By Jake B. ( - 209.178.171.55) on Thursday, May 4, 2000 - 11:35 pm:
I have been endowed with the sword of truth and justice. I will reward the pure and punish the wicked.

So, will you commit Hara Kiri?

____________________________________________________

FIRST PUTIN'S TROPHY: Vladimir TROPHYMOV

By IGOR ( - 206.47.244.62) on Thursday, May 4, 2000 - 10:19 pm:
...
Putin is beginning to tackle the notoriously wealthy and corrupt upper tier of the administration – the oligarchs. In April, in the first trial accusing a Duma deputy of corruption, deputy Vladimir Trofimov.

http://www.drudgereport.com/insight.htm

MR. SULEYMAN. WOW. SO YOU ARE AN EXPERT IN ALL THIS..?! LOL.
I THEN SUGGEST YOU SIT IN A TOILET HIGHLY CONDUSIVE TO ECHOES AND BOOMFART AWAY THE KANGAROO TURK PUNK AND MAY SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS THERE HELP YOU TOO, 'CAUSE I WON'T REGRET HIM HOSPITALIZED OF SHOCKWAVE CONCUSSION OR A SEXUAL ENCOUNTER. LOL!!

Analysis
By Thomas Haymes
Special to ABCNEWS.com
May 5 — Increasingly, there are signs that a key NATO ally will press the alliance to withdraw from Kosovo, further undermining the peacekeeping mission there.
In Berlin, the political consensus that has supported German operations in Kosovo — since the beginning of Operation Allied Force more than a year ago — is starting to unravel. On April 5, a spokesman for the conservative opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, suggested that Kosovo be partitioned.
This broke a yearlong truce between the government and its opposition over Kosovo policy. The ruling German coalition has always been doubtful of NATO’s goals and intentions in Kosovo, yet it held the party line that the Kosovo campaign was and remains important for humanitarian reasons. The very suggestion of partition strongly suggests a major shift. Placing ethnic Serbs in the north and establishing an ethnic Albanian enclave elsewhere would drastically lower the need for NATO — and German — troops.
Too Big a Burden
In a broad sense, Kosovo is becoming too big a burden for Germany to bear either at home or abroad. At home, the government lives in fear of the political fallout that a firefight would bring. Either German or civilian casualties would cause an outcry at home and generate splits within the governing parties. Abroad, the ongoing unrest in Kosovo harms Germany’s relations with its neighbor to the east, Russia, which is relentlessly critical of NATO’s role in the Serbian province.
The increasing uncertainty in Germany at this mission is significant for the rest of the alliance: Germany has always been the most fragile partner in this effort. Last year, Germans registered more protest at the conflict than populations in other alliance nations. Some 180,000 Kosovar Albanians remain in Germany, though their visas expired in March. Germany’s Green Party, in particular, has reacted strongly, criticizing both the party’s own foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, last year and more recently pointing attacks at Rudolf Scharping, the Social Democratic defense minister.
To make matters worse, retired German Brig. Gen. Heinz Loquai has asserted in a new book, The Kosovo Conflict: Pathways to an Avoidable War, that Operation Horseshoe, the alleged Serb ethnic cleansing operation against ethnic Albanians, was fabricated by the German Defense Ministry. Loquai represented Germany at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe during the war. His work has ignited a media firestorm and a brief parliamentary inquiry.

Likely to Press NATO for Withdrawal
The Defense Ministry has defended itself by saying it received the information from the Foreign Ministry, which had received information from the Bulgarian government. And Scharping’s officials have argued that they cannot reveal everything about how the information was acquired, in order to protect intelligence sources.
The German dilemma will only get worse. Continuing operations represent daily risks for German foreign policy and the government itself. With the opposition now signaling that Kosovo is fair game for debate in Berlin, pressure will increase. Germany is already casting about for safe solutions in the Balkans. For example, Bodo Hombach, who is close to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, recently spearheaded an effort that raised $2.3 billion in aid for the Balkans.
It is likely that Germany will now press the alliance to find some way to withdraw forces from Kosovo. It is not likely that Germany will succeed quickly, nor will it risk a unilateral withdrawal. But the German government can be expected to make it clear in both Brussels and Washington that patience is limited for peacekeeping. And Berlin will probably be tempted to draw down its own forces.


Tom Haymes is an analyst on European affairs at Stratfor.com, an Internet provider of global intelligence.

http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/commentary/0005052219.htm Russia sells China battleship.

Shock Therapy – Russian Style
2026 GMT, 000505
Last week former government officials from Chile and New Zealand visited Moscow to brief officials on reforming the economy. This, and the increasingly liberal makeup of Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin’s new economic team, indicates that the new leader is contemplating economic shock therapy as part of his economic plan.

Yet such treatment for the ailing economy – under the last president – triggered an eight-year erosion of Russian wealth. It appears that Putin’s idea of reform will be different: economic liberalization accompanied by nationalization of certain industries, enforced by much stronger security services.

Over the past few weeks Russia’s new leader has hired a number of liberal economists to staff the Center for Strategic Research, the think tank he established to produce Russia’s next economic plan. Several of Putin’s new advisors are close associates of former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, architect of the disastrous shock therapy of the early 1990s. Chief among them is Putin’s new personal economic advisor, Andrei Illarionov, a member of Gaidar’s team and long-time critic of the Yeltsin administration.

