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.

Yes the same Paulus that Hitler promoted to Field Marshal so that he would not surrender and would die with all three hundred thousand men in place. Yes, the same Paulus that carried out Hitler's orders for Festug Stalingrad. Yes the same Paulus that started the broadcasts only after the General Staff lead by Rommel tried to kill Hitler. Not fiction but reality. Read and learn. Here read, also covers Paulus.

The U.S. aerial campaigns against North Vietnam—in particular the so-called Christmas bombing of 1972 against Hanoi and Haiphong— Want more dates and proof or are you satisfied?

Seems Indians weren't hunters and gatherers but lived in well organized settlements. Of course, while tracking food across the plains, the pleblo on their spare time built their cities and so did the Aztecs and the Mias, etc.

Most Southeastern cultures were characterized by agriculture (although not all groups practiced agriculture; some, such as the Calusa in southern Florida, were gatherers and hunters, obtaining most of their food from the ocean) and complex political and social organizations (at least at the chiefdom-level, some perhaps approaching the state-level, or organization) and large, sedentary populations (estimates run as high as 1,250,000 persons 500 years ago).

And that's just for the SE of NA....so again, stop white washing your history. I'm not some third worlder without an education. That is one reason why so many educated none Americans hate Americans. All countries are guilty, few try so hard, with the exception of Turkey, to white wash their history. At least have the guts to anti up. And as far as Germany and Japan, the US fire bombed every city in both countries with the express aim of exterminating the populations.

Hunter gatherers- stone age slash and burn farmers- whatever. There were hardly "millions" of Indians at the time of English settlement. Aztecs? Mayans? Pueblo Indians? The Pueblo Indian civilization that you speak of was dead for half of millenium before the first white man set foot in North America. The Aztec and mayan "civilizations" were primitive barbarians who happened to be able to produce enough maize on very fertile land in order to sustain a brutalized population that built their "cities". Other than some astronomical achievements there is little passed down to us from those "civilizations".

What I take offense too is the term "genocide" when it applies to the American Indians. We have a lot of leftists in this country who constantly talk about it.

Fact of the matter is this. Most Indians died from diseases they had no resistance too brought by the white man who likewise had no concept of "germs" or contagion or resistance at the time. When you hear these numbers of "millions" being killed by the white man what they usually leave out is that it was disease that killed up to 75 percent of the Indian population in both North and South America within 100 years of the first white contact. One Conquistador in particular, Pounce De Lyon- I think was is name- the one who sought "the fountain of youth" and traveled all throughout the North American South East- Florida- Georgia, Albama, Mississippi- Missouri- in the early 1500's- long before english settlement of North America started- is now believed to have inadvertantly spread small pox to such an extent that 50 percent of the Indian population of North America had been cut down by the disease a full three generations before the first Enlish colony was established in North America.

Now we can discuss various atrocities committed by both Whites and Indians against each other. And we can discuss bad Indian policy but to talk about a concerted plan to kill Indians on the part of the US government is just nonsense and a lie. In fact the Us government actively tried to prevent whites from encroaching on Indian lands - Jefferson complained about it all the time- about how the treaties he signed with Indians were meaningless because he couldn't control white settlement on Indian land!

Quite frankly I don't feel one bit bad about what happened to the Indians in this country. They lost- and should get over it. And it is racist to say the Whites should have behaved with more moral superiority to the Indian than they did to us just because we had guns and science.

So genocide ruffles your feathers? Well, I guess the personal accounts of Andrew Jackson from his leadership of the First Siminol War would make Milo look like a saint. Then there was the 5 Nations and the diseased blankets the US government gave out to destroy them...so yes, technically they died of the small pox. Then the Trail of Tears, Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee and countless others. Sooo, guess the cities of every civilization that didn't reach Renisance by your standards were all barbarians....after all, they just mostly raised crops and built cities. You try building aquedocks through the desert highlands of Peru and Chili and then you talk shiete. Considering your "civilized" society just went through the Inquisition, the Bosque Crusades, the 100 Years War, the 30 Years War (which left half of Germany unpopulated), I wonder who else was a bunch of brutilized barbarians.

