By "their," in my second sentence, I mean the Soviet abuse of human life.

I dont think stalin was a good leader morally, he had people sent to extinction camps like hitler did, he killed all that he thought was against him. however, he started the russian industrial revolution and communisticated farming, which both proved very succesfull. Alas stalin has been remembered for hid flaws and mistakes and therefore communism has gotten a nasty stain.

I don't see you getting up in arms over Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Midway, Batann, Normandy, Market Garden, or any other allied offensive with massive costs of human life. If we wanna talk wartime cruelties, how about the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans? Air raides over Germany? Only Stalin and Hitler get accosted for their tactics, not Rossevelt or Churrichill...

At 6/21/05 02:12 AM, Kind_reaper wrote: I dont think stalin was a good leader morally, he had people sent to extinction camps like hitler did, he killed all that he thought was against him. however, he started the russian industrial revolution and communisticated farming, which both proved very succesfull. Alas stalin has been remembered for hid flaws and mistakes and therefore communism has gotten a nasty stain.

AHHHH. NO. Communistic farming was a cataclysmic failure. He starved millions of people to death because of collectivization.

At 6/21/05 02:28 AM, fastbow wrote: I don't see you getting up in arms over Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Midway, Batann, Normandy, Market Garden, or any other allied offensive with massive costs of human life. If we wanna talk wartime cruelties, how about the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans? Air raides over Germany? Only Stalin and Hitler get accosted for their tactics, not Rossevelt or Churrichill...

I absolutely, fundamentally agree. No Allied leaders were sentenced in Nuremburg for committing the same 'crimes' that they convicted the Germans for.

If you agree fundamentally, how can you criticize my prefrence in leaders?

At 6/21/05 08:59 AM, fastbow wrote: If you agree fundamentally, how can you criticize my prefrence in leaders?

I agree that other leaders should be more heavily criticized than they are, especially Stalin. I don't see anything about Stalin being preferable in any way. Stalin lived only for himself.

At 6/21/05 02:28 AM, fastbow wrote: If we wanna talk wartime cruelties, how about the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans? Air raides over Germany? Only Stalin and Hitler get accosted for their tactics, not Rossevelt or Churrichill...

This is a topic that always interests me. The Germans have apologised for their actions in the war, which includes the Blitz of Britain + the Vengeance attacks with V2 (i think its V2, feel free to correct). But we've never felt we have to apologise for our bombing campaigns over Germany.

At 6/21/05 02:35 AM, Jerconjake wrote: I absolutely, fundamentally agree. No Allied leaders were sentenced in Nuremburg for committing the same 'crimes' that they convicted the Germans for.

Last I cheecked people werent sentenced in Nuremberg for bombing raids or other such acts.

They were sentenced for prison camp abuses, killings, breaking the Geneva convention, much of which the Allies DID NOT DO. And I would LOVE to hear some of these same crimes the Allies committed that the Axis did.

At 6/21/05 01:45 AM, Jerconjake wrote: Stalin only won because he had more people, and he would have had even more if he hadn't starved and worked 20 million of them to death before the war.

Jesus, look at the production numbers for Christ sake. And there was the winter. And there was Russian patriotism. And the Russians had their handful of wonderful leaders.

At 6/21/05 01:28 AM, Jerconjake wrote: I don't think anybody could convince me that Stalin wasn't 100 times worse.

And that has all to do with opinion more than it does with fact.

At 6/21/05 08:51 PM, FAB0L0US wrote:

At 6/21/05 02:35 AM, Jerconjake wrote: I absolutely, fundamentally agree. No Allied leaders were sentenced in Nuremburg for committing the same 'crimes' that they convicted the Germans for.

Last I cheecked people werent sentenced in Nuremberg for bombing raids or other such acts.

They were sentenced for prison camp abuses, killings, breaking the Geneva convention, much of which the Allies DID NOT DO. And I would LOVE to hear some of these same crimes the Allies committed that the Axis did.

Lets start with racially profiling Japanese americans, killing wounded Japanese soldiers, and just flat destroying cities until all that was left were a few survivors and some ruins.
Let's not forget the A-Bomb too.....
Also, we broke the Geneva Convention. We were required to take POWs from sunken Naval vessels, yet we depth charged submarines, and never sent frogmen to check for survivors.

At 6/21/05 11:46 PM, fastbow wrote: Lets start with racially profiling Japanese americans

Thats bad, but did they die as a result? Is there any history of people being sentenced for war crimes for things like this? Not that I know of.

killing wounded Japanese soldiers

So you gonna round up every soilder who did this and charge them? And I think no Japanese soilders were charged for anything like this. Commanders were charged for organized killing of soilders. But not ordinary soilders. Put it in perspective, bud.

and just flat destroying cities until all that was left were a few survivors and some ruins.

