Russian atrocities cannot be excused or written off as a consequence of a horrible war. As far as I am concerned the Germans and Russians were both terribly barbaric.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_liberation_of_Poland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#Soviet_Military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_Lithuania

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 9 2014 20:45 utc | 101

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 9, 2014 4:22:15 PM | 100

Yep. You can tell it that way. If you start a few month earlier the story gets different. You would start with France and Britain failing to come to an agreement with Russia on defending Poland together. The BBC, who should know, claims this was due to

Chamberlain did not like communist Russia. Poland would not let Russian troops go into Poland. Stalin did not trust that France and Britain would resist Germany.

And there is this information from Britain,

A further reason for Chamberlain's decision to guarantee Poland was to counter the relentless campaign from Eden, Churchill, and the Labour Party for an alliance with Stalin.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 9 2014 21:08 utc | 102

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 9, 2014 4:45:18 PM | 101

sorry, this is what war is about ...

From Wikipedia - like the stuff you quote - rape during the occupation of Germany

In Taken by Force, J. Robert Lilly estimates the number of rapes committed by U.S. servicemen in Germany to be 11,040.[55] As in the case of the American occupation of France after the D-Day invasion, many of the American rapes in Germany in 1945 were gang rapes committed by armed soldiers at gunpoint.[56] ... Although far from the scale of those committed by the Red Army, rape of local women and girls by British and Canadian troops was a regular occurrence during the last months of WWII in Germany. Even elderly women were targeted. Though a high-profile issue for the Royal Military Police, some officers did not treat the behaviour of their men seriously. Many rapes were committed under the effects of alcohol or post-traumatic stress, but some cases of premeditated attacks, like the attempted rape of two local girls at gunpoint by two soldiers in the village of Oyle, near Nienburg, which ended in the death of one of the women when, whether intentionally or not, one of the soldiers discharged his gun, hitting her in the neck, as well as the reported assault on three German women in the town of Neustadt am Rübenberge.[60] On a single day in mid-April 1945, three women in Neustadt were raped by British soldiers. A senior British Army chaplain following the troops reported that there was a 'good deal of rape going on'. He then added that "those who suffer [rape] have probably deserved it.'[61]

Nazi Germany committed genocide. The Soviet Union did not. It is as simple as that.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 9 2014 21:19 utc | 103

@97

I'm not a fucking Nazi, you piece of shit. Though given how full of crap and lies you are I'm seriously beginning to doubt the talking points I see on this site and the Vineyard. Like the claim of FBI agents in Kiev. Why the hell would a federal police force be running a puppet coup government?

I gave myself a crash course in Rwandan genocide denial last night. It's pathetic. A bunch of fringe 'academics' who mostly cite each other as sources in a massive circle jerk. They also like to indulge in Yugoslavia revisionism, which of course a bunch of people here seem to also accept.

Posted by: Seiji | Jun 9 2014 21:38 utc | 104

@104
So you cannot answer the objections, and run away, instead of suggesting an alternative blog to pursue the matter. I should point out that I've not cited more than one scholar (the main scholar on Rwanda and Burundi of the 1960-70s). The other authors I cited are (Philpot) not so much a scholar as an investigative reporter, and you are embarrassed at the dirt he dug up, in the form of earlier statements by Dallaire (whoops) and a party liner who let out some embarrassing details. This is well inline with the usual set of Tutsi Power / Rwandan genocide apologetist tactics, e.g.:

1. All I'm hearing is Hutu Power/genocide denial. [With the usual swipe at the opponent's character.]
2. You use a lot of words, but say very little.
3. Why don't you tell me about 'Cockroaches'? [Apprehended before the deed]
4. The 1991 Census was very problematic and the government fudged the numbers. [Apprehended before the deed]
5. The Genocidal intent is demonstrated by the radio broadcasts. [Apprehended before the deed---those transcripts suck, don't they?]
6. Are you questioning Dallaire's character?
7. The Hutu Power genocidaires shot down the plane. [Semi-apprehended, but you didn't let that stop you.]
8. The fact of demonstrated atrocities perpetrated by Hutus, especially coupled with the demonstrated reality that Hutus conducted part of the genocide, show that Hutus did most/all of the killing.

