As an Estonian, I feel for the Circassians. An independent country that has been extinguished.

I will lay down a marker now; Sochi is too juicy of a target. There will be a attack by Chechens there next year.

That's pretty powerful. But I agree that he needs to explain his switch.

I will be in the Kansas City vicinity in late October - going to the Kansas State/West Virginia homecoming game, and have business in Columbia. It will be my first footfall in the States in 4 years, so I demand a meetup over ribs during that time frame, Amy.

Just throwing out an early marker.

What's that place in KC where they give you your ribs on a plastic tray and give you a handful of pickle slices? I loved that place.

A thousand times this. I discovered it the same way, and I walk around town with a podcast on my player, instead of music.

I demand MOAR.

@Created or Saved : Sorry for my assumption. :)

I changed my stance from squishy pro-choice to pro-life. I couldn't believe the horror of the Gosnell trial, that was pushed by a certain Ricochet editor, relentlessly, when the story really broke in USA Today. I educated myself afterwards.

The news being broke is that the spying is domestic U.S. The original stories in 2006 reported that it was focused on international traffic.

I think you are referring to my writing. I suggest you read it again, and read the context of the three posts in a row.

Dr. Steve, can you tell us what types of people are hired by the NSA? What are their backgrounds, what kinds of degrees do they have? Were you recruited, or did you apply?

This needs to be on the Main Feed.

Between Graham and McCain, I can't decide which one is Beavis, and which one is Butt-Head.

Really the only thing that the three countries share is the Soviet occupation, Estonia being the most unique of the three.

Best think of Estonia as a Nordic country, a "Southern Finland," both linguistically and culturally.

Latvia and Lithuania are similar, because of a little bit of linguistic similarity, but not so much. Lithuania still has strong Ukrainian and Polish tugs.

I wouldn't characterize it as "strained relations", but pretty much a lack of common concerns nowadays. All are in the EU, all are in NATO. We share the same security concerns (cough, cough), and Baltic Sea issues, but that's about it.

James, it sounds from that one report that this guy was in a similar group. And based on his age, he grew up with the Holmodor (the purposive mass starvation of Ukrainians by Stalin). Wouldn't you be interested in a group that was trying to fight back, especially with the carrot of Ukrainian independence (illusory as that might have been)?

This guy might have committed war crimes, or his unit might have. But without absolute proof, I would hope the U.S. would just leave it alone. That was a long time ago, and being in the Waffen SS is no proof of anything.

D-Day and such gets all the movies, but the Eastern front was a titanic, terrible hurricane, pitting family against family, and there were no rules, except one horrible side won and another one didn't. And still, there were no winners.

This, despite the fact that the Russians occupied Estonia for SIX DECADES, and had every opportunity to deal with Nazi war criminals (the Holocaust was a huge topic in the school system, as a way to glorify the regime).

Two, there is a huge difference between the regular SS and the Waffen SS (the Nuremburg trials stated this, but it's conveniently forgotten by some people, and nations, for their own political purposes. The Waffen SS were made of essentially conscripts from the countries that the Nazis had taken over to fight against the Soviets. The Soviets conscripted as well. The first Estonian president after occupation, Lennart Meri, was shipped to Siberia as a enemy of the state. His brother faught for the Soviets, and was given the Order of Lenin (he was put on trial for crimes against civilians in Estonia, but died before the verdict).

Word.

Well, James, from my point of view, the first thing that sets off my alarm bells is that the article references Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Weisenthal Center. This guy, (again IMO) has a history of throwing around charges against "war criminals" with very little evidence. He regularly publishes a top-10 list of "war criminals at large". A few years ago, an Estonian by birth was on that list (he has subsequently died), and beat on Estonia regularly to prosecute him. Estonia said they had no evidence of criminality (he had the same name as a guy who did, but it was a common name, and there was no proof that he was the same guy.)  But Zuroff continued to bash Estonia for the non-prosecution. And Russia uses this stuff to beat on Estonia and call us all a bunch of Neo-Nazis. You've been to Tallinn, James - how did you like our goose-stepping?

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