Posted on 06/09/2010 11:31:19 PM PDT by Boucheau
The small town of Bedford, Va., is home to 21 men who sacrificed their lives on D-Day, June 6, 1944. It is now also the home of one of the world's few public memorial busts of communist dictator Josef Stalin.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I mean, how many people does one have to kill to get a bust in this formerly sane country, huh?
How many times are Amerikans going to say to themselves: "It's no big deal..." "It won't harm anyone..." "It can't happen here..." "Who cares what they do..." "I won't affect me and mine..."
In my world they would need to guard this damned head with tanks to keep concerned Americans from destroying it on sight.
What the hell is wrong with us?
Disgrace. Virgina, I expect this to be removed by week’s end.
Stalin was an evil man.
Nikita was right.
Stalin was a Communist?
Stalin was quite likely the most prolific mass murderer in all of history.
That is until the abortionists got rolling.
If there are any men in Virginia, They will blow it the f—k up.
“The president of the D-Day Memorial Foundation, William McIntosh, did not return three calls from The Washington Times. He has told reporters that the foundation merely sought to mark Stalin’s role in the war.”
I can’t believe anyone would somehow think that this is a good idea.
Excellent!
I wish I’d thought of that!
Well this is pretty darn silly. I would like to get a hold of William McIntosh, who while refusing interviews, said that he was only trying to mark Stalin’s roll in the war.
I find it laughable that a man who is the President of the D-Day Memorial Foundation can show, publicly, that he is that ignorant to what happened in the Second World War at all.
Just to start small I guess we should look at Stalin’s roll in the D-Day invasion since this is after all a D-Day memorial. His only real roll was that of a whining leader who bemoaned the fact that the Western Allies were being too slow in opening a second front on Germany. The only time this attitude of his was ever useful was at Tehran when FDR basically used Stalin to set up Churchill. Churchill and Allan Brooke were still more interested in attacking the “soft underbelly of Europe” and would had readily jumped at a chance to torpedo the Normandy invasion in 1944, pressing it out to at least 1945 of not longer. FDR coaxed Stalin to put Churchill on the spot and asked him if he supported the Overlord plan. Churchill had no real choice but to say yes and the last opposition to Normandy was reluctantly put into line. *Note: This still did not stop Churchill from trying to stop operation DRAGOON for the southern advance on France.
So where does that put Stalin in the annals of the D-Day invasion? Nowhere really, he was a pawn of FDR on the mater at best and really just a desperate leader looking for any relief to his front by the opening of a second (well third really) front on Germany.
That said, there really isn’t any place for Stalin in a D-Day Memorial.
Looking broader at McIntosh’s attempt to mark Stalin’s roll in the war I would have to ask, which roll is he wanting to represent?
Is it the Stalin that signed a pact with Hitler to divide Poland?
Is it the Stalin decided to attempt to reabsorb Finland into Russia at the end of 1939 and beginning of 1940?
Or perhaps the Stalin that took advantage of Germany’s preoccupation with the west to dominate the Baltic nations as well as take part of Rumania.
Maybe the Stalin that whined that he never was getting enough supplies through Lend-Lease even though the initial deliverables were met by the British at the expense of providing those material to the forces in Egypt who desperately needed them.
Or the Stalin that played the end of the war as a land grab that resulted in the division of former Axis territory like Korea and Germany itself setting the stage for a Cold War which would have the next two generations living under the specter of mutual annihilation.
If there is ever any credit that needs to be given to the Eastern Front it should go the the Russian soldier himself, not their leader who issued the directive that any soldier falling back is to be shot. And no mater how to slice it, it still doesn’t have anything to do with the D-Day landings. I think McIntosh needs to at least take a little time to understand the meaning of the organization he is supposed to represent and leave the marking of any one person’s roll to the historians who have actually taken the time to know better.
Stalin was one of the “allies” in WWII.
It would be a bit awkward and revisionist to pass over him in a memorial to the leaders of the allied nations.
There is no conflict here with the Americans who died on D-Day and the tribute to Stalin. If we had fought against the Soviets in that war, it would be different.
I would say that it is just unfortunate that our nation under FDR was allied with Stalin in the first place. But we have to keep in mind, without the Soviets, Hitler would have in all likelihood won that war.
Lenin already has one in Seattle.
So why not just a plaque acknowledging the sacrifices of the Soviet people and do away with the bust of the mass murderer?
At this point I don’t think he even had had is supposed tryout with the Washington Senators. ;)
“...a memorial to the leaders of the allied nations.”
“a bit awkward...revisionist”
Not at all.
When it comes to public memorials, I am very comfortable with passing over a low-life Communist dictator, and the murderer of millions of innocent human beings—no matter what is being memorialized.
Besides, a bust of that monster in the open American air does more for the revisionists (leftists) cause than its absence would.
“There is no conflict here with the Americans who died on D-Day and the tribute to Stalin.”
You’re kidding, right? You’re putting me on here, right?
If we could ask those American soldiers if they had a problem with a “tribute to Stalin”, well, I think you know what the answer would be.
“I would say that it is just unfortunate that our nation under FDR was allied with Stalin...”
I don’t think it was unfortunate. But that depends on your definition of “ally”, doesn’t it?
It is an uncomfortable truth that Stalin was an ally im WWII. But a plaque for the Soviets and busts for Roosevelt, Truman, and Churchill? We may not like Stalin or the Soviets, but should we really single them out and diminish their contribution to the allied war effort? I understand the sentiment, but I also think it is a bit misguided.
You know, honestly, I’d be happy if they just did away with all of the busts at the memorial, and that piece of excriment we have as president now humbly apologized to the British for crudely returning the Churchill bust that Prime Minister Blair gave as a gift to our country, and asked if the American people could honor Churchill’s likeness again in our White House. But I don’t see that happening.
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