DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: richpo64 on September 23, 2008, 04:34:09 PM
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Rosenbergs: Still Guilty After All These Years
By Kathy Shaidle
FrontPageMagazine.com (http://FrontPageMagazine.com) | 9/23/2008
For close to sixty years, Morton Sobell dined out on his reputation as one of the innocent “progressives,” wrongly convicted, along with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, of spying for the Soviet Union. After his 1969 release from Alcatraz prison, Sobell was feted by communist regimes in Cuba and canonized by fellow leftists as yet another victim of a wicked American justice system. All that changed last week.
Sobell, now 91, has finally admitted the truth. He really had been a Soviet spy – and so had Julius Rosenberg. As the New York Times – no right-wing tribune – put it in a recent report, the pair was part of “a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information, and what the American government described as the secret to the atomic bomb.” Sobell still maintains that the information he passed along to America’s enemies wasn’t especially significant, but he has at last abandoned the pretence, which he maintained for nearly half a century, that he was never a Soviet agent.
Sobell’s confession is not coincidental. It came just days before the National Archives released long-secret grand jury testimony in the world famous Rosenberg espionage case. Nevertheless, it has definitively shattered one of the enduring myths of the progressive Left. For generations of leftists, the innocence of the Rosenbergs was an article of faith. It bolstered their self-image as noble, if misunderstood idealists, forever doomed to persecution by a corrupt American system. Columbia University professor Eric Foner’s claim that the Rosenberg’s were singled out as part of “a determined effort to root out dissent” was a typical expression of the Left’s revisionism. Sobell’s admission has exposed it as self-serving nonsense. The Rosenbergs’ were in fact guilty as charged.
This much is apparent even to the Rosenbergs’ staunchest supporters: their children. Until Sobell’s confession, the Rosenbergs’ sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, had championed their parents’ innocence. Even when declassified documents proved that Americans really had been spying for the Soviet Union, the Meeropols refused to acknowledge that their parents had been among them. As recently as two years ago, the Rosenbergs’ granddaughter, Rachel Meeropol, insisted that they “weren't guilty of what they were convicted of.” But even for the Meeropols, this defense is now indefensible. Michael Meeropol told the New York Times after Sobell’s confession, “I don't have any reason to doubt Morty.”
Despite the overwhelming evidence of the Rosenbergs' guilt, however, the Left will, in its standard tradition, continue to sacrifice truth on the altar of ideals. Larry Schweikart, author of 48 Liberal Lies About American History, notes that popular college history textbooks continue to give the convicted spies the benefit of the doubt and that the latest revelations are unlikely to change what students will learn about the Rosenbergs. “Some [textbooks] will use the cover-up phrases, ‘questions remain,’ or ‘some still argue’ to imply that the case isn't solved,” Schweikart predicts. “Most will state that the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage, but what they did ‘wasn't that important.’”
Schweikart calls the representation of the Rosenbergs in these influential textbooks a
clear example of blatant bias. The textbooks state that they were innocent, and the ones that admit the Rosenbergs were guilty go on to excuse what they did by saying, "It wasn’t that bad. What they provided wasn’t important." I guess this means if a traitor gives away the army’s position, then the army moves and isn’t wiped out, everything is fine.
In any case, it’s inaccurate to dismiss the intelligence that the Rosenbergs’ passed along as insignificant. Schweikart notes that none other than Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev has acknowledged that the information provided by the Rosenbergs was “crucial to building the Soviet a-bomb.”
If historical textbooks are an unreliable guide to the Rosenberg case, the reporting of the establishment media is no better. Instead of underscoring the Rosenbergs’ guilt, media outlets have sought to raise additional doubts, especially about the allegedly unfair trial of Ethel Rosenberg. The Associated Press was quick to point out that the “grand jury testimony from [Ethel’s sister-in-law] Ruth Greenglass confirms that the trial testimony about Ethel Rosenberg typing secrets is a fabrication.” The same story was also careful to quote Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive as saying, “The Rosenberg case illustrates the excesses that can occur when we’re afraid. In the 1950s, we were afraid of communism; today, we’re afraid of terrorism. We don’t want to make the same mistakes we made 50 years ago.” In truth the Rosenberg case illustrates no such thing. Whatever the flaws of Ethel’s trial – and serious historians like Ron Radosh have argued that “judicial transgressions” did take place in her case – the evidence of the Rosenbergs’ guilt is beyond any reasonable dispute.
The fact of the Rosenbergs’ guilt is of more than academic interest. During the Cold War, communist fellow travelers sought to undermine national security by exaggerating America’s abuses, often citing the Rosenbergs as an example. The trend continues today, as anti-war activists seek to portray terrorist captives as blameless victims caught in America’s clutches. It is no coincidence that Rachel Meeropol is a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Guantanamo detainees. As Larry Schweikart observes, “The modern-day Rosenbergs are the defendants in the Guantanamo Bay court cases that will be coming up.” If so, Americans should rest assured that their country is on the right course.
