The phenomenon called “motivated reasoning”—we tend to use logic and reason, not to discover what we believe, but to confirm what we already think we know

The sexes can't be warring tribes, says Christina Sommers as the author of Freedom Feminism—Its Surprising History and Why it Matters Today is interviewed by Ravishly's Katie Tandy (thanks to Instapundit).

In the new video series that you've created with American Enterprise—"Factual Feminist"—you recently answered the question, "Why Call Yourself a Feminist?" A reader wrote in and asked you to drop the moniker because it's been so "sullied" with man-hating rhetoric. You basically responded that you simply want women to be "free, responsible, self-determining beings." That your concept of feminism has nothing to do with "denigrating men or fixating on victimhood." How do your studies and writings help forge a much-needed, "healthy, evidence-based women's movement." What does evidence-based mean exactly?

Classical equality of opportunity feminism (I call it “freedom feminism”) is a legitimate human rights movement. There were arbitrary laws holding women back. Women organized and set things right. But, as I try to show in my writings, that reality-based movement has been hijacked by male-averse, conspiracy-minded activists. (I call them “gender feminists"). American women happen to be among the freest, most self-determining people in the world, but the gender feminists seek to liberate them from an all-encompassing “patriarchal rape culture.” What is their evidence that such a culture exits? They point to their own research as proof. But most of that research, including their famous statistics on women’s victimization, is spurious. Gender feminism is the opposite of an evidence-based movement—it’s propaganda based. Social movements fueled by paranoia and fantasy tend to be toxic.

What's your take-away from the #YesAllWomen phenomenon? Is it more gasoline on the gender-dividing fire, a societal zeitgeist or something in the middle?

Hashtag feminism (e.g. #YesAllWomen) is a scourge. It brings out the worst in contemporary feminism: injustice-collecting, trauma-valorizing, male-bashing. It also encourages group think and vigilanteeism. Other than that, it’s fine.    
                           
What's the most interesting thing you've learned recently?

I only recently came to appreciate the limited power of logic, reason and evidence to change minds. Most of us, whether we know it or not, are driven by emotion and group loyalty. Cognitive scientists have long known about a phenomenon called “motivated reasoning”—we tend to use logic and reason, not to discover what we believe, but to confirm what we already think we know. Instead of changing our minds in the face of contradictory evidence, we are more likely to seize on rationalizations for what we already believe. I see this tendency in myself once in a while and try mightily to resist it.

Smart Diplomacy: Regarding the BNP affair, "there is a perception that France was targeted"

As the American authorities announced a record penalty on Monday against BNP Paribas for violating United States rules on trading with blacklisted countries, the French political establishment had an unusual reaction: silence.

Thus writes Liz Alderman in a New York Times story to which one is tempted to react to with biting irony: "So, Messieurs les Français, you finally got him, the U.S. president you dreamed of — the one who like the visionary Europeans is against bankers and other dirty capitalist pigs. Ain'tcha happy?!" Having said that, we must remember that Obama's outstanding, second-to-none smart diplomacy is nothing to laugh at.

American prosecutors obtained most of what they fought for, but financial authorities here are warning of a potential negative consequence for the United States.

The dollar clearing at issue in the BNP Paribas case was conducted in the United States. But, said a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations, there is concern that using dollars in international trade could ‘‘trigger risks even if you do things outside the United States, because one day the dollar you used may be seen as an opening for an extraterritorial application of U.S. legislation.’’ 

‘‘That means that using the dollar is now perceived as less safe than before the episode, and it will probably reinforce the willingness of many countries to trade as much as possible in other currencies,’’ the person added.

Nor will the French government easily forget the episode. French officials are still upset that American prosecutors appeared to be imposing a standard of justice on foreign banks that has not been applied to American financial institutions.

 … ‘‘There is a perception that France was targeted,’’ the French official said.

  … France could turn up the heat on the United States on other fronts, especially in negotiations underway on an American-European trade deal. ‘‘It will probably mean that the French attitude will be even tougher,’’ said the French official close to the discussions. 

Intensifying French resistance to the deal could undermine the European Commission’s ability to champion trans-Atlantic trade, Famke Krumbmuller, a London-based analyst for the Eurasia Group, wrote in a recent note to clients. But those talks are only limping along as it is, and increasingly look doubtful to advance significantly during the Obama presidency.

