Tag: france

THE DEMISE OF WESTERN EUROPE

As always, the contents of this blog constitute a compendium of multiple media reports supplemented by my personal opinion where indicated.

What has happened to the once solid, stable, pro-Western and powerful Western European countries? In this blog I will be focusing on England and France, but much of what follows could also pertain to the other countries in the region. Incidentally, what is generally referred to as Western Europe includes Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. I’m not just focusing on the current rioting and lawlessness plaguing these countries. That is most disturbing, but in my opinion the seeds for this violence were sown decades ago. It’s just now reaching critical mass, and I fear for the future of those countries and their law-abiding citizens.

We’ve all seen the grotesque news footage. Widespread and violent anti-government riots have erupted across France. The devastation has been massive, and it is not over yet. The spark was protests over the high cost of living, inflation, fuel prices, and underfunded public services and education. Much of the French media has characterized the rioting as “mostly peaceful,” but that is not the impression I have gotten from the news footage. Some of you may recall the similarly inaccurate reporting of the riots in the US a few years ago. I still remember the image of a CNN reporter claiming they were peaceful protests while in the background one could see buildings burning.

As I write this it is estimated that as many as 800,000 rioters have been involved in excess of 100 separate riots. According to authorities nearly 2,500 have been arrested, some 1,000 police officers have been injured, and about 3,000 businesses, shops and historic buildings have been looted, vandalized, or destroyed. During the riots police fired tear gas into crowds and fought running battles with black-clad, hooded rioters. CNN has characterized this as “the worst rioting in years.”

Initially, there were mild protests over education and cost of living issues. The objective was to force the government to enact policies to reduce the cost of living and higher education, increase teachers’ compensation and protect pensions against reductions due to budget reductions. These are reasonable concerns to negotiate peacefully. However, as often happens, the protests quickly metastisized into a tidal wave of deadly, country-wide violence, including looting, destroying property, and burning businesses and buildings, that could expand into other countries. Some examples included (1) a mob standing by and laughing at a fireman engulfed in flames, (2) no one coming to the aid of a teacher engulfed in flames as her school burns behind her, and (3) a goon with a flamethrower attacking a woman. These are not “protests.” They are scenes one would expect to see on the set of a dystopian movie, not on the streets of Paris.

Some agitators found it necessary to exacerbate the violence even further by egging the mob on to do further damage. The media has characterized the level of violence and destruction as “the worst seen in years,” and it has “shaken the nation and prompted forceful condemnations from leaders and the public alike.” As in the US, anyone who accurately ascribed the violence to immigrants from third world countries or Muslims was instantly branded as a racist.

According to CNN at the suggestion of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu some areas of certain cities have imposed “partial curfews” to protect people, property and businesses. Also, some cities, notably Marseille have banned all gatherings and demonstrations from midday until 8 p.m. local time. Others, such as Nice, have imposed curfews for minors. So far, major tourist attractions like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower are remaining open and operating normally. The NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints scheduled for October 25 at the Stade de France, is still on but with enhanced security.

A national election is scheduled in six months, and the finger-pointing has already begun. The government is being accused of having failed to adequately anticipate the scale of the conditions that gave rise to the riots, and various politicians are blaming those from other parties..

European governments have begun to respond to the threat of radical Islam across the continent. For example, an overwhelming majority of the members of The European Parliament, which is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union, passed a resolution that condemned the Muslim Brotherhood and its role in the riots. Several left-leaning members voted against it. The press release stated, in part, that “Islamist entryism targets democratic institutions, the rule of law, equality between women and men and fundamental freedoms.” That said, the release is probably mostly symbolic anyway.

In response, ENAR, a pan-European anti-racism network issued its own statement, which “condemn[ed] in the strongest possible terms the “racist and Islamophobic” resolution “on the need for an EU strategy to counter Islamist entryism and the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood network” proposed by the European People’s Party (EPP) and passed by the European Parliament. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing meaningful will be accomplished.

