WWII tank Duel

[Martim Silva]

  I love this!  "Cut the crap" followed by the biggest load of crap in the thread so far.  The only person "oft" spouting this strawman argument about "the Western Allies were 'amazing saviors'" is you.

You only mention the Soviets in german fears. While they did fear us more (rightfully so), you were hardly angels to them.

And since you seem to be blind, note the posts about how the Allies "helped" the Germans (somehow the Western part equates to the whole of it).

You know VERY WELL that the vast majority of people here think that the Allied advance into Germany was not very brutal and that the occupation was immediately benign. FFS, the French were even raping the men.

How did the Allies make clear their goal of getting rid of Germany?

You DO know that good chunks of the plans for Germany were announced often during the war, right?

Where did the Greek communists get their arms?

Many of them from the retreating Germans. And we cut our supplies as soon as we made a deal with the British.

I know this is hard to grasp, because democracies instabreak any agreement of this kind and keep supplying friendly insurgents no matter what, but do try to keep in mind that words are kept sometimes.

Does Georgia count when you say Russia has no intention of attacking anyone?  Does the Ukraine?

If Georgia did not want to be put in line, the only thing it had to do was to NOT ATTACK THE OSSETIANS. Which they did because you gave them weapons. Russia merely protected the population.

When did we attack the Ukranians? Are you talking about the 1920s? The situation was fluid. The Poles and the French had been using it during their war with the USSR (De Gaulle was part of the French expeditionary force sent to Poland to attack the USSR, and he marched on Kiev), so it was out of the question to allow the existance of a territory that had such a hostile goverment. Moscow made a regime change operation and the new Ukraine wanted to join the Union.

Besides, why are you so protetive of the Americans? Aren't you Korean? The US and its allies committed massive war crimes on Korea.

The massacre on No Gun Ri is one that the US admits (but woe the German of Japanese who used the same excuse America does for its actions), but there are more cases of brutal masscres of civilians.

http://www.army.mil/Nogunri/

Especially by the Korean allies of the US, with Washingtons' knowledge:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/18/mass-killings-in-south-ko_n_102322.html

http://www.japanfocus.org/-C__J__Hanley___J_S__Chang/2827

But, of course, western sources often ignore this. The difference in coverage is immense:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/11/business/media-troubling-historical-account-sensational-interview-raise-questions-about.html?pagewanted=1

[Berkut]

Oh man, we haven't had a real live apologist for the Commies in so long. This is going to be fun.

[Berkut]

I am just waiting for Martim to start quoting from Other Losses. You know it is coming.

Cut the crap.

The often-spouted myth that the Western Allies were "amazing saviors" who were in total contrast with the Soviets in the Occupation of Germany has already been debunked by reputable works.

I advise you to read "After the Reich - the brutal History of Allied Occupation", by Giles McDonough. It is avaliable on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/After-Reich-Brutal-History-Occupation/dp/0465003389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265804676&sr=8-1

It is not a disputed work. NOBODY says what is there was not true, because it WAS.

So all the stuff in this boook about the brutal occupation fo Germany by the Soviets, the rape of 10 million Gemans by the Red Army, the killing of a couple million German civilians, by the Red Army, the destruction of Eastern Germany AFTER they were occupied, by the Red Army, the destruction of Poland and seizing of Polish territory, by the Red Army, is all true?

Because that is largely what this book is about - sure, there is plenty there about Western Allied brutality as well, but lets not kid ourselves - the difference was rather extreme between how the West treated Germany and how the USSR treated Germany.

Nobody has claimed that the Western treatment of Germany was benign, that is a strawman you have created.

But to compare it to how the USSR treated Germany, and Poland, and Romania, and Hungary? Wow - that is some serious chutzpah right there. There is no dispute about that amongst historians.

[Berkut]

Russia would have respected German neutrality, just as it respected Austrian neutrality (both sides retreated from there), it respected Yugoslavias' decision to split from the bloc, it respected the line drawn with Churchill and kept out of Greece.

They kept out of Greece because they decided to do so - hardly because of any principal - Lord knows they were quite willing to supply communist wars elsewhere.