Also unclear is how the American action will ricochet at a European level. The European Commission has already imposed hefty fines on Microsoft and other large American technology companies for violating anti-trust behavior in Europe’s backyard.

Given that the financial penalties by the American authorities against not only BNP, but other European banks, have been eye-popping, ‘‘the temptation may be there to also raise the level of the fines in Europe,’’ Mr. Godement said, ‘‘and we could get into a kind of tit-for-tat war, which has the added advantage of replenishing public coffers.’’ 

Whatever the softening of the penalties, the BNP affair will sting in France. ‘‘This amounts to targeting probably the closest ally that the U.S. has had in Europe over the past four to five years,’’ Mr. Godement said. ‘‘It is very disquieting.’’

If you want to know what US Government-run healthcare looks like, the VA is a pretty good case study

The Veterans Administration scandal is worse than you think

dissects Benny Huang.

A report out this week from retiring Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) found that approximately one thousand veterans have died in the last ten years while languishing on wait lists. Doctors, nurses, and administrators within the system say that they faced retaliation when they spoke out about unethical practices. One VA employee in Phoenix says that deceased veterans’ medical records were altered post mortem so that it would appear that they did not die on the VA’s watch.
The VA’s biggest problem, besides dishonesty of course, is timeliness. Delayed healthcare can mean the difference between life and death, as this scandal illustrates in vivid color.

If you want to know what US Government-run healthcare looks like, the VA is a pretty good case study. I understand that some of those vets probably wouldn’t have any healthcare at all if it weren’t for this system but is that really a testament to their quality? What healthcare system would adopt as its motto, “Hey, it’s better than nothin’!”

There is an alternative to the wholly government-run model that is the VA. Vets could be given vouchers redeemable with private physicians. It might work better; it could hardly work worse.

Strangely, 31% of Americans polled this month said that they expected Obamacare to function better than the VA system. In other news, 31% of Americans are too stupid to vote.

 … Of course, Obamacare differs from the VA in that it is not a self-contained system wholly operated by the US government, or what we might call the single payer policy that liberals really wanted and may still get. They will therefore shrug off Obamacare’s faults by saying that it doesn’t go far enough. If only we allowed the government to take over healthcare completely we’d have a great system, like they do in Canada and France!

Well, no. What we’d have is a VA-style system for everybody.

While the VA scandal may be a tragedy, it is also a teachable moment. Now is a good time for conservatives to explain to the American people that we are not against universal healthcare. We are opposed to more government meddling in our medical system because our health is too important to entrust to a bunch of incompetent buffoons who destroy everything they touch.

 … Conservatives aren’t against people seeing the doctor, we just think that the government sucks at almost everything, from education to mortgage-lending to energy production. Nothing in the last decade has persuaded me that our government is anything but incompetent and corrupt.

 … We all want healthcare for everyone. The question is how to best provide it. Should we provide for our own medical care, just as we buy our own groceries? Or should we look for the generous hand of government to give it to us for “free”, no matter how crappy it is? Conservatives don’t want to prevent poor people from receiving life-saving medications or getting a yearly checkup, we simply don’t want to be trapped in the shameful system that has already killed a thousand veterans.

Reminder to the NYT: Saddam Hussein had slaughtered several thousand Kurds with sarin and other poison gases

Margaret McGirr speaks up at the liberal partisanship of the New York Times and at that of one of its star columnists. (At least, the newspaper has the decency to publish the letter — although, to be fair, the letter to the editor is but a token one.)

Re Nicholas Kristof’s column “Obama’s weakness, or ours?” (June 27): Terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans and people of several other nationalities on Sept. 11, 2001. There were real concerns at the time about follow-up attacks, a threat that many of us seem to have forgotten. 

Saddam Hussein had slaughtered several thousand Kurds with sarin and other poison gases. Many Western governments, including the Clinton administration, believed that he had chemical weapons. President George W. Bush was repeatedly rebuffed in his efforts through the United Nations to get the Iraqi dictator to allow a complete inspection of his country by international weapons inspectors. 

Finally, with the responsibility for the safety of millions of Americans resting on his shoulders, President Bush made the decision, supported by Congress, to invade Iraq.

