zidhai is so anti-western, I bet he’d kill John Wayne if he wasn’t already dead.
And always apologizing. Not so much you guys on here, but man do Canadians love to say they’re sorry.
I mentioned that earlier too.
jews, non whites, gypsies
Come on guys, take it easy - I think sheer awesomeness of Russian women make up for all this 
Anyone whose lived (I don’t mean travel as a tourist) but lived in Moscow would know it’s a heaven for guys.
You’re either being deliberately obtuse or you’ve taken the pot thread in the water cooler section to heart.
I was talking to a guy from an ex-Soviet country last year and was surprised how positive he was in his views of Putin. I recently saw a presentation on Russia which pretty much 100% explains his popularity. In 1999 Russia’s GDP per capita was $1,350 and in 2014 was $13,500. The inflation rate in 1999 was 86% and last year was 10%. Debt to GDP has fallen from 160% to 15%. The stock market is over 12x higher now than then despite last year’s drop. So since Putin came to power, there was been a massive economic recovery. Pride has been restored to an extent. Of course that correlates very nicely with the oil price rising from $100. Will his approval ratings remain high in the face of a much lower oil price and international sanctions?
Interesting comments on WW2 by the way. I think it depends on the education you get on how you perceive these things. The Russians really did do far more than any other country in defeating the Germans. Of course the US played a crucial role in the war and were almostly completely responsible for defeating the Japanese. But it doesn’t surprise me that someone raised in an Eastern Bloc country would have learned mostly about Russia’s role in the Great Patriotic War.
Yes, Russian women are uniquely special, though its a bit like vodka - the Russians do it to excess, but I prefer it in small doses.
I think the West does greatly underappreciate how much the victory over Nazi Germany depended on the tremendous suffering and bloodshed on the eastern front. Although it’s not said directly, the way I was taught about WWII makes it sound like we could have beat Germany without the Russians and that after the Battle of Britain, it was a simple matter of loading up troops in the UK, and driving to Berlin (admittedly Normandy was a tough operation and the Battle of the Bulge was a momentary hiccup). But none of that was likely to have worked if the mass of the German army hadn’t been tied up in the eastern front (which the Germans were already losing anyway).
so yeah, I get why the Russians are bummed that the west doesn’t give them enough credit for their role in defeating Nazi Germany, but the in typical Russian fashion they act as if the West did nothing at all anyway, or as if they weren’t busy invading Poland at the same time that the Germans did or that they weren’t busy helping the Germans get rid of Jews for them. Or that the war was all about Germany and not also about Japan. The Russians didn’t even declare war on Japan until the last few days of the war, and it’s doubtful that even that would have happened if they hadn’t been wanting an excuse to grab Sakhalin Island.
We had a long thread discussing this a few years back. But I can’t be bothered to search the post. Maybe someone else can find it.
Anyway, the upshot is that Putin makes Russians feel like they’re a superpower again, and to many Russians who felt so beaten down after the collapse of the USSR and the Yeltsin years, that makes it worth putting up with some gay bashing, meaningless elections (they were always kinda meaningless anyway), and strangled or missing journalists.
sorry, i forgot that Canadian attribute.
the reason the U.S. gets most of the credit for the victory is because it had minimal skin in the game prior. there was virtually no threat of a German attack on North American soil so for it to decide to enter the European war means they sacrificed men soley for others’ benefit, whether it be ordinary European citizens or captured European Jews. The U.S. could’ve easily left Europe alone and focussed its efforts on the Japanese. The combination of the U.S. being the player which tipped the balance of power for the Allies and the lack of obligation for it to do so is why they are the key player in the defeat of the Nazis.
The only reason war between Russia and Germany occured was due to a German invasion of Russia in order for Germany to capture oil fields in Azerbaijan and surrounding areas. Russia was unlikely to launch an offensive unprovoked as it understood the sacrifice of human life it would entail to defeat the Nazis. further, the turn on the Eastern front occured not because of Russian military might or numbers, but geography and weather. Once geography and weather limited the Nazi advance, Russia just had to keep sending troops to fight the Nazis and it was guaranteed victory. no major tactical victories there.
if Russia launched an attack on Germany in 1940, maybe i could believe they were the heroic and main actor in the fight against the Nazis.
that’s all i’ll say. all Allies should get their due but the U.S. made the most sacrifice for others’ benefit.