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A blogger since 2000, Kathy Shaidle runs FiveFeetOfFury.com. Her new e-book Acoustic Ladyland has been called a "must read" by Mark Steyn.
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<<In truth the Rosenberg case illustrates no such thing. Whatever the flaws of Ethel’s trial – and serious historians like Ron Radosh have argued that “judicial transgressions” did take place in her case – the evidence of the Rosenbergs’ guilt is beyond any reasonable dispute.>>
That sentence alone is a classic. It acknowledges the serious flaws in the case against Ethel - - in fact there was no material evidence presented against her at trial that did not turn out later to be a fabrication - - and then goes on to baldly state that "the evidence of the Rosenbergs' guilt [i.e., the guilt of BOTH Julius and Ethel] is beyond any reasonable dispute." Yet nowhere in the entire article is there any mention of any evidence against Ethel that was NOT a fabrication.
Ethel Rosenberg was innocent and she was railroaded to her death. The theory was that Julius would ultimately confess to spare Ethel, but he refused to do so because Ethel insisted that loyalty to the Party demanded that both die as martyrs to the cause.
The article is also wrong in claiming that many on the left protested Julius' innocence. Originally some did. Others defended Julius as a Communist whose first loyalty had to be to the Communist International ("Comintern," officially disbanded in 1944.) Still others defended Julius as having singlehandedly prevented the outbreak of nuclear war. But with the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the opening of Soviet archives, unmistakable evidence of Julius' (but not Ethel's) guilt began to emerge. Very few leftists continued to defend Julius as innocent after that point in time.
IMHO, Julius and the other Soviet atomic spies prevented the outbreak of nuclear war, saving the lives of possibly hundreds of millions of people, and ought to be recognized as a world hero and martyr on a scale previously unimaginable. Had the U.S.S.R. not, with his and others' assistance, broken the U.S. nuclear monopoly, U.S. aggression would have run rampant through the world and our wartime ally Russia would have been faced with a choice between two stark alternatives, unconditional surrender or nuclear anihilation. So there is no question in my mind but that Julius Rosenberg be honoured as a hero, a martyr and a saviour today.
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IMHO, Julius and the other Soviet atomic spies prevented the outbreak of nuclear war, saving the lives of possibly hundreds of millions of people, and ought to be recognized as a world hero and martyr on a scale previously unimaginable. Had the U.S.S.R. not, with his and others' assistance, broken the U.S. nuclear monopoly, U.S. aggression would have run rampant through the world and our wartime ally Russia would have been faced with a choice between two stark alternatives, unconditional surrender or nuclear anihilation. So there is no question in my mind but that Julius Rosenberg be honoured as a hero, a martyr and a saviour today.
That is a very interesting thought, I wonder why you would think it.
Before the Soviet Bomb was known of what preparations for world domination was the US engagued in , other than the decomissioning of hundreds of ships and disbanding of dozens of regiments?
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I don't think that Julius Rosenberg revealed any really useful info to the Soviets that they did not already have. He probably would have if he had it, but he didn't have it.
Ethel Rosenberg was a housewife, and almost certainly did not reveal anything at all to the Soviets.
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<<Before the Soviet Bomb was known of what preparations for world domination was the US engagued in , other than the decomissioning of hundreds of ships and disbanding of dozens of regiments?>>
I don't know what a historian would tell you, but personally I think it began when the U.S. abandoned the Morgenthau Plan and began to prepare for the reindustrialization of Germany contrary to understandings reached between FDR and Stalin at Yalta and Stalin and Truman at Potsdam. This was not only the betrayal of an agreement, but rather obviously directed at the U.S.S.R. Ultimately it resulted in the rehabilitation of the entire Nazi war-making apparatus, dressed up in new uniforms and now on "our" side.
Massive U.S. interference in the Italian elections of 1948 also indicated an unmistakable intention on the part of the U.S. to dictate world events from Washington and in an anti-Communist direction. Similar interferences in internal postwar French politics, including the assassinations of pro-Communist labour leaders in Marseilles, were further evidences of U.S. aggression.
In a more general observation, the hostility of the U.S. ruling class to communism in general and to the Soviet Union in particular was well-known. General Patton gave numerous examples of this during the war and even more so in the immediate postwar period just prior to his death.
I'm just guessing at this, but I'm pretty sure that position papers and studies were commissioned by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the C.P.S.U. would have drawn the only possible conclusion from the above and many more facts unknown to me, that the U.S. was preparing for an eventual war of aggression against the Soviet Union. With those conclusions firmly established, directives would have gone out to the various CP members and operatives in various countries, including the Rosenbergs, to prepare defensive measures immediately to safeguard the Socialist Motherland. These would obviously have included directives to strip the U.S. of its nuclear monopoly as quickly as possible, which, thankfully, they were able to do, albeit at the cost of their lives. But IMHO they saved the lives of hundreds of millions from U.S. aggression and for that they deserve to be honoured.
