Posted on 06/17/2002 3:57:51 PM PDT by zapiks44
Bush and Putin unite against a common 'foe'
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_home.html
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
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."
Short memory
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.
Legitimate grievances
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.
As for the Chechnya arguement, once more, as usual, you ignore the subject of the people giving comfort to the terrorists. Just like they do in Palistine. I bet you think those people celebrating in the streets in Ramahala after a homocider zipper head takes out school children, are just miss understood and really aren't supporting murder. Well, same in Russia.
But I degress...you of the obviously higher intellegence and experience in all such things, please educate this dumb soldier on how exactly one is to react in the following scenario:
You and your buddies are on patrol. You pass a village of farmers, most working in the field. All looks peaceful enough. You walk on by and continue the patrol. Suddenly there is a shot from behind you and you feel the wet ooze of your team mates brains sliding down the side of your face. You know the shot came from the village. You quickly return, find an empty cartragde in the field but no weapon and no shooter and all the locals claim to have seen nothing and know nothing....but you know the moment you turn around and walk away, you're going to get shot at again. So what do you do hot shot? Oh, but I bet you don't have to worry about such things in comfy urbantopia....well some of us do. And because of brutish people like myself, people like you are able to enjoy what you enjoy while down grading what we do or simply insulting it straight out. To bad the Jihaders didn't get a chance to bring down Big Ben like they were planning....the EU needs a wake up call.
Then why are you so ready to pour scorn on someone who is "still at college"? I was not insulting your intelligence by making that comment. You are obviously a very intelligent man. Its just that military types tend to scorn anyone who is in University because they immediately think of hippies and peaceniks. I say that from bitter personal experience.
So, Russia is not the next to worst and South Africa is not the worst. Besides, every educated person (on the subject) knows that Columbia has the highest murder rate and that Jamaica is close behind.
The source I checked recently had South Africa down as the worst and Russia second. Although, it may not have been the most up to date data available.
Oh, but I bet you don't have to worry about such things in comfy urbantopia....well some of us do. And because of brutish people like myself, people like you are able to enjoy what you enjoy while down grading what we do or simply insulting it straight out.
As I said to you before my uncle and father were soldiers in the British army and my uncle served in Cyprus during the troubles. His best friend was shot dead there actually. Also they had friends who served in Northern Ireland and had to run the gauntlet of the IRA. I am well aware of the dangers that armies run fighting terrorists and guerillas. I simply maintain that when you use torture, false imprisonment etc against civilians to catch the terrorists, you risk encouraging sympathy for the terrorists.
No, I think they are their own worst enemies, who are prepared to send off family members to die needlessly and incur the legitimate wrath or the Isrealis. They have been hard done by in the past, but by resorting to a suicide bombing campaign they are doing nothing but damage to themselves.
You don't seem to be able to admit that many civilians in Chechnya are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They are being victimised by the Islamic fundamentalist rebels and also by the Russian army.
As for torture. It is a tool. Some times it is counter productive, some times it is the most important thing there is...just a matter of applying it properly. You see, when it comes to straight out wars, I believe in making them as brutal as possible...that way, you break your opponents will to fight. The key is figuring out at what level casualties are no longer tolerable by the enemy and his will to fight starts to fade. You don't want to over do it, especially if you are planning on annexing the territory...but you don't want to under do it either, because then you show either weakness and a lack of resolve to do what is needed...there fore the enemy continues in the hopes of victory or you kill a tolerable amount and the enemy continues to fight.
Examples of these are easy to find. Sherman's march through the South was so shocking and brutal it finally fractured society and South which had continously fielded armies in the field...as long as they didn't have to worry about home, collapsed.
WW1, especially on the W. Front was not brutal enough...regardless of the casualties...why? Because the armies continued to fight and the societies continued to sacrifice. Verdun was brutal enough, to the point that the French army mutanied...that was a breaking point.
The Germans used to much torture in Russia where the public hailed them at first as liberators....big mistake, and not enough in Serbia and Greece, where the population could absorb the deaths and continue to resist.
As cold blooded as this seems, it is a fine science, a balancing act, that is actually quite humane...why? Because if you get it wrong, you extend the conflict and actually cause much more suffering. You must strike so hard and brutalize the enemy physically and psychologically to such a degree that he looses the will to fight.