Besides, you should all have already know how the USSR saw the area by the Warsaw Pacts' war plans, which have been made public years ago - in case of war, we would have immediately answered with a massive nuclear assault on all your border positions, so it is DAMN MEANINGLESS where your troops would be stationed - you would not be able to "protect" anything.

And, of course, this plan shows well that there was no intent to conquer the area, just to make a buffer zone (no point in conquering wastelands).

What does this have to do with anything?

Because what the USSR always wanted was a sanitary cordon between itself and potential threats. Which is why Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece and indeed East Germany were expendeable - they were not around the borders. The Bulgarians stayed because they like Russians.

Frankly, it's getting pretty tiresome to always listen to the same broken record coming from the West that "the Russians are BAAAD, so all our treaty-breaking and military buildup on their borders is *perfectly* justified, as we're saints who never attacked anyone ever".

Strawman much?

PUH-LEASE. We see this shit even today. Russia has no intention of threatening anyone,

Of course not - the occasional Georgia notwithstanding, of course.

The fact that Russia is a paper tiger incapable of projecting any force beyond beating up on tiny nations on their border has more to do with this than any kind of benevolence.

yet NATO keeps moving eastwards (disregarding all treaties of non-expansion it signed), it is rearming Georgia (what, do you want them to start another war?) and it keeps putting missiles next to Russia (the ones in Rumania are very close to violating all the treaties on the Black Sea).

NATO is not threat to Russia though, so why would they care? The only threat NATO is to Russia is to Russias ability to bully her neighbors, which of course is why Russia cares.

And all of this without even consulting first with Moscow.

The US consults with Moscow all the time - too much, IMO. Why should they consult with moscow about their relationships with other independent nations?

Yesterday I was on the line with Moscow (the Russian ambassador here is my friend from the happier times of the Union), and the Kremlin is *pissed*.

Oh dear. You should call the US State Department, and let them know how mad they are - I don't think they have any idea. We did, after all, press the "reset" button.

All the moves took them by surprise. Russia feels ignored and surrounded by a pack of ravenous wolves that are trying to snap at its heels.

Ahhh, poor Russia feels ignored? Here is the real crux of the matter - poor Russia is feeling ignored. It is very sad. Maybe you should invade some tiny country again, so you can get back into the news and people will notice you.

Honestly, how DENSE are you people? Are Russias' intentions so hard to grasp? I can't even beguin to see things from your perspective, all you do is move troops closer, place threats everywhere, and then have the incredible gall to say Russia is the threat!

You are rather silly if you think there is any chance that NATO is going to invade Russia. NATO cannot agree to drop bombs on terrorists, much less invade another nation for shits and giggles.

Frankly, Hitler knew how to "read" us 1,000,000 better than you. For our misery. 

You are so very misunderstood - it really is quite the sad story.

Yeah, if only NATO were run by someone like Hitler, who understands you. I guess that says something about your culture and policies, that it takes a totalitarian megalomaniac to understand you.

Putin and Hitler - comrades in understanding. It is very touching.

West German was an imperial possession.  Leave it to the diabolical Americans to come up with the trick of paying tribute *to* our possessions.

We wanted to retreat and leave the Germans to rule themselves. Trade would not be restricted.

Damn those Americans, forcing you to build that wall and enslave another nation for 50 years!

Because unlike the West, the Union did not feel an imperative need to keep its army on non-vital conquests.

Of course not - you only kept your army in "vital" conquests - defined as any conquests where you kept your army.

You refused, doomed them to decades of division, and them armed them to use as cannon fodder against the Union.

Refused what? It wasn't the West that had to build walls and shoot people trying to leave the workers paradise.

How incredibly friendly of you. And you still want them to thank you for it.

They mostly DO thank us for it. The condition of East Germany (and Eastern Europe more generally) made it pretty clear which system was better to operate under.

Besides, how we see in the Ukraine, you only help who you want.

Should we also help those we don't want to help?

Are you arguing that the USSR helped those it did not want to help, rather than those it wanted it to help?

Without cash support, we see the gigantic disasters that western backed regimes are to their own peoples.

