Uncle Joe comes to Virginia

[Capitalist]

Eastern Europeans in embassies and communities around the capital region are upset today that Virginia’s new D-Day memorial monument, unveiled in a ceremony this past week, contains a statue of the head of notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Residents of Bedford, VA, were equally appalled when they found out about the statue, but now the fallout has now reached official Washington. The Cable has heard from multiple embassy officials today that they are getting calls from their local communities complaining about the statue. It’s especially disconcerting to European diplomats, whose countries have spent decades scrubbing all traces of communist paraphernalia from their parks and public areas.
“I’m shocked as a European citizen and as a European diplomat,” one embassy official said. “It’s shocking because this person was responsible for the deaths of millions of people.”
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[PixieStix]

Is this for real???

 

[Baruch Menachem]

My son is reading 1984. While I don't have anything nice to say about the man, he was the leader of the state. He should have some recognition. Of course, you have to do it in context. And if he hadn't been such a total prick, Hitler probably wouldn't have made it past the Vistula. The fact Hitler made it to the Volga is a testiment to how awful a leader he was.

And it is one of the things that bugs me is how much the Russians used to air brush out of the Allied contribution.

So airbrushing Stalin is a bad idea. He was there. Deal.

 

[Oddball]

Is this for real???

Yup.

From the link in the linked piece:

McIntosh has said the intent of installing the bust is not to honor Stalin as a hero but acknowledge his role in distracting German forces, which played a part in the timing and unfolding of D-Day.

Looks like another classic rewrite of history...Rather than providing the reputed "distraction", Stalin nagged and nagged and nagged Churchill and FDR to start an attack from the west from day one.

I suppose the thousands of conscripts, armed with little more than broom sticks, Stalin had trotted out in front of German machine guns and tanks at Kusrsk were a "distraction" too.