What is the role of Russia in this conflict?

This is a very interesting information to think. Especially about the GPS jamming devices intended to misguide Tomahawks and JDAMs. As I read these jammers were installed in Iraq ONE MONTH before the invasion (exactly during the Blix's "inspections" who of course discovered nothing)! In December and January the UN's officials were screaming about other 2 months, 45 days, 2 weeks etc. that they needed to complete their so called "inspections". Undoubtly it can't be accidental. Now I see the real reasons: bursting into tears about "poor innocent Iraqi citizens" these guys used this delay to enforce dear comrade Saddam's army. All Shiraq's, Putin's, Annan's and their supporters demagogy and peace-loving histerics REALLY were subordinated to the only aims - to let Saddam kill more American soldiers, to make the war more bloody, more brutal. What a geat "pacifism" we see there .

Now some bad words about the "peacenics" - yesterday a misguided Tomahawk killed Iraqi 14 citizens - that's a probable result of all these "peaceful actions". If Bush hadn't been forced to seek the UN's support by the poublic opinion then he would start his action 2-3 months ago, then Saddam wouldn't have got these jammers, then the Tomahawk wouldn't have been misguided and wouldn't have hit civilians. Of course, most of a million of the American protesters had no idea what they were seeking - now they have a good reason to check it.

The leftists have invented a good slogan to deceive some trustful people: "we don't support the war, we support our troops" - but as every Marxist BS it must be rewriten in the opposite way. If smbd has walked with this slogan then he HAS REALLY SUPPORTED THE WAR (especially it's worst aspects like side casualties caused by misguided weapon) and HAS REALLY BETRAYED HIS TROOPS (for example the crew of the tank destroyed by a new Russian anti-tank missile two days ago)!

Another ridiculous thing is that Iraq has launched seven Scuds on Kuwait - the same Scuds that were allegedly destroyed soon after the Gulf War and hasn't been discovered by dear comrade Blix. If Blix managed to miss some Scud sites (every isn't less than a rail car) - I won't be surprised if he has missed a couple of nuke bombs or something else in this way. Another fact - the American forces have discovered about 300 chemical protective suits. Can we guess what have they been prepared for? I wonder what other armament Putin was going to send to Saddam when he together with his UN friends asked 2 additonal months for further inspections?

Are suggesting those Iraqi were killed because the Iraqi army jammed the signal that was supposed to guide the missile?

A bit unfair. What do you want them to do? Sit and wait to be "liberated"? They have the right to fight back, haven't they?

Russia aside, for the moment. It has been clear that Iraqi rearmament was proceeding unnoticed.

>Sit and wait to be "liberated"?

Of course they should have liberated themselves ages ago. But sometimes it's not easy. But I point out another thing: you see what the dirtiest tricks our pigeons of the peace use against their only enemy - the USA. If you decide to join to them then you should feel your part of the responsibility for possible sonsequences. The consequences are now quite visible.

Now some humor: as I heard yesterday a group of French peacenics is going to nominate Putin for the Nobel Prize in Peace for his significant help to the favourite Saddam's regime! The leftists are making one record for another in their insane job and the limits seems still very far .

Docent, If us peacenics had our way...

- There would be no tomahawk missles killing civilians.
- US troops would be at home with their families instead of living through the hell of killing and being killed.
- Saddam wouldn't be killing any US soldiers
- There would be UN inspectors in Iraq right now to stop the WMD program.
- Ten's of thousands of Iraqi citizens would get to keep living.

The alternative is becoming very clear...
- A great proportion of Iraqis don't *want* us to "liberate" them.
- Many lives US and Iraqi are being ruined.
- The US is destroying its position of respect in the world.

Doesn't sparing these young troops the horrors of war sound like it is in their best interest?

Looks like the peacenics got it right this time.

P.S. It is *Chirac* who is the hero in this story (to most of the intellegent world that is.)

>Docent, If us peacenics had our way...

I didn't mean anyone of the forum's visitors.

>- There would be UN inspectors in Iraq right now to stop the WMD program.

