Normandy civilians suffered on D-Day

Writing from Paris, Hugh Schofield says that

A revisionist theme seems to have settled on this year's 65th anniversary commemoration of the Normandy landings.

The tone was set in Antony's Beevor's new book, D-Day, which tries to debunk certain received ideas about the Allied campaign.

Far from being an unmitigated success, Mr Beevor found, the landings came very close to going horribly wrong.

And far from being universally welcomed as liberators, many troops had a distinctly surly reception from the people of Normandy.

The reason for this was simple. Many Normandy towns and villages had been literally obliterated by Allied bombing.

The bombardment of Caen, Mr Beevor said, could almost be considered a war-crime (though he later retracted the comment).

Many historians will retort that there is nothing new in Mr Beevor's account.

Harrowing experience

After all, the scale of destruction is already well-established.

Some 20,000 French civilians were killed in the two-and-a-half months from D-Day, 3,000 of them during the actual landings.

Wrong impression

The haunting picture of a man confronting a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square may not, in fact, be a libertarian image.

Justin Raimondo's article of 17 June 1999, "China and the New Cold War," re-published today on LewRockwell.com, has given me reasons to reconsider that episode.

Raimondo writes:

The Tiananmen Square "massacre" is an incident so wrapped up in mythology, most of it generated by Western journalists and their professional dissident friends, that it is nearly impossible for any "revisionist" analysis to be given a hearing. The world saw the Goddess of Democracy, the bright banners and youthful idealism of the protesters, a giant rock-concert held under the gaze of the seemingly incongruous Chairman Mao, whose gargantuan portrait dominates the Square. . . .

According to Lee Feigon's pro-student protester account of The Meaning of Tiananmen, the leaders of a prominent student group, who in alliance with city workers organized the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Trade Union, "hung big pictures of Mao in the tents they pitched on the square. They talked openly and boldly about the good old days of the Cultural Revolution. Mao, they felt, had the right ideas, although he sometimes used wrong tactics. Now they were determined to use what they considered the right ones." [p. 211] . . .

Even as more reasonable student leaders, like Wu'er Kaxi, argued that the students, having made their point, should withdraw from the square and live to fight another day, Chai Lin, the "Supreme Commander," commanded her followers to stay and wait for martyrdom. Already embarked on a hunger strike that had weakened and even completely debilitated many students, they passively obeyed their fanatical "Commander." In style and spirit, the massacre at Tiananmen Square is closer to Jonestown than to a crusade for freedom.

Like the American New Left of the sixties, the Chinese New Left movement that reached its flaming apogee in Tiananmen Square employed radically self-dramatizing means to achieve egalitarian and "revolutionary" ends. They, too, held high the banner of Chairman Mao; like the Weathermen faction of SDS, Chai Lin and her hardcore supporters not only expected repression but openly hoped that their actions would provoke it.

As Eric Margolis, foreign affairs editor of the Toronto Sun, so trenchantly put it, the Tiananmen Square "massacre has become a 'cause celebre' among fashionable leftists and literati, who have never forgiven China's rulers for abandoning socialism."

What's in a pretty face?

The young lady depicted below is actress Lillian Gish. According to one of the grunts in the story Company K, which details the nightmare of being an American soldier in World War I, this picture or one like it kept him from taking his own life when he could find nothing left to live for.

Grandson's first T-ball practice

Preston turned four in March.

When photography rivals art

Lincoln on the sacred right of secession

Taken from Judge Andrew P. Napolitano's book, Dred Scott's Revenge: A legal history of race and freedom in America . . .

In his first inaugural address Lincoln equated secession with anarchy and said, ". . . no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.” [p. 71]

Yet in January, 1848, as a congressman from Illinois, Lincoln stated that

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right -- a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. [p. 75]

News from AppleInsider

"Apple orders 10-inch touchscreens for mystery product," says the headline. Is this mystery product a netbook?

AppleInsider doesn't think so:

AppleInsider believes the new screens are more likely to turn up in a final version of the company's much-anticipated Newton/Web tablet, which has been under development for around three years now after facing a number of bumps and hurdles.

Members of Apple's leadership have been clear in their remarks about conventional netbooks which they feel are "principally based on hardware that's much less powerful than [...] customers want, software technology that is not good, cramped keyboards, [and] small displays."

Last fall, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs referred to the segment as a "nascent category" while adding that to the best of his knowledge, "there's not a lot of them being sold."

Never waste a good crisis

That's the philosophy of those who purport to save us. A crisis is an opportunity to expand the state even further. Read more here and here.

Homeschoolers dig in rather than give in

Hard times have not diminished the ranks of homeschoolers, as this USA Today article details. The trend is an increase in homeschoolers, in fact. Parents who had been sending their kids to private schools and find they can no longer afford tuition choose homeschooling over government schools. Others who had been homeschooling find ways to keep doing it.

Obama's "withdrawal"

Eric Margolis writes:

During the election campaign, Obama vowed to swiftly bring US troops home from Iraq. He denounced the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a "violation of international law."

Obama did say he would keep some US troops in Iraq for "training" government forces, but few voters knew what he meant at the time, and even fewer paid attention to this fine print. We believed the Iraq nightmare would finally be over.

But

In spite of Obama’s vows to pull out of Iraq, the powers that be in Washington may be intent on keeping Iraq a US military, political and economic protectorate. Obama’s withdrawal deadline could easily be voided by claims of terrorism and growing instability in Iraq.

The plan for Iraq follows exactly the same control model the British Empire used to rule Iraq and to exploit its oil.

Chris Floyd tells us

One of the most remarkable aspects of Obama's "war lite" plan is its brazen and absolute disregard for the agreement signed between the United States and the supposedly sovereign Iraqi government guaranteeing the complete withdrawal of all American troops by the end of 2011. Of course, this "agreement" was always considered a farce by everyone – except for the American corporate media, which kept reporting on the "tough negotiations" as if the pact would have any actual meaning in the real world. The agreement contained escape clauses allowing the Iraqi government to "request" a continued American military presence after the 2011 deadline – and considering that any Iraqi government in place in 2011 will be helplessly dependent on American guns and money to maintain its power, such a "request" has always been a dead certainty.

And Margolis reminds us

Obama made clear officials responsible for the Iraq War, torture, kidnapping or assassination will not be prosecuted. The theft of over $50 billion in US "reconstruction" funds sent to Iraq is being hushed up.

By contrast, many Britons are angrily demanding release of cabinet documents leading to war that are likely to expose Tony Blair’s lies and illegalities. So far, the Labor government has managed to suppress the incriminating documents.

There is no corresponding call for justice in the United States. There is little appetite to prosecute the former officials who led the US into war. Obama now tells the public: let bygones be bygones. Unless, of course, it’s Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan.

Between 600,000 and one million Iraqis died as a result of President George Bush’s aggression, which cost nearly $1 trillion and over 4,200 Americans dead and over 25,000 wounded.

Four million Iraqis remain refugees. The US holds over 20,000 Iraqi political prisoners, perhaps more. Polls show a majority of Iraqis believe the US will never leave Iraq.

Yes, it's nice to have "change," isn't it?

Preston

My grandson turns four today, officially at 6:59 p.m. His dad hosted a party for him on Saturday.



Happy birthday, Preston. You bring joy to everyone who knows you. You share your birthday with Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912), originator of the theory of Market Anarchism. May you see the end of state rule in your lifetime.