over from 1994's 50-year commemoration of D-Day at Normandy.
We spent several hours touring this American Cemetery and also nearby Pointe du Hoc*. All other visitors to these places that day (most of these visitors were French from what I could tell) were extremely respectful and somber.
Inscription at the entrance of The American Cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer:
At the top of the plateau overlooking Omaha Beach, gently sloping down to the sea, whence came the liberators, this plot of French soil has been given over in perpetuity to the United States. Here lie rearly 10,000 soldiers.
On a low wall, around the monument, figure the names of the 1,557 soldiers whose bodies were never found.
VISITOR,
Look how many of them there were
Look how young they were
They died for your freedom
Hold back your tears and keep silent.
... I find it difficult to hold back the tears every time I read those words.
*Inscription on a rock on the cliffs of Pointe Du Hoc:
To the Heroic Ranger Commandoes
D2RN E2RN F2RN
of the 116th INF
Who Under the Command of
Colonel James. E. Rudder
of the First American Division
Attacked and Took Possession of
The Pointe Du Hoc
Wasn't that the wimp who declared war on Hitler 2 years and 3 months before America did? (and America didn't declare war till Hitler did)
I view it differently. My ancestors detested the Old Europe they came from. They left the tyranny of Europe, the poverty of Europe, the hypocrisy of Europe behind and never looked back.
My grand-uncle (whose mother came from Bavaria and who was 10 when she did so) fought in Europe and was of the opinion that we should have saved some of our nukes for France, Germany, and Russia.
I can't remember the exact quotation but at Kennedy's funeral DeGaulle remarked to an aide (or somebody) that Kennedy was the myth and Johnson the reality. Alas he was correct--as he was in so much of his critique of post-war America.
I wish an American President would pursue American interests with as much loyalty, devotion and fierceness as DeGaulle did French interests.
That's what really po's everybody. That anyone would pursue national interests in an age when the entire American political Class devotes itself to the global market...
I detest those who set themselves up as pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-rational critics of all things American (and British, for that matter).
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