Lithuanian oil giant, hmm sorry, dwarf, Mazeikai Nafta's director dispeared with his son and his driver. His car has been recovered yesterday.
Analysts said there is little chance to find him alive...

(no link I heard it on LTV)

___________________________________________________

I took the news on Y! The first three headlines were about bomb attacks that killed X poeple and injured Y others. Other killings followed bellow.
WELCOME TO A WONDERFUL WORLD!

Telereporter from Minsk Zavadsky also dissapiared in airport with no evidences.
L,Menex-san, bardzo thank you. Pan pevnie comprende ale ne vshistko.

L-Sun
duzhe dziakuem, thank you for correction. "Piken" not "making" cotton, of courze.

Teraz, mow(v)ia, po polsku... Ale prosze pana...
Tego jescsze nie probovalismy.

By L'menexe ( - 152.163.197.192) on Sunday, July 16, 2000 - 01:55 pm:...listen, _both_ of us can't be _completely_ right,_all_ the time, y'know....[grin]

... unless we say the same.

The biggest problem on this board is the lazy unemployed Russian goy Igor. Even by cheap Russian standards, Igor is a miserable beast.

1. Igor is a coward.

He REFUSED to tell me his ADDRESS! what a coward. This dirty goy, was terrified that I would meet with him. The sight of me with the sword causes Igor to pee and poo in his Russian made pants!

2. Igor trembles at the mention of the mighty state of Israel and the name of the Sephardic. He knows that it is the generousity of the Jews that gives his fellow Russians, toilet rolls and food.

3. I gave Igor a chance to apologise but he refused. he is indeed a cursed beast.

Barnswein I will be going to California,give me your address and I will visit you Suzy Home-Maker.Now give me your address and don't be scared I will make it as painless as possible for you.As far as the Syphyllitic inbreds you keep ranting about I spit on them and everything they stand for.They are nothing but homosexuals along with the Shas.How's the cooking going you goof.You are such a fuucking loser are you afraid to reply to the others?

ber-STEEEN:

1) no reason in the world for igor to apologize to
the likes of you. capice? [heh]

2) even when he is cursing you out, igor shows
admirable restraint.

3) the sight of you with your 2-dollar toys-r-us
plastic sword makes ALL OF US LAUGH. we've seen
your silly picture at your link, remember?

4) and speaking of being _afraid_ of people,
you're afraid of _me_, right? you don't dare reply
to me because you're a FRAUD, and i know it. for
that matter, EVERYBODY KNOWS IT.
====
be warned, ber-STEEEN, you RAHOWA FAKE NAZI/FAKE
JEW.....your sword cuts _both_ ways. regardless of
whether mr. mask was correct in saying you had
been banned once before, you are risking being
thrown out RIGHT NOW.
you contribute _nothing_.
you _continually_ harass someone who uses this
page as it _should_ be used, who doesn't attack
without provocation from YOU.
==
so watch your _back_.
and watch your _front_.
and while we're on the subject, TAKE A SHOWER AND
BRUSH YOUR TEETH! -_-
==
i've got better things to do than b*tch to
administraton about such a clown.

but you have been _warned_.

ps> mask:
nice parry....touche.

Igor, L'next, You lose your time.

FAKE B doesn't read our posts. He just posts whitout reading others.

Jake BEARSWEIN, the Syphylitic, DO YOU READ THIS?

Russia: The Pendulum of Democracy Swings Away From the West

Summary

Historically, Russia has vacillated between two extremes. At one extreme, Russia enclosed itself, separating itself from the rest of Europe on every level. At the other extreme, Russia opened itself to the West, absorbing everything Western as superior to anything Russian. Russia has found it very hard to find the middle ground between the two extremes. Each cycle of Westernization hollowed out Russian self-confidence. Each cycle of anti-Westernism liquidated the Westernizers, sometimes physically. Russia spent the last decade in the most extreme spasm of Westernization ever experienced in its history. We would expect the inevitable reaction to be equally severe. We expect that reaction in the coming decade.

