Eye-Opening Quiet News

[Sukerkin]

I have to say that this is not a snippet of news I ever expected to read in my lifetime:

"on Sunday Russia will hold its 65th victory Parade in Moscow's Red Square. The ceremony, renowned for its show of military might, has British presence for the first time after Number Two Company of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards were invited to take part with troops from other nations who fought alongside Russia in the World War II."


{Extract from a BBC news story about the VE day commemoration}


My word! British troops in the Red Square! There's been no big hoo-haa made about this but it certainly made my eyebrows raise sharply . So we're now getting warmer relations with the chaps whose aim, twenty-odd years ago, it was to drop a 10 megaton groundbursting nuke on my doorstep!

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Wow.

 

[Big Don]

That is surprising! That's why fiction is easier to believe than fact, fiction has to make sense...

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye, quite so.

It isn't so much that I object to pursuing non-adversarial relations with former enemies but the sheer out-of-the-blueness of the thing. I mean, to me at least, this is a big deal and I can't understand why it hasn't been in the news and also more made of it.

Perhaps I've just studied the history of past wars too much and so read more significance into the event than it warrants?

 

[tellner]

Of course there's always Medvedev's Nightmare:

American troops in German tanks in Red Square eating matzoh balls with chopsticks.

 

[Blade96]

I have to say that this is not a snippet of news I ever expected to read in my lifetime:

"on Sunday Russia will hold its 65th victory Parade in Moscow's Red Square. The ceremony, renowned for its show of military might, has British presence for the first time after Number Two Company of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards were invited to take part with troops from other nations who fought alongside Russia in the World War II."


{Extract from a BBC news story about the VE day commemoration}


My word! British troops in the Red Square! There's been no big hoo-haa made about this but it certainly made my eyebrows raise sharply . So we're now getting warmer relations with the chaps whose aim, twenty-odd years ago, it was to drop a 10 megaton groundbursting nuke on my doorstep!

I have a history major. and most of my focus was on 20th century history especially soviets and the cold war.

No offense but if you're going to talk like that why don't you also mention that your two PM's churchill and his successor Clement Attlee wanted to turn on their big ally who without their help you wouldnt have gotten a victory and the idea of D-Day actually was stalin's idea back in like 1942 something and the western countries kept putting it off, and Churchill had said that the west should turn on both Hitler and Stalin and kill 2 birds with one stone? We wouldnt have won without help from the Soviets, there were two biggest countries that helped, and it was Britain and the USSR.

and btw Attlee was equally as hostile. and this was helped by who he chose as foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, a well known anti-soviet.

The west werent angels either. Unfortunately thats the way western people act. Like their side has gold bars dropping from it and the sovs were the bad guys. When in fact, both sides were equally seen as threatening to the other, with good reasons they had for thinking this.

Not a very nice way to treat your allies from WWII, which is what May 8th is celebrating. The Sovs called it the Great Patriotic War.

 

[Sukerkin]

These things are not unknown to me Blade.

I think you have taken my words as meaning other than they did, so unless I too am reading your words other than as you meant them, there's no need to jump down my throat .

 

[Blade96]

These things are not unknown to me Blade.

I think you have taken my words as meaning other than they did, so unless I too am reading your words other than as you meant them, there's no need to jump down my throat .

well maybe that you did mean something else - however it wasnt the impression I got from what you wrote. Oh well. Sorry

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

This isn't too shocking to me.

When I was about 14 years old, I was in an organization called the Naval Sea Cadet Corp. It's basically the Navy for kids. Your first summer in the organization, you were required to attend a two week boot camp. For me, it was at the Naval Training Center in San Diego, CA. This is where real Navy enlisted men go to boot camp.

While I was there, we attended a real boot camp graduation. In port at the time, were a couple of U.S.S.R. (not Russian) warships. Speaking at the graduation was a Soviet Fleet Admiral.

Now, this was in 1990, which is prior to the official end of the U.S.S.R., when they and the U.S. were ostensibly enemies. If that could happen then, it doesn't surprise me that this would happen now, almost 20 years later.

 

[Bruno@MT]

I read somewhere that the old super powers are tightening their alliance because they want to put the pressure on Iran and NK and show them they can't expect support if they go ahead with their nuclear weapons programs. Don't know if it is true or not, but it would make sense that none of them wants another nuclear player, especially none as fundamentalist / extremist as those 2.

 

[elder999]

I read somewhere that the old super powers are tightening their alliance because they want to put the pressure on Iran and NK and show them they can't expect support if they go ahead with their nuclear weapons programs. Don't know if it is true or not, but it would make sense that none of them wants another nuclear player, especially none as fundamentalist / extremist as those 2.

Quite right, as attempted to allude in this post.

Next step is a strengthened Non Proliferation Treaty from the U.N. WHile some perceive this as difficult, the fact is that most of the 189 countries that are signators have nothing to lose from a strengthened treaty, as they are declared non-weapons states. Those weapons states that are signators:China, Russia, France, the U.K.and the U.S.-also happen to be the permanent members of the security council. In fact, the only thing that might hold it up is Egypt's insistence on a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, and requiring Israel to give up its nuclear weapons-which the Obama administration and the U.K. just might support, and the other members already do.

 

[Tez3]

http://www.soldiermagazine.co.uk/ll/mail1.htm#mail11

"CONTRARY to the feature in Soldier last month, “Guards of honour”, the Welsh Guards (pictured above) are not the first British soldiers to march on Red Square in Moscow. Members of The Royal Regiment of Scotland’s pipes and drums, alongside a number of other British Army pipe bands, marched there in September 2007. "– Ryan Gonsales.

 

[Thesemindz]

It's almost like whatever animosities they claim to have had towards one another were merely superficial grievances designed to aggravate an ill informed populace and justify huge expansions in military and domestic spending. Most likely brought about to resolve infighting between people who each want all the power, but all want to keep it from you.


-Rob