Svoloch, don't even go there.

Apart from the BBC, I have three other british channels, german channels, swiss, austrian, french,dutch,belgian, scandinavian,Polish and chech channels to choose from in europe.
Not to mention CNN and SKY(both of which I must say I try to avoid).
There are newspapers and magazines of all the political colours of the rainbow. (Russia should really get its act together re satelite channel)
I have access to the internet, lecturers at university, russian friends in St Petersburg.
I even read the drivel on this site.
And in the end I make my own mind up.
How about you?
======================================

"Truth" and "absolute truth" -
It should be obvious to you, even just from reading this site, that everybody's truth is relative. Your's as much as anyone else's.
============================================

L'menexe.

Wasn't questioning your belief, sorry.
I thought you had been reading my Marx quote,above.

By the way, thanks, your pretty cool yourself.

==========================================

Everybody, it is St.Nicholas' Eve, the patron saint of children.
All over Holland,Germany and my living room children are tearing open their presents and stuffing their faces with chocolate!!

I wondered if in view of this,I could ask all of you to cease hostilities for a moment and to think of the innocent victims of this war.
======ON BOTH SIDES============
Take some time to watch children playing around where you live and think of what children stand to loose in these wars. Parents,Homes,Possesions, but above all faith in grown ups, their sense of security, their own self-worth, their ability to love, their future, even their lives.

Can anyone put their hand on their heart and say that there is no point in trying to talk with the enemy?

Kim arx

Kim

I agree with you. But Tell this to the Russian terrorists in the Duma, who initiated this genocidal campaign against Chechnya for short term political purposes.

I find it amazing that a Russian army of over 100,000 is having trouble with a mere 15000 'bandits'. It just proves what a lousy army Russia has. Russians are bigger fools than I originally credited them. The instability they have created will ultimately cause their demise.

Adam R.
Santa Monica, California

To truth lover

I believe that 'kissie' is a pseudonym for a pro- Russian propaganda collective. A literary collaberation of writers, supporting the Russian side. The use of a pseudonym is to 'humanize' the propaganda. It was used with some effect by Goebells in WWII.

Adam R.
Santa Monica, California

Awards

The winner of the QUALITY OF LANGUAGE AWARD goes to "our" Russian.

At the time when all this nonesense is being said on this board, innocent women and children are being killed by Russian Special Police. Children freeze in poorly maintained refugee camps, women are shot, because they don't provide Vodka for drunken Russian comrades. Women fear to get raped. It is always women and children who suffer most. KGB men in Moscow decided to wage this brutal war.
This war is targeting in the first instance completely innocent women and children.

It is a sad day when these things happen luna but I don't ever remember reading where a muslim bandit dropped scud missiles on those same innocent women and children or leveling entire population centers.

Muslim terrorist or any other kind of terrorist should be erased from this earth but wiping out total villages and cities is not the answer. It seems that the Russian army, if you wish to call it that, is still fighting as they did in 1945. It's no wonder they have no concept of what democracy is all about. It must be a learning disablity problem.

Yo Russia, it's almost the year 2000, catch up!

To Luna

I understand and feel very much. Our prayers to the old men,women and children who are bearing the cost of Russian terrorism. Even if the Russian terrorists 'win', this will be a phyrric victory. One that will untimately cause the demise of the bankrupt Russian Federation.

There are many of us here in United States, especially wealthy Muslims like myself who will not support an American administration that has a favorable foreign policy toward Russia. Considering that there will be over 8 million muslims in the USA by 2004. We will possess the most powerful instrument in American politics - The swing vote. Give it time, things will go our way.

In the meantime. we will give charity to help the cold hungry children suffering in the winter, as they are bombed by barbaric Russian terrorists.
To the freedom fighters in Chechnya, may God be with you.

Adam R.
Santa Monica, California

Adam,

Its nice of you to agree with me. However the point that I was trying to get across was missed.

Read the notices posted by both the pro russians AND the pro chechens, they both say,go tell them, its not our fault. Who do the civilians go tell?
On neither side do these "warriors" give a damm!!

Oh, and if someone offers to intercede,they of course have an agenda. They couldn't possibly really care. The rise in NGO's and aid workers has coincided with an increase in the reporting of these conflicts. We watch and feel helpless,some try to help. We are priviledged,feel guilty,feel anger- but is it right to take sides? (now we're back in Bosnia aren't we.)

Then Kosovo, we associated the Serb actions with those of Hitler- were we the triumphant II world war heroes again?? Were we right to bomb Serbia? Never mind the fact that during the second world war the Albanians did exactly the same thing to the Serbs.

If I was living in a small country being ravaged by another, what would I want the permanent council members like the USA or Russia or China or France or Britain to decide?
I know my Dutch grandparents were grateful for what the Alies did.

Russia says stand back and let us get on with it.
Ok.
The Chechens say intervene. How the hell do we do that? "Oi,Putin,stop what you're doing,or we'll invade you!!" I think not.
Stop IMF loans? Won't stop the fighting and will hurt ordinary Russians. (children again).
Trade sanctions? Big deal!!
I think we might be better to stay out of this one. Send in the aid convoys when its all over.

