D-Day: The Beginning, or The End?
By J.P. Nicols
April 16, 2003
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It has been two weeks now since the start of the Allied invasion; yet France in fact much of Europe remains firmly under the control of Adolph Hitler. At this point it is fair to ask if this war is going according to plan and if the war plan itself, whatever that may be, has any coherence whatsoever.
Allied forces sustained heavy casualties in the risky air, land and sea invasion on the Normandy coast that we now have come to know as Operation Overlord. Despite heavy Allied bombing and the deployment of paratroopers behind German lines, thousands of lives were lost in the bloody beach offensive. This has led many observers to question why the Allies chose that particular route into France rather than at the narrowest point of the English Channel, at Pas de Calais.
Reliable sources in the War Department say that the Secretary of War repeatedly refused to supply all of the troops and materiel requested by Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower in order to mount the invasion. Despite some ambitious predictions that Germany could surrender in less than a year; strong German counterattacks in Caen and Carentan in the past few days seem to indicate that the Germans do not plan to lay down their weapons any time soon. Less optimistic prognosticators at the War Department think that Allied troops could be hopelessly trapped on the Cherbourg Peninsula indefinitely.
Even if Allied troops are able to somehow break through and liberate France in its entirety, larger questions remain: Why are we in France at all? Will our presence there do more harm than good?
Many in Washington have tried to justify this invasion by attempting to link Operation Overlord to the attack on Pearl Harbor. While the memories of foreign pilots carrying out suicide missions on American soil stirs jingoistic emotions, cooler heads realize that there is no evidence to link those attacks to Hitler. We now know that Emperor Tojo was behind Pearl Harbor, and despite two and a half years of fighting the Japanese, Tojo is still at large too. One has to wonder if our war *****ring will only encourage further attacks against American interests.
Save for appeasing personal friend and political ally Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt seems to be more interested in his upcoming election than in Americas standing in international opinion. Heavy defense spending has rejuvenated a long-suffering U.S. economy, and this President seems willing to do anything to keep it going even collaborate with unsavory characters like Joseph Stalin, who was responsible for the murder of thousands of Polish officers in the Kateyn Forest.
One has to wonder if the Roosevelt Third Term might be even worse than the Third Reich. Innocent Japanese-Americans are held in violation of their rights in resettlement camps. American prison inmates have been conscripted into manufacturing war goods, regardless of their feelings towards the war. Perhaps most egregiously, LIFE magazine reported on March 30, 1942 that the War Production Board confiscated 200,000 pounds of scrap metal from an Indiana man because he refused to accept the unfair price set by the U.S. Government.
At least were willing to share our hardships with our friends. Hundreds of French civilians were killed in the U.S. led bombing raids that preceded D-Day, the start of Operation Overlord. Who knows how much our interference in intra-European matters will jeopardize the relationship the French people have already begun to develop with the Germans?
The U.S. War Department has spent a lot of time and money communicating to the American public the evil deeds of Adolph Hitler. To be sure, he is no gentle soul. But the French economy has also been helped by the war, and from a source that has gotten little play in the American press Germany itself. German manufacturing has made much use of French labor, not to mention labor from many European minority groups that for too long have suffered in poverty. Rumored stockpiles of German V-2 Rockets have yet to materialize, and even if they do exist, they could only have a range of a few hundred miles at best. Hardly a threat to America.
Its amazing how quickly we forget that we already fought our war with Germany, and it ended in peace with the Treaty of Versailles. Our current meddling with sovereign nations is not in keeping with the words and spirit of the treaty, and it has not been approved by the League of Nations. Perhaps over time we will learn something from our alliance with Britain. They have honored their treaties and have maintained peaceful, if sometimes strained relations with true allies such as Iran and Iraq. Then again, maybe Im wrong. I know France will never forget what we have sacrificed for them, and someday theyll be there for us.
By J.P. Nicols
April 16, 2003
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It has been two weeks now since the start of the Allied invasion; yet France in fact much of Europe remains firmly under the control of Adolph Hitler. At this point it is fair to ask if this war is going according to plan and if the war plan itself, whatever that may be, has any coherence whatsoever.
Allied forces sustained heavy casualties in the risky air, land and sea invasion on the Normandy coast that we now have come to know as Operation Overlord. Despite heavy Allied bombing and the deployment of paratroopers behind German lines, thousands of lives were lost in the bloody beach offensive. This has led many observers to question why the Allies chose that particular route into France rather than at the narrowest point of the English Channel, at Pas de Calais.
Reliable sources in the War Department say that the Secretary of War repeatedly refused to supply all of the troops and materiel requested by Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower in order to mount the invasion. Despite some ambitious predictions that Germany could surrender in less than a year; strong German counterattacks in Caen and Carentan in the past few days seem to indicate that the Germans do not plan to lay down their weapons any time soon. Less optimistic prognosticators at the War Department think that Allied troops could be hopelessly trapped on the Cherbourg Peninsula indefinitely.
Even if Allied troops are able to somehow break through and liberate France in its entirety, larger questions remain: Why are we in France at all? Will our presence there do more harm than good?
Many in Washington have tried to justify this invasion by attempting to link Operation Overlord to the attack on Pearl Harbor. While the memories of foreign pilots carrying out suicide missions on American soil stirs jingoistic emotions, cooler heads realize that there is no evidence to link those attacks to Hitler. We now know that Emperor Tojo was behind Pearl Harbor, and despite two and a half years of fighting the Japanese, Tojo is still at large too. One has to wonder if our war *****ring will only encourage further attacks against American interests.
Save for appeasing personal friend and political ally Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt seems to be more interested in his upcoming election than in Americas standing in international opinion. Heavy defense spending has rejuvenated a long-suffering U.S. economy, and this President seems willing to do anything to keep it going even collaborate with unsavory characters like Joseph Stalin, who was responsible for the murder of thousands of Polish officers in the Kateyn Forest.
One has to wonder if the Roosevelt Third Term might be even worse than the Third Reich. Innocent Japanese-Americans are held in violation of their rights in resettlement camps. American prison inmates have been conscripted into manufacturing war goods, regardless of their feelings towards the war. Perhaps most egregiously, LIFE magazine reported on March 30, 1942 that the War Production Board confiscated 200,000 pounds of scrap metal from an Indiana man because he refused to accept the unfair price set by the U.S. Government.
At least were willing to share our hardships with our friends. Hundreds of French civilians were killed in the U.S. led bombing raids that preceded D-Day, the start of Operation Overlord. Who knows how much our interference in intra-European matters will jeopardize the relationship the French people have already begun to develop with the Germans?
The U.S. War Department has spent a lot of time and money communicating to the American public the evil deeds of Adolph Hitler. To be sure, he is no gentle soul. But the French economy has also been helped by the war, and from a source that has gotten little play in the American press Germany itself. German manufacturing has made much use of French labor, not to mention labor from many European minority groups that for too long have suffered in poverty. Rumored stockpiles of German V-2 Rockets have yet to materialize, and even if they do exist, they could only have a range of a few hundred miles at best. Hardly a threat to America.
Its amazing how quickly we forget that we already fought our war with Germany, and it ended in peace with the Treaty of Versailles. Our current meddling with sovereign nations is not in keeping with the words and spirit of the treaty, and it has not been approved by the League of Nations. Perhaps over time we will learn something from our alliance with Britain. They have honored their treaties and have maintained peaceful, if sometimes strained relations with true allies such as Iran and Iraq. Then again, maybe Im wrong. I know France will never forget what we have sacrificed for them, and someday theyll be there for us.