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<<Before the Soviet Bomb was known of what preparations for world domination was the US engagued in , other than the decomissioning of hundreds of ships and disbanding of dozens of regiments?>>
"...but I'm pretty sure that position papers and studies were commissioned by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the C.P.S.U. would have drawn the only possible conclusion from the above and many more facts unknown to me, that the U.S. was preparing for an eventual war of aggression against the Soviet Union. "
Sounds as if you are saying that the Soviets beleived their own propaganda.
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<<Sounds as if you are saying that the Soviets beleived their own propaganda.>>
What's really clear is that YOU believe implicitly in U.S. propaganda (peaceful, non-violent, non-aggressive)
Personally, I believe what happened is that the Soviets correctly assessed U.S. intentions based on past history, dating back to American participation in the armed foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War on the anti-Soviet side and including the fundamental weakness of the pro-Soviet forces in U.S. political life, considered all relevant factors and in one or more policy papers either came to the conclusion that the U.S. was preparing for an ultmate war of aggression or that, the intentions being unclear, in either case prudence would dictate that the sooner the U.S. was deprived of its nuclear monopoly, the safer the people of the U.S.S.R. would be.
They must have had a nuclear weapons committee to consider all aspects of nuclear war from both an offensive and a defensive POV and that committee made the only logical decision possible. Either the Comintern, functioning under the radar since its 1944 official termination, or some other organ if the Comintern was really defunct, passed an order down to the CPs of every country with nuclear capability, including Canada, to cooperate with in-country Soviet agents on an extreme urgency basis to do everything possible to break the U.S nuclear monopoly.
How can it possibly be wrong if the Central Committee of the CPUSSR decides to save the live of hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens and how can it be wrong for the Rosenbergs to decide to do whatever they can to assist in that project? The world should have thanked them for it (and most of the world did) but the U.S. executes them? THAT is shameful.
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What is/was the penalty for spying against Russia/the Soviet Union?
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Of course, in the USSR anyone suspected of being a spy was executed. But I don't see why this was a justification for executing Ethyl Rosenberg. She was merely a supportive wife and would not have known an atomic secret had one bit her on the nose.
I think they would have been just as well off to lock Julius up for a rather long time as well. I don;t think the death penalty is effective as a deterrent against ideologues who are prepared for martyrdom for the cause. As they get older, their stance often changes, however, and then they could be useful. Dead, they are just pushing up the daisies.
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Of course, in the USSR anyone suspected of being a spy was executed.
I thought so. And for simply being suspected? Hmmm ....
But I don't see why this was a justification for executing Ethyl Rosenberg. She was merely a supportive wife and would not have known an atomic secret had one bit her on the nose.
As I understand it, from your own post, "...The theory was that Julius would ultimately confess to spare Ethel, but he refused to do so because Ethel insisted that loyalty to the Party demanded that both die as martyrs to the cause." If she was guilty, she was just as deserving of what she got as her husband. If not, maybe her husband should have ignored her and confessed to spare her. As it was, she was tried (not merely suspected), convicted and executed.
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Well, I am pretty sure that spies were given something resembling a trial, in which the outcome was totally predictable.
Again, capital punishment is not a likely deterrent in cases like this, and keeping them around in prison MIGHT have been more useful.
I agree she was tried and convicted, and certainly her loyalty to the Party and desire for martyrdom were a factor. But the odds are she did nothing that endangered the US, even though Julius might have done so. I have read that the Rosenberg's testimony did not reveal anything that the Soviets did not already know.
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I have read that the Rosenberg's testimony did not reveal anything that the Soviets did not already know.
You seem to think they gave the Soviet Union something they needed.
... Julius and the other Soviet atomic spies prevented the outbreak of nuclear war, saving the lives of possibly hundreds of millions of people, and ought to be recognized as a world hero and martyr on a scale previously unimaginable. Had the U.S.S.R. not, with his and others' assistance, broken the U.S. nuclear monopoly ...
... With those conclusions firmly established, directives would have gone out to the various CP members and operatives in various countries, including the Rosenbergs, to prepare defensive measures immediately to safeguard the Socialist Motherland. These would obviously have included directives to strip the U.S. of its nuclear monopoly as quickly as possible, which, thankfully, they were able to do, albeit at the cost of their lives.
And that is the essence of spying. And spying was punishable by death.
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You are confusing Tee's post with mine.
Tee seems to think that Rosenberg provided essential information without which the Soviets could not have built a bomb. Remember, the Soviets managed to snare a few Nazis and some documents from the Nazis about this.
I have read that the Soviets had all the info that they needed, and that at most Rosenberg's messages merely verified what they already know.
Rosenberg was clearly a spy and was clearly spying. I do not refute that he was guilty, but I have doubts about her.
I also do not think that the death penalty was as useful as life imprisonment might have been.
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<<Tee seems to think that Rosenberg provided essential information without which the Soviets could not have built a bomb. >>
Well, I think I equivocated on that. In one part of my post, I said he was part of a larger effort that broke the U.S. nuclear monopoly but in another part, I might have implied that Julius himself gave essential information. I'd like to remember Julius as a loyal Communist who contributed to the best of his ability and may or may not have succeeded in providing essential information to the U.S.S.R. at the cost of his own life.