In the mean time carry on taking verbal shots at each other from the safety of your key-boards.

K.A.

Adam.

That is the best thing you have said so far, send aid, yes.
The American way of life suits you.

K.A.

To Kim:

Thank you for your thoughts. I agree with you. This is a time for peace.

To Adam:

I also agree with you that this war - whatever its outcome - will create more instability for the whole Kaukasus region and for russia itself. Russia's claim that the objective of this brutal war is Chechen terrorism, appears to be just an excuse. The reasons are to gain political points for the coming presidential elections and to divert from the internal russian malaise. By using one-sided media-coverage the russian people are are brought on side. The recent attrocities (massacres) by russion special forces have been reported by various sources, including the BBC. It is very clear that the russian military is in charge now (with KGB Putin's support). They of course don't care about peaceful political solutions. The present notion appears to be: Victory, regardles of any cost. Chechnya's innocent people don't matter. Inncocent people do suffer in any war (also NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia missed military targets, but the aim of that war was clearly: to hit military targets). The relentles bombing in this war appears to be completely different. The Russian military does not care. This of course reflects the historical genocidal agression by Russia, which now continues - Stalin style. The sad story is:
1)The world looks on. Nobody appears to care about this genocidal agression. In particular, humanitarian help for the refugees is getting in much to slowly.
2) The result will unfortunately be more instability, a swing for more extremism on the Chechen site, near total destruction of the Chechen infrastructure (and environment), and in particular the creation of more hate towards the russians not only by chechens, but also by all other non-russians of the Kaukasus region.
3) Since there is no real support by the West and/or other moderate countries (including islamic states), the Kaukasus region will turn more to islamic extremism and terrorism in the future. This will be bad news not only for russia, but for others as well.
4) Terrorism can only be fought with the help of Chechnya itself. The ONLY solution is to declare an immediate truce in the fighting, political negotiation with the aim of granting full political independence for Chechnya, the creation of a common front against terrorism with both sides participating and a common cross-border mechanism to control common issues, such as terrorism, economy, security....
5) Or is this whole war nothing but revenge, or worse the continuation of the centuries-old hate towards the chechens?
6) One aspect of this puzzles me: Who is financing this war? Russia is almost broke. Yeltsin just declared that the war's aim is to rebuild Chechnya's towns, to establish a democratic government, to create jobs and to pay pensions to chechens. How can he say this when russia is broke. This winter will be very bad, particularly for the russian people outside of Moscow.

Let's try peace. Let's hope for peace, let's hope for improvement of the many innocent people, particularly children and women, who are being killed at this very moment or who do suffer from bad conditions. Please read Kim's comments. She was right on!!!!

2)

To Bones

We both agree on terrorism. Terrorists of any kind, including muslim terrorists, have to be erased. They are a danger everywhere. You are absolutely correct in saying that the scud missile attacks (against Israel) should also have been condemned in a similar manner. I thought they were. The internet has grown since then, and more people are participating - I guess. This could be a reason.

My main fear - concerning this war - is that terrorism is only an excuse for this agression. There is a lot of hate involved, which could be associated with the past historical genocides towards the chechen people. Also, it appears that this kind of indiscriminate bombing and destruction will only result in more and prolonged violence and more terrorism. I just can't believe that you can fight terrorism this way.

L'menexe,

Sorry? Not also kissie,no.

Unicef
(or heartless bitch ? Nudge - wink)

+++++

I have read a lot of the opinions about Russia's actions in their
sovereign State by what I consider bleeding hearts from the West that
keep their heads in the sand. The U.S killed, maimed, and destroyed in
Vietnam for more than 10 years. The U.S. and NATO have destroyed and
killed in Iraq since 1990. I wonder how these one way liberals would
feel if they were a poor civilian in that country knowing they could be
killed aby time or any day. How would they feel after living under this
kind of threat for the last 9 years! The U.S. entered Yugoslavia due to
human rights and to prevent ethnic cleansing and now Kosovo under U.S.
led U.N is letting the (CIA) trained KLA terrorize and kill local Serbs
and ETHNIC cleanse Kosovo! The West screams and hollers about Russias
efforts to stop terrorism and the West completely ignores all of the
atroscities in Africa and they completely ignore the U.N.'s request to
support U.N. efforts in Africa. These liberals only get upset just the
like politicians when it makes them look good as concerned individuals
or when it may come to their pocket book. Their idea is "when we kill,
cripple, or destroy it is done for democracy and human rights"! When
them other people do it, they are beast and less than human. Well let me
tell you, when you take a M-16 and blow someone's guts out his back he
is DEAD it and don't mean a damn thing of what holy crusade you did it
for, he's DEAD. So yell at the Russians, You know they are bad people,
don't you? By the way, where do you think these so called rebels are
getting their arms and ammunitions from? They don't run down to the
local gun shop to buy this type of weapons. Would you likely suspect our
gallant (CIA)?

To Kim
I'll nais ya pas de quiox!

To Luna
I admire your level of perception

My thanks to both of you
My faith in mankind has been restored, knowing their are people out there whose humanity transends politics.

Adam R.
Santa Monica, Calif