In my view, this has been a long time coming. The reckoning has just now arrived. The seeds for it were sown decades ago. After World War II, European nations invited foreign workers to emigrate to help rebuild their economies. According to the Brookings Institution these “temporary” worker programs eventually led to permanence. Many of the descendants of those workers are among the unassilimated and disaffected.

Then, the EU inacted an open border policy. The major effect was that millions of personsfrom third-world countries poured in. Once in, they were able to emigrate to any other country within the EU. Many of them emigrated from impoverished, war-torn or autocratically-governed countries and were merely seeking a better life. Others emigrated to European countries due to past colonial connections, such as South Asians moving to the United Kingdom or North Africans moving to France. Most of these people have assimilated peacefully. Others, were radicals and did not. Many, if not most, of these persons were Muslims who had no interest in assimilating and becoming productive members of society. They are prone to use violence to get what they want. We have seen this in various other European countries as well as in the US.

As I said, England has been having its own problems with radical Muslims. Politicians are unable to cope. Where are the strong, decisive prime ministers like Margaret Thatcher when we neeed them? The “Muslim problem” in England centers on a dual crisis of rising Islamist extremism and entryism alongside a historic surge in Islamophobia, anti-Muslim hate crime, and societal polarization. According to the Economist, MI5 reported that roughly 75% of its counter-terrorism workload involves Islamists.

CONCLUSION

At the risk of being branded a racist, I must tell it like it is. The current situation in Europe is a direct result of years, if not decades, of (1) lax immigration policies, (2) immigrants, chiefly Muslims, who refuse to assimilate, (3) leaders who are loath to deal with the issues for fear of being branded as racists, and (4) government policies that provide excessive public assistance to those who decline to contribute to society.

A country can possibly survive with a somewhat permissive immigration policy OR overly generous public assistance policies, BUT NOT BOTH. Excessive government assistance programs sound good. Everyone likes “free stuff,” even thiugh we know they’re not really free. Someone, has to pay for it, somewhere, somehow, and to quote the late Margaret Thatcher “eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

The above-described situation should serve as a warning for the US. The current events in Europe are providing incontrovertible empirical evidence that we should heed. As I have denoted in previous blogs the Biden years of open borders and excessive spending had a devastating effect on the US politically, economically, socially and culturally that will linger indefinitely. President Trump’s policies have mitigated those to an extent. Unfortunately, future administrations may be tempted to return to the Biden-style policies. My advice is DON’T.

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D DAY

D Day. That’s all one has to say. Most everyone knows what it was and what it meant. Just the very name conjures up remembrances and images of one of the bloodiest battles and one of the turning points of WWII. The battle has been memorialized in numerous books and movies, and who can forget the poignant image of countless crosses and Stars of David neatly lined up in military cemeteries in Normandy.

Today, June 6, marks the 82nd anniversary of this epic battle. The Allied Forces included 156,000 troops from various countries, including the US, UK, Free France, Canada and Norway, among others, 5,000 ships and landing craft, 11,000 planes, 50,000 land vehicles, and coordinated landings over a 50 mile stretch of beaches code-named Juno, Omaha, Utah, Sword and Gold, truly a massive undertaking. Allied and German casualties have been estimated as high as 20,000 killed, wounded, missing and captured. Many of those brave souls were mere teenagers.

If you were involved in the actual landing, whether you lived or died was largely a matter of luck and happenstance. Two men could be sitting side-by-side in an LST, and a German bullet would find one and not the other. Think about that for a minute.

In addition to the German guns the soldiers had to deal with the rough surf.  Wearing their battle gear made them heavy and unwieldy, and many of them actually drowned.  The movie Saving Private Ryan depicts this grisly scene clearly.

If you were lucky enough to survive the landing, you became a “sitting duck” on the beach. Then, if you managed to fight your way off the beach you had to charge into several thousand heavily armed German troops, which were placed strategically in fortified bunkers. Once you fought your way past those, you were ready to commence the real battle to liberate France.