Analysis

It is important to understand that Russia literally turned itself inside out during the last decade. It is not simply a matter of learning from the West. For a time, Russian decision-makers gave more credibility to a Harvard economics professor than to all the Russian economists. Russians sought to adopt Western party politics, in spite of the fact that Russia had not been genuinely democratic in its history. Russia abandoned an empire that had taken centuries to build, including the spoils of a world war in which it lost tens of millions of Russians, expecting in return Western-style prosperity and integration into Western civilization. The list is endless.

The results are not. Russia achieved, in return, less than nothing. Where in 1980 it was a poor but feared superpower, in 2000 it is substantially poorer, weaker and internationally marginalized. The question of why this happened is entirely academic at this point. We expect scholars to debate for centuries why Westernization failed and who was responsible. For us, it is sufficient to note that the latest Westernization experimentation has failed, and that this failure is in keeping with what happened in all previous Westernizing experiments. They always fail. The more extreme the embrace of the West, the more extreme the later rejection of the West, and the harsher the fate of Russian Westernizers. The issue now is to try to map the consequences of this failure.

Gorbachev attempted to initiate a massive reform intended to save the Communist Party system. He and those Soviets familiar with the evolution of technology in the West, particularly those charged with this within the KGB, were painfully aware that the Soviet Union was slipping hopelessly behind. They also understood that in order to reverse the situation, the Soviet Union needed a massive influx of technology from the West.

Gorbachev knew two things. First, while the Cold War raged, investment and technology transfer were unlikely. Second, unless there was major reform in Soviet institutions, no amount of capital or technology could be absorbed. Gorbachev therefore needed to end the Cold War, convince the West that fundamental reforms were underway that would prevent the resurrection of the Cold War and reform Soviet institutions so that the Soviet Union could take advantage of investment and technology.

Neither Gorbachev nor the relatively sophisticated bureaucrats who gravitated to him intended to dismantle communism or the party apparatus. Certainly none of them expected to be forced to withdraw from Eastern Europe. The thought of the Soviet Union disintegrating was the farthest thing from their minds. They badly underestimated the weakness of their own system. They failed to understand that liberalization of an ossified system creates uncontrollable forces. By 1989, the situation had spun out of control, and both the party and the empire collapsed.

Still, there was no revolution – a critical fact missed by most Western observers. The Soviet Union disintegrated into its constituent republics with the loss of only the highest tier of officials. The old guard retained control of the Russian government and the perestroika economy, and even held the leash of the extreme pro-Western reformers. With the old system intact, there could be no sweeping change. Without a revolution, the "new" Russia was doomed from the start.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its institutions opened the door not so much for reform as for theft. In a country that had no system of private property, no system of legal documentation for ownership, no impartial judiciary for adjudicating disputes, property was suddenly "privatized," whatever that meant. Opportunists seized control. Some were political opportunists, like Boris Yeltsin. Others were economic opportunists like Boris Berezovsky. Ultimately, the two classes of opportunists merged into one. The result was catastrophic.

Westerners completely missed the situation. Most had no idea whatsoever what was going on, focusing on grand theories of liberalization based on a foundation of air. Others participated in the systematic looting of both the Russian economy and Western investment. In Russia, the distinction between liberalization and theft became difficult to define, as was the difference between liberal and thief.

The opposition to all of this was an unimaginative coalition of Brezhnevites, Stalinists and fascists. An advantage of incompetent democracy is that the opposition is as ineffective as the government. Lacking his own political currency, President Yeltsin approached Russia's problems on a tactical level, appointing a series of disposable prime ministers appropriate to the crisis of the moment, as Russia sank deeper and deeper into the morass. The basic outlines of the opposition remained intact. However, over time, a new governing ideology emerged to replace the discredited liberalism.

The first representative of that new ideology was Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, appointed to mollify the communist and nationalist opposition in the wake of the failure of Sergei Kiriyenko's economic reforms. Primakov turned against the oligarchs, backing a series of investigations and indicting two of the most prominent oligarchs for economic crimes, and he stiffened Russia's opposition to Western politico-military pressure. Primakov's political offensive was premature, and he fell victim to the powerful oligarchs and to Yeltsin's need to secure further IMF financing.

