Dunkirk Conservatism

The greatest rescue operation in history began in full 70 years ago today. In nine days beginning May 27, 1940, the British Navy and hundreds upon hundreds of private vessels rescued an astonishing 338,266 men from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk, France, all while under constant bombardment from German air and land forces that killed 68,111 Brits and captured as many as another 80,000. Instead of Great Britain being left at the mercy of the German death machine, the island nation had saved an army big enough to repel a Nazi invasion. As Winston Churchill rightly noted: "We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations." American conservatives right now do not seem to realize that we are in the immediate post-Dunkirk phase of a desired political recovery...more