To shake hands with the devil....

[Fountain79]

One would have to be completely inept not to realize that we have had some questionable alliances in our past with allies that are far removed from our beloved principles. During WWII we shook hands and aided a dictator who killed more people than Hitler himself but without this alliance it is questionable that we would have been as successful during the war. Using that example are we going to have to resign ourselves to the idea that we are going to have help and work with nations who are dictatorships to reach any intended political/diplomatic goals?

[SPKrazy]

1. If We Were Really At War That Might Be True

But we aren't really at war

we've successfully pissed a lot of people off at us

we've killed a lot of people in the name of the "war on terra"

but we aren't really at war,

We are witnessing another self induced conflict that's perpetuation benefits the leaders and a select few, and harms the country and it's standing in the world.

So I don't know what you are talking about

[pretzel4gore]

2. Stalin didn't kill anyone for any hare brained reason...

fyi, Stalin's grandfather was sold as a serf, the oppression of the people by the tsarists maybe wasn't as systematic as it became under the communists, but serfdom (slavery) was only outlawed about the time Stalin was born.....i'm trying to say that brutalizing the society that joseph stalin grew up in (he spent years in prison) undoubtedly brutalised Stalin himself - and shouldn't society learn from its mistakes? Stalin was probably also a police informer; lenin was smuggled to russia's border by the germans during the war, and later trotsky went on vacation shortly after leader lenin's death, iow Stalin should have been stopped but wasn't! otoh hitler was elected by the germans, and he was given power by hindenberg years after he wrote 'mein kampf'... hitler murdered millions for reasons Stalin would have considered criminal.....so please don't let 1/2 century of anti soviet propaganda colour the understanding, there's alot more to it then shaking hands with 'a dictator'

[Fountain79]

3. You're kidding me right?

You are actually trying to be a Stalin apologist? The man took out almost everyone he considered a threat either by deportation or execution, ordered the execution over 20,000 Polish citizen, ordered the shooting of any his soldiers who tried to retreat, and through his policies directly or indirectly caused the death of nearly 20 million people, and you are actually trying to defend the guy?

[Swede]

4. Aw come on,he only murdered 60 million people.

Give or take 10 million.

[pretzel4gore]

6. yeah.....and all these stats you quote make it difficult.....

ok, stalin was a political gangster, he killed vsst numbers of people, deported entire populations etc...he had trotsky murdered, he might have been involved in killing lenin; he certainly had lenin's widow killed. yet you implicate the revolution, the blessed USSR, in the crimes of one bastard? to defend the revolution, yes, i'll try explain stalin away- but remember that WE, the freest people in history, couldn't preserve our society when plotted against by cheap crooks like bushinc, and WE look quite helpless against milk fed ninnies like rumsvelt and cheney! at least stalin was a tormented psychotic, who lived in terror until the day he died and he might have did it all for the revolution, just like the gopigs are doing it all for 'jesus'. Had the west not pressured the USSR in the years of civil war and famine etc; had the anti-communist nuts not demonised the communist movement, who's to say how stalin would have reacted? History is fulla bushevik bs, for example:
"...Rather Vidal has drawn on a rich and scholarly literature published in the last decade to remind his readers that much of what orthodox court historians have written about the Cold War was simply wrong. With regards to Hiroshima, perhaps Vidal had in mind Truman's July 18th, 1945 handwritten diary reference to a "telegram from jap emperor asking for peace" " - from pg 78 of Gore Vidal's 'Dreaming War, blood for oil' etc...
the US A-bombed Hiroshima on august 8th, i believe it was...
the point again is that stalin should never have happened, as hitler shouldn't have happened, had the WEST, iow WE, acted like responsible adults and controlled that element which today rules washington dc! Don't blame the victims!

[Name removed]

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[Fountain79]

8. The U.S.

Is responsible for Stalin?

[pretzel4gore]

9. it's not a cartoon world.....so no

had the rulers of europe thought a bit about what was best for the societies they lived off, they would not have played brinkmanship games with each other over resources and colonies etc- the killing of archduke ferdinand would have been just a dreary crime, and not an excuse to mobilize armies to crush the emerging german economic might (or whatever the reason was)....had russia not been drawn into ww1, a constitutional democracy would have emerged (the 1905 revolution had created the 'duma' or parliament, and silly as nicholas the 2nd was, it was the war that destroyed imperial russia)....and the same mad war destroyed the kaiser. what was the 1st 'world' war about? The people of britain, germany, russia and france etc had no say in it ...stalin (and hitler) was a symptom of punk politics played by murderous men who never had to answer for their deeds-the history they promote in popular opinion isn't real, after all whoever heard of prescot bush and his role in hitler's emergence as the worst war criminal in history? One thing for certain; the US is responsible for junior bush, while noone can ever blame the russian people for stalin

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Shake hands? We embrace and arm the devils.

We have a long history of getting in bed with mass murderers. From Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti, to Somoza in Nicaragua, to Jonas Savimbi in Angola, to Kabila in Congo, to Pinochet in Chile. And, many more.

We have left millions dead in "protecting our Vital National Interests".