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D-Day Propaganda Misses The Soviet Contributions
While it is given much emphasis in the “western” view of the second world war Operation Overlord, the invasion on D-Day and the following month of fighting at the Western front, were strategically less important than the Soviet operations on the Eastern front. Without the parallel Soviet Operation Bagration the invasion of fortress Europe in the west would likely have failed. Looking at the numbers of forces involved and German forces destroyed one might even argue that Overlord was just a diversion to keep a few German divisions busy while the Soviet attack in the East destroyed whole German armies.
At the Tehran conference in winter of 1943 Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin aligned their strategies:
The declaration issued by the three leaders on conclusion of the conference on 1 December 1943, recorded the following military conclusions:
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The cross-channel invasion of France (Operation Overlord) would be launched during May 1944, in conjunction with an operation against southern France. The latter operation would be undertaken in as great a strength as availability of landing-craft permitted. The Conference further took note of Joseph Stalin’s statement that the Soviet forces would launch an offensive at about the same time with the object of preventing the German forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western Front;
Stalin more than kept his promise:
The partisan brigades, including many Jewish fighters and concentration-camp escapees, planted 40,000 demolition charges. They devastated the vital rail lines linking German Army Group Centre to its bases in Poland and Eastern Prussia.
Three days later, on June 22 1944, the third anniversary of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Marshal Zhukov gave the order for the main assault on German front lines. Twenty-six thousand heavy guns pulverised German forward positions. The screams of the Katyusha rockets were followed by the roar of 4,000 tanks and the battle cries (in more than 40 languages) of 1.6 million Soviet soldiers. Thus began Operation Bagration, an assault over a 500-mile-long front.
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[T]he Soviet summer offensive was several times larger than Operation Overlord (the invasion of Normandy), both in the scale of forces engaged and the direct cost to the Germans.
By the end of summer, the Red army had reached the gates of Warsaw as well as the Carpathian passes commanding the entrance to central Europe. Soviet tanks had caught Army Group Centre in steel pincers and destroyed it. The Germans would lose more than 300,000 men in Belorussia alone. Another huge German army had been encircled and would be annihilated along the Baltic coast. The road to Berlin had been opened.
In total some 70-80% of German losses occurred in the East. In 1944 there were 228 German divisions in the East compared to a total of 58 divisions in the West (and South). In June, July and August 1944 alone the Soviets completely destroyed some 28 German divisions. A bigger German force than the 15 divisions that existed on the Western front in France on D-Day and the weeks thereafter.
It is embarrassing to see how many propaganda lines are spend on D-Day compared to the few acknowledgments of the much huger Soviet efforts and casualties on the Eastern front.
@Seiji
Continuing with the offtopic.
First off, I didn’t rely on much from Herman in the arguments I’ve made, though (and this is just too bad for your argument) I’m familiar with his work. I’ll quote from the website:
It’s chapter 4, the longest single section, and its purpose is to show that the 1994 genocide of the Rwandan Tutsi never happened.
I note that the website is careful not to quote the actual book, cos that would make sustaining the argument of the website problematic. Let alone setting up a defamation case against oneself is never legally wise.
The next sentence talks about an elaborate American conspiracy. Which is kinda funny, again because of my familiarity with the material. USA and Canada both wanted Kagame to invade DRC, and Kagame’s subsequent dealings with Canadian mining companies in regards to the Coltan slave labour mines that he set up in eastern DRC is rather clear. But that is all neither here nor there, as the military presence was Rwandan and Ugandan, rather than specifically US. Again, the lack of quotes is telling.
I cannot speak for Black, Stavenport, Stam nor Erlinder [at least as a scholar, though I’m familiar with his work as a lawyer], as I’m not familiar with his work, but calling Philpot a denier is hilarious, let alone defamatory. While Herman has written an article on Philpot, and did encourage Philpot to translate his (Philpot’s) work from French to English, I don’t recall any reference to Philpot in the work in question. But this does bring up an amusing anecdote. Some years ago, I was arguing this same case with another apologetist for Tutsi Power [I started this usage in this debate with you, because of the vapidity of the phrase ‘Hutu Power’], and the other party started heaping abuse on Philpot, ending with a quote from Philpot, to the effect that the Rwandan genocide ‘probably had an ethnic component,’ but framed to suggest that Philpot was backing away from his own conclusions. But as I indicated (and Philpot dug that beauty up), it was *DALLAIRE* who denied that the Rwandan genocide was an ethnic conflict (94 or 95)—Philpot was merely being sarcastic. Again, it is telling that your website declines to actually quote these allegedly juicy connections. But that’s because readers can go look up the references, and see if they are representative, while leaving the references makes the matter one of trust—follow the leader.
Now, Erlinder was jailed for successfully defending [as in obtaining failure to convict on most charges] several genocide charges against Rwandan Hutus. Sour grapes, me thinks. Of course, your website lies—Victoire Ingabere was charged with [I’m quoting next from that genocide denial website, wikipedia] Rwandan prosecution accused her of “Forming an armed group with the aim of destabilising the country, complicity to acts of terrorism, conspiracy against the government by use of war and terrorism, inciting the masses to revolt against the government, genocide ideology and provoking divisionism”.
