by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n Al Gore:<\/strong>\u00a0General George Marshall\u2014You, you\u2026. You, go now! You approved of it; you signed off; you gave us the Philippines disaster, the B-17 slaughters, and now this. So go! Go, go, now!<\/span><\/p>\n General Eisenhower? You resign now too! General\u2014who else but you ordered our boys into a roaring surf? You\u2014no one else\u2014were told of rough weather at least 24 hours before the landing. What did you know of those weather warnings\u2014and when did you know it? Henry Moorrrrgeeeenthhhhhaaauuuuuuuuu\u2014you leave now! Tell us why you thought our boys would have a cakewalk bringing democracy and freedom to poor Frenchmen!<\/span><\/p>\n John Kerry:\u00a0<\/strong>Let me just say as a veteran\u2014and one with some experience in military affairs\u2014that you don\u2019t just pull up to a beach and expect to trot into Europe. And I will add as well, as I have on previous occasions, that this was the worst planned American operation in our entire history. As is the custom in this hallowed nation, someone now, some person, has to, must, and should be held accountable for this mess. In my capacity as a leader in foreign affairs in the Senate, I have with all candor tried to tell this administration to slow down and get the League of Nations back into the peace process. But as I have repeatedly warned, when you unilaterally go off to invade some continent, this is what you get.<\/span><\/p>\n This administration talks grandly of the \u201cAllies;\u201d but as I have demonstrated on numerous occasions, what they are really talking about are just two countries on the beach with us, and as expected I have warned about just what we are seeing now, that those who die will be Americans and those who pay for it all will be us. As a humanitarian, of course, I agree that Hitler was a tyrant and has to go\u2014but there are more subtle and sober ways to do just that than blindly landing on a stormy beach and sending Americans to their slaughter.<\/span><\/p>\n Howard Dean:<\/strong>\u00a0YYYuuuuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkkeeeeeeeee!!!!!<\/span><\/p>\n Ted Kennedy:<\/strong>\u00a0This entire disaster was cooked up in Hyde Park. The British didn\u2019t want it. Our commanders in the Pacific were against it. The French people surely didn\u2019t want \u201cfreedom\u201d falling as bombs from the air.<\/span><\/p>\n Madeline Albright:\u00a0<\/strong>We had Hitler is his box. In the air and sea we had him cornered. He couldn\u2019t move without us knowing it. But Omaha Beach is what you get when you mix in triumphalism, machismo, testosterone, and unilateralism.<\/span><\/p>\n George Soros:<\/strong>\u00a0Now after this mess maybe we can feel what the inferno of Hamburg was like a year ago. They\u2019re about the same thing after all\u2013only now they\u2019re doing to us what we did to them.<\/span><\/p>\n Tim Robbins:<\/strong>\u00a0See my new play\u00a0On the Beach<\/i>\u00a0opening in London.<\/span><\/p>\n Sean Penn:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m going to Berlin to stop this madness so that my kids won\u2019t have to live in a world of\u00a0Shermans<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Tigers<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n General Zinni:<\/strong>\u00a0Too few troops. No harbors. Inadequate equipment. Hare-brained glider landings. Add that up and you get the disaster we are in now. Count how many tanks made it to the beach. All this fancy new airborne stuff, the floating tanks, the engineers are no substitute for boots on the ground. Ask a Mark Clark or other great generals privately what they think of Marshall and you\u2019ll get an ear full. Some day the American people will learn the real reason why we switched over to landing on the beaches in Europe. Read my book.<\/span><\/p>\n General Odom:<\/strong>\u00a0Get out now. Cut your losses. Leave that pocket. Amphibious landings are bad ideas. Night air-drops are lunatic. No plan to deal with the follow up. Too few troops to break out. No help from the so-called French resistance. Who thought this up? Pull out, regroup and ask who is our real enemy in this war and how we can better attack him. I was under the impression that the Japanese, not the Germans, bombed Pearl Harbor.<\/span><\/p>\n Ted Koppel:<\/strong>\u00a0Tonight I will read the names of the dead of the 101st<\/sup>Airborne, tomorrow the 82nd. Have patience with us. There really are thousands of American casualties\u2014and this was just on the first day of what we know is more to come later this month. And while our leaders don\u2019t wish to deal with it, we at ABC do\u2014and think you do as well.<\/span><\/p>\n Bill Clinton:<\/strong>\u00a0One could argue that there were other ways of invading Europe, but this is not the time to attack each other over the details. As you know, I supported the decision to invade. In fact, I crafted the entire Europe First strategy. So now is not the time for self-flagellation about the too few troops, the poor weather forecasts, the shoddy equipment, the lack of good intelligence, the\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Moveon.org:\u00a0<\/strong>Maybe now the American people will finally grow up when they see their children slaughtered on a French beach and huddled in hedgerows waiting to die. But what they don\u2019t know is that thousands of poor conscripted Russians and eastern Europeans were innocent targets whom our boys killed on so-called D-Day. And does America want to deal with the five thousand French civilians who died in our secret bombing campaign before the invasion? Let those who said we\u2019d be greeted with roses explain the charred bodies of women and children to the French public.<\/span><\/p>\n Noam Chomsky:<\/strong>\u00a0It is well recognized that there is already a pipeline across the Channel. On good authority we know that petroleum is already flowing to this new captive European market. As leading scholars have pointed out, to understand the barbarism at Normandy one must learn about Standard Oil and British Petroleum\u2014and the Rockefeller-Ford nexus.<\/span><\/p>\n Michael Moore:<\/strong>\u00a0I have secret footage of Prescott Bush with unidentified Nazis! And a secret tape of Eisenhower admitting defeat\u2014never released, but proving he knew it was a failure before he started.<\/span><\/p>\n Senator Hollings:<\/strong>\u00a0Why hit the Third Reich head-on at Normandy in order to go eastward? The answer is obvious. I think you better ask our Jewish friends exactly why they preferred this expenditure of American blood and treasure.<\/span><\/p>\n Senator Byrd:<\/strong>\u00a0And don\u2019t forget the Zionist movement.<\/span><\/p>\n Harper\u2019s Magazine<\/i>, June 1944:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014Our Canadian embedded reporter spends a year with the Waffen SS\u2014why they fight and why we can\u2019t do anything about them!