Bush and Putin unite against a common 'foe'

GENEVA -- If you can't beat them, join them. Russia has wisely decided to accept junior membership in NATO and link itself to Europe at last week's Rome summit rather than challenge the overwhelming might of the United States and its allies.

As former president Lyndon Johnson pithily noted, it's better to have someone inside your house spitting out, than someone outside spitting in. The George Bush administration has followed this sensible dictum and is to be congratulated for steering Russia into Europe's arms. The alternative would be a sullen, isolated, dangerous Russia.

So far, so good. But a cloud hung over the heavily guarded Rome meeting. The new U.S.-Russian entente may be more a temporary liaison of convenience driven by sharing a mutual enemy - Islamic militancy (known as "terrorism" to its enemies) - rather than common goals or ideals. As the Arabs say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

In 1999, George Bush denounced Russia for its savagery in Muslim Chechnya thus: "When the Russian government attacks civilians, killing women and children ... it can no longer expect aid. The Russian government will discover it cannot build a stable and unified nation on the ruins of human rights." Now, in May, 2002, Bush lauds Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, as a friend and ally in the war against terrorism, man of peace and respecter of human rights. The same Putin whose forces invaded independent Chechnya, razed its cities, killed over 70,000 civilians and continue to destroy it. This week, Amnesty International again accused Russia of ongoing torture and human rights violations in Chechnya.

Just as Chechens fighting 300 years of brutal Russian occupation are now branded "Islamic terrorists" by the Bush administration, so, too, are Muslim Kashmiris struggling against Indian rule. As India and Pakistan teeter on the verge of war, the White House, whose ham-handed diplomacy helped ignite this latest Kashmir crisis, has swallowed India's claim that militants fighting its occupation of Kashmir are "Islamic terrorists."

Any armed resistance by Muslims to oppression or denial of their basic rights is now deemed "terrorism" by Washington, which has conveniently forgotten America's creation of Cuban rebels, Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas, and Afghan mujahedin. India accuses Pakistan of terrorism while forgetting its support for Bangladeshi insurgents, Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, and the dispatching of saboteurs to Pakistan.

As a result of 9/11, Chechen and Kashmir independence fighters have now joined Palestinians in a triumverate of evil. According to the new Bush interpretation, any Muslims who resist the status quo, no matter how unjust, may be terrorists - especially if they use their own bodies or bombs as weapons.

Political militants who blow up buildings and airliners, or slaughter civilians, are terrorists. Unfortunately, revolutionary warfare always involves a certain degree of terrorism. Let's recall Jews who waged a campaign of terrorism against the British in Palestine; India's bloody suppression of Sikh separatists; the Irish uprising against British rule, and so on.

There is no clear line between "clean" legitimate resistance and terrorism. Terrorism remains the weapon of the poor, the unarmed, the oppressed. If Muslim militants had tanks and helicopter gunships like the Russians, Indians and Israelis, they would use them instead of suicide attacks. But they do not. How is an oppressed people without arms to resist?

Pakistan has armed and supported many of the Kashmiri mujahedin operating against India. But India is a major violator of human rights in the Kashmir Valley, as Amnesty International also reported last week.

In 1948, the UN mandated that India and Pakistan hold plebiscites in their portions of divided Kashmir to determine the wishes of the population, 80% of whom were Muslims. India has persistently refused to hold the vote and instead annexed its portion of Kashmir, insisting the disputed state is purely an internal matter. India's claims that the latest uprising in Kashmir is entirely due to Pakistani machinations are as false as Pakistan's claims it gives nothing but "moral support" to Kashmiri militants.

In fact, the Kashmir uprising spontaneously ignited in 1989 and caught Pakistan as much by surprise as India. But India, like Israel and Russia, has jumped on George Bush's anti-terrorism bandwagon in order to crush enemies who are fighting as much for land and freedom as they are for Islam. Trying to demonize and dismiss the legitimate grievances of Palestinians, Muslim Kashmiris and Chechen by branding them terrorists is immoral and will ensure that even more terrorist acts become the norm.

To the Muslim world, America has now joined Russia as its main oppressor. As the Israeli thinker Uri Avnery observed, the U.S. is now acting like the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1830s by ruthlessly enforcing an unjust, repressive and politically reactionary status quo.

Three decades ago, America was regarded as a friend and saviour by the Muslim world. In the 1990s, the United States saved the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo from genocide - a noble act insufficiently recognized by the world's Muslims. Today, after 9/11, America is now seen as the leading enemy and oppressor of Muslims, a fact underlined by the new U.S.-Russian entente. Such is the continuing tragic fallout from 9/11.

With the German 6th Army in control of 90 percent of Stalingrad, Chuikov's army struggled to maintain its precarious foothold. Their backs now to the Volga, the Russians contested the very sewers of the city. Prolonged street fighting and the utter destruction of Stalingrad had reduced men to a primitive level of existence. The Germans had a name for this - Rattenkrieg - War of the Rats. A German infantryman wrote to his family, "Animals flee this burning hell of a city...the hardest stones do not last for long. Only men endure."

