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For those of us that are stunted in political history...

What's Stalingrad (and don't kick me off of here for not knowing, I will admit to being a head in the sand *gasp* liberal at one point, and am trying to recover.)I really am not very well versed on history.

Stalingrad: (St. Petersburg) During the German push into Russia in WWII, the German forces got stalled when they tried to take Stalingrad, in the winter, and in turned into a protracted seige that was one of the factors contributing to the German defeat.

Stalingrad is the farthest city inside Russia that the Germans got before being pushed back. LOTS and LOTS of civilian casualties. There was a movie by the same name out a couple years ago about a couple snipers that were hunting each other during hte battle.

Brief overview of the Battle of Stalingrad, which is nothing like what's happening in Iraq.

Germany overextended resources. Stalled in seige and was routed.

What's Stalingrad?

Tough question to answer, m'dear, in short phrases.

Germany assaulted Russia in June, 1941 with slightly under 200 divsions: over 1.8 million men. By the winter, they'ed captured (can't spell conquor accurately this late at night!) and had the western 1/3 of Russia - draw a line from Leningrad at the north to the Black Sea at the south: that how much Germany got between June and November.

Losses? 200,000 - 500,000 Germans; roughly 5.4 million Russians.

Yep - Millions. Of dead. Not hundreds or dozens or thousands, but millions of dead. All for oil. (This ignores the tens of millions of Soviet civilians also deliberately killed by the Nazi's and Communists as well.)

In winter '41-'42, the Germans lost over 200,000 more men - mostly by simply freezing to death because their uniforms and equipment weren't ready for the cold. Russian attacks killed more, but only gained a little territory.

So in spring '42 Hitler still the needed the OIL FIELDS (yep - they're still there!) in the southern Causcus Mountains - south of Stalingrad, and he wanted a route south to the Saudi/Iraq oil fields too. So he concentrated his '42 attack in the south finally assaulting the city of Stalingrad directly, and did some stupid movements and attacks in the area around the city and south of it in the mountains.

Lots of complex stuff - but basically stupid strategic decisions. (Both of which are words also too hard to spell this late!)

The Germans got trapped into a Looooooooooooooooooooong city/block-by-block/house-by-house/room-by-room attack in the city of Stalingrad on the Volga:look at it on the map - you can see how the Soviet armies could surround and trap the German invaders in the little circle (50 mile) around the city. (Sound familiar?)

But - The Germans were refused permission to fight out to their nearby troops: over 150,000 were trapped inside, plus many tens of thousands already killed. (Hitler thought fighting out of a trap was losing ground and refused to let his troops out: in Korea at the Chosin Reservoir the Marines simply said they "were attacking the other way" and didn't have any problems leaving a Chinese trap!)

So the 150,00 trapped inside fought in the city from September to Febraury (roughly) in hand-and combat that ending up killing half the assault troops, and 500,000 Russian troops.... Or more.

That's Stalingrad - you need to read it to understand the Soviets, the Russians (they're different!), and the Germans' attitudes towards war.

But, you see - WE DON'T FIGHT THAT WAY.

What are tring to indicate?

Are going to be as stupid as Hitler in attacking/defending a city we don't want to conquer? Are we going to be as stubborn/stupid as the Soviets in defnding an isolated if we don't need to? Are the Iraqi's going to be as effective as the Soviets in defending the city?

The liberals DON'T WANT W to succeed.

This is their plan: to destroy Bush by any means possible. The war is against Bush, not Saddamn, in their minds.

Bush is the ultimate evil in their minds (as a conservative Christian white male) and must be destroyed.