....you simply cannot see the larger picture and view the events in Chechnya as occuring in a bottle separate from the rest of the world.

Does it mean that THX, unlike Dimitri, is actually able to see Chechnya events as occurring in a bottle? Go for larger picture, Dimitri.

"""Go for larger picture, Dimitri."""

enlarging it as we speak..

kim:
after today, swipes at me on the board from you were to be expected.and twas _you_, not me, who initiated the whole 'lancelot' scenario. unfortunate, yet predictable....sorry. and it's my turn to wear a target just for you, eh?
because, unlike you, i wont 'fight' you on the page over matters which derived from off-group e-mail.
may your 3rd time around w/d-chan be better than the first 2 times around, for both of you.

thx:
if you ever stop contributing anything but your usual feverish _rhetoric_, maybe i'll read it.
maybe.
and _who_ is 'scamming' _who_?
i 'tattled' on no one who didnt get themselves booted with their endless off-topic ancient bible quotings and hate-fueled fascistic ramblage.
are you his personal groupie now?

fred:
excuse me, what was the question?
=========
i read the news, i follow the on-topic posts...

TO WIT:
the russians are _right_ to put down the chechen rebels and their so called 'jihad'. unfortunately they appear to have been tragically clumsly in their efforts to do so.

i suppose i could post that on the hour if it would please the likes of thx.
not that i have the _slightest_ interest in pleasing him.
==
and hatemongers, religious fanatics, and rhetoriticians can all go pound sand.

yeesh.
'clumsy'
not 'clumsly'

With the Antonio Show being cancelled, Bacon being burnt to a crisp, AllAMerican being placed in an institution, Addler21 going back to his own galaxy, Matherson having his head permently stuck in Fase Khan's rectum we now only have Dumb Waiter, Stinky Jake Barnschwein left on the HIT LIST. Wonder who's going to blow the whistle on him....

KIMMY:

The radiation induced tranformation {or lack of)was an increditable success. You simply cannot believe the diffence in me. All from storing that stuff in my kitchen in case I had to drop a bomb on someone like ALL_____, can't say it, I promised. But anyways, KIMMY, keep in mind that you had spent a good deal of time in my kitchen during your visits. But hopefully, you weren't exposed as much as I was.

HAVE A GREAT DAY, are you going swiming this afternoon? As for me I'm making it a long weekend.

Luv Ya!!!!

By Dimitri ( - 166.90.32.117) on Thursday, July 13, 2000 - 11:25 pm:

"""Go for larger picture, Dimitri."""

enlarging it as we speak..

Touché.

kim:
please, let's not and say we did.

working on 'off-group' mail pour toi.

http://www.antiwar.com/szamuely/sz-col.html Us getting ready to renew it war policy against Serbia.

Several medium-rank Chechen field commanders and their units are prepared to end resistance to federal units if their safety is guaranteed.


Three unspecified commanders have told the Russian military authorities so, sources in the Russian army group headquarters told Interfax on Friday. The men intend to wait and see what will happen to Turpal-ali Atgeriyev, a close associate of rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov who has said he is prepared to surrender on the condition that he is guaranteed personal safety.


Nearly 200 rebel fighters are prepared to lay down arms along with Atgeriyev, first deputy chief of the General Staff Colonel General Valery Manilov said on Thursday.


The situation in the area remains tense with rebels staging acts of sabotage in Chechnya and neighbouring republics, above all Daghestan, an official in the headquarters said.


A depot of arms, ammunition and uniforms for 25 to 30 men was found in Chechnya's Shali district on Thursday.


Fourteen people were detained on suspicion of involvement in rebel bands and eight automatic rifles and nearly 40 kilos of explosives were seized.

IGOR

Rather than wanting their safety guaranteed, wonder if what their really saying is they want immunity from any form of prosecution for the atrocities which they may have committed?

for those who read Russian a very touching story

And after safety is guarenteed they will take up arems again like the other ones that got amnesty?

U.S. Interests in Kazakstan Jeopardized
2242 GMT, 000713

Summary

A U.S. Justice Department memorandum, leaked in Switzerland, has exposed allegations of massive corruption and graft involving U.S. oil companies and senior Kazak government officials, including Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev. This far-reaching scandal, reminiscent of recent Russian money laundering scandals involving the Bank of New York, threatens to undermine U.S. influence over and involvement in Kazak oil development. The only party to benefit from a potential collapse of U.S. interests in Kazakstan is Russia. So, who leaked the report?

Analysis

A U.S. Justice Department memorandum to Swiss prosecutors was leaked to the press in late June. It detailed alleged bribery and racketeering in the Kazak oil industry. Among those implicated in the memorandum are Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev, two of his former prime ministers and a host of U.S. oil firms. If the allegations prove true, they would threaten a crushing defeat for American political and economic policies in Central Asia.

The memorandum was leaked in Switzerland – by who exactly is unknown, for it serves none of the parties involved. Having corruption exposed obviously hurts the Kazak government. The Swiss system thrives on a sense of secrecy and discretion; investigations, out of necessity, must be pursued quietly. And the U.S. Department of Justice had just begun investigating the case. Because of the leak, the alleged bribers and bribees now have plenty of time to cover their tracks.

The implications for American foreign policy are crushing. The Clinton administration’s policy on Central Asia focused almost exclusively on oil politics and thus encouraged the participation of American oil firms. With Swiss and American graft investigations in full swing, Washington’s single-track foreign policy now faces total dissolution.

The only party that could benefit from the leak is the party best positioned to fill any vacuum in Central Asia: Russia. Events and motive indicate that Russia could have easily played a clandestine role in bringing the allegations to light.