This painstaking, deliberative process Mr. Kristof describes as “swagger.” He is irritated by what he sees as over-harsh treatment of our current president but is happy to dish it out to our previous one.

5 Things To Remember Before You Quit And Say, ‘I’m Done With America’

Have you ever looked at all the schlock we’re currently mired in thanks to BHO’s “fundamental transformation” of America and thought, or actually said, “Screw it. I’m done. I officially don’t give a crap anymore”?

asks Doug Giles.

I have. And I prize myself as being somewhat of a scrappy-faith-filled dude. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I get sick and tired of being sick and tired.

 … After I have these little pouting sessions of pathetic wussiness, I realize two things: 1). I’m being a hamster; and 2). Historically, that’s pretty much the crumble of the cookie, in that things usually turned repugnant before they turned around. Indeed, in the very formation of our blessed union we tend to forget King George’s oppressive hell spawned a defiant and free rebel nation; and that didn’t happen with ease or overnight.

 … So, little kiddies … we need to cheer up. You and I can’t curl up in the fetal position and wet our big diaper since things seem bad right now, because that’s exactly what the enemies of our nation would like us to do, namely … check out. Give up. Lose heart. Instead, we must realize the historical pattern of things usually gets real frickin’ bad before it gets better.

Read the whole thing

Putin's Dreamin' of a Greater Russia

(A Serguei cartoon that was published in Le Monde before the Malaysian airliner was shot down)

Good-Bye, Friend — James Garner

James Garner

Eastern Europe Leaders Protest Paris's Sale of High-Tech Mistral Warships to Russia

One East European leader on an official Paris visit after another voices his apprehension about France's decision to sell high-tech Mistral warships to the Kremlin.

Estonia's prime minister, Taavi Roivas:

I am not convinced that it would be opportune to deliver sophisticated and high-tech weaponry to Russia at this moment. 

Poland's foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski:

When countries forcefully seize a part of their neighbors' territory, it's not the best moment to furnish them with sophisticated armaments.

There are two online petitions protesting the Mistral sale to Moscow:

• Monsieur le Président : Ne pas livrer à la Russie les 2 navires de guerre "Mistral" commandés
• Find another buyer than Putin for the Mistral ships

Putin's Gesticulations, by Selçuk

Remnants of Saddam’s Toxic Arsenal: What the MSM Has Been Keeping Secret for Years

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

admits Wired's Noah Shachtman (shookhran to Instapundit).

But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction.

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

 … even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time.”

A small group — mostly of the political right — has long maintained that there was more evidence of a major and modern WMD program than the American people were led to believe. A few Congressmen and Senators gravitated to the idea, but it was largely dismissed as conspiratorial hooey.

The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war. …

The main conclusion to be taken from this, however, is neither the first note nor the second one. It is that the Mainstream media deliberately ignored any discussion or even the slightest consideration of the findings to hammer home their (self-serving) obstruction to the White House when it was the home of a Republican of George W Bush's bent…

The Left is throwing a tantrum over the Hobby Lobby case precisely because they intend to further curtail religious liberty; Religious liberty is a huge problem for people who recognize no higher power than the state

[The] narrow victory for religious freedom is still causing heads to explode on the political Left

writes Benny Huang.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the likes of NARAL, NOW, and the Daily Kos is more of the same hysterical overreaction they have to everything. They seem worried that if we allow any religious exemption to any law, no matter how small, then everyone will cite “sincerely held religious belief” whenever the law inconveniences them. Anarchy will then ensue and the whole world will end.

Of course, Hobby Lobby did not ask for the law to be waived for them. The court sided with them because the law—the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or RFRA—is on their side. I would argue that the First Amendment is too, though the court didn’t speak to that.

Ryan Grim of The Huffington Post penned a piece in which he expressed the slippery slope argument fairly well. “8 Other Laws That Could be Ignored Now That Christians Get to Pick and Choose” is a hyperbolic harangue riddled with errors but the basic gist is that everything is now in jeopardy because Christians, and only Christians, can do whatever they want.

Among Grim’s list of laws that could be ignored are bans on hemp and LSD because some people use them religiously. “While we’re at it, all drug laws rub up against religious practice,” Grim argues. “Sorry officer, this is our church.”