But you missed one, namely that people with stereotypical Tutsi features are to be found all over Rwanda; this is usually used to suggest that the census is problematic. It just has a number of problems, namely that there was plenty of intermarriage between non-refugee Rwandan Tutsis and Rwandan Hutus especially after 1959, and that Tutsi was still a somewhat sought-after status (one could apply to change one's status) after 1959. Which reminds me, those alleged mass rapes, which were quite often (though not always) real romantic interests broken up by Tutsi young women under pressure of your Tutsi supremacist friends, so as to allow prosecution under Kagame's genocide laws; these romantic relationships of course predate Kagame's invasion, and thus the fact of Hutus with stereotypical Tutsi features is unremarkable; presumably many of them also participated in atrocities against Tutsis.

Me thinks you came here for a fight, and are turning tail cos you couldn't handle it. Are you per chance an established authority figure in real life? Cos your inability to take responsibility for your own actions is about par for the course.

Posted by: Johan Meyer | Jun 9 2014 22:30 utc | 105

You mean forcibly transporting millions of people to die in labor camps in Siberia is not genocide? The quote that you use even suggests that rapes by Allied forces paled in comparison to those by the Russian forces.

Russians were not coming to the aid of anyone but themselves. They were aggressors that had allied with the Nazis in order to carve out pieces of eastern and central Europe and the Balkans. Their ally, Nazi Germany, turned on them and they were forced to respond in order to survive as a nation, since the war had been taken to their doorstep. They returned to those eastern and central European as well as Baltic nations only to rape, pillage, and continue to oppress those populations while sending more individuals to Siberia. They did so in order to create a buffer between themselves and Allied occupied countries in Europe.

The Europeans and Americans did some terrible things in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. But, Russia did equally terrible things to its own populace and that of other former Soviet Bloc states.

The British and the French had a military pact with Poland which they did not pursue and it is considered a great betrayal. If they had, maybe the Nazis would not have been capable of ramping up their military machine. That is a great error on their part but it has no equivalency with what the Russians did. After the Polish fought on every WWII front they were confronted with returning to a totalitarian state.

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 10 2014 2:26 utc | 106

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 9, 2014 10:26:40 PM | 106

The British and the French had a military pact with Poland which they did not pursue and it is considered a great betrayal. If they had, maybe the Nazis would not have been capable of ramping up their military machine. That is a great error on their part but it has no equivalency with what the Russians did. After the Polish fought on every WWII front they were confronted with returning to a totalitarian state.

But that surely was the result of those other Stalin pacts, the one at Yalta and at Potsdam. And presumably, the result of the Cold War.

Plus, Poland was not really a democracy before the war. And there seems to have been some Polish foreign policy stupidity in the run up.

Józef Piłsudski used Adolf Hitler's rise to power and international isolation of Germany's new regime as an opportunity to reduce the risk that Poland would become the first victim of German aggression or of a Great Power deal (especially the Four Power Pact). Germany's new rulers seemed to depart from the traditionally Prussian anti-Polish orientation. Piłsudski regarded the new chancellor as less dangerous than his immediate predecessors, going back to Gustav Stresemann, and saw the Soviet Union as the greater threat, to the point where he opposed French and Czechoslovak efforts to include the Soviet Union in a common front against Nazi Germany.

In the text of the treaty the Poles insisted on stating that it did not nullify any previous international agreements, in particular the crucial alliance between Poland and France. Nevertheless, by easing Poland's disputes with Germany bilaterally, the treaty did weaken France's diplomatic position versus Germany.

But it sure was hard/near impossible to survive in the Russian, Austrian, Prussian triangle.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 10 2014 5:06 utc | 107

@105

http://mihalisk.blogspot.com/2010/06/debunking-hermans-genocide-denial-on.html

All your points are bullshit. And you're a pathetic little worm who distorts mass human tragedy in an attempt to reinforce your own bias.