Ironically, Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev himself initiated the investigation as a means of politically sterilizing an increasingly bothersome opponent – former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin. After the Bank of New York money laundering scandal, the Kazak government seized upon Western exasperation with corruption in the former Soviet Union and requested that Swiss prosecutors launch an investigation of the former Kazak prime minister for alleged wrongdoing.

The Swiss investigator assigned to the case, Daniel Devaud, has an extensive track record in investigating Russian corruption – the Bank of New York scandal being his most well known case. Another of his cases, the Mabetex property scandal, has already resulted in the Jan. 27 issuance of an international arrest warrant for Pavel Borodin, one of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s top aides and currently state secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union. Yeltsin’s daughters, Tatyana Dyachenko and Yelena Okulova, also face likely indictment.

One of Devaud’s primary Russian contacts for the Mabetex case is Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily Kolmogorov. Some of Kolmogorov’s most public cases involve the interrogation of Chechen warlord Salman Rudayev and raiding the MediaMost office. In both operations Kolmogorov cooperated closely with the FSB, Russia’s security service and successor to the KGB.

It is unclear if Devaud and Kolmogorov ever exchanged notes on the Kazhegeldin case or if the FSB provided Devaud with information directly or indirectly. But Devaud certainly had a working relationship with Kolmogorov and others in the Russia law enforcement community, jointly pursuing cases that attacked some of the highest levels of the Yeltsin regime. This would have been difficult, if not impossible, without regular FSB assistance and strong presidential backing.

As his investigation progressed, Devaud discovered that indeed $6 million had found its way into Kazhegeldin’s bank accounts. However, he also discovered that as much as $59 million of potentially dirty money had been squirreled away by other Kazak officials including another former prime minister, Nurlan Balgimbaev, and Nazarbayev himself. At this point Devaud froze several Swiss bank accounts as part of the graft probe; Nazarbayev’s political witch-hunt backfired.

After experiencing difficulty with Switzerland’s notoriously secretive canton authorities, Devaud turned to the U.S. Department of Justice for assistance. Justice, having been recently tasked by the Clinton Administration to pursue economic crimes relating to the former Soviet Union, cooperated eagerly. It produced a blunt 12-page memorandum for the Swiss authorities detailing a series of bribes supposedly paid by American oil companies to Nazarbayev and others via an American middleman, James Giffen. It was this memorandum that was promptly leaked to the media.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment must be mortified. The fact that the U.S. Department of Justice investigation occurred at all indicates an absence of coordination between the various federal bureaus in Washington. For the past decade the State and Commerce departments have urged U.S. oil companies to pursue Central Asian oil and have quietly accepted local corruption as the price for having an American stake in the region. Justice, however, was tasked specifically to root out that very corruption once it affected the U.S. economy. The result is a contradictory and publicly discredited policy that could utterly destroy Washington’s credibility in the region.

The humiliation is no less acute for U.S. oil companies. The Justice Department document outlines in clear terms how and where about $60 million in bribes were transferred. While the memorandum didn’t specifically accuse any specific U.S. oil firms of wrongdoing, it did detail questionable transactions involving BP Amoco, ExxonMobil and Phillips Petroleum.

Bad public relations from bribery, increased legal costs, and the annoyance from criminal proceedings and increased oversight aside, U.S. oil companies will be dealing with an enraged Nazarbayev already leaning away from Western firms. After all, now that the corruption has been forced into the open, the United States will be forced to pursue the case. Consequently, U.S. firms face the possible loss of their two most significant Central Asian holdings.

The first project of note is the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) that taps the massive Tengiz, a six to nine billion barrel field. At today’s prices that oil has a market value of at least $180 billion. Once the Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline becomes fully operational, it will be the largest oil export route in the former Soviet Union. Chevron has a 15 percent stake in the CPC; ExxonMobil has a 7.5 percent stake.

But even more important is the newly discovered East Kashagan field, also in the Kazak sector of the Caspian. Preliminary estimates place the field with 50 to as many as 200 billion barrels of recoverable oil – potentially the world’s largest field. BP Amoco, Mobil and Phillips Petroleum collectively control about a third of the field.

And timing is key. The combination of a corruption investigation and increased oversight will make firms already leery of doing business in Kazakstan even less inclined to engage there. With the CPC pipeline soon becoming operational and with the Kashagan field due for development over the next three to five years, any delays could end U.S. oil companies’ hold on these fields. If that happens the United States will have been completely ejected from the largest oil projects in Central Asia.

This, of course, is music to Russia’s ears. Russian oil companies tend to be less restricted than their American counterparts when it comes to pesky things like racketeering laws. With American firms operating under increased scrutiny, Russian firms such as LUKoil, Statoil and Rosneft – all already involved in the Kazak petroleum sector – will be free to encroach on American stakes.

While a firm link cannot be proven, Russia certainly had the means, motive and opportunity to first encourage the Kazhegeldin case and then perhaps even leak the Justice Department memorandum. The damage to American policy goals in the region is all but irreparable. The lack of U.S. coordination has exposed an embarrassing policy of tolerating corruption as the cost for preventing Russian hegemony in Central Asia. Russia now is very well positioned to gain that hegemony anyway. And if Russia did indeed have a part to play in bringing the bribes to light, Russia has delivered a stinging economic and political blow to the United States

Mary,
I have been able to see myself better in the dark recently, thought my eye-sight had improved,hum.
Swimming no, horrible weather here at the moment.
Taking Ruari to see the Snake and spider house in
Geneva, tomorrow. Boys! I just can't wait.yuch.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Baron is that His Woyal Highness? HWH???
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

L'menexe you may have difficulty emailing me.
Ignore functions do work! Will lift it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Has anyone read extracts from the Norman Finkelstein book :"The Holocaust Industry"
Makes interesting reading, he raises some interesting points about world politics.
Though not directly related to Chechnia, it touches on topics raised here. "The bigger picture" so to speak.

Kim