Indeed, the West is just chock full of disastrous regimes that have been terrible for their people. That must be why the standard of living is so terrible in the West compared to ex Soviet bloc.

[Berkut]

I like the comment that "Western sources ignore this" followed by a link... to the The New York Times!

I guess this is what is possible with thorough indoctrination - you can actually contradict yourself within a single sentence, and not even notice it.

[Octavian]

Whom does the Martim Silva Sock belong to?

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/member.php?u=53507

[Ed Anger]

Cyborgs are a danger to humanity.

[Admiral Yi]

You DO know that good chunks of the plans for Germany were announced often during the war, right?

I missed the part when the Allies announced the plan to eliminate Germany.  When was that?

Many of them from the retreating Germans. And we cut our supplies as soon as we made a deal with the British.

And before the quid pro quo, Greece was in the potential buffer state category, right?

If Georgia did not want to be put in line, the only thing it had to do was to NOT ATTACK THE OSSETIANS. Which they did because you gave them weapons. Russia merely protected the population.

Russia merely passed out passports to Ossetians and Abkezians and annexed their territory too, you forgot to mention that.

When did we attack the Ukranians? Are you talking about the 1920s? The situation was fluid. The Poles and the French had been using it during their war with the USSR (De Gaulle was part of the French expeditionary force sent to Poland to attack the USSR, and he marched on Kiev), so it was out of the question to allow the existance of a territory that had such a hostile goverment. Moscow made a regime change operation and the new Ukraine wanted to join the Union.

Russia has not attacked the Ukraine yet.  I was referring to the Georgian passport trick which I believe has already been used in the Ukraine, the alleged assasination attempt on the Ukrainian president.

Besides, why are you so protetive of the Americans? Aren't you Korean? The US and its allies committed massive war crimes on Korea.

Yeah, my Korean half is angry at the US for its war crimes and my American half is angry at Korea for their war crimes.

I just don't like bullshit.  If somebody makes up bullshit about the US, I object.  If somebody makes up bullshit about Finland, Spain, or Mauritius, I object.

[Grey Fox]

Mauritiunian are evil.

[Agelastus]

If Georgia did not want to be put in line, the only thing it had to do was to NOT ATTACK THE OSSETIANS. Which they did because you gave them weapons. Russia merely protected the population.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia are of course legally part of Georgia, as far as my knowledge of international statute goes.

And before anyone shouts "Kossovo" at me as an example of a country formed from a legal part of another by force of foreign arms, I don't have a lot of time for the West's decision in that case either. It's set an awful precedent.

And Russia's crude bullying of the Ukraine is only going to backfire on them in the long run. If one is going to be a major energy supplier, one needs to be a reliable energy supplier.

[Razgovory]

He totally lost me.  What about the slaves sent to Texas?  I never heard of that.

[Admiral Yi]

Mauritiunian are evil.

And hard to spell.

[grumbler]

You only mention the Soviets in german fears. While they did fear us more (rightfully so), you were hardly angels to them.

Neither you nor I were even alive in this time period, so the "us" and "you" bits here are inappropriate.  I will attribute this to your lack of skill in the english language, rather than claiming you are over-identifying with dead people.

I don't think I mentioned the Soviets as a German fear at all, let alone imply that it was their only one.  As you note, "cut the crap."

And since you seem to be blind, note the posts about how the Allies "helped" the Germans (somehow the Western part equates to the whole of it).

As you seem to be blind, the Western Allies did help the Germans.  See: Marshal Plan.  The Soviets turned down Marshal Plan aide for the Germans living under their control, so if you want to blame someone for the Western part getting more Western help than the Eastern part, blame Stalin.  As you note, "cut the crap."

You know VERY WELL that the vast majority of people here think that the Allied advance into Germany was not very brutal and that the occupation was immediately benign. FFS, the French were even raping the men.

Don't presume to tell me what I know.  You have no clue.  And all these little horror stories about the French raping the men are pretty pathetic (it may have happened that a German man was raped by a Frenchman, but this was hardly policy and was in fact illegal and punished). As you note, "cut the crap."

