Yes I read the article, thanks for posting it again. Once again is that blackmail. No. Once again THX said the US uses its nukes to blackmail the world. You can't really blackmail someone if they can turn arround and fry you. Mutually assured distruction.

Dimi,

You demon >Wink<.

Kim

Head of the Interim Administration of Chechnya Akhmad Kadyrov is actively trying to find ways to establish contacts with field commanders which did not smirch their names with murders. This was disclosed at today's press conference in the Russian Information Centre by the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Colonel General Valery Manilov.


There is no doubt that such Chechen warlords as Basayev and Maskhadov will be doing all in their power to foil the work of Kadyrov and to stop those bandits, who are ready to give themselves up and didn't commit serious crimes. "Basayev and Maskhadov are trying to cow those bandits, who are ready to lay down arms, and representatives of the Chechen people, who are actively collaborating with the Kadyrov's administration", General Manilov noted. In this connection, he quoted a decree signed by Maskhadov, which ordered that the Chechens, who were most actively collaborating with local authorities, should be found in each village so that to carry out public execution to punish them. In Valery Manilov's view, the recent murder of the Imam of Urus-Martan is covered by this decree of Maskhadov. But a lot of facts show that the number of the Chechen bandits who want to return to peaceful life is increasing, and "Akhmad Kadyrov can guarantee that federal authorities will take into account that they yielded of their own will". Federal forces, on their part, will assist in this process in every possible way, Valery Manilov said.

Gonzo,

but who says the raids would have gone on and on??????????????? You a re-writing the history in your favour only! Who says that Japs would not have allied with another country? Who says they wouldn't have made you stop the air raids??? You are taking your imagination in a way you'd love to see things. I don't believe your argument is a valid one. For the above mentioned reasons.

And yes, you are convincing no one, but yourself only. Too much pride, too little valid arguments.

Kim,
I think thx is on his own wave-leangth, it would be impossible for him to take on views other than his own. If most of the world has seen the serbs as agressors and rapists it has to say something about what they were doing. Also thx probably does not have any type of connection with the serbs other than he wants to jump on the anti-establishment, tree hugging, non-fur wearing, feel sorry for the loser band-wagon.

y IGOR ( - 149.99.70.119) on Thursday, June 22, 2000 - 06:06 pm:

"Kim just wondering why only Serbs are accused of these crimes.What about Bosnian Muslims and Croats.What
about Albanians and Croats who were in SS commiting atrocities?"

Igor, where did I mention Serbs? Do you have access to all files pertaining to war crimes in yugoslavia by any chance. Apparently Serbian witnesses are being interviewed in Kosovo and Montenegro at present.Posible witnesses in Serbia cannot be interviewed as Hague court officials are not allowed in to do so.

What does the SS have to do with it. Surely the Soviet Union had its own show-trials in the 40's!
Is that an excuse for the killing now. Is that a reason not to prosecute alleged killers and rapists.

Check out the red cross reports on the number of abortions they carried out in the wake of the Bosnia conflict. This is not about Serbs, croats and Nato thugs, this is about innocent civilians suffering. It shouldn't be hijacked to any political end. And for the record, I'm all for Nato generals being indited too.

Kim

Kim,
sure, agreed. It is a question of accademics. Just showing Gonzo, that US is using nukes as a form of an international "language".

The reason why the raids would have gone on because Japan didn't surrender. As soon as fields were built that couls accomodate the superfortress and allow it to reach Japan air strikes were launched and didn't stop untill Japan surrendered. So it is very easy to point out they would have continued. Plus Curtis LeMay who was in charge of the bombers has a target list with many cities that had yet to be struck by the time Japan surrendered. Another point Nagasaki was not the primary target for the second atomic bomb but was the secondary target since the primary target was clouded over. So the orginal target was still on the list. As far as the Japs stopping the air raids torwards the end of the war they didn't have the planes nor the expericend pilots to do so. There fighters were way outclassed by P-52s, Corseairs, not to mentioned way out numbered. They did shoot down a few superforts but no way near the # of flyingfortress the Germans shot down and thoes bombings still continued. A mater of fact many superforts flew with most of there defensive guns taken out in order to lighten the plane since they were not to afraid from attacking jap fighters. As far as the Japs being allied with another country, thats kind of silly since they were just beaten back from invading all their neighbors. Who would have helped Japan Ecuador.

Not exactly, Gonzo. What the US said is that it'd use nukes if Russia beats it with conventional weapons only.

Igor, re Norway cutting its defence spending, I'm sure that many ordinary Norwegians would like nothing better.

However as it seems that Putin's plan to create a Nato split is working out and that the US is beginning to bow not only to world opinion but to its own congress, the US is now calling for Europe to take a more active role in its own defence.

GWBush's proposed defense minister(Whatever) spoke of ctting back drastically on US intervention in foreign conflicts, and is calling for Europe to cut its social spending and invest in its own defense.

