Oh well, it does jack up the Dow Jones every time we bomb the
Serbs.
Right on, John! <gg>
And thanks for the compliment. Although perhaps it is not that much of a conmpliment to tell me I know more "than Bill Clinton and 1/2 his cabinet."
You know, in Russia (and Chechnya) in particular, I am always running into people who believe in one grand Conspiracy Theory or another. In all these theories, there are some incredibly brilliant, if evil, plotters behind the scenes (the Jews, the Masons, the Americans, etc.)who manipulate everyone and everything in order to achieve their nefarious goals...I always tell them that there are no such Wise Men out there, and that they underestimate the enormous role played in human history by our leaders' ignorance and stupidity...
In Chechnya, for example, many people assumed that the Americans had teamed up with the Russians in an effort to exterminate them (the Chechens), or to drive them out of their own homeland. Why else did we give the okay to the IMF loan that enabled the Russians to step up the war? Why else did Clinton publicly pooh-pooh the bloodshed ("keep it to a minimum," is the advice he gave Yeltsin)? They were not convinced by my response, which was that the American officials were totally ignorant of the true situation. But that was absolutely true -- trust me, I know. Before the war, there was not one person anywhere in the State Department, CIA, etc., etc., who knew anything about Chechnya or the rest of the North Caucasus, and very few who dealt with Russian nationality affairs in general...And when the government folks did try to get up to speed on the subject, they often turned to totally unreliable and equally uninformed sources...
Ah, well....Sorry to rant and rave. I guess I should just keep my eyes fixed on the Dow Jones average..
jbe |