A final example is the Israelies...during the various wars, the Jews hit the Muslims with such force that the prick Islamics lost the will to fight...felt that Allah had abandoned them. It took them often several years to get the gonads and back bone up to start something again, and often by the next generation. Now, the Isrealies make these little gestures in the face of terrorism and the Islamics interpret this as a sign that they are winning and are effective. You must break their will. Example: target the terrorist's families. They want to celebrate in the streets? Well, see if they are still happy to encourage their kids to become bombs when a 240 kg bomb just dropped on their house and killed half of them....the rest will think twice, believe me. It worked just as well on Quidaffi...he's desperately trying to pull Libya out of the terrorism racket (and doing a good job) and has ever since Reagan bombed him and took out a large chunk of his immediate family.
Again, I, as an Orthodox Christian, do not rejoice in the slaughter of humanity, but as a professional soldier and studier of history, I quite well understand what must be done and am willing to do it.
WW1, especially on the W. Front was not brutal enough...regardless of the casualties...why? Because the armies continued to fight and the societies continued to sacrifice. Verdun was brutal enough, to the point that the French army mutanied...that was a breaking point.
Yes, usually if a war is extremely bloody, people will look for a political settlement. However, your analysis fails to take into account the different values that are put on the lives of different groups of people. The British forces on the Western front of WWI is a good example of this phenomenon. The West Yorkshire regiment had working class men who had volunteered together from whole towns in its ranks. They and regiments like them saw some of the heaviest fighting.
The people who were profiting off the war (the arms manufacturers) and those who directed it (Field Marshal Haig etc) were aristocrats. The point is that the people suffering were working class and were perceived as "expendable" and those making the decisions and profiting from the war saw themselves as better than them and so had no sympathy for them.
Britain would never have pulled out of WW I no matter how large the losses got. Why? Because the aristocrats who directed the British Empire couldn't care less about the people doing the actual fighting and they were obessessed by the reputation of the Empire. If they had run out of young working class men then they would have sourced more men from the Empire to fill the gaps.
Russia was just as bad during WW I. Sadly this attitude seems to persist in Russia. I mean if the 5,000+ conscripts dying each year in your armed forces were from affluent families, or if they were women, then don't you think the Russian government would be bending over backwards to help them?
Do you remember the Russian woman I told you about who was glad that conscription didn't apply to her, but thought it was good that men are military trained? Well, she's back, she told me that her family were scraping together money to get one of their sons out of the draft. But when I asked her if she wanted conscription to end, she told me no, because it was good for the country.
The point here is some people just look after their own and couldn't care less about the plight of strangers. I have rarely come across this sort of hypocrisy among Britons, but two Russians out of three have shown it to me so far. I also read about a Russian mother who told a human rights researcher that conscription would 'make a man' out of her 18 year old son. I wonder how she will feel if he comes home in a zinc coffin, probably she will just be proud of her sacrifice.
This attitude is similar to that of the Palestinian mothers who are happy for their sons to die killing Israelis. Many "civilized" societies also seem to put a low value on the lives of their sons. Thus wars which mainly kill young men, no matter how brutally, or efficiently, are usually tolerated. However, when they target civilians and so kill people from more precious social groups: women, the affluent, middle-aged men, the elderly, etc then the war becomes far more politically dangerous to continue.
If the world was to end tomorrow I can imagine some newspaper producing a headline like: "World ends tomorrow, experts say: women and children hardest hit" Why do I say that? Because I've often heard politically correct politicians, pundits and psychologists in Britain, say things like women and children suffer most in war blah blah blah. When actually their group is the most protected from the brutal realities of war. You, of all people, should know it doesn't go without saying that every soldier has a girlfriend, or a wife waiting for him at home.
Yes, but it didn't do them much good did it? Because the mutineers got executed and the British senior military figures had no sympathy for their own men, actually they labelled them 'bolshies'.
You claim to worry about the people but give them absolutely no credit. Revolt is something that happens quite often in those types of societies.
Sir, my ancestors fought in that war, so of course I "worry about the people". You should try doing it too, before you jump to defend the military/industrial complex. WW I was the most pointless conflict in history and one of the most bloody. Arms dealers were the main beneficiaries and the British ruling classes were seriously involved in the arms trade.
Haven't you never heard of the British 'stiff-upper lip'? Deference to the King or Queen was a common attitude in Britain prior to 1960. The suffering of the lower classes was always ignored by the monarchy and the government. But you probably know more about British society than I do. Hell, I am English and I can trace my family here in England back to the 1600s.
That is why only veterans and contract soldiers and not conscripts were sent into Chechnya in '99 during the first, most bloody phase. That is also why artillery was given precidence...
I was not talking specifically about the second Chechen war. Although, the reason they did those things was because of the large number of conscripts who died during the 1994-96 war. Also now you come to mention it the Russian army is sending inexperienced and untrained conscripts straight to Chechnya, because according to Putin there is no war there anymore. Besides life in the Russian army is dangerous enough for conscripts even when there isn't a war going on.