Maybe a pan-european defense organisation is not that far-fetched after all.

true but, once again if the US used nukes I don't think the Soviets would have just stood arround and said oh well the would have shot some back. As far as today is concerned I think there is no threat what so ever as far as a Russian invasion of Europe. I also don't think as far as the condition of the Russian conventional forces today they could win such a conflict in the first place.

Group: Russian Military Breaks Law

The Associated Press
Jun 22 2000 3:58PM ET


MOSCOW (AP) - With young Russian conscripts being killed in Chechnya practically every day, the military is filling its ranks by illegally seizing draft-age men on the streets, raiding dormitories, and inducting men with chronic illnesses, a human rights group said Thursday.

``The Constitution is no authority for bureaucrats fulfilling their quota of cannon fodder for the war in Chechnya,'' Valentina Melnikova, a leader of the Soldiers' Mothers' Committee, said in a statement Thursday.

Russia's semiannual draft, which sends men aged 18 to 27 into an army notorious for its abysmal living conditions and brutal hazing, was a terrifying prospect even in peacetime.

But since Russia began its offensive in Chechnya last fall, conscripts have been sent into battle after barely six months of often slapdash training. And thousands are not coming back.

The military command, meanwhile, is going to increasingly greater lengths, often breaking the law, to fill the ranks in Chechnya, Soldiers' Mothers leaders said at a news conference Thursday.

``No laws exist for them,'' said Tatyana Kuznetsova of the committee's Moscow branch, referring to a notorious draft office in the capital's Lyubertsy suburb.

``Rudeness, blatant lies, blackmail, threats against the boys and their parents - these are their methods.''

Twice a year, the military calls up about 160,000-200,000 men to serve in the army. Last month, the army said that as a result of exemptions and draft-dodging, it was currently meeting only about 60 percent of its demand.

The Soldiers' Mothers' Committee says it has documented cases of police, acting on military orders, seizing young men at polling stations; handcuffing young men in public parks, without even checking IDs to see if they are of draft age; and raiding a student dormitory.

Military officials also have been drafting men with chronic illnesses, often as serious as leukemia and tuberculosis, said activist Natalya Shvol. Military doctors summarily pronounce the men fit, and diagnoses made by civilian doctors are disregarded.

``Every chronic illness is aggravated in those conditions, and kids come to us who have become completely ill as a result of the draft,'' Shvol said.

According to the latest official figures released Thursday, Russian losses in the North Caucasus region are some 2,400 killed and 7,000 wounded since August. But the Soldiers' Mothers' Committee, which works with the families of killed or missing soldiers, estimates that the losses are at least 5,000 dead and 10,000 injured.

The latest phase of the war has been marked by a steady stream of hit-and-run attacks by insurgents. Almost every night, Russian checkpoints and headquarters come under fire from small, fast-moving groups of rebels using rifles and grenade launchers.

Two Russian servicemen were killed and two wounded Wednesday when they drove into a rebel ambush near the town of Mesker-Yurt, in the supposedly federally controlled Urus-Martan region.

At least half a dozen bodies arrive in the military morgue in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don every day, even when the military says there have been no casualties, Melnikova told the news conference.

Soldiers in Chechnya have also given similar accounts, often saying they have seen their comrades die and later heard official denials of any losses.

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin promised in 1996 to transform the army into an all-volunteer force and end conscription by the year 2000. But the government later abandoned the plan, saying it could not afford a professional army.

The Russian Constitution allows alternative service. But parliament has not passed legislation putting the constitutional provision into effect, and exemptions for conscientious objectors are almost unheard of.

``They (conscripts) don't have the right to live. They only have the duty to be killed,'' activist Anna Ignatyeva said

Better,

I have to say that what ThX and Igor are saying is backed up to a large extent by the evidence, but don't take my word for it.
At the same time I think in making some very valueable points they have a tendancy to look for the more extreme sources available.This reduces their credibility IMO. I am certainly not painting the Serbs lilly-white, but the other players in the conflict are certainly not innocent. And a combination of all those international agencies that are basically run by and in favour of the capitalist world were not the well-intentioned saviours they pretended to be.
Our press were sucked in by the Nato-line and are only now beginning sheepishly to report from a factual basis.
Lets face it you and me, we've been suckered!!And there is very little we can do about it, except perhaps spread the word.

Kim
PS: don't shoot the messenger.>Grin<

Sure we could win, Gonzo
it might take a lot of lives, sure, but you know how persistant we (Russians) are. I am not kidding. Or are you going to agrue that too. As for blackmailings, THX insisted on that, I was insisting on THREATS. Nuclear ones, if you wish to be t h a t specific. An I believe I proved my point.

From SF Dimitri? You're a mole, I knew it!>Grin<
Kim