America and Britian played Russia like a cheap piano in WWII. We (the U.S. and U.K.) told Russia we’d open a western front to divide Germany’s resources…we told Russia that in 1941. Then we decided to wait and let Russians absorb German bullets. This was an obvious win-win since we figure we may go straight into Russia after beating Germany.
Finally, in 1944 we invaded Europe and started kicking ass. Russia was (and some still are) pissed at us for delaying the invasion and then taking credit for the victory. Could the U.S. have beaten Germany on its own? Probably. Our infrastructure was ramping up while Germany’s was crumbling. Plus we had a couple big bombs in the works (though there’s speculation they were actually meant for Russian cities, not German as popular opinion holds). But, why sacrifice our troops when we could weaken two enemies (or one enemy and one obviously soon-to-be enemy) by sitting back and watching the whole thing? (Sorry to the 6 million Jews we may have been able to save had we engaged earlier. Our bad.)
So, when you look at the battles and who pushed who back, I think it’s clear Russia had more to do with defeating the Nazis than America did. But that’s exactly how the U.S. wanted to play it and we did it to perfection. That’s why we emerged as the BSD of of the world.
I see it more or less the same way as STL does, though it does make me wonder if the Russians are more annoyed at us for that outcome, or for the fact that they would have done it the same way if they could have. Russians are Chess people, after all.
The Russian and the West were simply de-facto allies since they had a common enenmy. Russia “gave the most” in terms of military causualties in Europe but the US did it a lot to advance the war in the Pacific theather in addition to their involvement in Europe.
IMO Russia gets a bad rap because the leaders in this culture have been (we’re talking 500 AD historically wise) fairly intolerant and abusive for a large majority of its history They’ve been trying to build another Imperial Empire since their last one in the eary 1700’s although they haven’t truly succeeded on that scale since.
a second front was opened in 1942 as the Allies took North Africa which acted as a launchpad to invading Italy which forced one of three players out of the war (including new potential Italian reinforcements) and basically forced the German army to retreat from France to protect the homeland.
i don’t think the Allies (ex-Russia) cared so much about Russia as a future enemy as they did about punishing Russia for allowing Germany to take all of Europe in the first place. without the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Russia and German would’ve been at war in the early days and this would’ve spread out German forces far too much, far too fast, leaving it susceptible to a US-UK led attack on Berlin.
Russia allowed the war to begin as Nazi enablers, joined the war inadvertently and won the war with communist-style human sacrifice. Does this sound like a country that “saved the day”?
It wasn’t my intention to downplay our role in Europe (or N. Africa). Or, to heap praise on the Russians. I’m just saying we were very deliberate in our actions and we most certainly viewed Russia as an enemy towards the end of the war.
Take a look at Operation Unthinkable to get an idea of what could have happened had the Russians not had such an advantage in numbers.
perhaps. there was certainly a threat that communism would conquer the post-fascist societies of Italy, Spain and Germany as Russian-style communism is an acceptable nationalist substitute for fascism.
They look great but age very quickly. Most of them look like 40 in their late 20s.
Sadly, he was right.
Winston was probably an apalling human being that had a lot in common with Hitler in terms of their beliefs regarding the supremacy of the Aryan race yet he has been elevated to near sainthood levels. There are quite a few disgusting documented cases, none worse than the manufactured Bengal famine that left 3 million dead due to the fact that the Japanese had reached the jungles of Burma.
This is a pretty decent summary if you aren’t interested in the specifics
I’ve been seeing one for a bit now, she’s 25 and looks no more than 20.
Lets hope it stays that way or I may have to close this long position…lol…jk.
Churchill did indeed have a very dark side.
The British are just as guilty of glossing over their colonial crimes as the Japanese are. And Churchill gets more or less a free ride despite being - by modern morals at least - a terrible racist and bigot.
You can see even from this conversation that each country teaches its children very different stories about WW II and history generally. Is there such thing as historical truth? Not really I think.