You also display a key bit of ignorance about Rwanda: the ethnic distinctions are essentially meaningless. They may have held meaning before the colonial era, but since then the two groups have become so intermingled that not even Rwandans themselves can say who is Tutsi and who is Hutu (or Twa for that matter) merely by looking. Hence the notorious examining of ID cards before deciding whether or not to murder the individual. It's that same lack of visible distinction between the groups that enables scum like you to weakly claim that all the corpses strewn throughout the countryside in 1994 were Hutu. Unfortunately for you the Rwandan government has since assembled an extensive list of those killed, though I'm sure you'd just claim it was faked. Are the 6,838 seperate bodies that have been identified by DNA at Srebrenica fake as well?

I'll say it again, you're fucking pathetic. I almost wish whatever group you identify as is one day subjected to slaughter, just so someone can come along later and spit on your grave by turning the entire tragedy into a fringe political football.

Posted by: Seiji | Jun 10 2014 9:26 utc | 108

Posted by: Seiji | Jun 10, 2014 5:26:32 AM | 108

Well, your agressive arguing, and Rwanda's persecution of different analysis of the "Rwandan genocide" clearly suggest something is wrong.

Ann Garrison: Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the opposition presidential candidate and leader, is now in maximum security prison for expressing what's called the double genocide theory, for going to the Kigali memorial and asking where the memorial to the Hutus is and by saying that Kagame risks another explosion of violence by practicing the same politics of exclusion that the Hutu president, Habyarimana did. Do you feel the same danger? Victoire Ingabire in handcurffs, in a Kigali courtroom, on trial.

Charles Kambanda: I believe that is a great analysis. There is total lack of power sharing in Rwanda. And that is the reason why the 1994 genocide surfaced. I believe we are likely to have the same thing in the future.

Ann Garrison: The United States has been a big supporter of President Paul Kagame, and the Rwandan Government, but, this week, on the anniversary of the events that triggered the genocide, President Obama did refer, in his statement honoring those who died, to the Rwanda Genocide, not to the Tutsi Genocide. Does this mean that in Rwanda he would be subject to prosecution if he weren't the President of the United States?

Charles Kambanda: Absolutely. We have many cases of people who have been prosecuted under their law against minimizing genocide. In Rwanda if you don't say "Tutsi Genocide" and you say "Rwandan Genocide," they put you in a double genocide theory category. Those people who say the "Rwandan Genocide" are subject to prosecution in Rwanda. President Obama's message is clear. He is talking about the Rwandan Genocide, not the Tutsi Genocide. Remember, the Rwandan government has had to amend its Constitution. At first we were talking about the genocide of the Tutsi and the Hutu moderates. Now, we are talking about the Tutsi Genocide. The Rwandan Constitution is clear now. I think suddenly last year they amended the Constitution to read Tutsi Genocide. Victoire Ingabire is in prison today because of saying "double genocide." President Obama today, if it were not for the powers he has as a President, Kagame would be saying President Obama is a denier of the Tutsi Genocide. And it is interesting that President Obama did not include the words Tutsi Genocide, because it means he did not write in the interest of the government of Rwanda.

But sure, Kagame used to be a great friend of Bill Clinton.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 10 2014 10:31 utc | 109

UN Ghersony report on the
killing of Hutus by the RPA
"systematic and sustained killing of the Hutu civilian population by the RPA ..."

Seems the US took sides in a civil war against an African dictatorship supported by France, "promoting democracy" and ending up with an US supported dictatorship.

Sounds familiar?

Posted by: somebody | Jun 10 2014 11:29 utc | 110

That really does not affect my point, you are just veering off in other directions to avoid the realties in that conflict. Neither their diplomatic capacity nor the democratic credentials of their political environment justify the war of aggression, subsequent mass deportations, pillaging, and rape of the populace by the Russians. If the Russians had been interested in another ally and not an imperial acquisition they would have enlisted the Polish army earlier against the Germans and not killed hundreds of thousands of POWs in Siberian labor camps and at Katyn. They were allied with Nazi Germany and that should not be whitewashed as it is being in this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 10 2014 12:51 utc | 111

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 10, 2014 8:51:52 AM | 111

I do not intend to defend Stalinism (nor Bolshewism). All I am saying - the Second World War was not a Soviet geopolitical idea, but Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union the aim by many who supported Fascism. And the support of Fascism was not restricted to the axis powers. Poland was a kind of worm on a fishing rod.