Actually, I am just funnin' you about "cut the crap."    I love your crap.  As alternate history goes, it is miles better than Turtledove, and you can spout it with such mock-seriousness that it reads like some of the better stuff from The Onion.

[Siege]

Yes, but this is most noticeable amongst the least educated, so it stands to reason.  These are the kinds of people who don't question things, in any society.

I'm not sure I agree with that first sentence.

It's probably not 100% accurate but I think it's true for the most part. The least educated are often the most vocal but when push comes to shove they tend to follow orders and not question what is occurring.

Again, I don't really agree with that.  The "least educated" are almost by definition the least plugged into society and therefore tend to not follow anyone's orders, and question very highly the direction of society.

I suspect it's bias on the part of a highly educated forum to say that those with less education than us (annd whther it's formal education or not, this is a knowedgeable bunch) are more like sheep, and less questioning.

I don't think is bias. I am less educated and I am more like sheep and less questioning.
I'm also pretty good at following orders.

[Martim Silva]

Quoting is getting hard.

Because that is largely what this book is about - sure, there is plenty there about Western Allied brutality as well, but lets not kid ourselves - the difference was rather extreme between how the West treated Germany and how the USSR treated Germany.

Nobody has claimed that the Western treatment of Germany was benign, that is a strawman you have created.

I do not deny we hurt the Germans a lot, but the Western side does portray itself as having done very little wrong in Germany after the war.

In fact, the mere death of books that deal on how the Allies treated the Germans proves it. How many do you have about how Soviet troops behaved and how many about how the allies behaved.

For that matter, I remember a time when the western history books only spoke on how the Germans killed allied prisioners of war and never mentioned the opposite. It was not until Spielberg starting making movies about it that the knowledge that the allies routinely killed defenceless german POW became accepted.

They kept out of Greece because they decided to do so - hardly because of any principal - Lord knows they were quite willing to supply communist wars elsewhere.

No, it was a deal done with Churchill.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_11_50/ai_54517445/pg_2/

What does this have to do with anything?

People are saying that the Allies refused the Soviet proposal to reunify Germany because they feared the USSR would invade. The war plans prove that there was never any intention to invade that part of Europe.

The fact that Russia is a paper tiger incapable of projecting any force beyond beating up on tiny nations on their border has more to do with this than any kind of benevolence.

If you start with that, I'll start to mention the utter powerlessness of the European countries or the fact that the US is going bankrupt while funding just 400,000 troops abroad.

NATO is not threat to Russia though, so why would they care? The only threat NATO is to Russia is to Russias ability to bully her neighbors, which of course is why Russia cares.

I refer to the recent Russian plan: NATO is not a threat, but its expansion threatens the stability of the region, as it arms and encourages aggressions, like Georgia did.

The US consults with Moscow all the time - too much, IMO. Why should they consult with moscow about their relationships with other independent nations?

Yes, why should they?

Btw, how did you react when the USSR put missiles into Cuba?

Oh dear. You should call the US State Department, and let them know how mad they are - I don't think they have any idea. We did, after all, press the "reset" button.

I know nobody in the US State Department. The close I got was to look at the US Embassy from the spot point in the Chinese Embassy. It looked like an evil and gloomy place. I wouldn't put my feet in there.

Neither you nor I were even alive in this time period, so the "us" and "you" bits here are inappropriate.  I will attribute this to your lack of skill in the english language, rather than claiming you are over-identifying with dead people.

I'll accept that garbage when you lot start referring to US actions in WW2 as "their" actions, instead of "ours" or "we did"...

I like the comment that "Western sources ignore this" followed by a link... to the The New York Times!

I guess this is what is possible with thorough indoctrination - you can actually contradict yourself within a single sentence, and not even notice it.

I have a dinner at the Russian Embassy today and will respond to everything tomorrow (your ignorant statements will give everyone good laughs), but I'll explain this last point:

I took great pains to quote Western sources, because I know you all are so brainwashed that if I put up a Russian, Chinese or other Lefitist link, you'll instantantly call it "unreliable", "a lie" and would dismiss it.

(North Korea, for example, has memorials about massacres commited by US soldiers. I doubt you'd give them any credit if I posted its links here).

Later