WWII tank Duel

[Admiral Yi]

grumbler before me?  Fucker.

[The Brain]

*poopcorn*

[Agelastus]

(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).

Using North Korea as an example, given the nature of its regime, will get you no credibility here. Derisory laughter is both likely and appropriate if you attempt it.

[Barrister]

Hey Martim, how's the leftist invasion of Colombia coming along?   

[DisturbedPervert]

I thought this dude was crazy Portuguese not crazy Russian

[grumbler]

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

Since I have always referred here to US actions as actions of the US, you can stop your garbage (claiming personal credit for Soviet WW2 actions) about six posts ago.

[grumbler]

I thought this dude was crazy Portuguese not crazy Russian

I don't think he recognizes any difference.  You may think that is crazy, but if you have known both Portuguese and Russians, it is a confusion easy to understand.  Both hate to be rubbed.

[Razgovory]

Do they teach this sort of bizarre anti-Americanism in school or did he just pick it up along the way.

[dps]

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).

Aw, come on grumbler, you know that the homosexual rape of German men by the French was done on the direct orders of our glorious Supreme Leader Morganthau.  Heck, you and I were right there in the room when he signed the papers.  You even insisted on co-signing them--IN BLOOD!  OK, it wasn't your blood, it was the blood of a dozen or so Russians we had illegally enslaved that you had tortured to death for the personal amusement of yourself and Morganthau, but I have to admit that the sight of your signature in human blood on the document was worth some shit and giggles.

Having the orders written on parchment made from the skins of German POWs was just icing on the cake.

[grumbler]

Aw, come on grumbler, you know that the homosexual rape of German men by the French was done on the direct orders of our glorious Supreme Leader Morganthau.  Heck, you and I were right there in the room when he signed the papers.  You even insisted on co-signing them--IN BLOOD!  OK, it wasn't your blood, it was the blood of a dozen or so Russians we had illegally enslaved that you had tortured to death for the personal amusement of yourself and Morganthau, but I have to admit that the sight of your signature in human blood on the document was worth some shit and giggles.

Having the orders written on parchment made from the skins of German POWs was just icing on the cake.

In the deal I cut with myself at the Nuremberg trials, I promised me that I would destroy all evidence of those happenings!  Damn me!  If I find me, I'm gonna hammer me good!

[Strix]

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

I am surprised you didn't? My family owned a German when I was growing up. It made life a whole lot easier since he made the bed, did the laundry, cleaned up after us, and all the boring chores. Sadly we had to put him down a few years back. He was at peace at the end, we brought him out to a field where we used to let him run, and than pa put one round to the back of his head Stalin-style. Thankfully we thought ahead and had him dig his own grave first.

Man, I miss Karl-Heinz.

[Martim Silva]

Okay, I'll take this a post at a time, to make quoting easier.

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.

More accurately, all warnings from Russia against NATO expansion and the arming of hostile regimes are ignored, so you are left open to the consequences.

Besides, the Western Media are extremely biased and do not give a fair image of Russia.

Few even noticed Presidente Medvedevs' latest iniciative to bring stability to Europe, or Russias' support for the Corfu Process, for example.

And when Russa notes that NATO moves bring instability, or that arming Georgians is a reckless move, the headlines go as "Russa Threatens" or "Russia sees menace".

They are not balanced.

And Russia merely acted to protect the Ossetians against a regime that waged war on them.

Didn't the US justified the attack on Yugoslavia with the protection of the Albanians? Isn't the US justifying its invasion of Iraq with the need to remove a regime that attacked its citizens?

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.

Moscow is never sure about that. The military budget of the US alone is 50% larger than that of all other countries on Earth combined, and it keeps arming regimes and moving missiles closer to the borders.

If you don't want to invade, at the very least you want your influence to dominate all nations around Russia - also not a desirable outcome.