That I am aware of, no one was ever killed for bombing cities and carrying out war. What you are describing is collateral damage, something that cannot be helped in war.

Let's not forget the A-Bomb too.....

Was that justified in total war? I think so. And it targeted military targets so it fits the bill of a military strike with collateral damage.

Also, we broke the Geneva Convention. We were required to take POWs from sunken Naval vessels, yet we depth charged submarines, and never sent frogmen to check for survivors.

Are you friggin serious? Was ANYONE charged for a war crime for something like this? NO.

Put these stupid assertions aside and consider magnitude, history, and if anyone else was charged for the garbage you described.

Look, put this in perspective. The holocaust was inexcuseable. Stalin justified his version as solidifying his power. If you still want to cry about Stalin's tactics of throwing men at a problem until it is solved, look at the RAF during the Blitz, the USMC during the entire war. Any campagin waged by Gen. Patton, and the air tactics in the US Pacific fleet.

We had our own little Holocaust, buddy......

At 6/22/05 12:13 AM, fastbow wrote: If you still want to cry about Stalin's tactics of throwing men at a problem until it is solved, look at the RAF during the Blitz, the USMC during the entire war. Any campagin waged by Gen. Patton, and the air tactics in the US Pacific fleet.

Im still confused as to what this is supposed to mean. Maybe some clearing up would be nice...

We had our own little Holocaust, buddy......

Minus the extermination camps and forced labor. Yeah, real comparable.

Youd be better off calling them nicer gulags.

RAF losses during the blitz were propotinally higher than any air force has ever suffered. Stalin killed thousands of his men in the battle of stalingrad. The USMC killed tens of thousands of DRAFTED soldiers just for small Pacific islands. General Patton had a similar disregard for his own forces well-being, as long as objectives were completed. D-Day was the costliest invasion ever seen, and our Pacific air tactics were to send 30 dive bombers after ships they didn't have locations on, sometimes with fighters, to sink ships bristling with AA guns and fighter cover.
That was the Allies holocaust...

At 6/22/05 01:05 AM, fastbow wrote: That was the Allies holocaust...

Actually thats called war. You seem to have death camps and battles mixed up.

At 6/22/05 01:07 AM, FAB0L0US wrote:

At 6/22/05 01:05 AM, fastbow wrote: That was the Allies holocaust...

Actually thats called war. You seem to have death camps and battles mixed up.

You can honestly say there were no alternatives to the hundreds of thousands of Allied combat losses? No way to reduce the numbers? No better tactics?

At 6/22/05 01:12 AM, fastbow wrote: You can honestly say there were no alternatives to the hundreds of thousands of Allied combat losses? No way to reduce the numbers? No better tactics?

There probably were ways. But do I know of any for all the situations you highlighted at the time thye happened? Not really.

I mean, do you know any?

At 6/22/05 01:15 AM, FAB0L0US wrote:

At 6/22/05 01:12 AM, fastbow wrote: You can honestly say there were no alternatives to the hundreds of thousands of Allied combat losses? No way to reduce the numbers? No better tactics?

There probably were ways. But do I know of any for all the situations you highlighted at the time thye happened? Not really.

I mean, do you know any?

No, I don't but that wasn't the point. The point was we did the same things as the Axis powers, but only in diffrent ways, and we get praised because of what we did...

At 6/22/05 01:20 AM, fastbow wrote: No, I don't but that wasn't the point. The point was we did the same things as the Axis powers, but only in diffrent ways, and we get praised because of what we did...

The people who got war crimes are the people who did things like run terribly abusive prison camps, kill Jews, Batann Death March, etc. etc.

No one was prosecuted for carying out normal wartime actions. Like killing other soilders, etc.

If your point was that we did fight the Axis in war, yes we did indeed. How the hell would you get Hitler or Hiro Hito to stop their expansion? Ask them nicely to stop? War was the only option in that instance.

THAT WASN'T THE POINT EITHER! THE POINT WAS DEGRADING STALIN BECAUSE HE WAS ABUSIVE TOWARD HIS OWN MILITARY!!!!!
Holy crap...
I was just comparing Stalin's tactics to our own.
Sorry for the caps lock, I was kinda aggravated. We just aren't quite on the same page.
Never should have used a holocaust comparison.....

At 6/21/05 08:51 PM, FAB0L0US wrote:

At 6/21/05 02:35 AM, Jerconjake wrote: I absolutely, fundamentally agree. No Allied leaders were sentenced in Nuremburg for committing the same 'crimes' that they convicted the Germans for.

Last I cheecked people werent sentenced in Nuremberg for bombing raids or other such acts.