Primakov's successor, Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, was the last gasp of the Yeltsin Kremlin. The decision to sell out Russian interests in Yugoslavia just to continue juggling IMF debt drew a cry of "Enough!" from the Russian security apparatus. When future histories of Russia are written, the Russian army's dash to Pristina will mark the beginning of the new order – when nationalists in the Russian military and intelligence community seized control of the Russian foreign, and eventually domestic, agenda. The sea change was complete when Stepashin, unwilling to take appropriate steps to defend Russian territorial integrity in Dagestan, was replaced by Federal Security Service Director and KGB veteran Vladimir Putin.

Prime Minister Putin was tasked with one immediate mission: to stabilize the Russian government and prevent its complete collapse. Appointed in the wake of Russian humiliation in Kosovo, Putin understood that two issues remained on the table. The first, obviously, was the economy. The second was Russian national security, or to put it more precisely, Russian patriotism. Putin understood that he could do little about the economy, primarily because the Yeltsin regime was so intimately tied to the Russian economic oligarchs. Any attempt at cleaning house would quickly bring him down. He therefore concentrated on the single area where he had a degree of control: patriotism.

He launched a war in Chechnya that was designed to do two things. First, it would draw a line in the sand, showing that Russian disintegration would stop, no matter what the cost. Second, he would move Russia into a more confrontational position with the West, knowing that this strategy would increase his popularity in a country tired of being treated with contempt. He therefore created a situation in which he tried to co-opt Russian nationalism for Yeltsin’s regime, building popularity and thereby evading the economic questions he could not answer.

Like Gorbachev before him, Putin tried to find a solution that would stave off complete collapse without requiring fundamental changes. In doing this, he has, like Gorbachev, unleashed forces that he will not be able to control. The extraordinary popularity of the war in Chechnya led his faction to a much greater victory than expected in recent elections. But in unleashing Russian nationalism, he triggered a process that took on a life of its own.

Russians are far more open to conspiracy theories than the complex economic and social explanations that might be expected. This is particularly true, because part of the explanation of events in Russia can be traced to a conspiracy: the conspiracy of Russian oligarchs working with Western banks and other institutions. The theory that Russia lacked the preparation for capitalism does not resonate nearly as well as the not completely untrue explanation that foreign elements and their Russian agents combined to weaken, rob and humiliate Russia. Throw more than a little anti-Semitism into your explanation and you have a theory that is both satisfying and, to some extent, true.

Putin, by tapping into Russian nationalism, is trying to stabilize the political foundations of the regime. But in legitimizing Russian nationalism at the level of the prime minister’s office, he generates not only a desire to end the disintegration of Russia, but an inevitable backlash against the West, a backlash aided by Western moralizing on Chechnya. Now, if the justification for retaining Chechnya is that it is integral to Russia and is being subverted by outsiders – with a broad hint that the outsiders are not just Georgians, but the Georgian’s American masters – then a number of things follow.

First, it follows that if Georgia is the root of the infection, something should be done about Georgia. Second, if Georgia is merely the puppet of Washington, then something ought to be done about Washington. Finally, if Moscow is doing something about Washington in Chechnya, then Moscow should be doing something about Washington wherever it is acting against Russian interests. That obviously includes the other areas of the former Soviet Union where Western influence is generating threats to Moscow. And it involves those inside of Russia who have sold themselves to their Western masters.

In other words, we feel that Russia is primed for another round of anti-Western frenzy. It is not clear that this could have been avoided under any circumstances. But Putin’s attempt to co-opt nationalism on behalf of the Yeltsin reformist government both speeds up the process and guarantees that it will boomerang on him. Gorbachev tried to save the Soviet Union with internationalism and lost the Soviet Union. Putin is trying to save the reform government of Russia with nationalism and will lose that too.

The issue is whether the current constitution will be able to preside over the witch-hunt that is brewing in Russia over who sold Russia to the West. We rather doubt it. The constitution has as much legitimacy as Yeltsin: very little. Moreover, Westerners confuse the holding of elections with democracy. Russians feel completely powerless. In the countryside, outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, they feel completely alienated from the government, which is regarded as, at best, irrelevant and at worst, harmful.

The institutional question is, however, irrelevant. Putin or someone else, under this constitution or some other administrative form, will have to pay for what was done to Russia. In no other country could everything have gone to pieces as catastrophically, without a day of reckoning. The idea that the regime, which presided over this catastrophe, will continue to govern indefinitely is preposterous. Now, it is possible that Putin, with his roots in the KGB and his relations with the military, will be able to preside over the complete reorientation of the Russian state. But personalities notwithstanding, the reorientation is underway.

