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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (56797)	10/2/1999 10:59:00 PM
From: jbe	Respond to of 108807

Well, Steve, some people suggest there was a US/Russia trade-off the first time round: i.e., we won't say anything about your sending troops into Haiti, if you don't say anything about our bombing the bejeezus out of Chechnya. Very different types of operations, of course, but still... It's also been suggested that the U.S. can take its gloves off now, because the Russians were nasty to us about the Yugoslavia operation. And on top of that, they are now copying the US-NATO strategy in that operation -- and saying at the same time that they are being more humane. Problem is, the US is in a fix, and I don't even know whether the folks in the State Department are aware of it! (Must write an article thereon.) That is: one of the most popular conspiracy theories making the rounds right now in Russia is that the US is "behind" all the trouble in the North Caucasus! In short, we are the ultimate paymasters (not bin Laden). It is in our interests, you see, to detach the entire Caucasus from Russian control and/or influence, the Russian part to the north as well as Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia, and get it firmly in our neo-colonial oil-greedy grip. (What is funny is that ALL sides to the conflict say that. My suggestion is that they all get together, make up, and declare a joint jihad on their common enemy -- the U.S.) The theory is wrong, of course, but our "leaders" have a way of talking that gives it some credibility. They never think of how the things they say will play in Russian and Caucasian Peorias! And now there is nothing they can say or do that is not going to confirm the suspicions of at least one party to the conflict! The UN generally will not touch an "internal" conflict, although after the massacre in Rwanda, maybe the UN bigwigs will be having second thoughts. Only if the UN determines that real genocide is occurring in Chechnya, will the matter come up. The US, I would anticipate, would scold Russia for "human rights violations," but would continue to chant the mantra about respecting Russia's "territorial integrity." (Personally, I am really beginning to hate that term. Many Russians would indeed like a "Chechnya without Chechens." Is the piece of land more important than the people living on it?? And who have always lived on it (when not in exile)?? Anyway, the US is not in that strong a position. We have been too free ourselves with bombs that hit civilians (Yugoslavia, Iraq, the bin Laden adventure).