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WHY IS IT THAT WE HAVE TO SPEAK ENGLISH?

;DQUOTE OF THE WEEK FOLKS ;D

Stalin must have been very tired after killing all those millions of people single handedly.

......priceless.
 
Michael Dorosh said:
Stalin must have been very tired after killing all those millions of people single handedly.

I get the feeling you would not like Daniel Goldhagen much.

Oh ok, so I guess the people that did the actual killing actually had a choice of whether or not to follow an order. This is where the issue of command responsibility comes in, and Stalin, not the Russian people as whole, was inderictly responsible for all of the deaths.
 
ROTP Applicant said:
Oh ok, so I guess the people that did the actual killing actually had a choice of whether or not to follow an order. This is where the issue of command responsibility comes in, and Stalin, not the Russian people as whole, was inderictly responsible for all of the deaths.

So while you would not like Goldhagen, you apparently WOULD like William Calley's men, the Stalag III murderers, and concentration camp guards. 

Whether someone "has a choice" or not in participating in activity he knows to be criminal, he is still guilty (and frankly, he/she always has a choice).  And you don't have to pull a trigger to murder someone; my ancestors - the Ukrainians - were starved by the millions.  Certainly someone is responsible for those murders, and I'm not about to call them good guys just because they were "told to."  It didn't hold water at Nuremberg, Sagan or My Lai and it won't hold water in this conversation.

 
But when you say that the Russians/Soviets were the bad guys, then in turn you are also saying that your Ukrainian ancestors were also the bad guys, correct? It is obvious that a lot of people were in fact responsible for all of the murders, but to accuse the population of 150 million people as being the "bad guys" seems to be a total generalization of the Soviet people.
 
ROTP Applicant said:
It is obvious that a lot of people were in fact responsible for all of the murders, but to accuse the population of 150 million people as being the "bad guys" seems to be a total generalization of the Soviet people.

That was the context of the original statement, yes.

Is there a point to be made here?  We were talking about the objectifying of entire nations during time of war.  Looks like you understood the point completely.
 
-Hutch- said:
first thing to be an officer in the Canadian forces you need to be bilingual if i am not mistaken, witch i could be. so why would there be English Canadian?

also the Americans have no reason to hate french Canadians. i have seen so much hate towards french Canadians. it disgusts me. there were some fierce french Canadian regiments the vandoo's, black watch, royal Montreal regiment, and maisonneuve.

The Black Watch and RMR are ENGLISH tasked units.  Also, the attempt is being made to have officers FUNCTIONALLY bilingual (works both ways, by the way).  And the operational  language of communications within NATO is English, through a NATO STANAG.
 
ROTP Applicant said:
to accuse the population of 150 million people as being the "bad guys" seems to be a total generalization of the Soviet people.

About a million of them were ready to keep rolling westward after the fall of Berlin, so, yes, in my book, they were the bad guys.  My book only, of course...

CHIMO,  Kat
 
Love793 said:
The Black Watch and RMR are ENGLISH tasked units.   Also, the attempt is being made to have officers FUNCTIONALLY bilingual (works both ways, by the way).   And the operational   language of communications within NATO is English, through a NATO STANAG.


The RMR is a bilingual regiment (the first in canada, mind you  ;) )
 
I can see the recruiting ads now.

"In today's Canadian Forces, the officers go both ways."
 
The reason french was used in diplomacy, especially for treaties, is because french uses more precises words, or greater granularity, hence making interpretation in legal matters less conflicting.
 
Dont Sgt.'s and up in the Reg Force require a Second Language course? I know someone who retired a WO in the RCR, and he was forces to take the course in order to advance. He also went to RMC instructing of some nature, would this have been another reason?
 
I have to agree almost completely with Cpl. Dorosh. The one area in which I would differ is the initial assessment that the Soviets were seen as the 'less-bad bad-guys' even during the war. While this is generally true if you are British (and have had a historical tendency towards Russophobia)*, it is less clear how you feel about the Soviets if you are an American. The historiography would appear to indicate that as an average citizen you either feel that the Soviets are 'well meaning but somewhat misguided Democrats in a hurry', or that they are an enormous threat to you at wars end based on remaining raw power alone. The decision making elite in the United States at the same time recognizes that Lend-Lease has basically been the practice of trading American equipment for Russian lives. While weary of the Russians they have little idea of how they should approach them, which is why Churchill does most of the Wartime negotiating with Stalin. Public unease in the United States over the Soviet Union does not really arise until the Kennan Telegram.



*This shouldn't in any way suggest that the British attitude would have necessarily caused any confrontation or conflict. After all, being suspicious of the Russians had been a popular sport since well before the Crimean War.
 
It has to be remembered that many of the atrocities the Stalin committed were not known until long after his death.  Most western countries were nervous about the international nature of the USSR, which had as one of its stated goals the global proliferation of communism.  This fear was especially acute during the great depression, when communist movements found favour in most of Europe.  It was largely due to the reaction against communism that Hitler and Mussolini came to power.  It only makes sense that the west would trivialize Russia's role in WW2 during the subsequent Cold War.  The type of black and white world developed during the era of McCarthyism in the United States demanded that the Soviet system not be given any sort of credibility.  However, during the Second World War a mountain in the Canadian Rockies was named after Stalin (Mt. Stalin now renamed Mt. Peck).  Attitudes of suspicion towards the Soviets existed throughout WW2, especially followng the Yalta conference and with regards to the fate of Eastern Europe and the USSR's failure to declare war on Japan.  I would suggest that the US was significantly suspicious of the SU by that time, rather than after Kennan's telegram.  In fact, Patton suggested that once Germany was conquered the West should have rebuilt Germany's army to invade the SU.  But he was a bit of a nutcase.  Certainly, the US' suspicion is made clear through their immediate end of lend lease to the SU, some boats turning back just short of Russian Ports.  Regardless, suspicion of communism was rampant throughout the 1930s, in the US to some extent and hugely in Europe.  The Cold War could almost be regarded as an extension of the Russian Civil War of 1919-21 when the Western Powers (including Canada) sent combat troops to quash the Bolshevik government in Russia.
 
I think the last two posts indicate well what a complex question Soviet-western relations were in the post-war period.

Don't forget the impact the Katyn Massacre may have had on forming opinions, at least unofficially.  Granted it was likely seen as a propaganda ploy by the Germans, but they made every effort to get international confirmation of the fact that several hundred Polish officers were murdered by the Soviet regime after their invasion of Poland in 1939 (yes, kiddies, the Soviets invaded Poland, whom Britain and France went to war to defend....lest we all forget....)

Promises to Poland were rudely shattered in 1945 also, so I think the Soviets weren't really looked at with rose coloured glasses even in Britain during the war....or if so, the shades probably came off rather quickly soon after...
 
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