NO

Greetings to All,
Most civilized exchange of ideas. I congratulate all of you.
Good Luck.

[Andrey_V_Saiko]

Hi Dr.W.

First of all I'll accept Iraq, Libya, N. Korea to be Russian alias only because they are Russian alias already (by international treaties from 1950-1970). Then I'll accept them because such countries as UK (& NATO)try to isolate these countries. This fact do lots of harm to their economics & life level of the people.
Taiwan is not independent country & Tibet, as I know never was independent too. From my knowing of history may be it was conquered from India, bur it was 1500 years ago.
I'm not fear the critics about Chechnya because Russia have NUCLEAR WHEAPONS. But your critics of Serbia in 1998-march99 because of Kosovo was only the first part: the second part was BOMBARDING .
The worst UNHUMAN right are the right to kill 7500 of Serbs during your strike because of idea to "protect Albanians". Today 1mln of native Kosovo Serbs must leave their homes.

Sucharto never was a communist.
We can't compare China & Taiwan with NATO & Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is independent country that was attacked, Taiwan was never attacked.

ABC


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[Dr_Woland]

Hi Alexiy

You're making one mistake - you assume that because I am British, I supported the NATO attacks on Serbia??

This is not the case. I always said these attacks were WRONG. Wrong in law - there was no mandate to make the attacks. Wrong in strategy - they did not achieve the results claimed for them. Wrong in motivation - they did not address the plight of Kosovan Albanians at all, but instead provided an excuse to bomb Belgrade. And wrong in planning and execution - as we saw in the countless mistakes which were made, the bombing of civilians, the bombing of Albanians, the bombing of Montenegro (how stupid can you get, to bomb a friendly country? stupid yankees) and most notoriously, the bombing of the Chinese Consulate building.

About Sukharto, you miss my point. I said I'm opposed to torture and the suppression of human rights, no matter WHO does it. I included Sukharto *because* he was not a communist, but instead a right-wing dictator supported by America and Britain. He did the same things which Communist China does now, and both of them are wrong. Political labels are not an excuse for torture and killing of innocent people who happen to have a different way of thinking to the Govt, or a different religion, or different ethnicity.

Your statistics are wrong about Kosovo - the whole population of Kosova is less than 1m, so it cannot be that more than 1m must relocate?

You wrote about making allies - here I am supporting the Russian position, but you want to reject that support?

Dr W.

Greetings to All,
Correct me if I am wrong, please. Just prior to NATO attacking Serbia, there was a Mutual
Co-operation Treaty signed between Serbia,
Russia and Byelorussia. This was to include
the development of combined military forces and economic and cultural co-operation. BAM,
the bombing wipes out the military forces of
one of the treaty members. Do you think that this might have been a message. I was just thinking.
Good Luck

[Dr_Woland]

Good evening, Mr U.!

>> Do you think that this might have been a message? <<

I admire your subtlety :-)

It's a very good point. If they DID want to give a message to that trio, they picked the weakest one, without a nuclear capability, and told them to tell their friends.

However, I'd say that of the three, Belarus - especially at that time - was the most avowedly anti-American. He gets little publicity, but President Lukashenka has not exactly been on great terms with the USA - especially since he turned-off the electricity and water to the American Ambassador's house, then changed the locks and locked-him out whilst the Ambassador was away for the day. I agree, it's more the action of a spoiled child than a statesman, and although no safety threat was posed, it was a deliberate insult.

Do you think Kremlin support for Belgrade has cooled under Putin?

Dr W.

[cepguu]

Dear Dr. Woland:

I better concede right away that what I have to say in the following paragraphs will not be flattering towards you. But I will try my utmost to be a gentleman with you, in the same way that I trust you would also be a gentleman with me.