<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n \u2014The refugee Jews and how their intelligentsia diverted us from Japan\u2014and are crafting a secret plan to turn Germany into a pastoral country.<\/i><\/p>\n \u2014The werewolf movement to come!<\/i><\/p>\n Paul Krugman: <\/strong>The real story is the French didn\u2019t want us. Most of them were treated a lot better by the Germans than by us who bombed them for three years. Do you blame them? I warned about this in May.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n NPR<\/i>:<\/strong>\u00a0Today we speak with Pierre Lang, a Normandy dairy farmer and once proud owner of four cows\u2014until the morning of June 6.<\/span><\/p>\n Farmer Lang:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cThe Germans? They never blew up my cows! No\u2014only you did that. Look at the craters, the burned barn, the dead animals. Who are the real Nazis?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n NPR:<\/i>\u00a0<\/strong>Perhaps you should ask Mr. Roosevelt that question, Mr. Lang.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The New York Times:<\/i>\u00a0<\/strong>The unfortunate slaughter of the last month and the present quagmire in the hedgerows are the unfortunate wages of a certain American arrogance\u2014 that we can always simply go where we wish, count on locals to admire us, and see the world in terms of black and white, of \u201cgood\u201d Americans and \u201cbad\u201d Germans. As we saw last month, simplistic logic leads to careless planning that in turn results in thousands of dead and wounded Americans on a stormy beach and the survivors huddled a few miles away in a hostile countryside that shows no desire to be \u201cliberated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jacques Chirac:\u00a0<\/strong>We don\u2019t believe in unilateral solutions. It is our country and we have our own ways of dealing with the Germans, who after all are in our country, not yours. Where, for example, are Frenchmen now dying\u2014in Normandy or Vichy?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a9 2004 Victor Davis Hanson<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What our generation might have said a month later in July, 1944 by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers Al Gore:\u00a0General George Marshall\u2014You, you\u2026. You, go now! You approved of it; you signed off; you gave us the Philippines disaster, the B-17 slaughters, and now this. So go! Go, go, now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[801],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1ds","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7703,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/george-pattons-summer-of-1944\/","url_meta":{"origin":4678,"position":0},"title":"George Patton\u2019s Summer of 1944","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Nearly 70 years ago, the lieutenant general began his advance toward the German border. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Nearly 70 years ago, on Aug. 1, 1944, Lieutenant General George S. Patton took command of the American Third Army in France. For the next 30 days they\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 12 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 12 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/george-pattons-summer-of-1944\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6266,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-8-angriest-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":4678,"position":1},"title":"Angry Reader #8 — “Angriest Reader”","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Hey Victor well i cant say that im honored to write you this piece of which im sure youll not respond to it. I was taken aback and rather disturbed by the puny little brain you have that thinks youre a credible scholar of history but i digress to say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11334,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-legacies-of-robert-muellers-investigations\/","url_meta":{"origin":4678,"position":2},"title":"The Legacies of Robert Mueller\u2019s Investigations","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Some 450 days ago we were treated to melodramatic announcements from the media about the start-up of Robert Mueller\u2019s \u201cdream\u201d and \u201call-star\u201d team. Reporters gushed in the general hysteria of the times that Mueller would no doubt soon indict President Trump, some of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mueller"","block_context":{"text":"Mueller","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mueller\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3141,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-affirmative-action-to-diversity\/","url_meta":{"origin":4678,"position":3},"title":"From Affirmative Action to Diversity","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Sometime in the new millennium, \"global warming\" evolved into \"climate change.\" Amid growing controversies over the planet's past temperatures, Al Gore and other activists understood that human-induced \"climate change\" could better explain almost any weather extremity \u2014 droughts or floods, too much heat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Race in America"","block_context":{"text":"Race in America","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/race-in-america\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1509,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/it-cannot-be-that-nasa-has-nothing-better-to-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":4678,"position":4},"title":"It Cannot Be That NASA Has Nothing Better To Do","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner NASA chief Charles Bolden, an impressive former Marine Corps major general and astronaut, recently waxed eloquent about his tripartite mission at the space agency he was entrusted with by President Obama. Strangely, his third \u201cand perhaps foremost\u201d objective is apparently \u201cto find a way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3842,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-and-the-savior-generals\/","url_meta":{"origin":4678,"position":5},"title":"Victor and the Savior Generals","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas What factors decide wars? Luck? Fervent ideology? Preponderance of material resources? Or is advantage achieved by superior manpower and morale? In modern times, is victory found largely in lethal cutting-edge technology?\u00a0 All these factors in varying degrees have in the past explained military success.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4679,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions\/4679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}