It's interesting to notice that there would never any UN inspections without the US's very strong pressure. The only reason why Saddam let Blix visit Iraq was the perspective of an unavoidable invasion. Only because of total UN's disability Saddam wasn't disarmed (Just remember the Blix's reports: Saddam cooperates well except just a little detail - he doesn't show his WMD. What's a trifle - of course we shouldn't pay attention to a such unsignificant thing. The main result is that the Iraqies are making a great progress, they are ready to cooperate in everything besides forbidden armament. Lets forgive them this funny little problem.)

Even more interesting question is: If Saddam had been enough frightened to agree to inspections so what made him so brave to refuse to disarm? Besides the UN's total disability, helplessness and marginality (BTW the Americans suggested to send their CIA experts but the UN leaders strongly prohibited it because Saddam wished so) it was the direct support to Saddam's position provided by the UN's members - I mean these ATGM's, GPS jammers, night vision googles transferred by Putin exactly during the Blix's "inspections". It was a quite understandable sign - don't take our resolutions seriously, they are a bluff, noone is going to disarm you, we will prevent the Americans of a war.

Try to imagine a situation - when you are at work your chief comes to you and says: "Now, guy, I'm going to fight any drinking at your workplace! Nobody is allowed to drink when he is at work! Else he will be mercylessly punished!" After the such terrible speech the chief pulls out a bottle of vodka and tells you: "Would you like to drink together with me?" How should you take his previous fearful speech - evidently as a stupid funny joke? Saddam was in the same situation - he couldn't take the UN's "resolutions" seriously even if he had REALLY WANTED to disarm. If Saddam had decided to surrender without a strong pressure he would have discovered his own weakness in his generals' eyes which would mean a suicide for such dictator as he.

My conclusion is: the UN and other "PACIFISTS" ARE MAINLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR. They have done - and are doing still - all possible to provoke the war, to make it more bloody, most beneficial for Hussein.

>- There would be no tomahawk missles killing civilians.
- US troops would be at home with their families instead of living through the hell of killing and being killed.
- Saddam wouldn't be killing any US soldiers ...
- Ten's of thousands of Iraqi citizens would get to keep living.


You shouldn't describe me what would happen if the Leftists take power somewhere. My native country once enjoyed such "pacifists" in 1917 (I mean Lenin and his company). The main promises of our "pacifists" were: the end of the World War (and later no wars everywhere), the cancel of executions and so called "people democracy" (the most liberal form of government). The reality is widely konwn: the decades of bloodiest, brutallest, unprecendental, nightmarish, dreadful massacres, impossible to imagine for a normal person.

If you see this example outdated, I can remind you one of the modern "pacifists", Comrade Putin. Unlike Lenin he got free hand only in small Chechnya but the results are also imressive: 250,000 of killed only (about 25% of the local population), the only unhurt buildings are government's and FSB offices. This is the work of Chirac's dearest friend who is going to be nominated to the Nobel Prize in Peace by some French humanists, pacifists and Human Rights defenders. Just think about what future would we have if such "politicians" weren't be taken enough far from the power.

The ideal world for the todays "pacifists" is scorched and levelled Chechnya, the ideal society is Osventsim, the ideal regime is North Korean or Iraqi "people democracy". They see Saddam Hussein as their ally although some of them still hesitate to admitt it. Saddam's crushing is a horrorful disaster for them. That is why the "pacifists" will be getting into tantrum seeing that his regime is over and Saddam will response for his crimes, that their idol will never repeat the previous massacres, that after the UN's collapse another bloodthirsty maniac - Putin - will loose his influence on the world. This is the main subject of their regrets. Don't let them deceive you.

eBrown

You are trying to use logic and reason to argue with Docent.

Bad move!

Read his/her posts again.

He/she is not interested in facts -- he/she is only interested in showing disgust and contempt for anyone who thinks differently from him/her.

He/she is a hateful person -- one of those non-thinking, knee-jerk right-wingers who make up the base of George Bush's support.

Don't bother with logic or reason. If anything, the only thing you should send Docent is sympathy. Charity dictates that one feel some sorrow for people who have to live such a rage filled life.

It IS interesting that a Russian has more faith in the good intentions of the United States and Britain than some of our own. But then, Docent knows first hand about repressive regimes and how they operate.

In the present conflict Russia has taken the wrong side. It would be much in favor of both Russian economy and international realtions to take a side of the USA, and not an "old Europe". It was more than a crime, it was a blunder.