Planning for the operation began as early as 1943. Russia, one of our allies at the time (“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”) had been lobbying strongly for a second front to alleviate some of the pressure from the Russian Front. Military leaders on both sides recognized the significance of a second front and expected the Allies to attempt to open one at some point. The question was where and when. The Allies were not prepared to attempt such a massive landing until early 1944 primarily because they needed time to build up levels of men and material. Remember, the Allies were fighting in the Mediterranean and North Africa as well. Plus, the US was involved in the Pacific War against the formidable Japanese. Finally, Britain’s fighting capacity had been severely damaged in the debacle at Dunkirk in 1940.  Only a remarkable evacuation, aided by thousands of small boats piloted by civilians prevented the Germans from capturing or destroying the entire British army on the beach.

The Operation was code-named Operation Overlord. The landing, itself, was code-named Operation Neptune. General Eisenhower was in charge. Indeed, he was in charge of the entire Atlantic Theatre. As the story goes, when he was put in charge his orders were very simple – “Win the War.” No confusion; no limited rules of engagement, which hampered us in Viet Nam and other future conflicts.  “Just win, baby.”

The Allies considered four possible landing sites: Brittany, Cotentin Peninsula, Pas de Calais and Normandy. The first two were eliminated primarily because they were located on peninsulas, which would have afforded very narrow fronts that would have enabled the Germans to trap the soldiers in a counterattack. That left Normandy and Calais. Once the Allies decided on Normandy there were many attempts to deceive the Germans into thinking the landings would be at Calais. Historical evidence indicates that the Germans thought Calais the most likely site anyway, possibly because it was closer to England, but both sites were heavily fortified. Indeed, the Germans had planned to fortify the entire coast from Norway to Spain, a so-called “Atlantic Wall.”  This would have included concrete emplacements, barbed wire, booby traps, mines, the removal of ground cover, and, of course, troops and armored equipment. Luckily for us, these fortifications were never completed. Interestingly, although most of the German High Command viewed Calais as the most likely landing site, General Rommel, perhaps the best general on either side, surmised correctly that it would likely be at Normandy.

Accordingly, he increased fortifications in the area, but, luckily for us he was out of favor for political reasons, so some key elements of his plans for defending the area were ignored or overruled. Most notably, some panzer divisions, which he had wanted to place in the Normandy area were, instead, retained in and around Paris.

In addition, the German Army was stretched very thinly. Much of its manpower was committed to the Eastern Front and had been depleted by heavy casualties after five years of fighting. Finally, it was relying on captured equipment, which was not of the highest quality.

One of the biggest unknowns, and one that the Allies could not control, was the weather. Keep in mind, at the time the meteorological instruments were not nearly as sophisticated as they are now. The weather in the Normandy area was very unpredictable. At many times, forecasting the weather was no more than an educated guess. The various meteorologists advising General Eisenhower could not agree on the weather forecasts, which frustrated the military officers responsible for planning and executing the landings.

Due to the complexity of the operation weather conditions had to be just so, including the tides, phases of the moon and the time of day. Additionally, dawn, which was between low and high tide, was the preferred time of day. That way, as the high tide came in it would carry the LSTs farther in on the beach, and the men could spot obstacles, such as land mines, more easily. High winds, heavy seas and low cloud cover were not favorable. The planners were determined to wait for a day with ideal weather conditions that would satisfy all of the above criteria so as to maximize the chances of a successful landing. Only a few days of a given month satisfied all criteria. In fact, the operation had been postponed several times before June 6.

On the other hand, the longer they waited to launch the greater the chances of an intelligence leak, which would be disastrous. The Germans had an extensive network of spies. Moreover, despite warnings people talk. (Remember the famous admonition “loose lips sink ships.”), and there was the very real danger of an inadvertent leak. This conundrum was depicted brilliantly in the 2026 movie, Pressure, a true account, starring Brendan Fraser as General Eisenhower.