So if you start your narrative with the Hitler-Stalin pact you give a wrong impression.

It is silly to do a ranking of evil. But if you want to do it - Stalin was into every type of political murder, he did not deal in genocide.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 10 2014 13:07 utc | 112

Posted by: Stelios Theoharidis | Jun 10, 2014 8:51:52 AM | 111

They were allied with Nazi Germany and that should not be whitewashed as it is being in this article.

So was Poland. You can justify that by necessity, however this justification would apply to the Soviet Union, too.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 10 2014 13:23 utc | 113

Actually, so was Hollywood.

Let's face it, Hitler was accepted in polite society until he signed a pact with Stalin and attacked Poland. The British preferred Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union, they thought they could count on them being ideological enemies.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 10 2014 13:47 utc | 114

@Seiji
Continuing with the offtopic.
First off, I didn't rely on much from Herman in the arguments I've made, though (and this is just too bad for your argument) I'm familiar with his work. I'll quote from the website:

It's chapter 4, the longest single section, and its purpose is to show that the 1994 genocide of the Rwandan Tutsi never happened.
I note that the website is careful not to quote the actual book, cos that would make sustaining the argument of the website problematic. Let alone setting up a defamation case against oneself is never legally wise.

The next sentence talks about an elaborate American conspiracy. Which is kinda funny, again because of my familiarity with the material. USA and Canada both wanted Kagame to invade DRC, and Kagame's subsequent dealings with Canadian mining companies in regards to the Coltan slave labour mines that he set up in eastern DRC is rather clear. But that is all neither here nor there, as the military presence was Rwandan and Ugandan, rather than specifically US. Again, the lack of quotes is telling.

I cannot speak for Black, Stavenport, Stam nor Erlinder [at least as a scholar, though I'm familiar with his work as a lawyer], as I'm not familiar with his work, but calling Philpot a denier is hilarious, let alone defamatory. While Herman has written an article on Philpot, and did encourage Philpot to translate his (Philpot's) work from French to English, I don't recall any reference to Philpot in the work in question. But this does bring up an amusing anecdote. Some years ago, I was arguing this same case with another apologetist for Tutsi Power [I started this usage in this debate with you, because of the vapidity of the phrase 'Hutu Power'], and the other party started heaping abuse on Philpot, ending with a quote from Philpot, to the effect that the Rwandan genocide 'probably had an ethnic component,' but framed to suggest that Philpot was backing away from his own conclusions. But as I indicated (and Philpot dug that beauty up), it was *DALLAIRE* who denied that the Rwandan genocide was an ethnic conflict (94 or 95)---Philpot was merely being sarcastic. Again, it is telling that your website declines to actually quote these allegedly juicy connections. But that's because readers can go look up the references, and see if they are representative, while leaving the references makes the matter one of trust---follow the leader.

Now, Erlinder was jailed for successfully defending [as in obtaining failure to convict on most charges] several genocide charges against Rwandan Hutus. Sour grapes, me thinks. Of course, your website lies---Victoire Ingabere was charged with [I'm quoting next from that genocide denial website, wikipedia] Rwandan prosecution accused her of "Forming an armed group with the aim of destabilising the country, complicity to acts of terrorism, conspiracy against the government by use of war and terrorism, inciting the masses to revolt against the government, genocide ideology and provoking divisionism".

The case was a farce, with Kagame repeatedly intervening in the case [independence of the judiciary], her cell being searched and defence documents seized [lawyer-client privilege], and "Her defence lawyer Iain Edwards said the boycott came after the former rebel colonel was interrupted while accusing the Rwandan intelligence services of offering money to rebels to make false claims against Ingabire."

But she wasn't in the country during the genocide, and the case against her was flaky (your website's need to lie about the case is telling). So what was her crime? Wikipedia:

On her arrival in the country in January 2010, to honour the victims of the genocide, she visited the Gisozi Genocide Memorial Centre. In her speech, she stressed that those who committed Genocide as well as those who committed other war crimes and crimes against humanity should be brought before the courts of justice.