About Ethel, I'm convinced she was innocent and as far as I know there is no untainted evidence that could possibly establish her guilt. I believe that I read somewhere that although Eisenhower refused to commute her death penalty, he did voice an opinion somewhere that her execution was a miscarriage of justice and that it was being used as a weapon to get Julius to talk. Ethel was by all accounts a much more devoted Communist than Julius and her loyalty to the Party led her to forbid Julius from "naming names," even to save her life.
They're both heroes and both deserve to be honoured as such by the entire world.
<<Remember, the Soviets managed to snare a few Nazis and some documents from the Nazis about this.>>
Well, the Nazis finished the war still in the dark about the secret of the atom bomb, although the irony is that with the assistance of the same Jewish scientists and mathematicians whom they had chased out of Europe, they and not the U.S.A. would have been the first to have developed nuclear weapons.
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They're both heroes and both deserve to be honoured as such by the entire world.
They were traitors and spies and deserved exactly what they got.
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<<They were traitors and spies and deserved exactly what they got.>>
Be that as it may, do you believe that the end of the American nuclear monopoly made a nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R. more or less likely?
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I would like to think that it would have made no difference, that our leaders would not have used nukes. They did not use them in Korea, after all. But we have had some pretty scary people, like the Dulles Brothers and Curtis LeMay awfully close to the reins of power. I donlt think that nuking the USSR would have ended Communism anywhere.
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With or without a nuclear monopoly, the U.S. might not have launched a nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R.
My point was that on a sliding scale of probability or likelihood, the loss of a nuclear monopoly moves the likelihood of an American nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R. a little closer to the "unlikely" end of the bar and a little further away from the "likely" end, however close to either end it may ultimately wind up.
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My point was that on a sliding scale of probability or likelihood, the loss of a nuclear monopoly moves the likelihood of an American nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R. a little closer to the "unlikely" end of the bar and a little further away from the "likely" end, however close to either end it may ultimately wind up.
I believe the point was that it was already at the 'unlikely' end to start with. I believe the US had no intention of using nukes against Russia, or of attacking Russia at all, else why not let Patton continue eastward at the end of WWII? One way to have kept this the goal would have been for Russia to not have been so eager to gobble up eastern Europe as a 'buffer' against some imagined attack. Russia would have had nukes eventually anyway; all the spying just saved them some time doing the theoretical work. By the time they fired their first test, we could have probably wiped them off the map if we had been so inclined, but we did not. Apparently we were not so inclined.
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<<I believe the point was that it was already at the 'unlikely' end to start with. >>
Wherever it was, the end of the U.S. nuclear monopoly made it a lot less likely.
<<I believe the US had no intention of using nukes against Russia, or of attacking Russia at all, else why not let Patton continue eastward at the end of WWII? >>
Either because they didn't have enough nukes, feared the Russians could absorb the punishment and still roll over Western Europe or because of the strength of pro-Russian feeling in the U.S.A. itself and in Western Europe. Don't forget, it took years of Cold War propaganda, McCarthyism and Red Scare blacklisting to eliminate the desire for peace and friendship with the U.S.S.R. that had developed in the U.S. during the war.
<<One way to have kept this the goal would have been for Russia to not have been so eager to gobble up eastern Europe . . . >>
What does "gobble up" mean - - push the Nazis back to Berlin? Was there some way this could have been done WITHOUT rolling over Eastern Europe? What were they supposed to do with the anti-Nazi Resistance forces in those countries? Abandon them to the local Nazi collaborators? The Yalta Conference recognized these territories as within the U.S.S.R.'s sphere of influence. Many of them had participated as Axis allies in the invasion of Russia and now the Russians had to extract reparations from them. The Allies recognized this. "Gobbling up" is just fascist Cold War propaganda bullshit. They did what they were entitled to do, took what they were entitled to take. It STILL didn't make up all the harm Hitler and his Eastern European allies had wreaked on Russia.
<< . . . as a 'buffer' against some imagined attack. >>
Yeah, "imagined attack." From a country which since the Russian Civil War had been invaded from the West by Poles, Czechs, French, English, German (twice) Canadian, American, Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, Argentinian, Spanish, Australian and Italian armies (I probably left out a few, can't remember ALL of them) and had lost tens of millions of people as a result. That is some imagination.
<<Russia would have had nukes eventually anyway; all the spying just saved them some time doing the theoretical work. >>
Well ain't that hindsight 20/20 every time. I'm sure the Russians really knew they'd be OK if they just waited. Surely the Americans would wait for them to acquire their own nuclear weapons before launching a nuclear attack. It's the only sporting way to proceed.
<<By the time they fired their first test, we could have probably wiped them off the map if we had been so inclined, but we did not. Apparently we were not so inclined.>>
Maybe one day we'll know the real reasons it didn't happen, the explanation WHY you were not so inclined. Whatever they were, it's a cinch that benevolence and peacefulness were not among them. It would have been criminally irresponsible on the part of the Russian leaders to have gambled their people's lives on the benevolent intentions of the American ruling class.
