US impact on Europe stems from the Cold War, not from D-Day

By William Pfaff
THE OBSERVER , London
Monday, Jun 14, 2004,Page 9

The young Americans who jumped into the night over Normandy 60 years ago, or perilously stumbled ashore at Omaha and Utah -- or were drowned or cut down on the way -- were not the New World conquerors they are made out to be today.

They were sons of the Great Depression, from an America still largely rural, of the dust bowl and ruined farms, and of factories silenced during the 1930s that did not come to life again until war spending began. They were from a racially segregated society (and army) and a country that only attack at Pearl Harbor had wrenched from its isolation.

President George W. Bush is arguing that the invasion of Iraq is no more than another manifestation of an American crusade for liberty that began at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood in June 1918, swept forward to Normandy 1944, and now has reached Baghdad. The truth is otherwise.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/06/14/2003175040

Ouch!