WWII in Russia, a meandering search for a book

I like to keep up what little foreign language skills I have by listening to podcasts and reading newspapers.  For a Swedish paper I chose Svenska Dagbladet over Dagens Nyheter.  I was reading the former on my iPhone when I came across an article about Soviet women in WWII.

This has a special interest because we are going to a book club meeting tomorrow about "City of Thieves" by David Benioff, a novel set in the siege of Leningrad.  It is very grim tale of the deprivations and horrors as the hero goes on a quixotic quest for a dozen eggs.

The article in Svenska Dagbladet is "Kriget enligt kvinnorna (The war according to the women)".  It is about the book "Kriget har inget kvinnligt ansikte. Utopins Röster (The war has no womanly face. Utopians Voices)"  The author, Svetlana Alexievitch, interviewed hundreds of women about their experiences, including active combat.

I wanted to give an English reference to the other attendees of the "City of Thieves" discussion.  I went round and round with various translations of the Swedish, having no Russian title.  Finally by using a translation of the title of the series "Utopia's Voices", I found it.  The English title is "War's Unwomanly Face" and is widely available.

I don't know if I could read it after "City of Thieves".  Consider that the Germans began the siege of Leningrad before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Soviet Army and partisans didn't push them back until 1944, before the Allied landing at Normandy.  Residents were starved and bombed and more.  Getting supplies into the city took a lot of ingenuity, including Allied truck convoys over the frozen Lake Ladoga.  We were in Leningrad in 1973 and saw the mass graves, dozens of furrows of mounded earth.

Is it any wonder the Soviets wanted a big, secure buffer between themselves and Germany?  They weren't nice about it and made themselves quite unwanted.  They only withdrew when their crumbling economy couldn't support the occupation any longer.

Are there any others who could learn from this lesson?

We've already been taken over by a foreign power

Many on the right claim to be for a strong defense.  But a defense against what?  After nine years of a strong defense against guys in sandals with rocket launchers, we haven't moved much closer to peace.  Many say that fighting these guys in sandals is going to protect our freedoms.

Are these guys in sandals going to take away our freedom of speech?  Or is it somebody hidden in plain sight who is controlling the debate.

Are these guys in sandals going to take away our freedom of the press?  Or is it somebody hidden in plain sight who is controlling a large part of the so-called mainstream media?

Are these guys in sandals going to take away our freedom of assembly?  Or is it somebody hidden in plain sight who gets police to keep those who dissent away from  the meetings of his fellow travelers (or is it dupes)?

Are these guys in sandals going to take away our freedom of religion?  Or is it somebody hidden in plain sight who gets people riled up about people who have the same religion as the guys in sandals claim to have?

Do these guys in sandals have any serious chance of invading our country and taking it over and denying us our freedom?  Yeah, a few of them can cause some serious damage in a few places, but is that damage that much greater in sum than the damage we have caused in their countries in the name of our freedom?

We have already been invaded by a foreign power hiding in plain site who with a few fellow travelers is playing many of our citizens as puppets to do his will.

Who is this foreign power?  Rupert Murdoch, a native of Australia, who controls News Corporation, which controls Fox News, which controls Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who frame the debate.

Afghanistan - Doing too much for too little?

Fareed Zakaria thinks that the fight against the Taliban is overreach with little result.  He likens it to fighting Italy after Germany has been defeated.  See "Fareed Zakaria Criticizes 'Disproportionate' Afghanistan War on CNN".

We should also look at the reverse situation.  How many Americans would fight a foreign invader?  Suppose there was an Anti-China League that started hitting Chinese targets.  The Chinese, tired of the "American" terrorism, would invade the U.S. with overwhelming force.  Many Americans would resist, even if they did not like the Anti-China League.

For what many call a "Christian" nation, we seem incapable of following the second greatest commandment - do unto others what you would have them do unto you.

Also, why does the Afghan army need so much training when the Taliban has such minimal training?  If the U.S. can't beat the Taliban with all of its sophisticated training and weapons, will an Afghan army beat the Taliban with the same sophisticated training and weapons?  Either a sufficient number of Afghans are opposed to the Taliban to fight the Taliban on similar terms or too few Afghans are willing to risk their lives against the Taliban.