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But the American narrative and the Russian narratives are totally different in World War II. For the Americans, the war begins at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. And then there's some battling in North Africa and the underbelly, and Italy. But the real war for the Americans begins June 6, 1944, with the invasion of Normandy with D-Day. Then the Americans singlehandedly defeat the Germans and marched straight into Berlin. And the Americans win the war in Europe. That's a very, very unfortunate and dangerous myth that has been perpetrated. And if you listen to Trump's words, again, in England, again he's reinforcing that myth about the Americans leading the way to the liberation of Europe. That's not the reality. The reality was the success at Normandy is largely due to the fact that the Germans were already weakened badly by that point, because they had been taking a pummeling, and they were in retreat across Europe ahead of the Russian Army, ahead of the vast Red Army, which was then liberating the concentration camps. And part of the reason why the Russians were so full of rage and committed the atrocities they did against the Germans when they took Berlin was because they had seen the German atrocities in the concentration camps, because they had seen what the Germans had done to the Russians throughout that, before the Russians turned the tide.
So what I tell my students, what the Soviets lost in World War II, the loss of 27 million people in World War II is the equivalent of one 9/11 a day, every day, for 24 years that's what the Soviets suffered in World War 2 the equivalent of one 9/11 a day every day for 24 years, in terms of the number of deaths suffered by the Soviet Union. As John Kennedy says in his tremendous commencement address at American University in June of 1963, he says what the Soviets suffered was the equivalent of the entire United States east of Chicago having been wiped out and destroyed.
PAUL JAY Some people argue that the reason the United States and Britain didn't open up a second front earlier was because, as we said in part one of this interview, there's a lot of people within the political and military elites and others that wanted the Germans and the Russians just to fight the hell out of each other. And then, too, the sections of the elites and military, especially in the United States, but even in the UK, that could kind of live with a German occupation of Europe, but they would not live with the possibilityand this is what happened in Stalingrad, in Kursk, as you mentioned. When the Russians start to have the upper hand against the Germans and start marching towards Berlin, there's people in Washington and in London who do not want the Russians to be coming, the Soviets to be coming. One quote is that they were afraid they might meet them at the English Channel. So they actually open up the second front because they're concerned more about what would happen with the Soviet Union rather than trying to actually be the one that is the final defeat of the Germans. What do you make of the argument?
PETER KUZNICK I would give more credit to the American leaders than that. This is the 1940s. Americans are on the right side of a war against fascism. We would like to project the kind of mindset of the post-war period back to then. And I don't think it works. You have to remember that in May of '42, Roosevelt took the initiative to ask Stalin to send Molotov and a trusted general to Washington D.C. He met there with them. And during that meeting he turns to General Marshall, and he says, can the United States open up the second front before the end of 1942, open up the second front in Europe? And Marshall says yes. And then they issue a proclamation committing the United States to open up a second front.
PAUL JAY So why don't they?
PETER KUZNICK [Crosstalk] the end of 1942. Churchill initially said he approved of it, but he did not want to have any hand in this at all. He says we don't have enough transports. We're not ready, we're not strong enough. And Churchill drags his feet. Roosevelt decides to go along with the British plan to invade North Africa in early 1943. But the American leaders, military leaders, were furious. Marshall dismissed this as periphery pecking. Eisenhower, who led the operation, said this will go down as the blackest day in history, when we invade North Africa instead of opening up the second front in Europe. There were second front rallies throughout the United States. Bumper stickers, signs. The American people wanted to open up the second front in Europe. Roosevelt I think sincerely did, also, but he calculated we have to get the U.S. involved militarily somewhere in 1943. And if the British won't go along, we're not in a position to do what we want to do. So I think-
PAUL JAY Let me interrupt for a second. Do you buy the idea that if Roosevelt and the American military leaders really wanted the second front, I don't know the history well enough to question it, but they couldn't force this on Churchill?
PETER KUZNICK You know, I'm not a military historian, so I probably can't give you the definitive answer to that. But the British were terrified at the thought of confronting the German armies on the land. The British were desperate to preserve the British Empire. That was one of Churchill's war goals, was preservation of the British Empire. So the effort through the Mediterranean to protectthey wanted to protect the oil interests. They wanted to protect India. And that was clearly what the British were willing to do. Roosevelt and Churchill did not agree on a lot of things during the war. And Roosevelt felt that he needed the British support. Even on D-Day, Paul, it was much moremore British planning and British operation logistically and in terms of troops and transport then it was an American operation. So I think the Americans were still dependent on the British at that point, certainly in 1942. We were gearing up our tremendous vast industrial machine. And by '43-'44, maybe we could have done this on our own. But we needed the British support early on in '42 and early '43 to pull this off.
PAUL JAY So Trump goes to London, makes a point of making this speech we played in part one. What does he make such an issue out of D-Day now? You don't think it has something to do with all the machinations against Iran, and his attempt, his hope that Britain and Europe will get on board with those plans? Because right now that doesn't seem to be happening for him.
PETER KUZNICK No, I don't think Trump cares. Trump will bully them into going along with U.S. policy. He's going to use trade. He's going to use sanctions. He's going to use his bullying to try to cram, ram this down the throats of the Europeans. Europeans are furious with Trump over his Iran policy. Even the British have failed to go along with this. But Trump is still able to achieve much of what he wants to even without the direct support of the Europeans on this.
So I mean, clearly, as you and I have discussed, what the Trump foreign policy people really are concerned about is Iran. From the very beginning they've been Islamophobes and Iranophobes, and they wanted to get Korea off the table so they could focus much more on Iran. And that's the most pressing, immediate danger, is the danger of military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran. We know that there are people, not just Bolton and Pompeo, but many others who see this as a much easier target militarily than wouldthan was Korea. But as our friend Larry Wilkerson has warned, that military action against Iran will be 10 to 15 times as costly as the invasion of Iraq was in terms of the financial cost and in terms of the military cost to the United States. So people better be well aware of what this would actually mean if the U.S. does provoke a military confrontation with Iran.
PAUL JAY Thanks for joining us, Peter.
PETER KUZNICK Thank you, Paul.
PAUL JAY Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
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