It's been revealed that Russia provided the Iraqi's with high tech military hardware and nightscopes - all while they've been getting US taxpayer's money for their failing economy. With friends like the Russians, who needs enemies? c.i.

Docent P, he said "us peacenics" - meaning the protestors against this war. That's a very specifc group with a very specific aim, and he described what would have happened re: this war in Iraq, had they had their way on the issue - again quite specific. He didnt say or imply anything about the nature of "leftists" in general, nothing about them "taking power somewhere", and most definitely nothing about the communist brand of leftists you had governing your country. Not all the "peacenics" re: this war are in fact pacifists - some have supported other wars - and communists most certainly form a small to tiny minority among them.



Lenin was most definitely never a pacifist, as he has amply demonstrated in his time in power. Communism is about the overthrow, not reform, of existing systems, and that overthrow, to a communist, can and should be however violent as is necessary to achieve the aim of establishing "the dictatorship of the proletariat".

I also just pick up on that latter phrase again because it shows how far a cry communist "people's democracies" are from "liberal forms of government" - there is no greater opposition imaginable, paralleled only by that between liberal democracy and fascist dictatorships. As you know, back in 1917 there was no movement as despised by the bolsheviks as the liberal kadets, who actually favoured a parliamentary democracy.



Again, I think few people are as un-pacifist as Putin, for the reasons you mention, and I should hope he never called himself that, either.



In defence of such "humanists, pacifists and Human Rights defenders", it is also only among them that you'll find the rare activists who still actually care about the fate of the Chechens. One Chechen refugee in Holland, for example, who tried to find a party that would help him with his campaign for Chechen human rights, ended up with the Green Left.



Are we talking those gentle-minded reverends that hold prayer sessions against war, and open their churches to asylum-seekers? Those starry-eyed idealists who don't eat meat and don't wear leather shoes because they don't want to hurt any sentient being?

I know that the word "pacifist" has been grossly abused in the state propaganda of communist regimes throughout the decades, but as someone who knows quite a few real pacifists, I can assure you, that none of them longs for "scorched and levelled" countries. However misguided you may think their arguments are, that is the very thing they try, in their way, to stop from happening. And any pacifist would abhor regimes as murderous as Saddams or North Korea's.

In fact, it is the people who now protest the war who were among the first to protest when Saddam gassed the Kurds, and Bush Sr turned a blind eye. Who protested then, when both France and the US blocked any UN condemnation of what had happened? The Swedish government ... the organisation of social democratic parties ...

>It IS interesting that a Russian has more faith in the good intentions of the United States and Britain than some of our own.

Probably it seems very subjective. But I never pretend to impose the truth in the last instance.
-------------
>It's been revealed that Russia provided the Iraqi's with high tech military hardware and nightscopes - all while they've been getting US taxpayer's money for their failing economy.

The problem was that the American government (mostly Clinton's democratic administration) had deal only with official Rusian structures - in other words enforced the same anti-democratic regime. What would have happened to the Marshall's plan if some Gestapo officer had become a German leader after Hitler's death and told Truman: "Now we don't fight you anymore. Now we are American friends. Give us money please"?

--------------
>and he described what would have happened...

If some party wish to do smth (declare a war, stop a war, prevent a war) it should take the power before, shouldn't it? If not who else will response for their decisions? That's why a question "what if the Leftist stop the war" sounds in the same way as "what if they are able to control the national policy" which in turn means "what if they get to the power".

>and communists most certainly form a small to tiny minority among them.

You are right. But the problem isn't that say 90% of anti-war protesters are kind, clever and pleasant people. I can add that every party, union, movement or society's majority ALWAYS consists of "good" or at least "neutral" persons (even the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) - nice family members, friends and citizens - who are subordinated to the party's authority - this 1-2% of bigots, crazy zealots, strongly sure in their rightfulness (I mean not only Leftiests - it's true for any kind of movement from Al-Qaeda to the American Republican Party). Without these 1-2% of zealots the movement would never exist - they conclude the nuke, leading force or the brains of their organisation. If we want to see what kind of movement is there then we should check it's leaders but not it's majority - majority is the same everywhere (although Marx strongly denied it ).