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<<Sounds as if you are saying that the Soviets beleived their own propaganda.>>
What's really clear is that YOU believe implicitly in U.S. propaganda (peaceful, non-violent, non-aggressive)
Of coarse not , I am a cog in the war machine myself. I know quite well how often the military is called upon by our Government to solve problems. How long has it been since a president went through four years without using military strength abroad?
Personally, I believe what happened is that the Soviets correctly assessed U.S. intentions based on past history, dating back to American participation in the armed foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War on the anti-Soviet side and including the fundamental weakness of the pro-Soviet forces in U.S. political life, considered all relevant factors and in one or more policy papers either came to the conclusion that the U.S. was preparing for an ultmate war of aggression or that, the intentions being unclear, in either case prudence would dictate that the sooner the U.S. was deprived of its nuclear monopoly, the safer the people of the U.S.S.R. would be.
They must have had a nuclear weapons committee to consider all aspects of nuclear war from both an offensive and a defensive POV and that committee made the only logical decision possible. Either the Comintern, functioning under the radar since its 1944 official termination, or some other organ if the Comintern was really defunct, passed an order down to the CPs of every country with nuclear capability, including Canada, to cooperate with in-country Soviet agents on an extreme urgency basis to do everything possible to break the U.S nuclear monopoly.
Why would they need such a committee? If there was such a body it would not have issued any opinion that Stalin did not already have. Perhaps they were worried that t5he USA would attack , but not from any evidence , more likely projection of their own attitudes on AmericansHow can it possibly be wrong if the Central Committee of the CPUSSR decides to save the live of hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens and how can it be wrong for the Rosenbergs to decide to do whatever they can to assist in that project? The world should have thanked them for it (and most of the world did) but the U.S. executes them? THAT is shameful.
In what way did the possession of the bomb prevent a single Soviet Death?
No, more like the radioactive industrial sites shortened hundreds of thousands of lives and the waste dumps ruined huge swaths of wild lands the Soviets were not as neat and tidy with their nukes as we.
I am not quite old enough to remember the "missile gap " furor , but I have read of it . After the Soviets demonstrated their prowess in atomic weapons and then missiles the USA embarked on an enormous catch up campaign. Years later we learned that the Soviet capability was quite a bit exaggerated especially in missiles , but the competition and expense of the arms race was a severe strain on the fragile Soviet economy , eventually dragging them down to dissolution .
And during the dissolution , while the Parliament was burning , while the members of the Warsaw Pact joyfully dumped their membership ,the USA invaded them just as much as we ever would have.
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<<They were traitors and spies and deserved exactly what they got.>>
Be that as it may, do you believe that the end of the American nuclear monopoly made a nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R. more or less likely?
More ,much much more.
For the majority of my life every major military instalition in the Soviet Union was constantly being aimed at by SAC with aircraft and missles ready to deliver destruction wholesale on a moments notice.
How did asking for this situation improve the safety of any Soviet Citizen?
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<<I believe the point was that it was already at the 'unlikely' end to start with. >>
Wherever it was, the end of the U.S. nuclear monopoly made it a lot less likely.
When you're at one end of a scale, it's a bit difficult to be a lot more at that end of the scale, don't you think?
<<I believe the US had no intention of using nukes against Russia, or of attacking Russia at all, else why not let Patton continue eastward at the end of WWII? >>
Either because they didn't have enough nukes, feared the Russians could absorb the punishment and still roll over Western Europe or because of the strength of pro-Russian feeling in the U.S.A. itself and in Western Europe. Don't forget, it took years of Cold War propaganda, McCarthyism and Red Scare blacklisting to eliminate the desire for peace and friendship with the U.S.S.R. that had developed in the U.S. during the war.
For whatever reason, they didn't.
<<One way to have kept this the goal would have been for Russia to not have been so eager to gobble up eastern Europe . . . >>
What does "gobble up" mean - - push the Nazis back to Berlin? Was there some way this could have been done WITHOUT rolling over Eastern Europe? What were they supposed to do with the anti-Nazi Resistance forces in those countries? Abandon them to the local Nazi collaborators? The Yalta Conference recognized these territories as within the U.S.S.R.'s sphere of influence. Many of them had participated as Axis allies in the invasion of Russia and now the Russians had to extract reparations from them. The Allies recognized this. "Gobbling up" is just fascist Cold War propaganda bullshit. They did what they were entitled to do, took what they were entitled to take. It STILL didn't make up all the harm Hitler and his Eastern European allies had wreaked on Russia.
So by that logic, it is okay for Israel to keep the lands they've occupied in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria; for the US, as victors, to annex Iraq; or for that matter, for Iraq to have kept Kuwait by right of conquest?
<< . . . as a 'buffer' against some imagined attack. >>
Yeah, "imagined attack." From a country which since the Russian Civil War had been invaded from the West by Poles, Czechs, French, English, German (twice) Canadian, American, Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, Argentinian, Spanish, Australian and Italian armies (I probably left out a few, can't remember ALL of them) and had lost tens of millions of people as a result. That is some imagination.