As we know, the operation was a success. Some of the major reasons for this were:
1. The aforementioned missions to deceive the Germans forced them to spread their defenses over a wide area.
2. The German’s much-ballyhooed “Atlantic Wall” was only about 20% complete.
3. The Allies achieved air superiority quickly.
4. Much of the transportation infrastructure in France had been damaged by Allied bombings and the French resistance, which hampered the Germans’ ability to move men and material.
5. The German high command was disorganized and indecisive, and their most brilliant general, Field Marshall Rommel, believing the forecasted severe weather and rough seas would prevent a successful Allied invasion, was on leave back in Germany to celebrate his wife’s birthday, which by happenstance was on June 6. Thus, he was unable to communicate with his notorious panzer forces effectively. On such minor events are wars sometimes won or lost.

CONCLUSION

If, as many historians believe, winning WWII was one America’s greatest achievements, then it can be argued that D Day was one of its greatest victories. Certainly, its success shortened the war in Europe and, in the process, saved countless lives (combatants and non-combatants alike).

There is no exact figure, but according to the National WWII Museum with the passage of time only a few thousand D-Day veterans are still alive worldwide, which is a shame.  Even the youngest ones are approaching 100 years old.

In WWII we had a clear-cut goal, win the war; the nation was united in support of the war, our government and our troops; we knew who the enemy was; we knew the Axis Powers were evil (Hitler, in particular, was one of the most despicable men ever to walk the face of the earth.); and there was no holding back. Sadly, we have never had such clarity of purpose again, and, perhaps, we never will.

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D-DAY

D-Day.  That’s all one has to say.  Most everyone knows what it was and what it meant. Just the very name conjures up remembrances and images of one of the bloodiest battles and one of the turning points of WWII.  The battle has been memorialized in books and movies, and who can forget the poignant image of countless crosses and Stars of David neatly lined up in military cemeteries in Normandy.

Thursday, June 6 will mark the 80th anniversary of this epic battle.  The Allied Forces included some 156,000 troops from various countries, including the US, UK, Free France, Canada and Norway, among others, 5,000 ships and landing craft, 11,000 planes, 50,000 land vehicles, and coordinated landings over a 50 mile stretch of beaches code-named Juno, Omaha, Utah, Sword and Gold, truly a massive undertaking.  Allied and German casualties have been estimated as high as 20,000 killed, wounded, missing and captured. If you were involved in the actual landing, whether you lived or died was largely a matter of luck and happenstance – two men would be sitting side-by-side in an LST and a German bullet would kill one and not the other.  Think about that for a minute.

In addition to the German guns the soldiers had to deal with the rough surf.  Wearing their battle gear made them heavy and unwieldy, and many of them actually drowned before reaching the beach.  The movie Saving Private Ryan depicts this grisly scene quite clearly and gruesomely.

If you were lucky enough to survive the landing, you became a “sitting duck” on the beach.  Then, if you managed to fight your way off the beach you had to charge into several thousand heavily armed German troops, which were placed strategically in fortified bunkers.  Once you fought your way past those, you were ready to commence the real battle to liberate France.  Keep in mind, many of these soldiers were just kids as young as 17 and, no doubt, scared s***less. Many of them knew they would likely die. I can’t imagine their bravery under those circumstances.

Planning for the operation began as early as 1943.  Russia, one of our allies at the time (“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”), had been lobbying strongly for a second front to alleviate some of the pressure from the Russian Front.  Military leaders on both sides recognized the significance of a second front and expected the Allies to attempt to open one at some point.  The question was where and when.  The Allies were not prepared to attempt such a massive landing until early 1944, primarily because they needed time to build up levels of men and material.  Remember, the Allies were fighting in the Mediterranean and North Africa as well.  Plus, the US was involved in the Pacific War against the Japanese.  Finally, the British’s fighting capacity had been severely damaged in the debacle at Dunkirk in 1940.  Only a remarkable evacuation, aided by thousands of civilian small boats, prevented the Germans from capturing or destroying Britain’s entire army on the beach.

The operation was code-named Operation Overlord.  The landing, itself, was code-named Operation Neptune.  General Eisenhower was in charge.  Indeed, he was in charge of the entire Atlantic Theatre.  As the story goes, when he was put in charge his orders were very simple – “Win the War.”  No confusion; no ambiguity; no dubiety; no limited rules of engagement, which hampered us in Viet Nam and other future conflicts.  “Just win, baby.”