Yeah, what the hell with all those Christian values and all that the US was built upon...ditch them and destroy the Red Man...he's primitive and we have guns...so screw Christ. Guess the Europeans and then eventually the Americans will just have to be ready to get over it when the Islamics take over...they'll have numbers and you won't...after all, it's moral equivalency silly.

With the express aim of exterminating their populations? I wouldn't go that far. But I think it was a immoral. And they did very little damage to German or Japanese war production as well and in fact- installed an even greater resistance in both populations to fight to the end. It is never remembered- but it was Great Britian which started terror bombing of civilian populations. Great Britain bombed Berlin first and this so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the Blitz. The effect of the Blitz in Great Britain was to harden resolve and it actually boosted morale for the war. Now why would American and British bombing over Japan and Germany not have the same effect on the population? The answer is it did. Both countries fought harder as a result as they felt such an enemy that would bomb civilians is so brutal that they must be fought at all cost. Soldiers coming home in Germany on leave to find their relatives dead were apt to fight harder and they did.

But if you want to get into atrocities- nothing beats the behaviour of the Red Army in every occupied land they conquered. The barbarity is well documented. Even allies of Russia like Tito protested to Stalin as to the behaviour of his troops!

Ah - the old lie about diseased blankets. What nonsense. Did you get that from Chomsky or the Workers World Daily? The rest are incidents. And Whites have theirs as well- Rowenoake, The Ohio slaughters, The Michagan and Wisconsin slaughters- The Pequot wars of early Massachusetts.

Christianity does not mean "walk all over me". Little Big Horn! Hey chief- we lost that one- the Indians then mutalated the bodies of the dead. Wounded Knee? A masscre? Tell me? What kind of Masscre has a 3 to one casualty count? American soldiers died at Wounded Knee fighting a crazed moron. Revisionist garbage.

The Aztecs and Mayans built stone stuctures on the backs of conquered slaves without even the benfit of the wheel for Godsakes! can you imagine the brutality that must have existed in such societies? Unreal. Name one thing either civilization gave to the world?

Oh- and it bears remembering that the Aztecs and the Incas (the Mayans were already gone) were both conquered with the help of thousands of Indians in the area who were slave nations before the Spanish arrived.

Well, gee, the Egytians built their pyramids on slave labor and Rome it's whole empire. Not to mention quite a few industries and buildings in America...but the blacks had it coming, all savages do, don't they?

Here's some sites on Wounded Knee...doesn't quite fit your view and nothing I've ever read does. Nor does it excuse the slaughter of the Buffalo to starve the Indians, Congress' Indian Resolution (slaughter whole villages basically). The excuse that the government could not control migration is a cop out, it didn't want to. To much gold and other resources it wanted to gobble up. That is why an Indian Burea still runs indian land (Let me spell that out to you: American citizens who are not and have never been allowed to own and manage their own ancestral land with corporations freely stripping it). Last estimate that if the government ever (like the US gove ever will) had to pay back that money it would be in the billions, and that was in US News/World Report...a rather conservative magazine. But you'll blow it off...after all they're still savages not to be trusted...like dem Japs we all had te round up and steal der dem good farm land frum. At least they finally won a law suit on that.

Try excusing what Andrew Jackson did...one account was of his troops cutting out uterises and using them as hats...and that written by one of the officers. I think he was bragging. Trail of Tears? Please, most of the exterminations were begun by settlers moving into land that was never their's. Why is it that Russia was able to colonize a lot more land without exterminating the native populations? This to include the Indians in Alaska, Oragan, Washington and N. California...the majority of Alaskan Indians are still Orthodox Christians and many speak Russian.

I'm sure you'll write it off, it doesn't fit into your white washed version of history.

site 1
Site 2, this one has some eye witnesses from the US Army...seems they disagree with you too...I'm shocked I tell you
Site 3

Should I post more? So far you've struck out on all points on Indians, from their civilizations to their numbers...you try to back track and white wash what you've said but the post stands as proof. Believe what you want, reality is still reality.

