https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/ Disaster Message Service Discussion Board en-US Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:50:00 +0000 wpForo 60 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23970 Tue, 02 May 2000 02:18:00 +0000
All the weapons in the stockpile of East or West will not be able to erase anyone. Why didn't Russia erase Afghanistan. Now US is trying to erase Afghan nation. Time will tell who will erase whom. Don't be stupid to challenge the Ultimate Authority. You will cease to exist along with your buddies and protector. One more Chernobyl and Russia may erase itself. So be quiet and do not boast about your ability to 'erase'.]]> Second Chechen War saladin https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23970 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23969 Tue, 02 May 2000 01:05:00 +0000 Second Chechen War igor https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23969 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23968 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:59:00 +0000
It should not come as a surprize, but back in WWII Russia and US and allies were on the same side. It is the privelage of the Mujahideen to fight the evil lead by the so called super power. It is impending miracle that 10,000 battle hardened Mujahideen can take care of the combined armies of US, Russia and the rest of the world.

Has anyone any doubt looking at the continued battles raging in the mountains of Caucasus and the streets of Grozny that Russia will finally capituate and retreat from Chechnya and the rest of Caucasus. Lebed is not around this time to save the Russian Army from total annihilation. Neither will the NATO has guts to save their buddy Putin from oblivion.]]> Second Chechen War saladin https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23968 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23967 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:59:00 +0000 2334 GMT, 000501
Austrian Finance Minister and Freedom Party member Karl-Heinz Grasser stated April 26 that if the EU’s diplomatic boycott of Austria continues, Vienna could use its veto power to block the adoption of new European Union (EU) policies. If Grasser’s threat becomes policy, Austria could easily scuttle the EU’s enlargement plans, threatening the stability and power of the Union. In order to make the Union function in light of such an ensuing dispute, the EU may have to grant Austria what it really wants – protection from a perceived flood of cheap Eastern labor.

The Union can do this by allowing Austria to opt out of the EU’s immigration policies. Normally, the EU can adopt a new policy only when all members are in agreement. Opt-outs allow individual EU members to refrain from participating in certain aspects of the Union, while reserving the right to fully adopt the policies in the future. The most notable past example relates to the European Monetary Union – Denmark, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom all chose to opt-out and retain their own currencies. If the EU did not have this opt-out system in place, many of its more notable achievements – a unified currency, free movement of people and a unified social charter – would never have happened.

The current conflict began in February. Despite warnings of diplomatic sanctions from nearly all Western governments, the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe Freedom Party joined Austria’s coalition government. The Freedom Party’s ascendance caused concern throughout an EU set to expand its borders eastward; an action that will by default allow millions of poorer Central Europeans access to Western Europe. Austria borders four of these candidate states.

Ever since Austria’s new government took office, its partners in the EU have maintained a diplomatic boycott in an attempt to force the Freedom Party from power. As Grasser’s threat demonstrates, this strategy has only increased the intransigence of the Austrian government – and the Austrian populace. Without Austrian cooperation, the Union can neither deepen nor expand. This threatens Europe’s ability to present a collective front to other global forces: China, Russia and the United States.

Austria and the EU, therefore, are left to pursue mutually damaging policies – yet neither can afford to yield. The entire EU cannot cave in the face of a party that received 27 percent of the vote in a country with only eight million people. The Freedom Party cannot abandon the bulk of its platform: that the EU is too overbearing. In order to head off nightmare scenarios, the EU will dust off a technique it has utilized in the past to settle disputes between the Union and individual members queasy of new policies: the opt-out.



For Austria, an opt-out would allow withdrawal from a number of visa regimes and the more significant Schengen accords, which allow for the free movement of people throughout the Union. Austria could then disallow entrance to the citizens of applicant states until Austrians felt the economy could handle them. The EU would salvage its expansion plans while using Austria as a convenient excuse for adopting delays on the more politically difficult aspect of enlargement.

But opt-outs are not a panacea. With Austria on a different track, other EU members are likely to follow the Austrian and UK examples and demand opt-outs for policies they find worrisome. This will prevent the EU from speaking with a single voice, especially in areas such as defense and foreign policy that are truly necessary if Europe is to act as a global player]]> Second Chechen War igor https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23967 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23966 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:34:00 +0000 unfortunately for Latvians, Vike seems to only understand the language of power..well,if she thinks that joining Nato would help, she's wrong. It will lead to more complications only.

Gotta go now, so talk to you, when I get home.]]> Second Chechen War dimitri https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23966 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23965 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:33:00 +0000 Second Chechen War igor https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23965 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23964 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:32:00 +0000 In a forest just outside Latvia's capital, Riga, a massive slaughter took place in the winter of 1941.