Now lets see what is the leading force of the pacifist movement (I have already posted some details on this topic but my message was left unnoticed). At first we know that the pacifists consist of so different groups that they would never have gathered so giant amounts of people if they hadn't had the main coordination center. Such center really exists and is situated in New-York. It's name is the World Labor Party, it was founded by Trotsky (if someone doesn't know, one of the craziest Communist zealots, fighter for the world revolution, bloodthirsty butcher and chastener during the Civil War, killed by his "comrade" in 1940). I don't want to describe these bastards carefully, I just put on some their achievements.

They supported: Soviet invasions to Hungary to 1956, to Chechoslovakia in 1968, to Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic revolution in Iran, Marxist terrorists in Columbia.
They protested against: American war in Vietnam, American 1st Gulf War, American war in Yugoslavia, American war on Taliban, todays war on Saddam.
They created: the Committee for Miloshevic's defence.
Their main idol now: Kim Chen Ir (that was why the main date of the recent protests was chosen Feb 15 - the Kim's birthday).
The favourite ideology: the North Korean people democracy.

I think it's enough to see what are these dear comrades like.
Here is their page: http://www.iacenter.org/

Linking up through the Internet with all possible participants this relatively small but very active and well paid group arranged everything beginning from buses for participants up to stuffed Bushes to be burnt. The global idea of the anti-war campaign also belongs to them. Of course majority of the demonstrators had no idea who they were led by and whose birthday they were celebrating. But IF THERE WASN'T THE WORLD LABOR PARTY WE WOULD NEVER SEE SUCH GLOBAL ANTI-WAR ACTIONS. Now lets answer a simple question - what was the real reason for the Communists and North Korean spies to spend their money on this anti-war campaign? May be they are super-humanists going to save innocent victims in Iraq and imrove everyone's life in the USA? If so why wouldn't they begin from the North Korea at first? If not what are the REAL reasons and aims of their actions? If these actions are good for America then what hell are the Commies so worried about your Capitalists' benefit? If these actions are bad for America wouldn't the participants look like traitors?

Before going to such an actions every participant MUST ask himself: "what is the real aim of our organizers? what do I REALLY WORK FOR?" If he shares some common ideas with Commies, ok it his way, but he shouldn't call himself a humanist, "true pacifist" and so on... If he isn't interested in this answer, in other words he prefers to be a docile trained monkey then he should be ready to share responsibility for his leaders' behaviour. To say "I'm against the war but I'm not a Commy" walking under red flags with sickle and hammer (which I have seen in TV reports by own eyes) is too childish.

>Lenin was most definitely never a pacifist,

That is why I wrote "pacifist" in inverted commas. Fortunately for the Americans their country has never seen what can pigeons of the peace do if they feel themselves enough strong, but the Russian history of the Revoution is overfull of such examples. Almost every high-ranking Communist official began his career as a pacifist during the WW1. See an example: seaman Dybenko refused to fight Germans in 1916 and was put in a military prison for his "pacifist propaganda" (the term is taken from official documents). Can you imagine a more genuine pacifist? Don't you see an analogy with the two famous British officers? Now lets see his further career: in Feb 1917 Dybenko was released and soon became famous due to his massacres in Helsinkforce - he personally used to break officers' heads with a hammer. In 1918-1920 he organized bloodbathes in the Ukraine and Crimea. But the top of his career was in 1921 when he was suppressing the Kronstadt uprising. After the uprising had been suppressed Dybenko became the chief of the "Special Tribunal" and personally executed 2,103 mariners (that time he killed privates, his former "brothers", not officers) for three days (seemly he used machine-guns, not hammers). In 1930s Dybenko was the chief of one GULAG's camp until being executed during the Great Purge. I can post dozens of such examples else.

>there is no greater opposition imaginable, paralleled only by that between liberal democracy and fascist dictatorships.

Just some joking thing: you may disbelieve but one of the most radical Russian fascist parties is officially named the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia - LDPR.

>In defence of such "humanists, pacifists and Human Rights defenders", it is also only among them that you'll find the rare activists who still actually care about the fate of the Chechens. One Chechen refugee in Holland, for example, who tried to find a party that would help him with his campaign for Chechen human rights, ended up with the Green Left.

