At 14:32 15/10/99 PDT, you wrote:
>
>
>>Trouble with this theory is that, back during Yeltsin's first war against
>>Chechnya, Clinton's U.S. backed Russia all the way. The imperialists
>>know their comrades-in-blood when they see them in action.
>>
>>Walter Daum
>>
>>
>
>Well, it is never difficult to mouthe support for one and give it to another
>in weapons. It happened throughout the Iran-Iraq conflict. At any rate, the
>strategy of out and out Balkanisation was not drawn up over night. It has
>been proceeding slowly over the last eight years. The imperialists are not
>tightly oiled. They move from fault to bump to fault, slowly piecing
>together a strategy. The strategic thinking of theirs is "praxis" in the
>real sense of the word.
>
>Macdonald
I really do not think imperialism can effectively be criticised by proving
that they are always wrong or hypocritical, even if this is usually the
case. There are contradictions within imperialism. Capitalism and
imperialism are not hegemonic as a result of following a single
conspiratorial policy.
The latest twists about Russia seem to be
a) the US investigators are seriously onto the case of the way IMF funds
were salted away our of Russian back to New York by the oligarchs, with
evidence linked directly back to Yeltsin, his daughter and son-in-law. The
State Prosecutor has been forbidden to come into his office in Moscow.
Advisers around Primakov are gathering the data, and it is reasonable to
believe that ironically they may have received a nod and a wink from US
operatives. It could well be that the US is finding Yeltsin so unstable
that they might rather do business with a left of centre regime headed by
Primakov.
b) in Chechnya it is clear that Russia has asserted that it is its zone of
influence. It is almost consciously copying the war tactics of Nato towards
Serbia. It has loftily refused a kind offer from the European Union to
mediate.
The response of the west has been to find some clause by which to monitor
IMF funds to Russia, that there has to be an upper figure to the level of
armaments, and lo and behold Russia has gone above it in Chechnya!
This is a far more prudent policy than threatening Russia with military
confrontation if it does not stop its march on Grozny, but in the longer
term it may have some effect in exerting US and western hegemonism over the
world. It is in the interests of the the people of Chechnya but it is also
in the interests of western imperialism.
Chris Burford
London
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