Laurence’s post and the articles on D-Day on this page are a reminder that there is much more to D-Day than what comes from the near-religious annual celebrations that always occur each year on June 6. This date is treated as thought it were sanctified and we are “celebrating” the “victory” of the Legions of God over the Legions of Satan.

Now, like Laurence, I believe the record of the Nazis speaks for itself, but what occurred in Europe during those sad years did not happen in a vacuum. Furthermore, the message that it was D-Day that ultimately resulted in the defeat of Nazi Germany does violence to the fact that the Russians already were pushing the Germans backwards in the horrible fighting on the Eastern Front.Likewise, we forget such things as Operation Keelhaul in which the “liberating Americans” took part in a cynical, murderous plot in which thousands of innocents were executed or sent off to prison camps to die by our “Russian allies.” Nikolai Tolstoy writes about the aftermath of one of these incidents:

The Americans returned to Plattling (where they had delivered Russian expatriates to the Russian troops) visibly shamefaced. Before their departure from the rendezvous in the forest, many had seen rows of bodies already hanging from the branches of nearby trees. On their return, even the SS men in a neighboring compound lined the wire fence and railed at them for their behavior. The Americans were too ashamed to reply.

Winners have the privilege of writing history, and a lot of whoppers have been written into the history of World War II. As Laurence said, those of us critical of U.S. policy and the D-Day celebrations are not taking the sides of the Nazis and are not promoting some obscure or imaginary set of events.

Instead, we are pointing out that war itself is evil, and that people — even good people — do horrible and evil things when acting in warfare. Americans are told in their history books that war is glorious, and that people prove their “worth” only on the field of battle. Well, some of us believe that is a lie, and we want to expose that lie for what it is.