We expect the reorientation to include a terror. Not only is this fairly traditional in Russian recoils from the West, but there is an institutional requirement in this case. Wealth and power is in the hands of the oligarchs and the Mafia. No new regime can emerge that does not liquidate these entities. Such liquidation is impossible through legal means. Russia does not have the institutions needed to arrest, try and expropriate the Mafia. Indeed, the Mafia may turn out to be an extremely dangerous opponent. Although, like all criminal groups they have the weakness of being easily split by a brutal enemy. But a brutal enemy is the only thing that will break the oligarchs and Mafia. Therefore, there will be a terror that will focus on criminals, and then, in grand Russian style, will sweep on to ensnare entire classes.

Putin, the Gorbachevite, is unlikely to preside over a terror. He is more likely to engage in a series of partial, stabilizing measures. The name is unknown of the man who will use Russian nationalism and xenophobia to unite Russia and crush Westernizers of all sorts. But he is out there and he will, fairly early in the decade, make himself known. The complete failure of liberalism in Russia, its very real victimizations at the hands of Western schemers and dreamers, makes a massive house cleaning inevitable.

Along with this house-cleaning, of course, will come a new foreign policy. The frontiers of Russia are irrational. Apart from pure military geography, a century of empire has created economic dependencies that were torn apart when the Soviet Union collapsed. There was a rationale to the old Soviet borders. Now, there is no doubt there is deep antipathy toward Moscow in many of the former republics, and deep nationalism supporting a desire for independence. But there are substantial, if minority, forces in these countries that want reunification. The remnants of the Russian security apparatus remain active enough in these countries that with a powerful, even ferocious, government in Moscow, resistance can be overcome, in many cases on a voluntary basis.

We do not think this will happen quickly. We expect Moscow to spend most of the next generation simply trying to rebuild its empire to the borders of the former Soviet Union. The task will be difficult and in some cases bloody. Moscow will not become a superpower for several decades, if by superpower one means the ability to project forces globally. It will be hard enough to project forces into the Baltics, Caucasus, Ukraine or Central Asia.

But this campaign holds out economic hope as well. Defense expenditures can kick-start an economy. Germany went from a deep depression to an expanding economy in five years between 1933 and 1938. Massive expenditures on defense had a great deal to do with it. Defense spending, like all public works projects, can increase economic activity. But defense spending, with its particular emphasis on advanced technologies, can have sustaining effects on the economy. At any rate, the Russian economy really has few other options. Therefore, increased defense spending will probably have a greater impact on Russia’s economy than any other single cause.

Russia’s attempt to reconstruct itself will inevitably face opposition from the United States. A recreated Soviet Union, however organized, is not in the American interest. The economic interests pursued by United States in the post-Soviet power vacuum in both the Caucasus and Central Asia have shown little financial promise, but great strategic significance. The region's oil promise may not be panning out, but the desire for Western investment is serving to keep several countries in the region oriented away from both Russia and Iran. However, the United States has relatively few options in the region, particularly if the Russians were to attempt to use direct force – as they have in Chechnya.

Nevertheless, American hostility to Russian aspirations, while it may be useful in generating political support in Russia, poses a problem that Russia will find difficult to deal with alone. The process of building equilibrium in the international system is of particular interest to the Russians, who will seek to build a coalition to limit American power. The central player in that coalition is China. China is, of course, somewhat more cautious in allying with Russia, simply because it sees the threat of alliance as useful in extracting concessions from the Americans. Nevertheless, we foresee a serious attempt by the Russians to work with the Chinese, an attempt that we think will be successful. China has a particular interest in securing Xinjiang from Islamic influences based in neighboring former Soviet Republics. It is therefore quite interested in seeing increased Russian presence in the region.

We can see clearly that Russia is utterly de-synchronized economically from the rest of the world. It is also deeply involved in coalition-building designed to limit U.S. strategic power. But the most fascinating dimension of the next decade about Russia will be watching it wrestle with its internal demons. The pendulum is hurtling away from its love affair with the West. We expect the other swing of the pendulum fairly early in the next decade. The only question in our minds is how deep and how bloody the house-cleaning will be http://www.stratfor.com/SERVICES/GIU/FORECAST/decadetocome/ciseedecade.asp

ledingue:

don't like this "L'next" stuff.
nope.

would you mind explaining it?

