Cold War

in the Vologda district 400 miles north of moscow , my drinking buddy
serge maslenikov told me the story of his grand father
he had a small cream making shop in the 20ies
he felt the way the wind was blowing and sold the place ,
he drank all the money conspiciously over one year with his buddies
the new buyer got " reformed and improved ",
the government wanted the sale money to wich the grandfather
blamed the demon drink .
he got off all right but decided to cultivate his potato garden in a remote
village far in the great forest
for the next forty years he only had to worry about the real wolves .

tell me the peasants are dumb !
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I don't think I said they were. Just that their lives weren't exactly a romantic countryside idylle.

 

Moral issues aside, i dont think the Russians military performance in Chechnya has been that bad. Their casualtiy rate is alot less per year than the US's presence in Iraq, the two conflicts being quite similar. (i saw a TIME magazine labelling Iraq as 'America's Chechnya)

here are the official claimed casualties
http://www.watchdog.cz/index.php?show=0 ... 001&lang=1

...though i wouldnt believe a Russian government source for a second, i think the total Russian soldier count is actualy ~4,300 since 1994

the Chechen source gave me a good laff

 

Here's a good comparison
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1130-06.htm

mind you, i think the Russians are alot more brutal than the Americans are in Iraq... i read an ex-spetsnaz interview about how it was a frequent practise to blindfold rebel captives and kick them out of helicopters :-?... then again, compare abu ghraib and that recent civilian 'massacres' in iraq, any thoughts?

 

Three feet off the ground?

 

.
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.chechnia is a dirty war no doubt about that

from the second russian intervention , after the levelling of grozny ,
there was an evolution in the tatics , indeed the war
the russian get the worst of the clean up to be done by chechen
official " nationalist " forces with the big and heavy helping
hand of omron police , military police , special police , deniable police
the guerilla meanwhile are made up of a decreasing numbers of " jihadist "
chechen and foreign millitants , it is believed " in the page of pravda "
than the foreign fighters are made up of this old U.S. associate Al Quaeda
as part of the great game for the control of oil in trans caucasia and
central asia
.
as for russian soldiers losses , I had a post about it some time back
it follows this old soldier classic , don't worry about the opposition
the enemy is right behind us
.
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no, fifty feet into the air. these guys dont take any crap

that said, russian performance in chechnya remains marred by their lack of regard for civillian casualties and the poor tactics employed in the first war. despite starting the campaingn with the objective of minimizing civillian casualties, the russians sufferd appalling defeats in 1994-95 involving the loss of an entire brigade in Grozny, and in retaliation began indiscriminately shelling the entire city and executing civillians...
notoriously enough, this murder meant that russian casualties were dramatically reduced... like jeaguer said, Chechnya is probably the dirtiest war around at the moment

 

i wonder smeg and jeug does the russian army host imbeded news reporters in chechnaya...is the red army trying to win the" hearts and minds " of the locals?......who is winning this nasty war,is it winnable?

 

dang ,,we musta been giveing some really bad advice to the south viets
cause they could not even pour piss outta a boot..

 

I hear that if you go to Vietnam they're entirely forgiving of the US invasion... the worst they'll say is "America lost lives too" even though the Vietnamese cost was disproportionate... Just shows what a civilised government they have
Pity the North Koreans aren't as warm 'n' friendly

 

Forgive the US for attempting to secure their freedom from a communist dictatorship? In that endeavor the US failed however the motive was correct.
What a civilized government they have? Does the government instruct people on what attitudes they must have? Perhaps yes in such a sterling example of a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Are you nostalgic for the "good old days" of Soviet Communism Smeg?

 

Isn't he pro-American enough for you Grieg? He's saying that the Vietnamese government is civilized for forgiving a foreign power that layed waste to its country and killed three million of its people. Whatever the motive behind the invasion, forgiving something like that takes quite a bit of "civilization", an incomprehensible amount if you ask me. Particularly since it achieved nothing other than said destruction and death.

 

Having been born in a Warsaw Pact country I can assure you that that is the last thing I would want, Grieg... Where were you born?
Maybe that will shed some light on our differences

I simply don't accept that the Western world is entirely free of blame for any unreasonable political aggression, as you do... Tell me what you think Grieg, have the Americans ever done anything wrong? I mean, do you HONESTLY think that the living standard in Vietnam would be any better and more 'free' if the Americans had won? I don't think politics will change the fact that Vietnam has a third world economy ...

 

While I do not think the West is spotless, it is only a very pale grey compared to the actions of most Communist countries.

As to your question above - compare North and South Korea, then ask yourself the same question...

 

I agree with your first assertion

Now compare Vietnam to North Korea

Despite being an inferior system of government, is it is not Communism which makes countries "evil"... it is pre-existing economic conditions... Look at the countries that have been operated under both democracy AND communism...

Russia has economic problems no matter what system she has been under...
North Korea is a hole because of her idiotic dictator
Cuba is actually better off than she was before under communism
East Germany was poor because the USSR was siphoning her industry as 'reparations'
Czechoslovakia has always been quite rich

Communism isn't the problem... Kim Jong Il is the problem.

 

Roel:
Vietnam proved to be an excellent enviornment for perfecting helicopter airborne assault tactics, not to mention the fine-tuning of B-52 "rolling thunder" carpet-bombing strikes. The M-16, the ACAV M-113 and the Bell "Huey" helicopters won their stars of fame in Vietnam. Also the F-105 Thunderchief, the F-4 phantom, PUFF--and later AC-130 Spectre gunships... and on and on.
I also remember 58,000 US servicemen and women loosing their lives there as well. Of course we also had some allies with us in that fight. I think the British and Australians were there in limited support roles. The South Koreans sent some of their most elite divisions... the White Horse and Tiger Brigades I believe.
It sounds as though you see the era as American Colonialism At Work, and not an effort to stop communism from spreading through SE Asia. That WAS our foreign policy at the time of course. Same theory as North and South Korea. Our biggest mistake was letting the political powers hold the reins of war, and not the military.
Where is MacArthur when you need him?

Tim

 

I do not believe that their were any British servicemen serving in Vietnam during the US phases of the war (A claim has been made here of British crewed Chieftains and Centurions briefly out there, but of doubtfull credibility).

 

Simon:
I know Australian armored troops were there... I thought some detached british unit(s) as well. Possibly I am mistaken.
ROK elite troops were VERY tough soldiers. The VC did not bother them with harassment fire. The ROK-troops would search and return with mortar rounds, mortar tube and base plate... and the heads of the VC mortar-crew.

Tim

 

From: http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/Wilsonjohnson.htm

Could be that some individual British servicemen were present as advisors or observers. That said, as there apparently was no British support at government level for the war I would imagine that this would be mirrored in the field and that any British servicemen there were mainly there to see what was going on.

As for detached units, I can't imagine such units numbering more than about half a dozen men, and in any case for the reasons above I don't think that they could be regarded as assisting in the war beyond basic self-defence.

With the lack of any reliable corroboration on the Chieftain story, and unless Marlin (Note Marlin, not Merlin ) is willing to come back with some back up for his story (Seems unlikely since he's disappeared off the scene in the face of some criticism), I don't think it's too unfair to disregard this for the time being.

 

Australians fought alongside America in Vietman, and sent a total of 50,000 ground troops and support personell there. Of these 500 died and 2,400 were wounded...