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Communist symbol returns to Russian Army's flag
AuBC News ^ | Saturday, May 5, 2007. 12:06pm (AEST)

Posted on 05/04/2007 8:48:35 PM PDT by james500

Russia's Parliament has voted to restore the communist-era hammer and sickle to the official flag of the Russian Army.

It is expect President Vladimir Putin will ratify the move in time for next week's commemorations marking the end of World War II in Europe.

If so, Russians will again have the Soviet version of the victory banner for next week's Victory in Europe parade in Moscow.

For many Russians, especially the elderly, its symbolism is immense.

The red banner, together with the hammer, sickle and a white star, was the one raised on the Reichstag roof on May 1, 1945.

Millions of people all over the world know that photograph, but in Russia its significance is much deeper, with the Soviet victory over fascism in World War II remaining something seen in almost religious terms.

(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: coldwar2; commielovingfreepers; communism; putin; russia; sovietunion; ussr; ww2
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To: JadeEmperor
.

JadeEmperor,


I've read somewhere that the Russians suffered ONE-MILLION casualties (KIA and Wounded) taking Berlin and it's outskirts.


Even if only half of that figure is accurate, then the Soviet's capture of Berlin almost (on a scale factor) makes Iwo Jima look like a birthday party .... with "absolutely" no disrespect to the U.S Marines ...


The Germans and Russians not only engaged in horrible, immense "set-piece" battles on the Eastern Front ... but also (savagely) ripped each other's gut out in Urban Warfare (Moscow, Leningrad, et al) ... that once again ... made taking various French villages (after Normandy) look like a cakewalk.


Think of the WWII Eastern Front as a 25X version of the savage Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s.


The United States could have "only" won a post-WWII war with the Soviet Union via-a-via "massive" use of atomic weapons ... and even so, how many Russian cities have to be obliberated before Uncle Joe Stalin surrenders ?

Twenty ? Fifty ? Two-Hundred ?

The American people would NEVER have endorsed that level of Satanic wholesale slaughter of Russian civilians ... NEVER ...


Just some thoughts ...


Patton-at-Bastogne




.
181 posted on 05/10/2007 4:07:38 PM PDT by Patton@Bastogne (Can a Romantic "Fields of Dreams" ever be Resurrected ?)
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To: Patton@Bastogne

I agree with everything you have said.

I meant no disrespect to Patton either. My ire was directed towards the arrogance exhibited by spanalot of the typical “oh, we could’ve just marched on to Moscow”.

Best Regards,

JadeEmperor


182 posted on 05/10/2007 4:35:25 PM PDT by JadeEmperor
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To: Patton@Bastogne

Was it satanic to nuke the Japanese and bomb Dresden? Or is it only satanic to kill Russians?


183 posted on 05/10/2007 4:40:17 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: RasterMaster

Sure, you do not care about facts, only about an ideologicized version of reality.


184 posted on 05/10/2007 4:43:01 PM PDT by JadeEmperor
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To: spanalot
"I take it you do not like the best American General of all time. I also take it that you do not know that he stared down Messershmidts and charging horsemen with those Colts."
I mean to disrespect to Patton. My somewhat asinine comment was purely in response to your asinine comment.
"Who are your favorite generals? The Russian ones that sent their men to combat with 2 bullets and a gun pointed at their backs?
Are you quoting from a Hollywood graphic fantasy "Enemy at the gates"? LOL. Actually, much of what I was going to say to you has already been said in response to you by instantgratification. If you care to know what my favorite general on the Soviet side is, its Zhukov. Both for his ability to use the resources he had and for guts he had to verbally challenge Stalin on several occasions. He also, as instantgratification pointed out, commanded genuine love and respect from his troops. In fact, his popularity and image were a major reason he was forced into an informal exile during later Stalin years, basically confined to his home.
Or the Russian generals that sent their own soldiers to the Gulag after WWII because they saw how prosperous Europe was."

185 posted on 05/10/2007 4:55:06 PM PDT by JadeEmperor
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To: spanalot
"Or the Russian generals that sent their own soldiers to the Gulag after WWII because they saw how prosperous Europe was.""
That was NKVD, not the Red Army that did that.
186 posted on 05/10/2007 4:56:02 PM PDT by JadeEmperor
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To: JadeEmperor
Keep your head buried in your backside....

The "russians" will always be allied with our enemies.

187 posted on 05/10/2007 4:58:36 PM PDT by RasterMaster (Are there any misdemeanors in Islam?)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
"Ivan tries to give the credit to Gorbachev because he wants to deny it to Yeltsin, who is to be denounced as a western pawn."
Actually, the majority of Russian ultranationalists denounce Gorby as a "pawn" as well and/or maybe even a direct CIA "plant". As bad as, if not worse than Yeltsin. I take it you are not very familiar with the conspiracy theories that float on the Russian side of the net regarding the subject. A good deal of Russian ultra-nationalists today, who are anti-communists but also rabidly judeophobic, also hold Putin in the same regard: The caption reads "A k**ke dog on the throne, while Ivan and Maria are in the 'zone'" ('zone' is Russian slang for a prison camp.) The photo is from May 9th parade by ultra-nationalist, which unlike the march of Dissenters, was allowed to go on.
188 posted on 05/10/2007 5:01:57 PM PDT by JadeEmperor
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To: RasterMaster

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

If anyone in 1982 said that the Wall was going to come down one day, he would have been advised to have his head examined.