At Rumbula, 30,000 Jews were herded to their deaths in freezing temperatures.

Archive pictures show the victims' last moments, as they were escorted to the killing pits by the local security police, the Arajs Kommando.


Jews were forced into a pit by the Arajs Commando and then shot

Now the BBC has learned that some of the murderers have been quietly rehabilitated, given extra pensions and welfare benefits.
The information has been obtained by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which tracks suspected Nazis. The documents tell a revealing story.


The centre's Efraim Zuroff says: " We can give you the dates when they got the rehabilitation. Some people applied several times and only got it recently.

"But the evidence is absolutely unequivocal, it's clear-cut. We have over 40 names of people convicted of terrible crimes who, during the past few years, were granted rehabilitation by the Latvian authorities."


Archives

The evidence was found in the Latvian state archives, where thousands of files were opened by the former Soviet secret police, the KGB, over a period of decades.


The work of the Arajs Commando is documented in the state archive

We were not allowed to see the file on Konrad Kalejs, the former commando officer who left the UK and returned to Australia in a blaze of publicity earlier in January.

But state prosecutor Janis Osis, who is in charge of the Kalejs case, says it is too easy to generalise about war criminals.

"The Arajs Kommando didn't only consist of executioners but also soldiers who fought against Soviet Red Army partisans. They didn't commit any war crimes," says Mr Osis.

Terrible things

But the evidence in the Jewish Documentation Museum paints a different picture.

It is a matter of historical record that the group's leader, Viktors Arajs, was jailed for war crimes in the 1970s.

Arnis Upmolis was also convicted of war crimes and spent 10 years in Soviet labour camps.

He joined the Arajs Kommando voluntarily in 1942.

"I was one of the guards when the Jews were shot," says Mr Upmolis. "My job was just to stop trespassers."

But although he says he was not directly involved, he admits that terrible things were done. "There was a special execution unit, and yes, it was a crime against humanity."

Respects

A bleak stretch of land outside Riga is the site of a former concentration camp, where inmates died of cold, of hunger, and random killings by the guards.

Those guards were part of the Arajs Kommando.

Now, with rehabilitation, it seems they are no longer counted as criminals.

Jewish survivors come here to pay their respects, but their number dwindles by the year.

The survivors say that if education about the Holocaust dies with them, their suffering will have been in vain.]]> Second Chechen War igor https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23964 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23963 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:28:00 +0000 Alleged war criminal Konrad Kalejs is accused of being part of a Nazi squad which murdered 30,000 people in his native Latvia during World War II.

It is not the first time the Baltic republics have come under the spotlight over their wartime record.

An estimated 250,000 Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians served in military units under German command.


Latvian SS officers swore an oath of loyalty to Hitler

Latvia alone fielded two SS divisions on the Eastern Front - originally intended as elite units, whose members swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler.

Smaller numbers of Baltic volunteers served in police units and death squads, which rounded up and killed Jews, anti-German resistance groups and civilian hostages.

Nearly all the 250,000 Jews in the Baltic states were exterminated.

Anti-Soviet motivation

Local apologists claim many Baltic people served the Nazis under duress - or that they were motivated by a desire to fight the Soviet Union, which had occupied the Baltic states in 1940.

When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union the following year, many initially saw them as liberators.


Konrad Kalejs is escorted to his flight to Australia

The Soviets reoccupied the Baltic states in 1944, deporting an estimated 300,000 people to Siberia, and bringing in large numbers of Russian-speaking settlers.

Since regaining independence in 1991, the Baltic states have been accused by Western human-rights groups and Jewish organisations of delaying war-crimes trials.

They have appeared reluctant to air the subject openly - perhaps because it was a staple of post-war Soviet "anti-nationalist" propaganda.

Rallies by Latvian SS veterans have been authorised on Army Day for the last two years running - bitterly dividing local opinion.

The issue is likely to remain controversial for a long time to come.]]> Second Chechen War igor https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23963 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23962 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:28:00 +0000 Well I'm sure you have noticed AWE stock. It didn't make a decent jump when it opened, kinda pisses me off. I've made a few bucks these past few days, I guess I'll leave the dough in there for a little while. People would rather buy crap stock like WWF, Martha Stewert, Krispy Cream Doughnuts. What a joke. Sorry this is late I guess I skipped over your earlier message.]]> Second Chechen War betterthanyou https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23962 https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23961 Tue, 02 May 2000 00:28:00 +0000 Second Chechen War hairymary https://www.viexpo.com/second-chechen-war/archive-through-may-1-2000/paged/5/#post-23961