📰 The most exciting thing to happen in Salisbury since Stonehenge was created

[SaintBristol]

“Yet this lack of discretion also applies to his personal life. Murray’s great sin, in the eyes of the FCO, may be that he chose to live the life of a typical expat in the former Soviet Union. He is an unashamed socialiser, almost keen to let me know that he cares little how much I see of his colourful personal life. On Friday night, he takes me to the Rande-vue bar beneath one of Samarkand’s hotels. We begin in the Bohar restaurant, where a series of dancing girls in traditional costume, then in cowboy outfits, parade on stage, while Murray drinks a couple of neat whiskies”

Craig Murray, his blog is more factual than all other media outlets because it agrees with my worldview

[SaintBristol]

To be fair sounds like he had a great time in Moscow

[SaintBristol]

The envoy who said too much

Sauce

[pap]

Reality check time. The comments from Boris Johnson comparing the 1936 Olympics with the Russia 2018 World Cup are beyond ludicrous. They’re actually rather dangerous.

Peter Hitchens has previously spoken of the huge unpaid debt to the Soviet Union for its decisive role in defeating Nazism. That Stalin was in charge doesn’t make their collective sacrifice of the Soviet people any less impressive. The Red Army had been purged of many of its best officers. When war on the Eastern Front broke out, Stalin refused to believe it, ceding huge amounts of territory. The Red Army often lacked basic equipment, and were forced forward at point of death by the NKVD.

The Soviets had vast numbers of people, and vast numbers of them were killed during the Second World War. Thirty million. A human tragedy on a scale of no other, which touched many families, and is understandingly a source of a great deal of national pride.

And our foreign secretary thinks it’s a good idea to compare them with Nazis. Perhaps Boris forgets that the Soviets boycotted the 1936 Olympics, while our own athletes were ordered to do the Nazi salute by the British ambassador.

[Sadoldgit]

Another reality check. Whilst the Russian sacrifice was huge and they played a massive part in the defeat of the Nazis, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of between 20 and 25 million of his own people. Churchill only entertained an alliance with Stalin because he knew that was the best chance of winning the war, but his feelings were that Stalin was only marginally less of a tyrant than Hitler.

[Cobham-Saint]

I think you need to change “best chance of winning the war” to “only chance…”. Britain were certainly being moved to the sidelines and becoming a junior partners as the war progressed.

[pap]

First off, you’ve got to be careful not to lionise Churchill too much, or take his views on race too seriously. A quick glance into his views on Indians reveals that prejudice ran deep in Winston.

Most importantly, the post was not a defence of Stalin, who didn’t actually have to sacrifice that much himself. I think that was clear enough in the post I wrote. He blundered, and his blinkers and private vendettas came second place only to the Germans in terms of harming Russia. Massive reprisals for anyone suspected of being a traitor or a coward.

Stalin died in the 1950s. He was not one of the 30 million Soviets that died during Barbarossa. The fact that he was a tyrant, eventually denounced by Khruschev, does not change that, nor does it alter the huge debt the Allies owed the Soviet people for their sacrifice.

I generally don’t disagree with your points. Hitler vs Stalin was totalitarian regime vs totalitarian regime. The people that died for those regimes were in the main, just people, progagandised to bits during peacetime and brutalised during the war.

They’re just not a rebuttal to the central thrust of my point, which is that our Foreign Secretary is insane for sticking the knife in this wound. There are just about people who still remember those lost in the war, living today. Their younger relatives will have seen the haunted looks in their expression. heard the almost unbelievable tales of what that war took.

It is huge insult to those who suffered then and the Russia of today. Have a look at one of their Federal meetings and look at the diversity on show. Europeans, Asians, Orthodox Christians. It’s far more diverse than many Western equivalents. Boris is implying that these people, of all people, are Nazis.

The actual Nazis described them as an Asiatic subhuman horde. The actual Nazis planned and executed a war of annhiliation on the Soviet Union, premised and propagandised of ideas of racial supremacy.

Stalin was a murderous bastard, but he didn’t host the 1936 Olympics, won’t host the Russia 2018 World Cup either. This is Boris insinuating things about the present Russian leadership and state. They’re not at all true, and not at all helpful.

[KRG]

Honestly, the (for want of a better experession) ‘whitewashing’ of Churchill, and his veneration make my stomach churn.

I get that it’s mostly ignorance, people aren’t taught much more than he was the bloke that beat Hitler, so must be good. But it’s sick. I’ve said before, the way we teach our history in this country is an utter joke. Probably why so many people are so proud of the empire and our colonial past, without knowing what that actually entailed.

[Saint-or-sinner]

Al de Pfeffel has been accusing the whole of the Russian people from the start. He’s a fucking dangerous halfwit, in a position that no Sane person would have allowed.