They were sentenced for prison camp abuses, killings, breaking the Geneva convention, much of which the Allies DID NOT DO. And I would LOVE to hear some of these same crimes the Allies committed that the Axis did.

Let's think. How about the Katyn Massacre? The firebombings of non-military German cities. How about Stalin's treatment of the people in the Soviet Bloc countries? How about Stalin starving millions of people to death and/or sending them to the Gulags? How about the Soviet deportation of thousands of Poles and other landowners to Siberia in order for Stalin to collectivize? How about the internment of the Japanese? How about Stalin's calous use of his men? How about the Penal Battalions? How about the invasion of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland by the Russians, and their siezure of parts of Romania? The use of the atomic bombs on civilian targets? Both Hitler and Stalin were anti-Semitic, and the Soviets outlawed all religion. Don't have any illusions that Stalin wasn't planning to deport all the Jews in the western USSR, or that most of the world at that time didn't hate them.

At 6/21/05 01:45 AM, Jerconjake wrote: Stalin only won because he had more people, and he would have had even more if he hadn't starved and worked 20 million of them to death before the war.

Jesus, look at the production numbers for Christ sake. And there was the winter. And there was Russian patriotism. And the Russians had their handful of wonderful leaders.

Russian output didn't outstrip Germany until 1943. By that time, Allied bombings were beginning to take a tole on German industry. Stalin had twenty years and millions upon millions of people to rebuild his industry and army. Russian patriotism only arose because of the so-called "Great Patriotic War," which by its very essence is a laugh, considering that the greatest enemy of the Russia people up to that time was Stalin himself. They did have some good leaders, but Stalin was not one of them.

At 6/21/05 01:28 AM, Jerconjake wrote: I don't think anybody could convince me that Stalin wasn't 100 times worse.

And that has all to do with opinion more than it does with fact.

See above.

Again with Stalin's callous use of troops. Dont forget D-Day, the RAF, the USMC, the Pacific Fleet, and Gen. Patton......

At 6/22/05 01:40 AM, fastbow wrote: Again with Stalin's callous use of troops. Dont forget D-Day, the RAF, the USMC, the Pacific Fleet, and Gen. Patton......

Yes, very true. However, we originally were talking about Stalin, so I used that most of all.

so long as you dont ignore our atrocities....

At 6/22/05 01:47 AM, fastbow wrote: so long as you dont ignore our atrocities....

Not at all. I'm particularily apalled by how everyone thinks Patton was some kind of hero.

I do think that Stalin was guilty most of all of atrocities, before, after and during the war. The other Allied and Axis powers were as well, but Stalin's work is a beacon of cruelty.

At 6/22/05 01:52 AM, Jerconjake wrote:

At 6/22/05 01:47 AM, fastbow wrote: so long as you dont ignore our atrocities....

Not at all. I'm particularily apalled by how everyone thinks Patton was some kind of hero.

I do think that Stalin was guilty most of all of atrocities, before, after and during the war. The other Allied and Axis powers were as well, but Stalin's work is a beacon of cruelty.

Ill give you that one for once. He did kinda have both sides worst points...........

At 6/22/05 01:36 AM, Jerconjake wrote: Let's think. How about the Katyn Massacre? How about Stalin's...

How do you suggest we enfore any Geneva Convention things like this on Russia? Start another world war? And honestly, thats Russia. I know they did these things. What I am concerned with is you are lumping the Americans and British in with the Germans and Japanese and such, which I disagree with.

The firebombings of non-military German cities.

There is no such thing as a non military city. No such thing in total war. Not one.

The use of the atomic bombs on civilian targets?

Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima had military targets. So that is all that is needed if ya ask me to be legal. Plus it was a total war and these were extremely extenuating circumstances. So that is not in the same boat as other abuses.

They did have some good leaders, but Stalin was not one of them.

Horrible for the people, good for the country and its power.

See above.

Its still opinion.

At 6/22/05 01:40 AM, fastbow wrote:

:Dont forget D-Day, the RAF...

You can't use the RAF as an example. And how dare you number it among 'atrocities'. We did what we had to do to survive. The lives of RAF pilots were NOT callously thrown away, they all helped to turn the tide at the Battle of Britain. A Battle that HAD to be if Britain was to remain unconquered by the Germans.

Okay, the RAF was a bad example. But they do fall within the category of a high loss unit that commanders would just throw at a problem....

I think the nuclear attacks were an overkill.

There are two things that bother me:
1. After Germany's surrender, did Japan pose such a formidable threat that using atomic bombs against them was necessary?
2. Did the nuclear attacks save more lives than they killed?

No matter how I look at it, I can't answer 'yes' to either of them, especially the latter. Plus, the nuclear bombings accelerated the arms race and intensified the forthcoming Cold War.