So she even subscribes to the party line on the genocide, but she criticises Kagame. Tsk Tsk. Kind of like Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of Hotel Rwanda, though your website neglects to mention the fact.

But continuing with Erlinder. Me thinks sour grapes, as the article would be based on his experience with the actual cases---the facts legally established contradict the law. And the equivocation is a real beaut---that he violated the law means that he denies that genocidal violence was perpetrated. Too bad that his article is available online---he interprets according to the legal standard of Mens Rea [for the charge, rather than fact, of genocide to be sustained, mens rea must be established], and cites the ICTR conclusion---so if your website were honest, it wouldn't be whining about Erlinder, but about the ICTR. Tsk tsk. And the quote after is golden---many things are consistent, and many things cannot be excluded. It reminds me of the Mumia case: Mumia's gun was consistent (with the highly damaged bullet retrieved from Faulkner's corpse), as were another 8 million handguns, i.e. the bullet's damage was too severe to rule out Mumia's gun; it cannot be excluded that he shot Faulkner, i.e. it remains possible. [Actually, would you care to defend that case? I'm curious, because one must either reject conservation of momentum to get the bullet into Mumia's body, or rely on a third party, e.g. another police officer, or perhaps your and David Icke's friends, the shape-shifting space lizards---the shoe fits] But nothing on the order of 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Laws are such unpleasant nuisances, no? And the implicit bitterness against de la Ponte shines through.

Then your website give a list of scholars (and BS artists) who wrote on what happened in Rwanda; Dallaire is of course a lie, as it was his ghostwriters who wrote on the matter; Gourevitch is a known BS artist, especially with the genocide fax affair (presumably his family ties to Madeleine The Price Is Worth It Albright played a role). But Lemarchand is interesting. He started with the party line (e.g. his 1995 article), and gradually moved away from it. By 2002, he had uncovered that a part of the opposition was engaged in thuggish violence against the ruling party (the alleged perp), and that said opposition made use of Burundian Hutu refugees (from the Tutsi Power ethnic cleansing of Hutus there) in violence against Rwandan Tutsis. Lemarchand is not unique in that regard---a certain Belgian paratrooper comes to mind.

This is followed by handwaving in favour of some of the authors of the party line (coupled with more legitimate figures, e.g. Lemarchand). Then back to fibbery: In fact, President Habyarimana repeatedly refused, until literally the end of his life, to implement the power-sharing agreement set out in the Arusha Accords.

Ahem, there's a reason why the party line (whether accurately or not) needs the Interahamwe as the perps: the ministries of the interior and military were held by figures with close ties to Kagame, the lie about power sharing notwithstanding; ditto the 1991 census (facts again being inconvenient). Thus it stands to reason that the website should claim 86-100 percent of Tutsi dead, if not 173 percent:
against the Tutsi in which at a minimum 500,000/600,000 and perhaps as many as a million unarmed Tutsi were slaughtered

Now I've posted those radio broadcasts transcripts; I take it that you've declined to read them.

The other amusing aspect with regards to power sharing is again that little matter of the pangas/machetes---remind us again why they weren't using more effective tactics?

The website then spends a number of paragraphs talking about anti-Tutsi sentiment in Rwanda in the early 90s, an alleged increase in military spending that occurred in 1990 (but is implied to have continued after the Arusha accords), and quotes indicating loathing, all framed to suggest that the evidence is solid. Some of it actually contradicts the authors he cites as legitimate scholars, but tough luck.

The Tutsi power denial aspect of your website becomes amusingly obvious when the phrase, 'plane crash' is used for the shooting down of the plane.

Then he lies about what happened with Michael Hourigan. Hourigan had assembled plenty of evidence, but was told to destroy his files. I've already posted a video by him in that regard, on this thread. Thus it is expected that your website should fail to provide a reference to the alleged retracted testimonies. Me thinks you're getting desperate.

But for my amusement, I'll try to give those reports to which your website refers a gander in the coming two weeks. I can imagine how much misrepresentation would have occurred there.