Chuikov sought to minimize the German advantage in firepower by instructing his men to close with the enemy and seek hand to hand combat at every opportunity. The Wehrmacht would then be unable to call in airstrikes or artillery without hitting their own men. The Blitzkrieg tactics which had enabled them to conquer much of Europe were useless, and the battle for the city was now reduced to hundreds of small unit actions.

This is the same tactic that the Vietcong used on the American troops...sneak up to 50 meters or so and then start the attack...danger close for artillery.

Lt. Vasily Zaitsev was the leading figure among the Soviet snipers who prowled the ruins of Stalingrad, spreading fear among the Germans. A skilled hunter who had learned stealth and marksmanship hunting deer near his home in the Ural mountains, Zaitsev was trumpeted as a hero by the Soviet press. From hundreds of yards away, he would lie in wait for the inevitable moment when a German soldier would get careless. Only then would he dispatch another enemy with a single shot.

I was mistaken earlier, Zaitsev was a LT not a Maj. But none the less, he was already a legend before Stalingrad and killed some 140 germans in Stalingrad. The movie was a crock of shiete.

On starvation rations, hounded by thirst, and partly numbed by Vodka, Chuikov's soldiers fought on in conditions of human misery and filth unmatched even by the trenches of the First World War. Chuikov also faced another threat to his army. With the Russian winter looming ahead, he faced problems of re-supply which could be insurmountable. Once the Volga was frozen over and able to bear heavy traffic, his logistical problems would be simplified. But for nearly three weeks, starting in the middle of November, drifting ice floes would make the river impassable for boat traffic. He stockpiled ammunition, husbanded his reserves, and warehoused 12 tons of chocolate bars for the coming crisis. In the weeks ahead, one half of one chocolate bar would be the daily ration for a Russian soldier fighting in Stalingrad. Chuikov complained that such measures were "cruel economies" to be imposed upon his army.

Exactley- all your points listed back up my argument. Negotiate a peace that allows chechnya her "independence" and then ensure that a friendly government is in place. Surround it with troops and a perimeter and contain the problem. Occupying chechnya will just bring russia years of grief and a lot of dead Russians. Better to make them a satellite state dependent and subserviant to Russia with de Jure "independence" only.

This is tiresome. Hundreds of German Reports document Russians being mowed down without weapons in forced rushes under chuikovs command in particular (he was a brutal corse man who beat his officers physically). Not only the reports that have survived but eyewitness testimoney of Russians who were there. I can't believe I am even debating this. Fact is fact. You don't lose a million men in one battle because you cared about your men. The Fact of the matter is that the sliver of land held by the 62nd was hled only for political reasons- not tactical or strategic. It was held becasue Stalin said it had to be- and hundreds of thousands died as a result of this insane order. Such total lack of consideration for the lives of the average Russian soldier ware held by the Red army command right up to the assault on Berlin- in which 80'000 Russians died and 300'000 more were wounded against very thin German and poorly armed forces. It was done for, again, political reasons- to beat the Americans and British. One the American side- at the same time - we were more than happy to cede the taking of Berlin to Russia becasue we feared casualties for our troops.

Sure, why doesn't America do that with Afghanistan...and when the Mexicans finally rebel in the SE, I'm sure you'll be out in the streets handing out flowers to the soldiers not to shoot the poor Mexicans and such and let them have their land. About 20 years back, some American indians barricaded their reservations and attempted the same thing, Appaches....seems the hordes of FBI agents that swept in thought otherwise.

But please, inform me how you keep a "friendly" non terrorist government in place. And besides, if walls don't work for small Isreal, what is to keep the Chechins from either breeching them or going through Georgia around them. Finally, try building a wall through the bad lands of S. Dekota, that's what Daghistan is like. And while you are doing that, what do you do when the Chechins keep coming over and exterminating whole villages? Hmmm....any more bright ideas? Maybe America should just build a wall all around it's borders and hope the bad people just go away. REALITY: there is only one measure to deal with Islamic extremism...it's dirty, dusty, and it stinks...it's called war, but it's the only thing that has, is and will work.

Problem is, the Georgians are providing safe haven for them. The US mission here to train them to fight the Chechins and Arabs in Pankisi is going nowhere. The Georgians were never very good soldiers and the leadership just wants to milk the US udder and do nothing else. Every day the schumks blame Russia for everything while their country falls appart below them. The only things that work are those connected to the ruling juantra. The people dispise the leadership, yet do nothing about it. Georgia is trully bizzaro world....rediculous the extreme.

Mean while the Islamics and Al Quids sit around and regroup and come back across the border.....while the Georgian border guards are video taped taking bribes. Shevi mean while blames Russia that the Chechins arrived in Georgia (ignoring the fact that they have always been the majority in Pankisi...a total shit hole place).

Is America ready for the dirty war to come with Mexicans? I don't think so. Several years ago Mexican Americans- who were citizens of the USA protested in the streets waving Mexican flags- not American- against a tighter immigration law. Radical Mexican students consider the entire Southwest to be part of Mexico (even though there was almost no settlement or development of these lands other than Catholic missionaires before the Americans came.) When you have a government that allows generations of Mexicans in this country to live without even speaking English and encourages their non existent grievences in even our own schools then you have a powder keg for violence. It will come.

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