THX, dont go avay. If you read previous Igors post you may place some comments, is it realy so that west lost a puls of events in Russia or in contrary they conduct them in coldblood manner? Dont talk to Dmitry, keep orientation and share your opinion. Do you think dark ages coming to that part of planet, or healthy forces will predominate?

Superpower vs. Great Power: Inside the Russian Defense Debate
17 July 2000
Summary

A critical debate inside the Russian defense establishment has burst into public view. Moscow’s military and civilian leaders are weighing continued dependence on nuclear weapons versus a new conventional focus. Russia is at a crossroads, forced to choose between a global role and a regional one. At stake are the future of Russian national security and the fledgling presidency of Vladimir Putin.

Analysis

Last week, a critical debate that had raged inside the Russian defense establishment broke into public view. Russian Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin recommended that Russia’s strategic nuclear force – long a separate branch of the military – be absorbed into one of the other branches of the armed forces. He also proposed that spending on nuclear forces be instead directed toward conventional forces.

On Friday, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev publicly blasted Kvashnin’s arguments, calling them a “crime against Russia and just plain madness.” President Vladimir Putin was forced to intervene. Interestingly, he did not intervene on either side; instead, he demanded that the public battling cease. But clearly, the private battle will continue.

In a sense, the mere fact that the subject is being debated represents a major victory for the Russian president. Post-Soviet Russia has not had a coherent national security policy. Former President Boris Yeltsin neglected national security on the premise that building the Russian economy, with the bricks and mortar of Western investment, took priority. It followed that political and military confrontation with the West was essential. Both deliberation and investment in national security were deemed counter-productive and anachronistic.

Yet, Russia under Yeltsin grew not only poor but also powerless. In Kosovo and elsewhere, the West has treated Russian national security with an indifference bordering on contempt. The explosive debate in Moscow indicates that the new Russian president is succeeding in reviving the notion that Russia requires a national security policy.

The outcome of this debate will define not just policy, but how Russia views its place in the world. Nuclear weapons constitute less an instrument of war than a measure of Russia’s self-image. The debate over them and the way that Moscow constitutes its forces in the coming years will reflect whether Russia intends only to be a great power or whether it aspires, again, to the status of superpower.

The definition of each is more complex than it seems at first blush. The Soviet Union saw itself as a superpower. But unlike the American definition – projecting power globally – the Soviet Union relied instead on covert operations in support of wars of national liberation to influence events.

Another definition of superpower lies in the ability to strike globally. Although the Soviets had nuclear weapons during the 1950s, they did not have an intercontinental delivery system until the mid-1960s. Nor did they have facilities close enough to the United States for basing intermediate range ballistic missiles and bombers. The United States, however, could strike both from the continental United States and from bases surrounding the Soviets. One half of the debate in Moscow carries at least faint echoes of this bygone era.

Himself a career missile officer, Sergeyev certainly recalls the era of the big bluff, during the 1950s and early 1960s, when the Soviets tried to convince the world that they had the ability to annihilate the United States when, in fact, they had nothing of the sort. Sergeyev participated in the process where the Soviets first gained the ability to strike and then achieved parity with the United States. For Sergeyev, this was and remains the definition of a superpower. Giving up ground so painstakingly won is unthinkable.

Sergeyev has a case. Washington must calculate the potential threat posed by those weapons. As important, the mere threat of use can be a wedge between the United States and its allies. So long as it enjoys formal nuclear parity Russia can at least lay claim to being a superpower. Without these forces, Russia is just another vast, Third World country.

