These two things are not alike (another WWII thought)

In my last column on World War II, I mentioned some through-the-looking-glass similarities between Russian and American attitudes toward the war — such as the fact that both often act as if they single-handedly defeated Hitler.  

While working on the column, I thought of another parallel.  Russians “patriots” frequently wax indignant at the ungrateful people of Eastern Europe and the Baltics who fail to appreciate Russia’s role in liberating them from the Nazi yoke.  Many Americans, particularly conservatives, have the same attitude toward Europeans who fail to appreciate America’s role in saving them from Hitler.

But is there any kind of moral equivalence there?  

I would say no.

It’s not that I don’t find the “how dare they — we saved their butts during World War II!” attitude annoying.  I do, except in response to shrill , vicious anti-Americanism (rather than reasoned criticism of U.S. policies).  I think demanding gratitude for one’s good deeds is always somewhat unseemly, and takes away much of the value of the good deed.  

Still, there’s a difference.   Allow me to illustrate (with apologies for the gender-stereotypical script).

Scenario A: A man saves a woman from a homicidal maniac.   They start dating and end up getting married.  He can be a bit domineering at times and sometimes, when she questions something he does, self-righteously reminds her of the gratitude she owes him for saving her life.

Not very nice, right? But now consider …

Scenarior B:  A man saves a woman from a homicidal maniac.  He then proceeds to forcibly take her to his house and repeatedly rape her.  When she finally escapes and goes to the police, he proceeds to loudly complain about her ingratitude — after all, if it weren’t for him, she’d be dead now!

Any questions?

What Russia’s battle against “WWII revisionism” is really about

In my Forbes.com article, I talk about efforts by the Russian government (and its servile media) to combat “revisionism” about World War II and alleged attempts to either tarnish or hijack Soviet Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany.  The Duma is now considering a bill that, while harmless and even worthy on its face — it’s titled “On combating the exoneration of Nazis, Nazi war criminals and their accomplices in independent states which were formerly republics of the USSR”  — may, some fear, be used to silence “patriotically incorrect” discussions of the Soviet Union’s conduct and role in World War II and its aftermath.  (Some of the issues include the USSR’s brutal treatment of its own soldiers as well as the postwar enslavement of Eastern Europe and the Baltics.)  

Are those fears unfounded and paranoid?  Well, last night I stumbled on an item in a major Russian daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, that gives a good insight into what kind of things some people in the Russia — not crazies but people well within the mainstream — regard as unacceptable “revisionism” about the war.   (Hint: it includes the recognition of Holocaust victims.)