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The Queen Will Not Be At D-Day 65th Anniversary Event - UPDATES

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Bianca
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« on: May 28, 2009, 08:59:19 pm »












                                                     Royals will not be at D-Day event 
 




BBC NEWS
May 28, 2009

The French government has denied snubbing the Queen.
 
Neither the Queen nor any other member of the Royal family will attend D-Day commemorations in France next week, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will represent the UK in Normandy on 6 June, 65 years on from the landings that helped defeat Hitler's Germany.

No royals would go because they had not been invited, Buckingham Palace said.

There had been reports France did not invite the Queen, but had denied claims she had been snubbed.

US President Barack Obama will join French president Nicolas Sarkozy for commemorations at the American Cemetery in Normandy.



  "We have never expressed any sense of anger or frustration at all,

and are content with all the arrangements that are planned"

Buckingham Palace



Some critical reports had appeared about the absence of the Queen from the event.

French officials responded by insisting she was welcome and said the UK government was responsible
for deciding who should attend what they said was "primarily a Franco-American ceremony".

British veterans will hold their main memorial event at the Arromanches landing beaches, where thousands of troops poured ashore on 6 June and during the following days.

A Royal British Legion Service of Remembrance, at Bayeaux Cathedral, will also be held.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2009, 07:13:35 am by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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Bianca
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« Reply #1 on: May 28, 2009, 09:01:22 pm »









Turning point



A Buckingham Palace spokesman confirmed the situation on Thursday.



"Neither the Queen nor any other members of the royal family will be attending the D-Day commemorations on June 6 as we have not received an official invitation to any of these events.

"We would like to reiterate that we have never expressed any sense of anger or frustration at all, and are content with all the arrangements that are planned."



The 1944 Normandy landings saw thousands of Allied troops pour on to the beaches of occupied France and marked a strategic turning point in the war against Nazi Germany.

For the 60th anniversary of the invasion in 2004, the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales all attended commemoration events in France.
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« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2009, 09:06:13 pm »










                                 Left Out of D-Day Events, Queen Elizabeth Is Fuming





             
Yahoo News
JOHN F. BURNS
Published: May 27, 2009
LONDON


— Queen Elizabeth is not amused.

Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain Indeed, she is decidedly displeased, angry even, that she was not invited to join President Obama and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to reports published in Britain’s mass-circulation tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly, Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports.

The queen, who is 83, is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor, service number 230873, she volunteered as a subaltern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually, she drove military trucks in support roles in England.

While serving, she met the supreme Allied commander for the D-Day landings, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and developed a fondness for him, according to several biographies. This prompted Queen Elizabeth, who was crowned in June 1953, to say in later years that he was the American president with whom she felt most at ease.

But on June 6, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Sarkozy attend commemorations at the iconic locations associated with the American D-Day assault — Utah Beach, the town of Ste.-Mère-Église, where the first United States paratroopers landed, and the American war cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer — the highest-ranking British representative will be Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His main role will be at ceremonies at the town of Arromanches, near the beaches where British troops landed.

How the queen came to be excluded has become entangled in a thicket of diplomatic missteps, or misunderstandings, depending on whether the account is given in London or Paris. The French have said officially that they regard the commemorations in the American sector of the landings as “primarily a Franco-American ceremony,” and that it was up to the British to decide who should represent Britain — in other words, that Mr. Brown was at fault for not seeking an invitation for the queen.

The French have also said the Brown government was slow to accept that the ceremonies merited more than a modest British involvement, since British policy had been to give full-scale government backing only to commemorations at decade-long intervals.

The last of those was the 60th anniversary in 2004, when the queen joined President George W. Bush in the Normandy observances. British veterans’ groups demanded more backing for this year’s ceremonies on the grounds that only a handful of soldiers who fought in Normandy were likely to be alive at the 70th anniversary in 2014.

In Britain, commentators have suggested that Mr. Sarkozy did not want to share the telegenic moment when he hosts Mr. Obama. This was all the more so, the British commentators have said, because the queen’s presence might risk turning the occasion into a celebration of the Anglo-American alliance, whose troops carried out the landings, losing about 37,000 men in the battle for Normandy.

When accounts of the dispute made the headlines of the British tabloids on Wednesday, the diplomatic gloves came off, at least a bit. “Palace fury at D-Day snub to the queen,” roared The Daily Mail, the first time in days that its front-page splash has been on something besides the furor over parliamentarians’ expenses. A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to comment beyond a terse statement that “no invitation has been issued as yet to any member of the royal family.”

The tabloids quoted anonymous palace officials as saying the Brown government dropped the ball, possibly because of reported strains between Mr. Brown and the queen. Among other issues, the queen is said to have cooled on Mr. Brown because of his habit of appearing late for their weekly audiences. The Daily Mail quoted one “senior palace official” as saying that the palace had made clear to the government that the queen would have liked to have gone to Normandy.

“We have gone through all the normal channels and had conversation after conversation, but received no feedback,” the official said. “It is very frustrating."
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Bianca
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« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2009, 09:07:31 pm »








This is a monumental diplomatic faux pas and a great personal affront!

At the onset of hostilities, the Dutch royal family fled to safety in Canada.