Kvashnin, on the other hand, is confronting Russia’s immediate geopolitical requirements. These consist of four elements:

The territorial integrity of the Russian Federation must remain under the control of Moscow. This means preventing secessionist tendencies in places like Chechnya. Russia must also be in a position to defend its frontiers and territorial waters.
Moscow must insist on the neutrality of the rest of the former Soviet Union. Russia cannot afford to have NATO extend its membership to the Baltics or Ukraine. Nor can Central Asia fall under Western or Chinese influence.
Russia must have military forces sufficient to influence the calculation of NATO, as well as the strategies of the former Soviet republics. Beyond a buffer zone, Russia must work to create a sphere of influence throughout the former Soviet Union and as far away as Eastern Europe. Forces must be available both to threaten operations and to execute them
Russia must create a force capable of the first two missions within the constraints of the Russian economy. This is actually a more complex issue than it appears, since defense spending can dramatically stimulate economic growth as well as drain resources. Nevertheless, in the immediate future, there are limits to what Russia can do.
Ultimately, Kvashnin is arguing for a great power strategy rather than a superpower strategy. Instead of projecting power globally, he seeks the ability to project power regionally. A great power can defend itself from all neighbors and project power along its frontiers and even, to some extent beyond. Germany and China are both examples of great powers.

Kvashnin’s faction is also arguing that nuclear weapons are, in general, irrelevant to the actual correlation of forces. The ability to launch a first strike against the United States is devoid of meaning, since there is no political circumstance under which such a strike would be meaningful. Deterring Washington from a first strike is similarly meaningless. In addition, deterrence does not require massive capability. A much smaller force, on the scale of France’s or Israel’s, is sufficient.

But Kvashnin’s argument is really rooted in economics. If he is smart as this debate unfolds, he can make the economic argument in two ways. The first is to argue that Russia cannot afford everything; decision makers must choose the essential strategy, influencing regional events.

The second approach is to point out the antiquated nature of nuclear forces: These are technologies that matured more than a generation ago. Sustaining them doesn’t help Russia’s contemporary economy. But spending money on a modern conventional force would involve developing new technologies in areas like communications, computing and logistics, all of which would have a major stimulating effect on the Russian economy. Both the American and Israeli economies, for example, have been stirred by defense technologies.

In this debate, Kvashnin holds all the cards, and Putin’s sympathies probably lie with him. Kvashnin is essentially making the same argument that Yuri Andropov and Marshall Ogarkov made in the 1980s; Putin is their intellectual and political heir. The president also shut down the debate after Sergeyev went public – not when Kvashin did. The president is setting the stage for a great power strategy.

Cutting back on the cost of pretending to be a superpower makes sense, but Sergeyev has the upper hand both psychologically and emotionally. For older Russians nuclear parity represented an essential achievement. Whatever else is said about the Soviet Union, it instilled Russians with great pride, particularly in their missiles and rockets. That pride is the emotional link between Russia and its superpower pretenses.

Abandonment means breaking the last link with greatness – and opening a dangerous window into the future. Russia, after all, is still an economic cripple. Putin would be open to the charge of having finally turned Russia into a Third World nation.

In office only a few months, Putin will find himself in a tough spot in this debate. He needs to move on to a regional great power strategy. But he does so only by placing himself at risk. Indeed, one of the themes of the public debate can be found in Sergeyev accusing Kvashnin of serving U.S. interests. Endorsing Kvashnin means that Putin will severely weaken his power base among nationalists. This is a loss the Russian president cannot afford.

So far, Putin has done the one thing he could: He told everyone to shut up. This is only a political holding action, though. The Russian leader can contain the debate behind closed doors, but he can’t end it there. If Putin does nothing, Sergeyev wins by default. If the president acts in favor of Kvashnin, the power base will crumble.

As a result, Putin is likely to try to have it both ways: contain the debate and then try to quietly edge toward Kvashnin’s solution. The president, as a result, will run the risk of temporarily trying to pursue both strategies in an economy that can’t really quite afford one. If that happens, the only solution will be to cut investment in the civilian sector, focus on defense and hope for spin-offs. It will also mean the heavy nationalization of the economy as defense expenditures soar. This is an opportunity for half-measures where clear-cut decisions will be required.

But this is one of the key issues that will define both Putin’s presidency and Russia’s future. Watching him solve this problem – or not solve it, as the case may be – will tell us a great deal. http://www.stratfor.com/SERVICES/archive/WEEKLY.ASP

http://209.207.216.17/forums/topics/poi1.shtml Some real fuucking clowns on here .Just had some fun with another Barnyard typemonkey nigger from US.