D-Day, June 6th, 1944, was clearly a huge, successful, turning point in WWII. But that wasn't apparent on June 7th, 1944, or even months later. In fact, the casualties on Omaha Beach (almost 2000) and from the inland airborne assault (almost 2500) were staggering, even to the planners of Operation Overlord. The subsequent Battle for Normandy was even more brutal, with almost 126,000 casualties in the US forces alone. It is widely recognized that the mistakes made during the planning and execution of Operation Overlord and the Battle of Normandy were many, and deadly to the forces fighting there. From the failure of the aerial and naval bombardment to neutralize German artillery along the coast, to the scattering of airborne forces, to the complete lack of knowledge of Normandy's hedgerows (to name only the most well-known) cost the lives of hundreds, even thousands, of US and coalition soldiers.
And D-Day and the Battle of Normandy are only two examples of excessive loss of life in WWII due to improper, or poor, planning. Kasserine Pass, the Battle of the Bulge, Anzio Beach, Tarawa....all battles that were bravely fought, but as history would show, fraught with poor planning, bad intelligence, questionable leadership, or a combination of them all.
During the presidential campaign of 1944, neither Wendall Willkie nor Thomas Dewey (the eventual Republican Party candidate) campaigned on the promise to end America's involvement in WWII due to the Roosevelt War Department's mistakes in the war, including Operation Tiger. In fact, they concentrated, and limited, their opposition to those New Deal policies that they disliked or disagreed with....a losing political strategy when the country was in the middle of a world war.
Why did they do so, knowing perfectly well that they would lose? The answer is simple; patriotism. Wendall Willkie and Thomas Dewey were patriotic Americans first, and opposition candidates second. They understood that the country was at war with an enemy that would destroy all that they hoped to support and defend as President. In fact, Willkie (who lost to Roosevelt 4 years earlier in 1940), went on to support Roosevelt unconditionally as the Commander in Chief during the war, "call(ing) for greater national support for controversial Roosevelt initiatives such as the Lend-Lease Act and embarked on a new campaign against isolationism in America. On July 23, 1941, he urged unlimited aid to the United Kingdom in its struggle against Nazi Germany. That same year he traveled to Britain and the Middle East as Roosevelt's personal representative, and in 1942 visited the USSR and China in the same capacity. Also in 1943, Willkie helped to establish Freedom House together with Eleanor Roosevelt." Shortly before the 1944 elections, Willkie suffered a heart attack, and knowing he was dying, stated that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here
lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom,"
he would prefer the latter.
Can you imagine any present day Democratic Candidate saying that? Or doing what Willkie did in support of the President he lost an election to? I can't.
I bring this up because it's apparent that there is a real disdain today in polite political circles to call someone unpatriotic. When Senator Clinton stated: "If George Bush doesn't end this war before he leaves office, when I'm President, I will." she was unpatriotic. In fact, I believe that such a statement is treasonous. Giving an enemy a firm date on which to plan the surrender of US forces is treasonous. If President Roosevelt had told the Japanese that he would ask US forces on Corregidor to hold out only so long as needed to safely extract General MacArthur, after which he would allow them, even direct them, to surrender; that would have been treasonous. There is no difference between that statement, not made, and Senator Clinton's statement, made to a worldwide audience and sure to have reached al Queda in Iraq within hours of being made. It's not good enough to say that such a statement was made in the heat of a presidential campaign. Many presidential candidates have held their tongue to ensure the safety of American forces at war. That Senator Clinton cannot, and will not, keep from issuing unpatriotic, even treasonous, statements in order to keep from providing aid and comfort to an enemy, is no surprise. She believes such statements will provide her political advantage. That it also provides advantage to an enemy of America, and will result in the deaths of American servicemen and women is hardly of concern for her or her supporters. After all, they by and large loathe the military. Not surprising, but it should be condemned.
Maybe that condemnation needs to start here.
And so it shall.
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