King George VI refused to do the same.

He and his family stayed with their countrymen to face the blitz and activily participated in all
that the British went through at that time.

As stated above, Queen Elisabeth is the only reigning monarch who SERVED in WWII
Therefore, a VETERAN!

The Queen should make her own appearance, schedule her own speeches, have her own wreath laying ceremony, etc. etc. and make sure the world press is fully informed and in attendance.

Gordon Brown, Obama, Sarkozy, etc. are junior school boys and should be dismissed as such by her Royal Highness.

What do these ego-centric men know about the horrors of WW2?

When have they endured the terror of endless bombing raids, rationing, and the devastation that her country endured?

Her Royal Majesty should 'school' these nitwits on true patriotism.



This is an outrage!!!
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« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2009, 07:18:21 am »









                                                    Queen Elizabeth Snubbed:


                                                  Britain Declares War on France
       



 
 
Time.com
Bruce Crumley
Paris –
Thu May 28, 2009


France and England have fought each other in the 100 Years' War, the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars and scads of less memorably named conflicts. And more recently, the French and English have treated the blood-and-tears clashes between their national rugby and soccer teams as fetishes for those battles of yore. The geysers of bile pouring forth from the London tabloids this week suggests a new chapter in Anglo-French enmity may be upon us. Call it the "Great D-Day Hissy Fit."


The casus belli in the latest cross-Channel spat is the slight dealt by the French government to Queen Elizabeth II in failing to invite her to the June 6 ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the 1944 Allied invasion at Normandy. While the Queen has attended - and also skipped - various previous D-Day commemorations, this year's event seems to have been given heightened allure by the planned attendance of U.S. President Barack Obama, who remains the King of Pop on the diplomatic circuit. British tabloids have gone ballistic over what they see as French President Nicolas Sarkozy trying to hog the Obama-radiated limelight.


"A diminutive egomaniac, the stain of Nazi collaboration and why the French can't forgive us for saving them in the War", was Thursday's headline in London's Daily Mail, above an article filled with denunciation of the French and their leaders as cheese-eating surrender monkeys. For good measure, the paper ran a second story titled, "What did YOUR dad do in the war, Sarkozy?" The paper's answer to its own question was to claim Sarkozy's Hungarian-born father celebrated D-Day by fleeing collaborationist Budapest for Nazi-controlled Germany to escape advancing Soviet troops. The same story also alleges that the family of Sarkozy's current wife, industrial scion Carla Bruni Sarkozy, had been pretty chummy with Mussolini.

(Read TIME's 2004 cover story "The Greatest Day.")


The D-Day contretemps began on Wednesday, after the British tabloids discovered that their sovereign had been snubbed by the French - and was reportedly not amused. And the vitriol went up a notch on Thursday after French officials didn't bother denying they hadn't invited the Queen.


"The June 6 celebration is foremost a Franco-American celebration," said French government spokesman Luc Chatel, noting the event takes place on U.S. territory in Normandy that houses the American military cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer - a detail that appears to ignore the tens of thousands of British and Canadian troops that hit the beaches along with U.S. forces. Chatel provided further ammo for tabloid accusations that Sarkozy was looking to steal the show by stressing that the bilateral nature of the event was of particular significance this year, since it will be the first Obama attends as President.


The unapologetic candor from Paris had even the broadsheet Daily Telegraph on Thursday running the "gotcha" headline


"France admits not inviting the Queen to 65th D-Day anniversary."

France also appeared to try to shift responsibility onto the scandal-plagued British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

An invitation, French spokesmen noted, had been sent to the U.K. and was accepted by the Prime Minister. "The British wanted to be associated with this ceremony, and they are naturally welcome," Chatel said, oozing innocence and virtue. "(But) it is not up to France to designate British representation."


Amid the barrage from the London papers, perplexed French reporters covered the British pique with reports quoting Buckingham Palace officials denying that the Queen had been hacked off by the matter -royally or otherwise.

Still, there was some sense of unease in France over the affair.

French people young and old still express enduring gratitude for the sacrifices of the Allied forces that drove the Germans out of France - an effort that cost the Allies some 37,000 lives in Normandy. That feeling prompted many in France to wince at the British tabloid accusations of wartime fecklessness and current ingratitude.

Still, those French who are even aware of the British ranting are weathering it with Gallic shrugs. After all, how much is really new about a spat between the British crown and a diminutive French leader?
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« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2009, 07:46:01 am »









                                                From Senator to Lowly Secretary






By American Spectator
5.29.09

Word coming recently that due to a series of diplomatic oversights, Queen Elizabeth was excluded from a planned U.S.-French commemoration of D-Day, despite her, as well as Britain's, role in the war and the D-Day campaign, has put renewed focus on the inner workings of the Obama State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

According to State Department sources, while the U.S. State Department was not part of the full planning for the D-Day commemoration, American staff involved did not raise the issue of the Queen's involvement with the French. "It was French planning," says one State Department employee. "We were advised; we made sure we would have the necessary people in place, including the President, that was all."