Canada, America and Australia invaded Russia? Argentina? England? Do tell.
You bore me to tears with your Communist bullshit and America is always wrong crap. Now provide examples.
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<<Why would they need such a committee? >>
Why would a country which had suffered dozens of millions of casualties from invasions, including an earlier invasion by the U.S.A. and its allies, want a committee to study the offensive and defensive aspects of the nuclear weapons which they had watched the Americans actually put to use?
In a word, self-preservation.
<<If there was such a body it would not have issued any opinion that Stalin did not already have. >>
I don't get it. Did Stalin have some kind of opinion store where all the possible opinions that a committee might reach were all typed up in advance and indexed, so whatever opinion the committee finally arrived at, Stalin could look in his Opinion Store and yell, "Got it! I already got that one!"?
<<Perhaps they were worried that t5he USA would attack , but not from any evidence , more likely projection of their own attitudes on Americans>>
That's very responsible thinking. Why investigate potential threats of any kind when they can automatically be passed off as mere projections of one's own attitudes? And if the Americans HAD launched a surprise nuclear attack, what would Stalin have had to say? "Sorry, I wondered if we'd be attacked like that but I figured it was just a projection of my own attitudes?"
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<<Why would they need such a committee? >>
Why would a country which had suffered dozens of millions of casualties from invasions, including an earlier invasion by the U.S.A. and its allies, want a committee to study the offensive and defensive aspects of the nuclear weapons which they had watched the Americans actually put to use?
In a word, self-preservation.
Why would a country which had suffered dozens of millions of casualties from invasions,pick fights with all the remaining strong nations?
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<<When you're at one end of a scale, it's a bit difficult to be a lot more at that end of the scale, don't you think?>>
It seems there are two schools of thought on whether they were actually at the far end of the scale or not.
<<For whatever reason, they didn't [nuke the U.S.S.R. before they got their own nukes]>>
Yep, nothing wrong with your hindsight, it's still 20/20/
<<So by that logic, it is okay for Israel to keep the lands they've occupied in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria; for the US, as victors, to annex Iraq; or for that matter, for Iraq to have kept Kuwait by right of conquest?>>
No, actually by that logic it's OK for the victim of the aggression to occupy and take reparations from the aggressor states' territories, it's NOT OK for the aggressor to reap the fruits of its aggression. Kuwait is kind of a special state, its entire statehood was created by foreign colonial powers as part of their scheme to permanently dominate the region for their own aggrandizement and moreover the Kuwaitis had been slant-drilling into the Iraqi reserves, a practice they had refused to discontinue despite numerous complaints. I don't consider Kuwait a real country - - its just a British creation and the Iraqis have as much right to it as anyone else.
<<Canada, America and Australia invaded Russia? Argentina? England? Do tell.
<<You bore me to tears with your Communist bullshit and America is always wrong crap. Now provide examples.>>
Fuck you. I'm not your high-school history teacher and that's no way to ask anyone for information that you're too fucking ignorant to know yourself. Go and Google "Russian Civil War" and "Second World War/Eastern Front" if you're not too bored by it.
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<<Why would a country which had suffered dozens of millions of casualties from invasions,pick fights with all the remaining strong nations?>>
Exactly. They didn't. It was the other way round but you've been so thoroughly brainwashed that you think Russia was picking the fight.
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No, actually by that logic it's OK for the victim of the aggression to occupy and take reparations from the aggressor states' territories, it's NOT OK for the aggressor to reap the fruits of its aggression.
So when is Finland going to get its eastern countys back?
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<<So when is Finland going to get its eastern countys back?>>
'bout the same time Mexico gets back California.
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Fuck you. I'm not your high-school history teacher and that's no way to ask anyone for information that you're too fucking ignorant to know yourself. Go and Google "Russian Civil War" and "Second World War/Eastern Front" if you're not too bored by it.
I didn't think you'd have any answers. As usual.
And fuck you too, by the way.
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Stay as dumb as you like, ain't my problem.
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<<More ,much much more.[was Russia more or less endangered once they broke the U.S. nuke monopoly?]
<<For the majority of my life every major military instalition in the Soviet Union was constantly being aimed at by SAC with aircraft and missles ready to deliver destruction wholesale on a moments notice.
<<How did asking for this situation improve the safety of any Soviet Citizen?>>
History would have unfolded differently had the U.S. retained its nuclear monopoly. Under nuclear blackmail, the U.S.S.R. would have been forced back from the defensive positions it held in Eastern Europe much earlier, anti-Soviet guerrilla forces could have been sponsored and armed more lavishly and openly in the Ukraine and Russia itself and the Red Army much more limited in its ability to respond to fascist uprisings such as the Hungarian situation of 1956. The choices facing the U.S.S.R. ultimately would have been submission or anihilation.
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Stay as dumb as you like, ain't my problem.
You made the claim. Educate me. Otherwise I'll just go on thinking you're full of shit, as usual.
When did the US, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Spain or Italy ever invade Russia? Or, for that matter, since you said since the Russian civil war, any of them, with the exception of Germany.
Or did your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird ass again?