Illarionov appears to be gearing up to recommend another round of shock therapy. He has invited former government officials from other nations – such as Chile and New Zealand – that completed some of the most drastic economic restructuring in recent history. Illarionov’s statements suggest a desire to implement several aspects of extreme restructuring: slicing the federal budget in half, releasing currency controls and drastically reducing the government’s role in the economy. Other members of Putin’s economic team have made similar statements. In particular, German Gref, head of the Center for Strategic Studies, wants to replace the vast, extra-legal involvement of government officials in business with strict, impersonal – and apolitical – oversight.

Shock therapy faces even greater challenges now than it did in the 1990s. At the beginning of his term at the country’s economic helm, Gaidar estimated that the reforms would take two to three years. In the end, President Boris Yeltsin abandoned them after about 18 months because they caused hyperinflation, broke down traditional Soviet trade ties and triggered massive capital flight. The Russian standard of living plummeted. But the problems did not end there.

Complicating an already difficult social transition, Yeltsin simultaneously attempted two ambitious reforms. He set out to reform the economy while dismembering the state security apparatus. The KGB and its sister agencies were certainly responsible for repression of Russians; but they were the only institutions capable of maintaining order in Russia. Force and fear maintained order throughout most of Russia’s history; justice was arbitrary. Russia’s legal code was not – and still is not – coherent and comprehensive, much less modern.

When Yeltsin gutted the secret police, any semblance of order vanished. Disruptive economic reforms and a lack of law enforcement mixed in a culture that had just lifted the lid of totalitarianism. The result was a messy cocktail of corruption and outright theft. Former communist officials took advantage of the political chaos to “privatize” much of the Soviet economy into their own hands. Officials-turned-oligarchs now control not only the press, but the oil and natural gas industries as well, currently the bulk of Russia’s tax base. After eight years of what Illarionov has described as “insane policies,” the situation is now far worse.

Yet Putin is preparing to institute his own version of shock therapy anyway. But this round would not be all Western-style reform. Putin is unlikely to abandon the tools Yeltsin nearly abandoned. Strategic industries such as oil, gas and arms manufacturing will be brought back under government control. The process has already begun with Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly.

Nationalizing the energy industry will serve an important political purpose, too: knocking the feet out from under the oligarchs while ensuring that Russia can play energy politics with the other former Soviet republics. Tightened control of arms manufacturing makes weapons trade a better foreign policy card.

As to the reforms themselves, Putin has a far steadier hand than Yeltsin. At Illarionov’s prompting, Putin will probably revise the way the federal government relates to the economy. This should further cut the power of the oligarchs and free up the private sector from government interference.

But the new leader will also stick to what he knows: intelligence and security. Ever since taking over for Yeltsin in January, Putin has methodically strengthened the security services, including the FSB (successor to the KGB). To balance out the government’s withdrawal from the economy, Putin must have security services on hand to vigorously enforce the laws and keep another generation of oligarchs from spawning.

The implications for Russian democracy will be dire. Already the International Institute of Strategic Studies expects Russian democracy to rate somewhere between that of Turkey and Egypt. Russia will experience an economic opening but will implement much harsher methods of dealing with those who get out of line.

http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/countries/Russia/russia2000/economy2temp.htm

Jake BarnSwine is funny!

By LASER ( - 63.210.120.30) on Friday, May 5, 2000 - 03:24 am:


LOL Thanks for the LAUGH Antonio - you little catholic pedophile

*You must have me confused with one of your uncles who popped you during your childhood. Seems your development was arrested at that level.


The Turkish Military (2nd biggest in NATO) could CRUXIFY paper tigers like Greece and Armenia.

*The Turkish and U.S. and Afghan military was helping the Azerbaijanis from 1988-1995, so how come 4000 Karabakh Armenian soldiers were able to soundly defeat a 25,000 man Azerbaijani army?
But go ahead, underestimate our strength. Refer to us as "paper tigers". We don't mind you ceding to us the element of surprise. Be plenty confident... for now.


I'm going to Turkey this summer for my vacation, to Istanbul then Izmir and onto Kusadasi.

*Oh, so you were that turned on by Evrim Sultan, eh?


If I run into any filthy Armenians or Spanish
catholics - I 'll be sure to pay them my 'respects'

*There are about 50,000 Armenians left in Turkish-occupied Constantinople, mostly in the Yesilkoy section near the airport. If you wanna put your money where your mouth is you can pay them a visit. As for Spaniards, you will find none there, only Syphilardic whose ancestors were tossed out of Spain by Queen Isabela. If you wanna visit Spanish Catholics, why don't you travel to Spain? Of course, it is better for Spain to keep your pervert ass out.


Once again, thanks for the laugh!

*The joke is on you.

By the way, in case you didn't know Ukrainians HATE Russians

*When I was in Odessa I didn't sense any hostility toward Russians. In fact, all the Ukrainians I talked to felt brotherly kinship with the Russians. You read to much Western wishful propaganda. In the platoon where I first enlisted in Karabakh there were 5 Armenians, 17 Russians, 1 Ukrainian, and 1 Tatar. The Ukrainian and the Tatar seemed to have only respect and good feelings for the Russians, and they all despised the Turks. There was 1 Russian however, whose brother was making lots of dollars fighting for the Azerbaijanis.

Laser,

Good catch on the Hairy Plagiarizing thing... It was so funny. What a sad sad case she is... LOL.. I could just imagine how stupid she must of felt when she was discovered "ooooppps that wasn't supposed to happen - Duhhhhhhh! " . This is like the 10th time she's been caught plagiarizing on these boards. What a Bafoon.

The Sad part is who has the time to actually sit there and cut & paste names.

What a Hairy babooooooooooon she is. LMAO.