The Cold War was a balance of terror

While we had a great trip through France, there were two low points. The first came in Caen. Our travel guidebook said there was a “must see” war memorial in Caen. Well the “War Memorial” is actually a museum dedicated to moral equivalence and it is a must miss.

I knew the museum wasn’t going to be so good when the first thing visible from the outside was the monument to non-violence pictured at the top. Now think of the irony here. A dopey looking monument to non-violence is constructed outside a museum documenting the most violent event in the history of the world, an event that was only brought to a successful conclusion through the effective use of the most violent weapons ever used in war to this day.

What does this tribute to non-violence say? If we would all just submit to the evil people in this world and do what they want we can stop all of this violence. It is as if they are saying there is no difference between John Wayne as Big Jake and Richard Boone’s character John Fain in the classic movie “Big Jake”. Both are violent men but one is a good guy and the other decidedly evil. The evil men in Big Jake are only brought to heel when good guys show up with guns.

But it doesn’t stop there. The equivalence is rampant throughout. We sat through a 30+ minute film on the preparation and execution of the D-Day operation codenamed OVERLORD. The French decided that it’d be cool to place the liberators of Normandy on a par with the Nazi occupiers. The screen was split equally with one side showing the Allies and the other the Nazis. What should have been a tribute to the skill and daring of the Allies and those who participated in the D-Day landing degenerated into a “they were all just doing their duty” piece of revisionist BS.

The last straw was, when touring a portion of the museum dedicated to the Cold War, the French called it a “Balance of terror” that was played out between the US and the Soviet Union and oh by the way both were engaged in terror. Well given the French willingness to collaborate with the Nazis before swapping their swastikas for American, British and Canadian flags, you’d think they would have gotten on the winners side once again in the Cold War once it was safe to do so.

The next low point was when we stopped in a Café on the way from the Cemetery at Omaha Beach to Pont Du Hoc. There were three American couples about my age very neatly dressed that were having their breakfast when we walked in. We took a table near by when I hear one of the ladies ask, “do the French have an army?” The men assure her that in fact the French do have an Army. The woman then says, “well maybe they were smart to stay out of Iraq so that they don’t have to put up any more of those crosses.”

I don’t think someone who doesn’t know if the French have an army is even aware that “those crosses” at Omaha Beach marked American graves. There is a furious discussion that follows with point being made that we probably wouldn’t be eating in the café had the Americans we just visited not stepped up to do their duty. The woman ought to get a job at the museum in Caen. She is perfectly suited for it. After being smacked down rather quickly by the others at the table, the clueless woman quickly changes the subject, “what do you think of the glass triangles at the Louver?” Do you mean the glass pyramids in front of the Louver or have the French further defaced a national icon by placing art glass triangles over the facade as well?