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<<You made the claim. Educate me. Otherwise I'll just go on thinking you're full of shit, as usual.>>
But I'll get over it.
<<When did the US, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Spain or Italy ever invade Russia? >>
US, Canada, Australia, France, England, Poland and the Czech Legion: in the Russian Civil War.
Argentina, Spain, Ital: WWII; Argentina and Spain with "volunteer" legions.
<<Or, for that matter, since you said since the Russian civil war>>
Since the beginning of the Russian Civil War.
<<any of them, with the exception of Germany.>>
Surprise!!! He knows about Germany!
<<Or did your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird ass again?>.
Nothing as dramatic as that, just my standard-issue homo sapiens brain against the end result of ten generations of hillbilly inbreeding.
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So now I'm the result of inbreeding?
BTW, you said "From a country which since the Russian Civil War...", not " From a country which since the beginning of the Russian Civil War..." We can read up in hill country.
I'll see what I can dig up, but since you haven't posted any links, it may be a while. Or never, depending on how I decide I feel about you trying to get me to research your claim. And, well, there's that hillbilly inbreeding crack. Not very original, but about what I'd expect from you, though.
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<<And, well, there's that hillbilly inbreeding crack. Not very original, but about what I'd expect from you, though.>>
It was in response to the "alligator mouth, hummingbird ass" and wasn't intended to give offence. Sometimes I apologize for inadvertently offending someone but in your case, given the ample preceding provocation, which I had more or less managed to overlook, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" is the closest you're gonna get. Stop whining.
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Considering the 'fuck you' and calling me 'fucking ignorant', I'd say you got off easy. If you want to roll out the big guns, I can get as foul mouthed as anyone in here. Are you gonna pony up some references, or should I still figure you're full of crap?
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"Fuck you" and "fucking ignorant" were in direct response to this: <<You bore me to tears with your Communist bullshit and America is always wrong crap. Now provide examples.>> You have to speak more respectfully to people if you want their respect in return. That "now provide examples" was the last straw. I'm nobody's high school history teacher. I'm happy to share what little I know with anyone who asks politely but I'll be fucked if I respond politely to a demand like that.
What I alluded to is fairly common knowledge to anyone who knows even a little bit about Russia, so I've never had to look it up on the net; however, I did give you my best guess as to where you'd be likely to find it and frankly I don't give a shit if you look it up or not. You're probably better off not overtaxing that overtasked brain of yours with the strain of Googling and reverting to your original conclusion that I'm full of crap. I'll try to live with the hurt.
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<<So when is Finland going to get its eastern countys back?>>
'bout the same time Mexico gets back California.
So it is OK for an agressor to reap the fruits of its agression , as long as it happened before 1939 and a half.
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If you want respect, you might try toning down some of your rhetoric. I, and I'm sure others, get tired of having our country slandered every time you sit down to your keyboard. As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad I live in a country where there is a choice, albeit a poor one, about who governs, and where we don't have to invade and subjugate our neighbors and use the excuse we're just doing it for a buffer. Where I don't have to stand in line for toilet paper while the party bigwigs shop at a special store. Where we don't have to kill off millions of our own citizens because they don't agree with the party line, or send them to labor camps. If you like Russia so much, maybe you should move there for a couple of years. I hear you can practically jump across the border from Palin's house.
Still no evidence of any American, English, etc etc invasion of Russia, eh? Ah, well. I didn't think so. I'm sure it would have made the news.
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<<If you want respect, you might try toning down some of your rhetoric. I, and I'm sure others, get tired of having our country slandered every time you sit down to your keyboard. >>
I'm doing you a big favour. Your non-stop brainwashing has resulted in a grossly inflated view of the virtues and benevolence of your country which is apparent in just about every right-wing poster on this board. I've never seen such ridiculously grotesque versions of America's role in the world, the good that it's done, the wonders of life in America as I've seen since I began posting on this board. The little I can do to counter-balance the lifetime load of bullshit that has been crammed into your swollen heads doesn't go far enough by a long-shot, but you ought to be God-damn grateful for whatever realism I am able to inject into these discussions.
<<I, and I'm sure others, get tired of having our country slandered every time you sit down to your keyboard. >>
Not one-tenth as tired as I get hearing how wonderful and benevolent you all are even as the slaughter and rape of Iraq proceeds to completion and the intervals between air-raids on peaceful Afghan wedding parties grow shorter every week.
<<As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad I live in a country where there is a choice, albeit a poor one, about who governs . . . >>
That is so deluded and ridiculous that it's not even worth a comment.
<< . . . and where we don't have to invade and subjugate our neighbors and use the excuse we're just doing it for a buffer. >>
Well, it's pretty hard to claim it's a buffer when it borders on the Persian Gulf.
<<Where I don't have to stand in line for toilet paper while the party bigwigs shop at a special store. >>
Toilet paper, take all you want. 47 million Americans are waiting for charity medical care while their legislators enjoy one of the best plans in the country. But I guess it's OK long as they don't have to wipe their ass on their sleeve.