The case was a farce, with Kagame repeatedly intervening in the case [independence of the judiciary], her cell being searched and defence documents seized [lawyer-client privilege], and “Her defence lawyer Iain Edwards said the boycott came after the former rebel colonel was interrupted while accusing the Rwandan intelligence services of offering money to rebels to make false claims against Ingabire.”
But she wasn’t in the country during the genocide, and the case against her was flaky (your website’s need to lie about the case is telling). So what was her crime? Wikipedia:
On her arrival in the country in January 2010, to honour the victims of the genocide, she visited the Gisozi Genocide Memorial Centre. In her speech, she stressed that those who committed Genocide as well as those who committed other war crimes and crimes against humanity should be brought before the courts of justice.
So she even subscribes to the party line on the genocide, but she criticises Kagame. Tsk Tsk. Kind of like Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of Hotel Rwanda, though your website neglects to mention the fact.
But continuing with Erlinder. Me thinks sour grapes, as the article would be based on his experience with the actual cases—the facts legally established contradict the law. And the equivocation is a real beaut—that he violated the law means that he denies that genocidal violence was perpetrated. Too bad that his article is available online—he interprets according to the legal standard of Mens Rea [for the charge, rather than fact, of genocide to be sustained, mens rea must be established], and cites the ICTR conclusion—so if your website were honest, it wouldn’t be whining about Erlinder, but about the ICTR. Tsk tsk. And the quote after is golden—many things are consistent, and many things cannot be excluded. It reminds me of the Mumia case: Mumia’s gun was consistent (with the highly damaged bullet retrieved from Faulkner’s corpse), as were another 8 million handguns, i.e. the bullet’s damage was too severe to rule out Mumia’s gun; it cannot be excluded that he shot Faulkner, i.e. it remains possible. [Actually, would you care to defend that case? I’m curious, because one must either reject conservation of momentum to get the bullet into Mumia’s body, or rely on a third party, e.g. another police officer, or perhaps your and David Icke’s friends, the shape-shifting space lizards—the shoe fits] But nothing on the order of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. Laws are such unpleasant nuisances, no? And the implicit bitterness against de la Ponte shines through.
Then your website give a list of scholars (and BS artists) who wrote on what happened in Rwanda; Dallaire is of course a lie, as it was his ghostwriters who wrote on the matter; Gourevitch is a known BS artist, especially with the genocide fax affair (presumably his family ties to Madeleine The Price Is Worth It Albright played a role). But Lemarchand is interesting. He started with the party line (e.g. his 1995 article), and gradually moved away from it. By 2002, he had uncovered that a part of the opposition was engaged in thuggish violence against the ruling party (the alleged perp), and that said opposition made use of Burundian Hutu refugees (from the Tutsi Power ethnic cleansing of Hutus there) in violence against Rwandan Tutsis. Lemarchand is not unique in that regard—a certain Belgian paratrooper comes to mind.
This is followed by handwaving in favour of some of the authors of the party line (coupled with more legitimate figures, e.g. Lemarchand). Then back to fibbery: In fact, President Habyarimana repeatedly refused, until literally the end of his life, to implement the power-sharing agreement set out in the Arusha Accords.
Ahem, there’s a reason why the party line (whether accurately or not) needs the Interahamwe as the perps: the ministries of the interior and military were held by figures with close ties to Kagame, the lie about power sharing notwithstanding; ditto the 1991 census (facts again being inconvenient). Thus it stands to reason that the website should claim 86-100 percent of Tutsi dead, if not 173 percent:
against the Tutsi in which at a minimum 500,000/600,000 and perhaps as many as a million unarmed Tutsi were slaughtered
Now I’ve posted those radio broadcasts transcripts; I take it that you’ve declined to read them.
The other amusing aspect with regards to power sharing is again that little matter of the pangas/machetes—remind us again why they weren’t using more effective tactics?
The website then spends a number of paragraphs talking about anti-Tutsi sentiment in Rwanda in the early 90s, an alleged increase in military spending that occurred in 1990 (but is implied to have continued after the Arusha accords), and quotes indicating loathing, all framed to suggest that the evidence is solid. Some of it actually contradicts the authors he cites as legitimate scholars, but tough luck.
The Tutsi power denial aspect of your website becomes amusingly obvious when the phrase, ‘plane crash’ is used for the shooting down of the plane.
Then he lies about what happened with Michael Hourigan. Hourigan had assembled plenty of evidence, but was told to destroy his files. I’ve already posted a video by him in that regard, on this thread. Thus it is expected that your website should fail to provide a reference to the alleged retracted testimonies. Me thinks you’re getting desperate.
But for my amusement, I’ll try to give those reports to which your website refers a gander in the coming two weeks. I can imagine how much misrepresentation would have occurred there.
Posted by: Johan Meyer | Jun 10 2014 15:14 utc | 115
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