As for Churchill, wasn’t he a pedophile and didn’t some Indians laugh in his face when he asked for some young boys to be delivered? If true, that might explain his dislike for them.

[Polski_Filip]

British officials probe 2,800 Russian bots that ‘spread confusion’ after Salisbury nerve agent attack on former spy

• **Thousands of robotic accounts sowed doubt about attempted murder of Skripal **
• **The campaign may have reached as many as 7.5million people in Great Britain **
• **More than one in four of the suspect posts identified by UK officials were created by just six accounts **

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5538699/Officials-probe-2-800-Russian-bots-spread-confusion.html#ixzz5Afq8alaz
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[Cobham-Saint]

aww D

Hadn’t heard that about Churchill before so I did a bit of googling (other searc h engines are available) and found this:

http://yournewswire.com/winston-churchill-serial-pedophile/

A really badly written article, possibly inaccurate / libellous - but very funny

[Saint-or-sinner]

Haven’t researched it myself, so tried to word it appropriately.

Don’t trust your search engine to give you what you need. They choose what you see. Watch the video i posted on the CA thread.

[pap]

Though we “won” both World Wars, Cobham, any jingo-free assessment would look at the relative state of world powers and participants in the war and conclude that at the very least, victory came at a great cost. If you’re looking at it purely in terms of British power and influence, it can only be seen as a loss.

In 1900, the British Empire was the most powerful on Earth. Those two wars smashed British treasure and influence. We left the First World War with the empire at its height, at least on paper. We left the Second World War impoverished, on our way to dismantling the Empire at speed, leaving the US free for their run at world domination.

Churchill is feted for winning the war, but few seem to remember that to gain victory over Germany, Churchill surrendered to the Americans first.

[MrTrampoline]

Do we really teach history in a particularly bad way in the UK though? Are there that many countries out there that would beat us in terms of unbiased self-reflection? The US? Japan? Russia? France? Israel?

Germany, sure, but their hands kinda been forced.

I don’t think we’re that terrible at teaching both sides.

[pap]

I think we do, and it doesn’t end at school. History is Western focused, the essential parable of how the West won the world, and the inevitable rise of the white European and his descendants. Culturally, both film and TV march in lockstep chanting the message of the day.

Statistically, the number of WW2 films about the Western Allies dwarfs Western made films about Russia. Most of the films about Vietnam, once the US acknowledged that it had actually happened, were critical of the US government,but more for doing their own men up than killing 3.9million South Asians.

[Goatboy]

You should follow Akala on twitter. Lots of interesting stuff about black history, colonialism etc.

[MrTrampoline]

Hmm, I’d hesitate to bring films into it simply because they’re there to entertain rather than educate and generally just trying to appeal to as many people as possible. I’d be well up for stuff like a black James Bond though.

As I say, in terms of teaching history at school I personally think we’re doing better than the countries I’ve mentioned. Maybe it could be a little bit more internationally-focused but I don’t think there’s any great scandal there and if any typical Brit mosies around with a nationalistic sense of superiority because of the accident of their birth I’d be sceptical that it came about from their education in school.

[pap]

The lines have always been blurred to support the enemy of the day. You can’t seriously expect anyone to watch Bigelow’s recent war movies and not see other motives. Zero Dark Thirty is the defacto official conclusion to what happened to Osama bin Laden.

You can see it in what gets made. It extends to TV. It is no coincidence that we have poverty porn shows on the TV. Benefits Street, its very premise bound to inflame when the Tories are cutting benefits. And if you think that is the nadir, Channel 5 is lionising debt collectors in Can’t Pay, We’ll Take It Away.

Most of the soaps openly admit they they drop hot button issues into their shows. That is undoubtedly entertainment attempting to educate. It’s certainly not a stretch to suggest that movies have also sought to do the same or worse, such as actively misinform or misrepresent.

Some fantastic exceptions, mind. Bridge of Spies comes highly recommended. Anyone that lived through the 1980s might find your view that films can’t also be indoctrination a little naive.

[Sadoldgit]

Indeed. But Churchill was pushing to get to Berlin first as he knew what was coming and he was right. Hence the Wall and the following Cold War. I agree that Churchill’s history is chequered, but then so is that of many “great” men, including Nelson Mandela. Given the deep crap we were in in 1939/40, his sheer drive and his single minded leadership meant that we remained a free country. The right man in the right place at the right time. We came so close to throwing in the towel and could well of done if it wasnt for Churchill. By all means hang him out to dry for his many other failures and indiscretions, but he deserves all the aclaim that history accords him for his leadership during WW2.

[SaintBristol]

Kathryn Bigelow worked over 2 years on Zero Dark 30. I’m not sure what point? Mark Boam worked with her on the script, it was taken literal feedback from a member of the navy seal team. The only change was to include Jessica Chastain as a central character.