The Allies considered four possible landing sites: Brittany, Cotentin Peninsula, Pas de Calais and Normandy.  The first two were eliminated primarily because they were located on peninsulas, which would have afforded very narrow fronts that would have enabled the Germans to trap the soldiers in a counterattack.  That left Normandy and Calais.  Once the Allies decided on Normandy there were many attempts to deceive the Germans into thinking the landings would be at Calais.  Historical evidence indicates that the Germans thought Calais the most likely site anyway, possibly because it was closer to England, but both sites were heavily fortified.  Indeed, the Germans had planned to fortify the entire coast from Norway to Spain, a so-called “Atlantic Wall.”  This would have included concrete emplacements, barbed wire, booby traps, mines, the removal of ground cover, and, of course, troops and armored equipment.  Luckily for us, those fortifications were never completed.  Interestingly, although most of the German High Command viewed Calais as the most likely landing site, General Rommel, perhaps the best general on either side, surmised correctly that it would likely be at Normandy.

Accordingly, he increased fortifications in the area, but, luckily for us he was out of favor for political reasons, so some key elements of his plans for defending the area were ignored or overruled.  Most notably, some panzer divisions, which he had wanted to place in the Normandy area were, instead, retained in and around Paris.

In addition, the German Army was stretched very thinly.  Much of its manpower was committed to the Eastern Front and had been depleted by heavy casualties after five years of intense fighting.  Also, it had to deal with sabotage perpetrated by guerillas in various conquered countries. Finally, it was relying, for the most part, on captured equipment, which was not of high quality.

One of the biggest unknowns, and one that the Allies could not control, was the weather. Due to the complexity of the operation conditions had to be just so, including the tides, phases of the moon and the time of day.  Only a few days of a given month satisfied all criteria.  For example, a full moon was preferred to provide maximum illumination for the pilots.  Remember, instrumentation then was primitive compared to what it is now.

Additionally, dawn, which was between low and high tide, was the preferred time of day. That way, as the high tide came in it would carry the LSTs farther in on the beach, and the men could spot obstacles, such as land mines, more easily.  High winds, heavy seas and low cloud cover were not favorable.  The planners were determined to wait for a day with ideal weather conditions so as to maximize the chances of success for a very risky and dangerous mission.  In fact, the operation was postponed several times before June 6.

As we know, the operation was a success.  Some of the major reasons for this were:

1. The aforementioned missions to deceive the Germans forced them to spread their defenses over a wide area.

2. The “Atlantic Wall” was only about 20% complete.

3. The Allies achieved air superiority quickly.

4. Much of the transportation infrastructure in France had been damaged by Allied bombings and the French resistance, which hampered the Germans’ ability to move men and material.

5. The German high command was disorganized and indecisive.

CONCLUSION

If, as many historians believe, winning WWII was one America’s greatest achievements, then it can be argued that D-Day was one of our greatest victories.  Certainly, its success shortened the war in Europe and, in the process, saved countless lives (combatants and non-combatants alike).

It’s a shame that, with the passage of time, there are so few veterans of this battle still alive to provide first-hand accounts of their D-Day experiences.  There is no definitive count, but most estimates are that only a few thousand worldwide are still alive. Even the youngest ones are in their 90s.

Each year, thousands of people, including many surviving veterans who are able, visit the area to pay their respects to those who gave their lives. Special commemorative events are held not only in Normandy but also at other locations in the US, Canada and the UK, among others. As I said above, this year marks the 80th anniversary of that historic and pivotal battle, and it is viewed as a special anniversary. According to NBC News it is expected that various world leaders including the US’s Joe Biden, Frances’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prince William, and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky will attend. As an aside, it is a shame that with the passage of time the historical significance of this battle is fading.

In WWII we had a clear-cut goal, win the war; the nation was united in support of the war, our government and our troops; we knew who the enemy was; we knew the Axis Powers were evil (Hitler, in particular, was one of the most despicable men ever to walk the face of the earth.); and there was no holding back.  Sadly, we have never had such clarity of purpose again, and, perhaps, we never will.

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