First of all, Britian bombed Berlin 6 times before an adequet response. It was not to harden moral but to take the pressure off of the RAF which was being slowly exterminated by superior numbers and production. When the US entered the war it picked right up. They started with walled cities, it was easier to control the fire that way and get the formula of bombs just right. The formula ran something like this: First came the hard bombs to break up the buildings. Then after enough damage was done, came the waves of phosperous bombs to create fires that could not be put out by water. Following this came a mixture of anti personnel bombs to destroy rescue crews and civilians running for cover.

This bombing continued for days until the flames reached heights of a mile or more and hurricane strength winds snapped trees of 1 meter diameter at city edges. All were killed, either axphixiated or combusted in their bunkers and cellers. Accounts range of civilians trapped in burning asphalt. Extermination was the goal because hardened industry was not targetted by the West, it was targetted by the East, by Russia. Talk to some old Germans, I did, I spoke extensively with many witnesses. I wrote a term paper on the subject. By book references, incidently, were mostly American and British writers.

I don't know what sources you read about "Wounded Knee". But it was not a Massacre. As for Eygpt- no one has believed that the pyramids were built by slaves for 50 years now. They were masive public works projects during the non growing seasons and the workers were paid. The graveyards have been exhumed and they are not the graves of slaves. Competition among worker gangs existed and this is evident in ancient graffitti. Ancient Eygpt didn't have the technology to control the number of slaves it would have required to build such stuctures.

As for your assertions about Russians hitting hard targets and Americans and British just wantonly killing civilians - don't make me laugh. Don't get me wrong- Americans and British did target civilians in bombing. But once again lets go to the record. Where did Germans civilians flee once East Prussia and then other parts of Germany were invaded by the Russians? To the West and by the millions. I have read many accounts of Wermacht behavior in Russia and it runs the gamut from the obscene to the compassionate. But the behavior of Russian troops in Germany and even Poland was just murderous and disgusting. I just finished "The Fall of Berlin: 1945" by Beevor. You should read it.

Stavka2,

I've been reading through this thread, and it's just getting way too deep for my pea-brain. I don't know enough European history to follow the arguments, but I have just one thing to add... Last Sep 11, when our country was dealt a devastating blow, we got a glimpse of who are friends really are. In life, that's how it happens... Who is there when you are down? The Brits were there... The Japanese were there... The Russians were there... Western Europe seemed mostly there, but there were plenty in those countries engaging in moral equivalency.

But when I saw the cheering and dancing in the "muslim street" across the entire muslim world on CNN, that's when I and the rest of America received a big education on who is our friend, and who is our enemy. I'll never forget the muslims giddy celebration of usama's terrorism. And I'll never forget the deafening silence of the American muslim population. (And I remember the laughing reaction of the Chinese press corps when they were watching the airplanes collide into the trade centers.)

The people in the muslim countries hate us. Therefore, they are the enemy. Apparently, they are now Russia/US's common enemy. Why did Bush do a quick turnaround on Russia/Chechnya? Perhaps he saw it the same way I did. Sep 11 had a profound and lasting effect on my view of the world.

Russian soldiers slapping around the terrorist sympathizers in Chechnya? It doesn't even show up on my radar scope of important things to worry about in this world.

Technology to control slaves? What BS is this crap? You are a revisionist of the first order...first I guess by no one, you must mean no Christians, including quite a few archeologists...hell switch on some education channels like Discovery or History Channel....seems they still subscribe to the idea of the Hebrew slaves...and then there's that whole Bible thing. Neborkanizer took the whole city of Jerusalem as slave and moved it, the Assyrians took the 10 tribes and numerous other peoples as slaves, whole handedly...but why would you believe that, it doesn't fit your mold...by the way, the Jews never built all of the pyromids...there was the whole Exodus thing...maybe you've read about it?

As for the Germans, first, destruction of civilian housing targets was not some fantasy but reality, however undeniable fact. Please have some integrity and go talk to some Germans old enough to remember...as for running to the West, they took the lesser of two evils and considering the genocide they committed in the murder of 12 million Russian civilians, the Soviet army only killed a small fraction of that...that's why there were still Germans around in Poland, Czeck and Yugoslavia for them to oust the following year. Ooops, there goes history. That is why my uncle a Russian Armor Colonel summery executed one of his officer for the rape of a german female. Damn those problamatic facts.

As for Wounded Knee, I sent you the sites...did you bother to read them or just write them off?

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