The decision by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to leave D-Day commemorations in northern France early has caused a political storm that threatens to derail his Conservative Party’s general election campaign.
Though Sunak apologized for not attending Thursday’s final commemoration on Omaha Beach in Normandy, his critics said the decision showed disrespect to the veterans and diminished the U.K.'s international standing. Other world leaders including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy were all present.
The Brits take the war seriously. They well remember that, between the fall of France and Hitler's suicidal moves to take on both the Soviet Union and the United States, that they were the only ones left opposing Nazi Germany. Commemorations of both World War I and World War II are almost secular religious ceremonies in the UK. Any halfway competent politician there recognizes that.
And then there's Sunak.
So what was so important to Sunak that he felt the need to show slight regard to his nations's veterans and play hooky on the D-Day commemoration, you might ask? He had to tape a TV interview that hasn't aired yet.
4 comments:
It should be noted that his excuse was the schedule was established including the interview BEFORE the commemoration schedule was established…an interview that was a campaign event…for a campaign that hadn’t even been started when that schedule was set-up. Not the sharpest knife.
It also contrasts how the people and parties responded to this insult on soldiers versus how Trump’s various abuse of veterans has been ignored in the U.S.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, D-Day was when the US finally and definitively shoved the UK aside and reduced it to a second-rank power. But Sunak does not even know *that* -- and durst not admit it if he did.
Labour finally aggregated their feces. Carry on
Just to clarify, Frank, no. The U.S. forces totaled approximately 73,000 men, attacking two beaches…the Commonwealth forces totaled approximately 83,000, of which 62,000 were British, and assaulted three beaches.
Certainly, after D-Day the U.S. forces began representing a large proportion of forces, but on D-Day itself the U.S. hardly pushed the British aside. The assignment of Ike to the role of Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force was a recognition that American production and manpower was what would be necessary on the Western Front, but until about August-September of 1944 the Commonwealth forces were larger. After all, the U.S. was sending a large minority of its troops and supplies into the meat grinder of the Pacific, where the Commonwealth was horribly under strength and poorly supplied.
It’s all pretty academic, as the Russians were truly who defeated the Germans, with the aid of Commonwealth ships and supplies early on, and American ships and supplies later. The opening of the Western Front in France was helpful, but the Soviet Union was already grinding inexorably toward Berlin. D-Day was, in the end, more critical to keeping a sizable portion of Europe out of the hands of the Soviet Union.
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