Liberal Icon Roger Cohen of NEW YORK TIMES Tries to Fix 1944 Racism by Inventing a New 1944 History

The Republic’s  last great Irish America Senator was Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York; in fact, it is reasonable to say that in a world of Senators  like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Barack Obama,  Moynihan was America’s last great Senator. 

One of Moynihan’s greatest quotes was : “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” 

Liberals and the Liberal media used that quote as a  cudgel against Obama opponents, who lied about his birthplace. 

But that was before Liberals became mummified in self-righteousness; their usurped  righteousness empowered Liberals and Liberal icons to lie, distort, change Historical facts, in order, in their opinions,  to correct the injustices of History.  

Roger Cohen  is a Liberal media icon; he currently is a contributing writer to the NEW YORK TIMES, based in Paris. During Black History month, he published an article, in the TIMES about the Allied Invasion of the Provence in France, during World War II. In the article, he wanted to give heroic status to sub-Saharan troops, who fought in the invasion. 

This Blogger had mentors who fought with the legendary 3rd ID in southern France. Cohen may be unaware of the enormous sacrifice of American soldiers in Provence, or doesn’t care. He is a globalist, born in London, from a migrant South African family. Or he did do his homework, and still decided to rewrite History. 

Two months after the D-DAY landing in Normandy, the 3^rd ID, along with Canadian, British and French  troops landed in Southern France. 

The 3rd ID hit the beaches first; the 3rd ID knew war. It was credited with 531 combat days, the most combat days of any unit in Europe; it  fought in  Casablanca, Anzio, Rome, the Vosges Mountains, Colmar, the Siegfried Line, Palermo, Nurnberg, Munich, Berchtesgaden and Salzburg. 

“The 3rd Infantry Division was the only U.S. unit that served in 10 campaigns, participated in four amphibious landings, and suffered the most casualties of any U. S. unit in the theatre.” 

Audie Murphy served with the 3rd ID; he is pictured below, visiting his fallen comrades at a Provence  cemetery after the war; Murphy was the  most decorated American Soldier in World War II. 

“ Thirty-nine (39) Soldiers of the Division were awarded the Medal of Honor. Further, 133 Distinguished Service Crosses and over 2000 Silver Stars were awarded.” 

“During the first wave of the Allied invasion of southern France, Murphy received the Distinguished Service Cross^[ for action taken on 15 August 1944. After landing on Yellow Beach near Ramatuelle,Murphy's platoon was making its way through a vineyard when the men were attacked by German soldiers. He retrieved a machine gun that had been detached from the squad and returned fire at the German soldiers, killing two and wounding one. Two Germans exited a house about 100 yards (91 m) away and appeared to surrender; when Murphy's best friend responded, they shot and killed him. Murphy advanced alone on the house under direct fire. He killed six, wounded two and took 11 prisoners.” 

Later Murphy won the Medal of Honor for taking on an entire company of Nazi soldiers. 

“When asked after the war why he had seized the machine gun and taken on an entire company of German infantry, he replied, "They were killing my friends." 

Murphy received every U.S. military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army for his World War II service. 

The following is excerpted from Mr. Cohen’s article: 

“On Aug. 15, 1944, and in the following days, some 370,000 Allied troops stormed ashore in Provence, near the town of Saint-Raphaël, many of them Africans, most of them conscripted in French colonies — as had happened during World War I. 

These were the troops who, alongside American, British and Canadian forces, as well as French fighters from the Resistance, liberated southern cities such as Marseille and Toulon before moving northward. Yet their contribution has scarcely been celebrated. 

  

One of the leading campaigners to align history, which is based on facts, and memory, which is selective, has been Aïssata Seck, 39,…. An elected official in the hardscrabble Seine-Saint-Denis area north of Paris, she said that she had been moved by encounters with the neglected veterans, often living in appalling conditions, to embark on a decade-long campaign to restore their dignity. 

 

“There has been a form of racism and denial and ignorance that I could not accept,” she said. 

 

Seck was behind a collective letter from historians, journalists and others that was published in the newspaper Le Monde on July 5, 2019, saying that the Provence landing had long been “whitened.” 

It was time, the letter’s authors wrote, to face history and overcome forgetfulness. As the letter noted, of the 235,000 members of the French Army who participated in the Provence landing, some 90 percent were “colonial troops.”….ROGER COHEN….NEW YORK TIMES, FEB. 2023.”  

Mr. Cohen  does not measure up to Senator Moynihan’s standard of devotion to unvarnished facts. In order to uplift the egos of bruised sub-Saharans, Mr. Cohen has conflated some facts. 

90% of 235,000 is 211,500……Cohen’s numbers are dubious, and since he is a Liberal icon, perhaps nefarious.  

The official muster is as follows: “Around 120,000 colonial soldiers, many from sub-Saharan Africa, participated in the landing in Provence on August 16, 1944. African soldiers experienced discrimination during the war,.” 

The label, Colonial troops does not, by definition, mean sub-Saharan troops.. The 3^rd Algerian Infantry Division was an integral part of the Free French forces, which fought in Provence. Algerians are Berbers and Arabs, not sub-Saharan blacks, and Algerians do not like being conflated with Sub-Saharans. Arabs and Berbers do not like being conflated with sub-Saharans. 

How do we know this? 

Because as this Blog is being written, Tunisia  has ordered a mass deportation of all illegal sub-Saharans, saying that sub-Saharan blacks are a threat to the racial identity of Tunisia. The Great Replacement Theory as applied to Tunisia. 

The sub-Saharan troops may have suffered discrimination in the war; but the American boys suffered decimation; when, in January, 1945, Murphy assumed command, only 18 men remained from its maximum strength of 235.

Cohen and The NEW YORK TIMES may want to do an article about the fighting in Provence, without mentioning Audie Murphy and the 3rd ID; but this Blogger doesn’t. LEST WE FORGET.

Audie Murphy visiting his fallen comrades from the 3rd ID, in Provence, France