<<Where we don't have to kill off millions of our own citizens because they don't agree with the party line, or send them to labor camps. >>
Different problems require different solutions. Your country was founded on the genocide of the Indians and the enslavement of the blacks. Now you want to pose as great humanitarians. Do you really think you are fooling me or anyone else who reads your nationalistic crypto-fascist bullshit?
<< If you like Russia so much, maybe you should move there for a couple of years. I hear you can practically jump across the border from Palin's house.>>
I don't have to jump across the border from Palin's house, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Moscow for three weeks. It's a great city to live in. The biggest tragedy they've had to face since the end of the war is the loss of communism.
<<Still no evidence of any American, English, etc etc invasion of Russia, eh? Ah, well. I didn't think so. I'm sure it would have made the news.>>
Give it a rest. It never happened. I made it all up. I'm a bullshit artist who knows nothing about Russia and you are a fucking genius. Go read some more anti-Soviet propaganda about all the "millions" of people slaughtered by the Bolsheviks, genius. THAT, you won't have any trouble finding on the web.
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I'm doing you a big favour.
Sure you are. I'm sure 'inbred hillbilly' is just a normal greeting where you come from. And all the other insults are what?
I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm hip to the whole Indian genocide and the slavery thing. I'm nearly half Indian, Cherokee and Apache, and I've read the histories of this country from both sides. I've travelled throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, the middle east, the far east, Russia, east Germany (when there was such a thing) - in fact, a host of countries on every continent except Antarctica. I know we have problems in this country, and I know our history much better than you give me credit for. I live here, remember? And I'll tell you something, with all the problems we face and all the bullshit we have to put up with here, there isn't anyplace I'd rather be. Maybe you should look in the mirror to see who's been getting the brainwashing. It ain't me. I'm probably the best educated redneck hillbilly bastid you'll ever come across, and it didn't all come from schoolbooks. So you can quit trying to do me any favors. The kind of education you got, I don't want.
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<<I'm sure 'inbred hillbilly' is just a normal greeting where you come from.>>
It's about as normal as "Alligator mouth" and "hummingbird ass" and if you want to start a conversation with that kind of greeting again, you'll at least know what kind of response to expect. Stop playing the injured victim when you yourself are the initiator and stop whining about such trivial bullshit, you're really wasting my time and yours.
<<I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm hip to the whole Indian genocide and the slavery thing. I'm nearly half Indian, Cherokee and Apache, and I've read the histories of this country from b . . . >>
Well, here's a little secret for you - - your posts were never a big part of the problem, others were much more extravagant in their unrestrained boasting of the alleged virtues of your country and it was for them that my more, uh, realistic, depictions of the U.S. and its military were formulated. But you better get used to them - - as long as I hear the kind of extravagant bullshit that our right-wing members are prone to use in their praise of God's country, you're going to hear the other side of the coin from me, whether you like it or not. And I love communism - - so if you are pissed off whenever you hear the U.S. being run down, tough shit - - I feel the same every time I have to suffer through some anti-Communist, anti-Soviet bullshit rant.
<<The kind of education you got, I don't want.>>
Who gives a shit? I'm still doing you a favour. You're too fucking brainwashed to know what the fuck you want. I'm having fun. It's like postering, only easier. One day things will shift into a higher gear, but that's a long way ahead.
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You're too fucking brainwashed to know what the fuck you want.
You're as bad as Sirs if you think you know my mind. How is it you figure you know what I want from hundreds of miles away, having never met me? You don't, and you're a fool to think you do. I know exactly what I want. What you have to sell ain't it.
Get back to me when you can provide some references. Otherwise you can peddle your crap to someone else.
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<<You're as bad as Sirs if you think you know my mind. How is it you figure you know what I want from hundreds of miles away, having never met me? >>
I can read you like a book. You don't know shit about communism and your opinions about how good or bad it is are intrinsically worthless. However you would not want to live under communism and that's due more to you being who you are than to any knowledge on your part as to what it would be like.
<<You don't [know what I want] and you're a fool to think you do. >>
It wouldn't take me long to figure out what you want, it just isn't worth the effort. There is no question that you have been heavily brainwashed.
<<I know exactly what I want. >>
A statement which is only partially true. It isn't worth the effort to figure out what part of it is true and what part of it false.
<<What you have to sell ain't it.>>
You don't know what I have to sell, so that opinion is also worthless, although it is correct that you would not like to live under communism. You would likely be among the (hopefully small) minority of people disadvantaged by the system. Whether communism suits you or not is not a valid yardstick for measuring its ultimate worth. It is for the salvation of the labouring masses, not of the anti-social individualists and careerists among them.
<<Get back to me when you can provide some references. >>
You've got all the references you're gonna get from me. Whether you ever bestir yourself to do anything with them is entirely up to you. Find somebody else dumb enough to take up your education as their business.
<<Otherwise you can peddle your crap to someone else>>
YOU are the one repeatedly pestering ME for references - - I am not "peddling" anything to you. I don't give a shit whether you accept my facts or not. Either way, you can bet your ass I'll sleep just as soundly.