189 posted on 05/10/2007 5:04:53 PM PDT by JadeEmperor
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To: Tailgunner Joe
.


Tailgunner Joe,


Japan's two "birthday presents" for The Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, Battan, et al ... were especially well-deserved ...

Were tens of thousands of German civilians killed at Dresden (et al) ? Yes. My opinion is that is was fitting retribution for the Gas Chambers and Holocaust (BTW, I'm "not" Jewish).


What I meant about the "Satanic" murder of Russian civilians referred to how many ten-of-millions the United States would have have "forced" to kill (25-100 cities) before "Uncle Joe Stalin" would have ever surrendered ...



And ... for whatever it's worth ... I believe General Patton probably grasped the same truth before he (unexpectedly) was killed in the automobile accident.

Patton clearly knew that the Socialists had to be stopped ... but perhaps not (between 1945-1955) at the cost of 25 million Russian dead.

Stalin and Hitler ? Yes.

Patton and Churchill ? Absolutely Not !



Patton-at-Bastogne



.
190 posted on 05/10/2007 5:06:20 PM PDT by Patton@Bastogne (Can a Romantic "Fields of Dreams" ever be Resurrected ?)
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To: JadeEmperor
When the people have a free press, former soviet states are allowed to govern themselves, and a KGB agent is not running the country I'll be interested in building bridges. Until then....

(couldn't find one of their banner on fire).

191 posted on 05/10/2007 5:13:03 PM PDT by RasterMaster (Are there any misdemeanors in Islam?)
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To: Patton@Bastogne
If the Japanese had not surrendered, we would have annihilated their entire country and slaughtered them all, and the American people would have celebrated this.

So Japanese civilians deserved Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of the rape of Nanking, and German civilians deserved Dresden for the Holocaust, but the Soviets didn't deserve the same treatment for killing more innocents than the Nazis and Japanese combined? Sorry, I don't get your logic.

192 posted on 05/10/2007 5:16:53 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: rmlew
What did the CSA do, which was ever analogous to the Soviet Union?

Fought a desperate war in which lots of people gave their lives under a particular flag?

193 posted on 05/10/2007 5:22:37 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
Appologists for communists will twist themselves into a pretzel to give the USSR some resemblance of normal....that BS won't fly.


194 posted on 05/10/2007 5:28:19 PM PDT by RasterMaster (Are there any misdemeanors in Islam?)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
.

Tailgunner Joe,


It's not a retorical understatement to ask just what Extraordinary Punishments that God Almighty required of Satan to serve-up to the likes of Lenin, Hitler, Stalin and Mao as they now walk through Hell's firey rivers ... it's probably beyond any Mortal's belief and imagination.



You're right about America's attitude towards a complete (destruction) of Japan in WWII ... that's why we firebombed (several times) all of Japan's largest cities.

In fact, I think I've read that there really weren't that many "suitable" mass urban bombing targets left as the summer of 1945 approached ... most were completely destroyed.



But I digress ...

I believe that most Americans would have been appalled at having to kill 10-25 million Russians in WWII Part-B ... simply because the Soviets hadn't (really) done anything (bad) to the United States.

The "Cold War" and Nuclear-ICBM race were ten years in the future.



Did the Soviet leadership (read the entire Communist Party) deserve to be roasted like pigs for Lenin and Stalin's genocidal purges of MILLIONS of innocent Russians ?

Absolutely Yes ...



Patton-at-Bastogne



.
195 posted on 05/10/2007 5:33:25 PM PDT by Patton@Bastogne (Can a Romantic "Fields of Dreams" ever be Resurrected ?)
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To: RasterMaster
"When the people have a free press, former soviet states are allowed to govern themselves, and a KGB agent is not running the country I'll be interested in building bridges. Until then...."
By the way, in the past 15 years a relatively "free press" existed in Russia - only since the time Putin assumed power, has the authoritarism began to return. And there are still several degrees of control between what the society is in Russia today, versus what was like in 1982, for example. Anyone who lived there can tell you that. As for the ex-Soviet states, do you consider the central Asian "stans" which are now ruled by their own tinpot dictators, "communist"? Some of them, like Turkmenistan have an even more backward form of government than late-day USSR ever was, second only to Stalin's era.
196 posted on 05/10/2007 5:33:28 PM PDT by JadeEmperor
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To: dragnet2

I fully agree with you on China. I think that the Western world is very distracted and easily diverted from strategic dangers.

And I am in Australia, so as you can imagine, my concerns about China’s long-term plans are quite real.


197 posted on 05/10/2007 5:33:40 PM PDT by BlackVeil
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To: james500

This is more than just a symbolic gesture or a salute to the past.


198 posted on 05/10/2007 5:34:39 PM PDT by Zeon Cowboy ("Show me just what Muhammad brought... and there you will find things only evil and inhuman.")
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To: RasterMaster

So you would decry their right to observe their national sacrifice as they see fit, but proclaim the south’s?


199 posted on 05/10/2007 5:34:46 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep
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To: BlackVeil
I fully agree with you on China. I think that the Western world is very distracted and easily diverted from strategic dangers.

Not to mention many seem to be on a race for bottom line profits, regardless of consequences.

200 posted on 05/10/2007 5:38:01 PM PDT by dragnet2
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