How would you react if Russia tried to have great influence over countries in the Americas? Apart of the fact that you sent troops to invade Cuba, invaded Granada, sponsored a coup in Chile, are wary of Venezuela...

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

The Union proposed a mutual retreat, followed by the reunification of Germany and turning the country to a neutral status like Austria.

You accepted Austria, you refused Germany (I suppose Austria had less recruits for you to mobilize).

That meant that Soviet troops needed to remain in Germany. We could not retreat if you did not. So after 1952 German division it is pretty much your fault.

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

Same as the US. I see American troops remain in Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea. And the war ended what, 65 years ago?

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

You said NO to our proposal for a mutual withdrawal and waiver of rule over the parts of Germany we all had.

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.

Yes, because most Germans aren't even made aware of the Soviet proposal, thanks to your "unbiased" media. The westerners don't even realize who is to blame for the division.

And the German system would be like Austria's - a country which is hardly known for its poverty.

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

The USSR helped all those it seemed in need. It helped Arab nations. It helped African nations. It helped Asian nations. It helped South American natons. It helped nations like Finland.

Much money and resources were spent. But when the Union needed help itself, none came from the outside.

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.

The ex-soviet bloc has been trying to emulate western capitalism for 20 years. We see the results.

And yes, you are disasters. Now that your easy credit has run out, we see western nation after western nation cracking under the weight of its debts. Your "prosperity" was based on borrowing more than you could afford.

Back soon.

[Grey Fox]

Martim, what you are trying to accomplish is akin to walking into an orthodox jewish temple & convince them the Nazi were right.

It ain't going to work.

[Martim Silva]

Back. Europarliamentarians are a pain.

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

Tecnhically, it started even before the war.

As Russia has been reminding people, in 1939 Poland demanded at least East Prussia and more land in Germany (they expected a WWI-style war where the Poles would be able to delay the Germans enough for the Allies to break through in the West, and even counted on Soviet help).

It was a given that, with the "inconditional surrender" demand, that would mean great losses for Germany.

(actually, Poland later demanded to annex all the land up to Cottbus, including Berlin, in order to "protect the slavs" which historically lived in these areas. The USSR noted that those same slavs were also being expelled by the Poles as "Germans", so Moscow denied Warsaws' claims)

And the Yalta conference advanced the biggest details, even before Potsdam, already after the war.

There were more announcements at least since 1942, especially regarding how war criminals would be treated. I'll get a chronology later when I get home.

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

Actually, it was more in the "revolutionary" category - people were rising against their oppressors. The USSR tends to help immediately when that happens.

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

Ossetia did ask to join the Federation, but hasn't done so yet. Abkhazia is independent. I guess your media don't bother to tell you that.

Note that Ossetia was part of Georgia because of administrative reasons, not because they had anything in common with the georgians. They always identified with Russia, not Georgia.
And the Abkhaz have the right to self-determination.

(actually, withouth them Georgia should revert to the name of Iberia, since 'Georgia' is the kingdom which resulted in the merger of Abkhazia and Iberia)

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.

You know, Ossetia and the Crimea were settled by Russians, and many have family in Russia. They are intitled to Russian passports.

And Russia doesn't attack unprovoked. As seen in the elections, the ukrainan people was tired of the economic disaster brought by the worthless policies of its pro-western leader and got rid of him. The relations between the two countries will now improve greatly.

[Martim Silva]

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.

As the US kept saying over and over, no nation has the right to massacre its population, which is what the Georgian regime was trying to do. Russia intervened to stop that, just like NATO did in Kosovo and the US/UK did in Iraq.

I don't like these interventions either, but if the other side (which has a HUGE military budget) does it and you do not, you are putting yourself in a very weak diplomatic position indeed. In international diplomacy, precedents are very important.

Georgia also made many see exactly how truthful were allied promises of "help".

And Russia did not bully the Ukraine, it only opposed a bad regime. As you can see from the elections, the Ukrainan people felt so "bullied" that they freely elected the pro-russian candidate.