Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Why is the American memory so short? A book has been written by an American sociologist professor which cannot be published in the US presently because it is supposed to be demoralising considering what is going on in Irak. It is published however in France where this brave and honourable professor reminds his readers of findings in the US Army archives on rape and murder among civilians after invasion in Normandy l944.
Reading the book it seems nothing has changed: gangs of drunken drug-using soldiers spread fear among the civilians. First rape was reported 6 hours after the invasion of Normandy had taken place. Eisenhower was very severe about troop relations with civilians and rapists were after being judged in US military courts executed.
However there was much else taking place showing the liberators were a pretty dangerous bunch elite or not.
Eissenhower had his HQ in the city of Reims where the German capitulation was signed May 7 1945. During a recent luncheon in Reims with some top figures there I was given additional
reasons for why the Americans were genuinely hated by the liberated. However I fear the worst victims was German women, their story remains untold. Enough that Eisenhower executed rapists in France, in Germany there was no punishment at all for such abonimable crimes.
And the Americans were not alone in this primitive attitude of course. The Russians took rape just as natural a freedom for its armies let alone the British and the French (among the cruellest).
I myself am not German, not American, not British, not French however I live in France and am a trained historian.
And I am by the way a woman.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