 … That’s where liberals stand on the religious freedom issue. Before they can get behind it, they apply a two-prong test. First—do they like you? If the answer is no, then you’re a bigot. Sorry, but bigots have no rights. Second—is their agenda in any way impeded? If the answer is yes, then freedom of religion does not apply.

I don’t remember any liberals howling that religious exemptions would lead to privileged groups picking and choosing which laws they would follow back when a Democrat-controlled Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the RFRA. They should have argued that everyone must follow all laws, no exceptions. If we allow a religious exemption for American Indians and their holy stash, next thing you know Christians might think that they have rights too! Then we won’t be able to force them to pay for someone else’s abortifacients. It’s a slippery slope. Let’s not go there.

 …The Left is throwing a tantrum over the Hobby Lobby case precisely because they intend to further curtail religious liberty. All this free exercise stuff terrifies them. If people can simply say “It’s my religion” then liberals won’t be able to force military chaplains to perform same-sex marriages and people will be free to teach their children what they want. Religious liberty is a huge problem for people who recognize no higher power than the state.

The Legacies of World War I and World War II

The Wall Street Journal has selected 100 legacies from World War I that continue to shape our lives today (thanks to Damian Bennett and Duncan Hill), while The Atlantic presents a photo essay on the aftermath of World War II (one in a series of WWII-era retrospective entries, among which is one from D-Day).

Liberals will bring in a slew of (mostly illegal) immigrants, transform them into wards of the state, and register them to vote, thus diluting the power of the Cable Guy voting bloc

A Pew Research Center poll last week found that among those who described themselves as solid liberals only forty percent reported often feeling “proud to be an American”

writes Benny Huang. in an article echoing Jonah Goldberg's Resenting the Republic (Liberals take exception to exceptionalism).

The Washington Post greeted the survey with the headline: “Proud to be an American? You’re probably not a true liberal.”

What is it about this country that brings liberals so much shame? It’s the people—our values, our habits, our traditions. We’re an incorrigible lot. Too many Americans look, act, and talk like Larry the Cable Guy. We’re obese and we only speak English, perhaps not that well. I say, so what? While I can’t deny that plenty of Americans fit that stereotype, those are both overlookable faults. America is full of Cable Guys and that’s okay.

What Americans need, liberals argue, is to change; and if we can’t or won’t, we need to be changed. We can start by embracing hate speech laws, then outlawing guns, and finally getting excited about soccer. Except we musn’t call it soccer, we must call it football, as the rest of the world does. Above all, we must change our values and the way we vote so that they always win.

If that doesn’t work, liberals will just bring in a slew of (mostly illegal) immigrants, transform them into wards of the state and register them to vote, thus diluting the power of the Cable Guy voting bloc.

Behold the tsunami of children at our southern border and the giddy liberal politicians salivating at the prospect of all those undocumented Democrats. Texas will be blue in a generation if they have their way. By bringing in enough ringers to vote for them, liberals hope to “fundamentally transform” this country. America needs a transformation because it sucks, that’s why.

What do they want to transform it to? Based on their immigration policy it appears that Mexico is their model, but I don’t think so. Their true vision of what America should be is something like the Netherlands, complete with sidewalk cafes, baby euthanasia, and lots of dope. How we’re going to get there by importing primarily impoverished Latin Americans is anyone’s guess. In any case, it’s pretty clear that they don’t like America the way it is now.

People of the Left generally struggle with love of country and not just in the United States either. Most places I’ve traveled I’ve found that people on the Right identify freely with their nations, while people on the Left tend to squirm at the mention of patriotism and then become very defensive. I’ve seen it in Japan, Great Britain and elsewhere, but never as pronounced as here in the United States.

Selçuk Cartoon: The Providential Man

Nudist beaches, naturist resorts, naked camping: No-one should be surprised when they come across nudists in France

Let’s face it, the French pretty much invented naturism

writes Mark Johnson,

so no-one should be surprised when they come across it in France. Here, there are nudist beaches, naturist resorts, naked camping – sounds painful – and any number of clothes optional guest houses and hotels.

Although I’m not an avid naturist myself, I have been known to get my kit off at the plage natural on the Cote Sauvage, and never had any issues with that. Mostly, though, I keep my swimming trunks on, simply because I like the tan line, but being naked is the most natural thing in the world and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone their right to strip off.

