How did the Soviet Union lose such a unbelievable amount of soldiers during WW2?

Jul 02, 2008 by Leard | Posted in History

I mull over it was 10 million, 65% of allied deaths were Soviet and if you include civilians, 16% of the population were killed.

Well when you send a legions of unarmed, untrained, unfed, and unclothed peasants against Panzer tanks that tends to happen.

I once heard an anecdote about a convo. between Zhukov (the aim Russian general) and one of the generals from the Western allies. Apparently the Western general was showing to Zhukov all these believe contraptions that he had to detect and clear minefields. Zhukov commented that the best way to clear a minefield was to parade the infantry over it.

Why were so many Soviet Union soldiers killed during WWII?

Feb 10, 4429 by Chaos Mage X | Posted in History

Was it because the USSR had bootlicker technology compared to the German Nazis? Or was it shortage of proper clothing during the cold winter? Or deficit of food? Maybe all three and even more facts? If you can confirm these three and more, please tell me. And not only that but what about the civilian deaths? What caused these factors? Thank you for your time.

The struggle of Lenningrad may account for most of it...After the "Congress of Victors" in 1934, Stalin became more and more paranoid about members of his fete. He begins to have those "suspected of disloyalty" assassinated or taken to the Gulag, where few will return. He beings to pull trials for party leaders and when all is said and done, nearly every leader of the origional Bolsheviks has been killed. The abstruse police, later to be known as the KGB patroled the communities and military, listening for tratiors. This time of hunk execution will be known as "[The Great Terror]." 9.5 million people are reported to be gone, eitherexiled or in toil camps or dead.

Stalin also terrorizes his top military brass. Nearly 37,000 officers are executed or dismissed.

The Germans do attact the Soviets and Stalin gives orders to "Die, But Do Not Withdraw." There is a bloody battle in Lenningrad where nearly 1.5 million die. The Soviets take a Victory in the fracas of Stalingrad, which is a turning point the the overall war.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan War: Obama’s Vietnam?

Voters for Non-violent 9/2/09

By Rodrigue Tremblay
New American Empire

“Our interest in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a haven for terrorists bent on attacking us. That does not be short of the scale of military operations that the incoming administration is contemplating. It does not require wholesale job. It does not require the endless funneling of human treasure and countless billions of taxpayer dollars to the Afghan regime.”
Bob Herbert, The New York Times, January 6, 2009

“I don’t want to just end the [Iraq] war, but I want to end the babysit-set that got us into war in the first place.”
Presidential candidate Barack Obama, January 31, 2008

“If we are strong, our character will speak for itself. If we are flickering, words will be of no help.”
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th U.S. President

“No nation ever profited from a long war.”
Sun Tzu, novelist of “The Art of War”

A solid majority of Americans (54 percent) now oppose President Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan War. In reality, among Democrats, only twenty-six (26) percent support such a foreign war. In other words, by enlarging this conflict, President Obama is governing as if the theory of a majority of Americans and of his own political base did not matter. In a democracy, a politician can do that for a while, but not for very long.

This undeclared war, precisely like LBJ’s Vietnam War (1959–1975) and George W. Bush’s Iraq War, is an adventure with no positive objective and no clear exit strategy, but with tremendous costs in lives and money. Nobody can tell if the U.S. and NATO are gain people in Afghanistan and in Pakistan because this is an operation to stop al-Qaeda terrorists from mounting future Sept. 11-classification attacks, or because it is part of a larger plan to counter a Taliban insurgency and prevent this Pashtun Islamist function to regain power. But also, it has been said that it is a war waged to protect a pipeline crossing Afghanistan. Such a pipeline would move oil from the Caspian Basin to the coastline of Pakistan through Afghanistan. Nevertheless, since this is not clearly explained, the war remains a blur for most people. The reason why such a war brings fewer extended protests than the Vietnam War is essentially because it is waged with mercenaries.

Read more...

Russian Invasion of Georgia: Civilian Casualties in Gori

Reuters