Posted by: Johan Meyer | Jun 10 2014 15:14 utc | 115

> a pie chart of military deaths, Allies, WW2. The nos are surely debatable, the rough proportions not. See China, which fought on the side of the Allies (obv. against Japan) which is why it is a member of the UN Security Council today.

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 6, 2014 12:23:35 PM | 34

the figure for Poland (1 %) is absolute nonsense - pure lies - yes I know it is labelled "Military Deaths" but that label just shows how nonsensical it is - the Polish Military was in effect disbanded immediately after the fall of Poland, which was the very first action of the whole war, yet thousands and thousands of Military age Poles were slaughtered during the war - all would have been conscripted into the military had it not been disbanded - so to compare Polish Military deaths at 1% to Brit Mil deaths (supposedly 2%) is a frankly obscenely misleading comparison

at a very minimum at least 6 million Poles died in WW2 - that is an absolute MINIMUM figure

Posted by: OMFG | Jun 10 2014 15:28 utc | 116

@ seiji: "Are the 6,838 seperate bodies that have been identified by DNA at Srebrenica fake as well?"

Please, you're making ysourself laughable. Srebrenica story was nothing but a hoax, see what's happening in Ukraine now.

Those dead in Srbrenica were fighters, and they died in the battle. And by no means were there ever 6000 people who died there, not even 2000.

And before you start a dispute about facts, I used to live in Bosnia during the war and I DO know what I'm talking about.

The next thing that makes you look like a hypocrite is the fact that prior to those fights in the area we had moslem extremists destroy over 20 serbian villages and kill some 1500 people. The aforementioned fights in Srebrenica were merely a retaliatory strike against the jihadists.

Needless to say, the jihadi leader and mass murderer got cleared of all the convictions in the Hague. He is of course a "freedom-loving democrat" now...

Posted by: T2015 | Jun 12 2014 14:06 utc | 117

T2015

Interesting that you lived in bosnia, what did you do there since it seems you wasnt born there.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 12 2014 14:37 utc | 118

@T2015
I thought he did a stint as a nightclub owner. Anyhow kudos on effectively calling out Seiji as a beheader terrorist. (Sarcasm alert) But but he was convicted of abusing prisoners by the ICTY, just not of the beheadings that he did on video-tape and showed whoever showed an interest.

I'd like to encourage you Bosnian non-jihadis/non-nazis (of all religious persuasions), and those who stand with you, to look into the Rwandan matter, and into the Haiti matter. After the 2004 US/Canadian/French coup-de-etat of 29 February, 2004, the Canadian federal police (RCMP) was training known Haitian pedophiles of the Cedras-era army (Aristide had disbanded the army on account of especially their sex crimes, and their collaboration with every invation, and hyper-corruption) as senior Haitian police officers; one of these pedos beheaded three Haitian constables. So the RCMP made a massive propaganda assault, saying that the beheadings were the work of terrorist 'chimeres,' who were alleged youth supporters of Aristide, and that the beheadings were done in collaboration with Al Qaeda, in an operation that was supposedly called 'Operation Baghdad' (other than the US Moony press, aka Washington Times, I think only the Taiwanese and Singapore press picked up the story; the UN carried some articles supporting the party line, though they disappeared from the UN website after 2011).

I guess the US Demos are trying to circle their wagons again---they were all over the blogs defending the party lines on Yugoslavia and Rwanda about 2-3 years ago, roughly when the terrorism in Syria started. The stars say another US funded coup-de-etat, possibly with an associated genocide, to become apparent in the next 3 months :)

Posted by: Johan Meyer | Jun 12 2014 15:52 utc | 119

@Seiji
Why don't you show us, for each 'DNA-identified' body at Srebrenica, what their corresponding entry is in the Bosnian Book of the Dead? And while you are at it, why don't you go defend Haris Silajdzic's story of 200k Bosnian Muslims dead in the Bosnian Genocide at the UN general assembly? Feel free to get some blow from the Guy Phillipe/Sweet Mickey/RCMP, in order to work your arrogance up (confession of 9 Nov. 2004, in the Canadian parliament, plus more recent accusation by Phillipe :P)

Posted by: Johan Meyer | Jun 12 2014 15:56 utc | 120