".....I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or ther vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made
I shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace--or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons---rid of my provincial squeamishness forever....."
.....Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.....
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -----The United States has designated three Chechen rebel groups "terrorist organizations," a step Moscow has been pressing Washington to take for more than a year.
U.S. officials said the three Chechen groups took part in the mass hostage-taking at the Dubrovka theater in Moscow last October, when 129 people were killed, mostly by gas injected by the Russian forces who ended the siege.
The officials said Russia had been pressing for the United States to designate Chechen groups as "terrorist organizations" but denied the timing was linked to U.S. attempts to win Russian support for its plans to invade Iraq.
They also alleged extensive contacts and mutual support between the Chechen groups, the deposed Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and bin Laden's al Qaeda organization in the 1990s.
They are the first Chechen groups added to the list, illustrating the harder line Washington has started to take against the Chechen movement.
But the officials said that the crackdown did not mean the United States considered all Chechen fighters as "terrorists" or that it was changing its support for a political solution in the mainly Muslim territory. ...The level of U.S. interest in Chechen events has fluctuated according to the state of relations with Moscow. ...