Posted on 08/13/2014 1:08:03 PM PDT by WhiskeyX
The Polish Foreign Ministry on August 13 summoned the Russian ambassador to protest remarks by Russian nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Speaking on state Rossiya 24 television last week, Zhirinovsky said that Poland and the Baltic states would be "wiped out" should a war break out between Russia and the West.
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
The illegitimate Kenyan usurper Obama did what he could to obey his comrade Putin by canceling a missile defense project in Poland.
Actually, it’s not an overly inflammatory observation. He said (presumably correct quote here) “would”, not “should”. Considering what happened to eastern European cities in the Big Show, he’s not far off base. Look at Beirut in the 80’s.
You see his statements as accurate, and Poland should too. These are not idle threats. They’re the true sentiments of Putin, his supporters, and his defenders. Russia will destroy its neighbors to reestablish its empire. Naked and unprovoked aggression will be justified and the mass genocide of its Stalinist era will be resumed.
But the liberals are eyes wide shut. Can't get them to look as their foreign policy daydreams fall apart.
Indeed. They may or may not be threats, but they are certainly facts that will become real in case of war. One only needs to read on history of World Wars to understand that buffer states are seriously hurt; always; inevitably. Especially considering membership of those countries in NATO and considering that they house NATO airplanes, radars, missiles, and whatnot. Such offensive armaments will be taken out in first minutes of the conflict. One does not need to be a politician, or even a general, to understand such things. The best Poland can hope is that there is no war. The next best hope is that Russians' missiles are accurate enough to only hit military objects.
Of course, Poland is unhappy that they are reminded, once more, that they will be the first victim in a war, again. They may also see it as a threat. However there is no viable war plan for Russia to conquer Poland, and there is absolutely no reason to even try. Poland does not have anything that Russia needs. The only reason to attack Poland would be... if it allows too much NATO war materiel and troops onto its territory. Then it becomes a threat itself. (In a way that happened on 6/22/1941, but Stalin did not attack first. He saw the situation through the rose-colored glasses and refused to accept the facts on the ground. At the same time Hitler was afraid that Stalin will attack.)
You ignore the fact that Stalin did attack first. He attacked Poland with Hitler. You also ignore the Katyn massacre, and you probably either want to ignore the Russian starvation of Ukraine or don’t know about it. You probably also want to ignore how Russia treated its neighbors throughout the commie years. You may also think that all is forgiven because then Russia was commie and now it’s Putinista. Go figure. When you’re being cruelly mistreated by Russian it doesn’t matter what the religion of the Russian gangsters is.
Stalin attacked Finland, and indeed he and Hitler divided Poland a few years before; Baltic states were occupied by USSR. Many things happened in a very short period of time. I didn't intend to write a book on European politics right here :-) I only spoke about the trigger of Hitler's attack on USSR. Besides, as you correctly suggest, my knowledge of history is limited.
But from what I read, Hitler was scared to death by reports about USSR's quickly growing military might. Little he knew that most of those reports were wishful thinking in a typical communist style, and the rest were outright lies. Every layer of Soviet management tried to embellish their work in hope for rewards; a simple little achievement of one worker could become something huge by the time it reached the top.
Hitler's plans for World War II were heavily dependent on victory over USSR. However those plans were flexible, and Hitler was already fighting in Western Europe (UK since fall of 1940.) His troops were in Africa. He chose to attack USSR not because he had nothing better to do, but because of his [largely wrong] knowledge of the opponent. Still, even though he was misled, there was a sane reason in this move: USSR, despite all the inefficiencies of their command economy, was quickly preparing for war. The attack in 1941 slowed that down, but by 1943 USSR became stronger than Germany, and the front lines started moving back, toward Berlin.
And the Germans probably would have destroyed the Soviets if Hitler had quit interfering and let his general staff run the war. Hitler was the #1 reason the allies won.
Stalin provided Hitler with war supplies right up to the days proceeding Hitler’s attack on 22 June 1941. The Russians have never admitted to most of the crimes they inflicted on their neighbors while being aligned with Hitler or during their years as the far dominant nation of the Soviet Empire. Now, they still want to play the victim card and reestablish an empire to protect themselves. To protect themselves from whom, though? They’ve no threats from others, but they are the threat to their neighbors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.