Granted, the prospect of seeing everyone’s wobbly bits on show down the local supermarket just after breakfast may be stretching things – no pun intended – but here in deepest rural France people sometimes also prefer to be at one with nature around their own homes. …

The 1900 Exposition Universelle Exhibit at the Petit Palais — Complete with a Display Room Dedicated to Paris Brothels

I don’t know how many people I heard gasping when they saw photos of the fabulous buildings created for the 1900 Exposition Universelle

marvels Stephen Clarke as he discusses "the fascinating exhibition at the Petit Palais" – Paris 1900

– of which the Petit Palais and Grand Palais are just two – and wondering aloud why the others weren’t preserved too. The river bank down to the Eiffel Tower was a façade of palaces instead of a busy road and a line of rather dull apartments, and the whole neighbourhood around the Tower was a patchwork of pavilions designed by the world’s most famous architects.

The author of Dirty Bertie: an English King Made in France goes on to reveal that he

was on a personal mission at the Petit Palais – I wanted to see how the city acknowledged the presence of one of its most influential people, the Prince of Wales, alias Dirty Bertie, the future King Edward VII. He was, after all, friendly (or more than friendly) with almost every French actress in the posters decorating the exhibition’s walls. He was the man who introduced Sarah Bernhardt to London (and took her along to high-society dinners to shock the snobs). And more seriously, he was the Englishman who was lobbying for closer ties with his friends across the Channel, at a time when most British politicians were spitting with rage over France’s support for the Boers. He was also calming his nephew the Kaiser, who was prone to outbursts of anti-French aggression (while cruising the Med, he “invaded” Morocco, just himself on a horse basically, to make a speech supporting Moroccan independence from France). By [maintaining] his close contacts with all of Europe’s leaders, Bertie was in fact protecting Europe’s balance of power, and in a way making France’s carefree 1900 lifestyle possible. So how was he acknowledged in the exhibition?

In a room dedicated to brothels. There – rather magnificently, I have to admit – was his love seat, the extraordinary piece of furniture he had built by a Parisian chairmaker, a cross between a gynecologist’s examination table and an art nouveau toboggan, with footplates to keep everyone in place and gilded woodwork to give the fornicatory proceedings a royal feel.

The chair was kept in Bertie’s private room at a luxury brothel called Le Chabanais, along with a bathtub that the exhibition, like everyone else, claims to have been filled with Champagne, which is almost certainly a lazy fantasy. Apart from the fact that you would need dozens of bottles to fill a bath, would anyone want to sit in the stuff, either chilled or (yuk) warm? You’d emerge smelling like a bar after closing time. No, much more likely, it was filled with conventional hot soapy water and used for frolicking, or to wash off the perfume and other liquids that might have come into contact with the royal skin. Après l’amour, the Prince had to go on to other appointments. He couldn’t step out reeking of brothel. And incidentally, the women would probably have made use of the bathwater too, their backstage living quarters being considerably less luxurious than the settings that the customers saw.

Anyway, the love seat, and a strangely-named engraving by Félix Vallotton – l’Étranger, ie the stranger or foreigner – were the only signs of Bertie’s presence in Paris. Vallotton’s engraving underlined the impression that Paris seemed to be almost ashamed of Bertie. We see a plump, top-hatted figure from the back as he chats up two smirking ladies of obviously ill repute, while a man in front bows reverently. It’s generally assumed that Bertie is the subject – he is the foreigner, the outsider, when he was in fact an integral, and vitally important, part of Parisian society. At the time, his presence at a theatre show could almost guarantee its success. He featured in novels by Proust and Zola, and Offenbach more or less wrote him into an operetta. His style, and that of his long-suffering wife Alexandra, were huge influences on Parisian fashion. Yet all he is in the exhibition is a buyer of brothel furniture and chatter-up of street girls. Not even a hint (as far as I could see) that three years later, against all expectations, the Entente Cordiale would be signed, largely thanks to Bertie.
Like I said, it’s a sumptuous exhibition, but it seems to be suffering from another case of France re-writing its own history.

What If Dan Quayle Had Misspelled the Name of a Previous Occupant of the White House?

The [White House's] press office misspelled the name of 40th president Ronald Reagan

reports Fox News —

not once, but three times in media documents about President Obama's schedule on Wednesday.