But some State insiders say that the department in previous administrations would have taken a greater hand in shaping the events, particularly those with great symbolic or patriotic significance for the United States. "That's not a priority with this crew," says another State Department employee. "But this isn't the first time these guys haven't connected the dots or done their research in advance of meetings and the like."

The most high-profile embarrassment for Clinton was when she provided Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a gift to mark their first meeting: a prop "reset" button. "I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: 'We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together,'" Clinton said, presenting Lavrov with the red button. What the foreign minister got, however, was a button that said "peregruzka," which in Russian means "overcharge."

In a more embarrassing moment for the Administration, the White House was seemingly unprepared for the diplomatic and ceremonial requirements of the visit of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. While the State Department was not the lead on the ceremonial portions of the meeting between Brown and Obama, the department was consulted and seemingly gave the White House inaccurate information for what was considered a standard meeting between two world leaders.

But there have been other gaffes, many of them private, say State Department employees. Clinton has often showed up for meetings seemingly unprepared or not fully briefed, misidentified officials, and at times seemed unsure of Obama Administration policies. Further, she and her senior staff have been cut out of personnel decisions, particularly on the selection of ambassadors, positions one would think the highest ranking foreign policy official in an administration would have a say in filling. "All them plum ambassadors slots were handled out of the White House," says another State Department official. "In part, this is due to the political nature of the positions and the payoffs for campaign support, but still, in previous administrations, it was State that often took the lead in vetting the nominees."

Early stories on Clinton's State Department highlighted the slow pace of hiring for her senior staff, but the current issues have little to do with that, say the State Department employees, who say there is a growing impression that Clinton is frustrated by her inability to be front and center on foreign policy, taking the back seat to Obama, and chafing at White House control over foreign affairs. 
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« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2009, 09:07:48 pm »











Anyone else suspect that the reason Obama didn't encourage France to invite Queen Elizabeth to the D-Day memorial service is that the Queen distracts from the haloed one?

She may not outrank him, but she danged sure has seniority.

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« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2009, 09:09:14 am »









                                     Prince Charles to attend D-Day ceremony
           





June 2, 2009
YAHOO NEWS
LONDON

– Prince Charles' office said Tuesday that he will attend a D-Day commemoration in France this week after a diplomatic spat over the omission from the guest list of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy are attending the ceremony on Saturday to mark the 65th anniversary of the Allied landings on June 6, 1944. The most senior British representative was to have been Prime Minister Gordon Brown rather than the queen, who is head of state and who served in uniform during World War II.

The perceived snub created an uproar in Britain, which lost thousands of troops helping to free France from the Nazis.

France denied any offense was meant, and said it was up to Britain to decide whom to send.


Charles' office said the prince would be attending at Sarkozy's invitation.






The D-Day landings saw more than 150,000 Allied troops pour on to the beaches of


                                                          occupied France


and marked a strategic turning point in the war.
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« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2009, 03:47:51 pm »










                                   U.K. Asks White House to Explain Remarks on Queen







(Update3)

By Robert Hutton and
Kim Chipman

June 2, 2009
(Bloomberg)

-- A remark by President Barack Obama’s spokesman about Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in a World War II D-Day commemoration has U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office asking the U.S. administration to explain itself.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked yesterday whether Obama believes the 83-year-old monarch should be invited to this weekend’s events marking the 65th anniversary of the Allied forces invasion of France.

“He does, and we are working with those involved to see if we can make that happen,” Gibbs said during his regular daily briefing for reporters.

That came as a surprise to Brown’s office.

“We have been in touch with them to understand exactly what was meant by the suggestion they have been involved in this,” the prime minister’s spokesman, Michael Ellam, told reporters. “That was news to us. We have raised this with the French. It was news to them as well.”

The Obama administration today sought to clarify its position.

“For weeks, the administration has been making clear that we want full British participation in the events at Normandy,” said Ben Chang, a spokesman for Obama’s National Security Council. “We have done so because we value our special relationship and because of the historic sacrifices made by our British allies at Normandy.”
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« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2009, 03:50:26 pm »










Negotiations



Britain, France and Buckingham Palace have been talking about whether the Queen should attend the commemoration along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama and Brown. Britain says she wasn’t invited. The French said last week she’d be welcome.

The manner in which Britain takes part “has been for the British and French to work out, and we remain hopeful that they do work it out,” Chang said. “What is clear though, is that we continue to want full British participation.”

French officials didn’t respond to yesterday’s comments from the White House.

“We’ve already said that the Queen of England is welcome if she wishes to attend,” French Defense Minister Herve Morin said on Europe 1 radio today.

The Prince of Wales, who is first in line to the U.K. throne, will be attending the commemorations after receiving an invitation from Sarkozy this morning, a spokesman for Buckingham Palace said in a telephone interview.

Obama leaves today for a trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Cairo, Egypt, where he will deliver a speech addressed to the Muslim world. From there, he travels to Germany, where he will visit the Buchenwald concentration camp and the city of Dresden. The U.S. president will be in Normandy, France, on June 6 to mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the allies’ invasion of France in World War II.



To contact the reporters on this story:

Robert Hutton
in London

at rhutton1@bloomberg.net;

Kim Chipman
in Washington

at kchipman@bloomberg.net
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