As usual I started with the Culture Section which is always the best part, with some writers I have learned to trust
But, as part of the current wall-to-wall Russophobia and Bellophilia in all mainstream media in these islands, under the subsection marked “HiSTORY” it had a headline “The Russian Cult of Sacrifice” it presents a review by Dominic Sandbrook of a book by Iain MacGregor, of “THE LIGHTHOUSE OF STALINGRAD- The Hidden Truth at the Centre of WWII’s Greatest Battle”
“This engaging history”, says Sandbrook “picks apart the heroic myth of Stalingrad’s defence, which Putin obsessively cultivates today.”
The defence of Stalingrad, was heroic, as was that of Leningrad, and the liberation of most of Europe East of Calais from Hitler and his allies. No informed human being other than damnable liars can deny that fact.
Sandbrook would have us deny it.
Apparently.the defence of one building (of the many heroically defended by the Soviets) was exaggerated by Soviet propaganda) but that is a poor excuse for denying Soviet Heroism, or sneering at Russians inspired by it. One does not have to be British to admire the heroism of Battle of Britain pilots,or those of Bomber Command, but the Soviet land forces were fighting heroically when their British counterparts were running up the White Flag, to numerically inferior Japanese forces at SIngapore.
Having read Sandbrook I turned to page 7.
The Headline reads:-
“Wounded in a ten-hour fire-fight in Iraq,Tugendhat is set for a new battle”
The subheading reads:-
“The army veteran may have no ministerial experience, but has shown how he can deliver results in a crisis”, writes Tim Shipman.”
A photo of a smiling Tugendhat in desert combat gear with Rayban Shades, and what looks like a heavy machine gun sits below the headlines with the tale that
Tom Tugendhat spent a year in Iraq and four years in Afghanistan..
The legend continued:-
“Tom Tugendhat had been wounded twice during a ten-hour gunfight deep behind enemy lines when he and a small number of men from their special forces unit called in a helicopter to evacuate them from northern Iraq”
Real Andy McNab stuff, and nonsense to boot . “Mc Nab’s book “Bravo Two Zero” inspired a young man from Prince Charles’s alma mater, Gordonstoun, to murder an unfortunate Moslem cab-driver, believing him, wrongly, to be an Arab. Working in a public library in Tottenham i was first made aware of it by a youth virtually trailing his knuckles on the floor while, incongruously holding one, or both of his fists, in his mouth. I re-labelled the book “IQ Two Zero”.
Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq has ever been a threat to Britain or Britain’s legitimate interests. And I have never heard a convincing
story that Russia, under the Czars, the Soviets, or under its present Government has ever posed such a threat.
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