In the version of Obama's schedule that is available online, Reagan's name is spelled "Regan."

"The President delivers remarks at the League of Conservation Voters Capitol Dinner (at the) Ronald Regan Building and International Trade Center," it says.

The Washington Times reports the name of the building was also misspelled twice on a daily email briefing sent to members of the media.

Remember Dan Quayle's "potatoes"? Imagine if it had been a Republican White House making a typo like that. We would never hear the end of it from the mainstream media.

Check out the difference between the never-ending treatment of Dubya's flubs and the hardly-touched-upon Obama mistakes, from his 57 states to his Austrian language through his mistaking an icy Atlantic Ocean group of islands (las Malvinas aka the Falklands) with a tropic Indian Ocean one (the Maldives)…  

What's worse, it shows how little interest liberals have in the past, it being all about them and about the outstanding, second-to-none policy changes they are about to embark upon for the country and for the good of their (clueless) countrymen.

Indeed, do not forget how blessed we are to have smart policies from the smartest (and the most intellectual?) administration ever.

Searching the Forests of Normandy for the MIAs of World War II

Benoît Hopquin has an article in Le Monde on the search for the lost allied soldiers of World War II, i.e., the aviators whose planes were shot down and whose bodies were never found.

Dans la forêt du hameau de Grattenoix, un petit monument régulièrement fleuri a été érigé au milieu de la haute futaie, au centre de quatre cratères envahis par les ronces et les orties. Ici s'écrasa, le 21 janvier 1944, un bombardier américain B-24 Liberator, abattu alors qu'il était en opération contre une rampe de fusées V1. Six des dix membres d'équipage purent sauter en parachute. Quatre furent faits prisonniers et deux pris en charge par la Résistance. Deux corps furent retrouvés et dignement inhumés. Mais les dépouilles mortelles du pilote, le lieutenant Franck W. Sobotka Jr, de New York, et du mécanicien, le sergent Clair P. Shaeffer, de Pennsylvanie, restèrent introuvables.

Le 2 février 1944, Anne Sobotka, la mère de Franck, reçut le télégramme type. Il l'informait « avec un profond regret » que son fils était déclaré « manquant à l'appel ». « Si nous recevons des informations plus précises, nous vous les notifierons avec promptitude », concluait la missive.

HONORER CETTE PROMESSE DE L'ETAT AMÉRICAIN

Près de soixante-dix ans après, en ce petit matin ensoleillé de septembre 2013, Ian Spurgeon attend devant la mairie de Beaussault pour tenter d'honorer cette promesse de l'Etat américain à la mère d'un combattant. L'historien serre dans un dossier une copie du vieux télégramme et quelques informations sur Sobotka et Shaeffer. Il est accompagné de Christine Cohn, une autre historienne, et de Joan Baker, une anthropologue et médecin légiste.

L'équipe arrive de Washington. Elle appartient au DPMO, le service de la défense chargé des prisonniers de guerre et des disparus. Dans le jargon peu sentimental du Pentagone, on appelle ces derniers les MIA, pour missing in action. Au dernier décompte, ils sont encore 73 624 soldats américains de la seconde guerre mondiale qui errent sans sépulture connue. Ils sont quelque part dans un fossé, un champ ou une forêt d'Europe, dans un coin de jungle d'Asie ou dans un pli de rocaille des îles du Pacifique.

Lire aussi : tous nos récits, portraits et reportages dans le dossier 1944 : la libération de la France

 … la mémoire locale s'étiole. Les paysages changent, ici avec la construction d'une route, là d'un immeuble. Les souvenirs deviennent plus vagues. Les témoins directs disparaissent un à un. Agée de 91 ans, Edmonde, la mère de Lionel Legrand, est une des dernières survivantes à avoir assisté au crash du B-24 le 21 janvier 1944.