Your unmitigated and seemingly obsessive hostility towards China prompted, first of all, not quite so much an urge to debate with you about politics and ideologies and offended national feelings and so forth, but a genuine sense of perplexity about the true psychological state beneath the individual who propounded all those pronouncements. For example, I cannot help noticing your eager presence on just about every one of the topics posted in the Russia.com discussion columns. Your commentaries poped up on a daily, nay, at times even hourly, basis. Have you an authoritative answer on every subject about Russia? And have you nothing else to engage your attention and energies, Herr Doctor?

You say you are an Englishman, fashionably residing in the wild and happening Moscow.
How is it that you never have anything to say about your own nation and people? Would it be that you derive your own sense of rootedness and relevance or, more accurately, a feeling of superiority, only by mixing with and lecturing to another people who have recently emerged from a historical tragedy and are painfully trying to find their own new paths?

Why are your tones and verbocity so familiar to me? Twenty years ago, when I was an university student in Beijing, before I emmigrated to the U.S., and when the human rights of Chinese people then were in far, far, far worse shape than it is now, I remembered us having some American teachers. They were hippies, lefties, worshipers of Mao, and they tried to tell us that our lives under Mao were HAPPY, and Chinese Socialism was cool. Twenty years later, I was more than a little startled to observe that a few of those very same people are now passionate worshippers of Dalai Lama and the holy independence cause of Tibet, passionate condemners of China, which they NOW regard to be worse than Hitler's Germany.

It took me a very long time to comprehend this strange phenomenon, but I think I finally got some clues, -- after understanding what numerous number of utterly lonely, self-delusional, psychologically infantile, emotionally drifting, sad but annoyingly egotistical individuals the modern western culture tend to give births to.

To dear Mr. Ungaro and Mr. Saiko, my best regards. About China and strategic alliances and so forth, my opinion is this. even though western culture has certain proplems, and even though the U.S.A. can be imperialistic at times, I don't think China or Russia had any other way to go than strive to build stable and civilised societies based on democratic principles.
Both Chinese and Russian people are struggling, socially, economically, and psychologically, through this very difficult process, after living through a long and dark chapter that only those who have lived through it can understand its full diabolical nature. Russian people chose one path, they enjoy more political freedom but maybe paid some economic price. Chinese people put their bellies first by accepting a continuing dictatorship under the increasingly ludicrous guise of communism.
Chinese regime today is not pretty. It is utterly corrupt and at times still brutal, although, in all honesty, even an illiterate Chinese prisoner may look incredulous on a suggestion that the current regime is to be equated with the barbaric scenes under Mao.

I think it is inevitable that occasionally China and Russia will find themselves walking on the same side during this process. And I think many reasonable Americans will agree that a moderate reduction of American patronizing and imperialistic urges will be healthier for the preservation of other, older cultural traditions in the world, and for the fostering of smoother progress towards democracy, including in countries such as China and Russia.

My apologies to Dr Woland for being disrespectful, but I fancy that one would earn more respect from others, as an English gentleman would know only too well, by displaying some restraint, some modesty, by not bragging oneself too much.

I myself have also written some long statements here, but I trust that they do not add up to yours in either lengths or frequency. I am also an immigrant, like you, and I care about and love Russia. I do not much care for communism, but I admit that you have offended my feelings associated with my old motherland. Whatever you may have to say to me in return, I whole-heartedly welcome.

[Andrey_V_Saiko]

Hi Dr_Woland!!!

First of all I'm Andrey, it's not the same with the name of Alexei.

Then I must thank you for your understanding of the current situation . I never rejected your help & support. I know that lots of educated Englishmen, Europeans & Americans never supported their governments during the last wars.

The population of Kosovo was nearly 2 mln of people 1.250 thousands of Albanians & 750 of Serbs. History information: 60 years ago Albanians had only 20% of population in Kosovo, Serbs - 75%. Then began the genocide of Serbs by German fascists, then after 1945 by Tito who was half Croatian-half Slovenian (he hates Serbs), then Tito began to relocate Serbs from their native Kosovo to other parts of Yugoslavia.


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