You draw your conclusions about society from a few people and make generalizations.
Not only from people I've met, but also from literature, the media and politicians. Society is basically selfish, it doesn't value the individual at all. The only time it protects individuals is when it needs to make a moral stand for propaganda purposes. Russian society is a perfect example of this.
I'd rank you below the French I've known personally, and definitly below the Germans....should that stand from my limited contact with British?
When did I say that Britain was a compassionate society? Its better than many countries, but its certainly not perfect. Although, I am certainly glad that I am English and not Russian, thank you very much.
Stalin killed 5 million Ukranians in two years in 32-33 in the terror famine. Add another 3 million in Russia itself and Kazakistan for that same year in his war against the Kulaks. He executed outright about 1 million in the purge of 37-39 and another 3 million died in camps.
As for the battle deaths suffered by the Red Army- Stalin cannot escape blame. He sent his own men at gunpoint into battle underequipped and with insane orders of no retreat in the face of overwhleming fire power.
And as for taking on the remnants of the German Army after Hitler had killed himself to defeat Stalin I say why not? Would Russia have been better off if America had conquered her and tried all those responsible for the Gulag to the same sort of Justice as those who committed the Holocaust? I think Russia would be stronger today that Japan, germany, and France, combined economically if that had been the case. As it is now- China is richer than Russia! China!
I have also read that the russian Military is plauged by rampant extreme hazing that includes ritualistic rape and even murder and that there is no Non Commissioned officer corp- just "first" privates. Is any of this true?
Oh, I don't think so, Mr. Margolis. They get bankrolled quite hansomely by Saudi Arabia and others. Getting $25,000 for turning your kid into a bomb ain't exactly poor.
That is why Patten was relieved of his command, everyone was afraid that he would start a war. Not to mention that the Russian supply lines were a third the length of the US. All such stupidity would have accomplished was to give Stalin the rest of Europe...not a bright idea.
As for war dead, yes I guess you could say that those deliberatly bombed to death (like 40,000 civilians on the first day that the Luftwaffe bombed Stalingrad or the 20,000 killed later in the week at the docks as the civilians were evacuated, by straffing Stukas) were only war dead...after all, they weren't gassed out right, just bombed. Fact is, Hitler killed 12 million civilians, many straight out shot in Russia. 1 million civilians in both Yugoslavia and Greece to boot. They killed tens of thousands of Italians too, once Italy switched sides. But that's all just history...just like the 6 million Poles killed by the Nazies (and I'm not talking about the Jews either).
As for the Kulaks, it was 5 million in Russia, 3 million in Ukraine and 2 million in Belaruss. My father's family were Kulaks.
At the end of the war Russia was exhausted. She had lost 20 million people and large swaths of her country were in ruins. Let's not forget that the powerful Russian military was still fighting pitched battles with tank and aircraft in the Ukraine against Ukranian rebels until 1949! America could have easily wiped out Russia. You forget that the King Sherman was introduced February of 1945 and it was an equal to the King Tiger and was under mass production. Without American supply of food, trucks, jeeps, spare parts, clothes, - how long would Russia have lasted against an American, British, and Free German assault? What kind of "partisan" activity would there have been in Russia under benevelont American occupation? An occupation that broke up the collectives and restored land ownership and private farming? Even under German occupation a million Russians either served as Hiwis auxillaries in the Wermacht or in Vlasovs free Russian army! Do you have idea as to the amount of supply the American Amry possessed at the end of WWII?
And Russia suffered a famine in 46 as well! And I won't even mention the A-Bomb factor.
And as for Truman allowing the Russians to take even a scrap of Japanese territory is just outrageous and a betrayal of all those who died fighting Japan while Russia had a treaty with her all throughout the War! And then in her death throws the Russians invade in the last month of the War! What a disgusting display of Weakness on our part.
America spent 15 percent of our wartime effort fighting Japan. That war would have been over in one year if we put our full effort behind it and didn't have Hitler to fight and a Soviet Union to supply!
As for Germany coming after the US? Are you nuts? Or have you been watching those stupid propaganda films from the war years that show the Axis taking the East Coast and the Japs taking the West? Such foolery! Even when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor they had no intention of invading the United States! They hoped we would sue for Peace after they dug into their East Asian Holdings! And Germany invading America? That is insane as well! Just where would they land? Hitler never even contemplated that or any of his Generals. Please- stop it. America was never threatened by Germany. And we could have beat the crap out of Japan in a year and been home in time for Christmas.
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