Elle reçoit les visiteurs étrangers en blouse, dans sa maison cernée par les poules. Sans jamais lâcher son balai, elle raconte, tandis qu'une courageuse interprète traduit son français patoisant : le bombardier en perdition passant au-dessus de la maison en direction des « bouais », le fracas puis son père courant avec d'autres hommes du village vers le lieu du drame. Ian Spurgeon note ses informations dans un petit cahier jaune, remercie. …

UN DÉNOUEMENT INATTENDU

Certaines quêtes obtiennent un dénouement inattendu. Le pilote Billie Dove Harris, de l'Oklahoma, s'était marié à Peggy six semaines avant de partir au front. Son avion fut abattu le 17 juillet 1944. La jeune veuve reçut des messages contradictoires, le disant mort, puis vivant, puis disparu. Elle resta avec cette incertitude et ne se remaria jamais.

Par un incroyable concours de circonstances et un non moins improbable raté de l'administration américaine, Peggy Harris devait apprendre, après plus de six décennies, que son mari était en fait enterré à Colleville. Mieux, une place avait été baptisée en son honneur dans un village normand, Les Ventes, lieu de son décès. Peggy Harris se rendit donc en Normandie et put se recueillir sur la tombe de son mari. Elle rencontra des vieux habitants du village qui lui racontèrent les circonstances de l'accident.

Pour l'heure, à Beaussault, les investigations s'arrêteront là. Le rapport du DPMO sera remis à un autre service au sigle tout aussi intraduisible, le JPAC, qui décidera ou non de l'utilité de procéder à des excavations. Franck Sobotka et Clair Shaeffer attendront encore un peu, là, quelque part dans la forêt de Grattenoix.

Guess Who Is Blamed by France's Newspaper of Record: After Over Five Years of Obama Presidency, Anything Wrong in Iraq Is Still All Bush's Fault

Barack Obama … is right

intones the editorial of France's daily Le Monde (Barack Obama is always right ; unlike, say, his predecessor who was always wrong, as we will discover later in the text)

– et ceux de ses adversaires politiques qui lui imputent la responsabilité de la situation en Irak ont tort ou affichent une mauvaise foi qui confine à l'indécence.

 … M. Obama est peut-être timide sur l'emploi de la force. Mais il faut une bonne dose d'impudence pour lui faire endosser la paternité des événements actuels en Irak. Hormis la part prise par les Irakiens dans leur propre malheur, la responsabilité première dans le démantèlement de l'Etat à Bagdad, dans la dissolution de l'armée, dans l'exacerbation des différends religieux et dans l'explosion du djihadisme en Irak repose d'abord sur celui qui décida d'envahir ce pays : George W. Bush.

In other words, Iraq, and the world, would be better off is only Saddam Hussein was still in power, sending his people to the death fields.

And how dare anybody even think of having the gall to raise their voice to put some of the opprobrium on Obama-the-merciful come to save the American people from itself and to apologize for all of America's past sins?!

To summarize: during the Bush years, everything was Bush's fault.

Electing a paragon like Obama — tolerant (like the Europeans), in harmony with the rest of the world (still like the Europeans) — would solve all the problems on the planet, while making the U.S. respected (and beloved) again.

Since then, we have had chemical massacres in Syria, a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chinese threats in Southeast Asia. (Yes, yes, of course Assad, Putin, and Beijing have nothing but the utmost respect for Obama, and for America, a deeper love you will never see!)

Over five (!) years after Obama's election, who is responsible? It's... still Dubya!

(While on the internal front, everything is the fault of the… Republicans…)

The extreme violence of the assault on June 6, 1944? The Sounds on D-Day Were Soothing

A Frenchman with a German name, Maxime J E Heinisch, writes to the New York Times from Toulouse to say Merci

Every June 6, I, a young Frenchman, remember that I have had the chance to live my life because some foreigners gave theirs, and that many of these lives ended up on the sand without having the chance to fire or fight, a sacrifice that left most of them alone with fear while crossing over to the other side, literally and figuratively.

Every June 6, I remember the words from my grandparents that were all about soothing sounds: the quiet of the crepe soles of the American troops contrasting with those of the invader, or the smooth whistling of gliders landing quietly in the fields. It seemed to them that war’s deafening noises were vanishing with the Allied armies coming.

Every June 6, I also remember my hand full of cartridge cases, when at 9 I discovered Normandy’s beaches: There were so many in the gravel that my schoolmates and I at first thought that someone had spread them around.

On that sunny day, I felt the extreme violence of the assault, and as soon as I was back home, I pinned up the Star and Stripes and United States Army patches on the walls of my bedroom. This was the only way for me to say thank you at that time.