I just say (basing on my experience of anti-Chechen War actions) that I would prefer to see no leftists at all then any their help. When such an "antiglobalist" wears a slogan "Yanky, go home. Lets defend Talibans and Chechens" or a naked woman - "Lets save housecats, seals and Chechens" it would rather discredit the Chechens then help them. Bin Laden also used to mention "Chechen Muslims" but it didn't mean that he really was worried about them, he just tried to show himself as a great "human right defenders", to use someone's deaths for his dirty games. The official Chechen government (I mean President Maskhadov of course) has strongly supported the US and Britain in the Iraqi problem. BTW the American Committee of Liberation of Chechnya (probably the most effective international pro-Chechen organisation) is led by Zbignev Bjezinsky - a strong American anticommunist.

>I know that the word "pacifist" has been grossly abused in the state propaganda of communist regimes...

You are right. Every Communist is a pacifist unless he get to the power. They have already perfectly demonstrated their true "humanist" nature in Russia. Don't let them show their abilities in the West. Such a lesson will be too expensive for your country.

Hi Docent,

Out of your many points, I just want to pick up on a few right now:



This struck me because the logic behind this argumentation is in fact very ... leninist. And no, I'm not calling you a communist ;-). What I mean is that marxists-leninists would argue exactly this line of logic. To effect our agenda, the only way is to control power, and the only way to control power is to install absolute power.

In a functioning democracy, there are luckily many ways to influence policy. When a million people demonstrate, governments sometimes - not always, but often enough - decide to change their policy at least a bit - to find a compromise. Not every demonstration is inherently a bid to overthrow power. Some demonstrators just want to have made their point clear ("you do whatever you like, but be sure to know you're not doing it in my name" - 'not in our name' being one of the main slogans in the Iraq demos), while most hope to influence those in power - as opposed to take over power.

There are other ways too. Petitions, referendums, calls to your MP. Democracy is more than getting to vote every four years. Democracy is also about reminding your parliamentary representatives that they are there to represent you - that the population hasnt given a carte blanche for four years, but wants to be taken heed of in decision-making.

Trotskyites and other leninists would indeed think exactly the way you describe, and I'm sorry that, having lived in the Soviet Union for so long, that's been the main experience of politics (and leftist politics in particular) you have had to absorb. But there's so much more to democracy than such crude absolutism.



True. We should always be aware of the fundamentalist minority that will be working behind the screens to steer the movement, party, etc, we are part of. We should always be vigilant about where things come from. The anti-nuclear movement was started in part by communists in W-Europe. And it received in fact funding from the Soviet Union.

Yet there's an interesting lesson there as well. When that movement grew from thousands to millions, it got well beyond the control of the Soviet/communist intriguants - a seachange from the times back in the 50s.

Trotskyites especially, as you point out, are masters of infiltration, and are always trying to pull the strings. But they hardly ever succeed, simply because they are so few and so radical. Whenever a project of theirs becomes successful, they automatically, by definition, lose control. For all their efforts, they've achieved practically nothing. There's been no Trotskyite regime in the world since Trotsky - and that's eighty years ago.

Example: in Holland in the eighties the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party started a youth movement, called "Rebel". It was made to seem independent, but was conspirationally dictated by the SWP leadership. What happened? Rebel became hugely succesful. Within one or two years, it had many times more members than the SWP (never >0,1% in elections) ever had. And as those new members became more vocal and started to determine their own direction, the SWP lost grip. In the end they restored their grip at the cost of killing the project: they were back on top, but membership tumbled back to near-nothing.



You dont need to teach me about Trotsky. But to suggest the whole anti-war movement is secretly led by Trotskyites - well, they would like to believe so - but its blatantly false.

The Stop the War platforms incorporate a wide range of organisations as well as political parties. Trade unions. Church organisations. Greens, Social Democrats. For sure the "International Socialists" will be there, somewhere on the margins, plotting. But do you really think all those professional politicians and activists representing millions more than the Trotskyites do, will just let them run the show? Of course not. They are outnumbered and outvoted in the decision-making process. Are they there, during the demonstrations, trying to distribute their placards? Yes, but even at the demo I went to - which was a relatively small, narrow-based one - their placards were outnumbered 1:50 by those of the mainstream leftwing parties. Neither the organisation of the demo, nor the way it ended up looking, nor the message the demonstrators got across (in Amsterdam, roughly, "No Saddam No War" - a proposition of debatable logic, but definitely not revolutionary socialist in character) in the end was determined by the Leninist extremists. In fact, you can easily turn your sentence around. "we know that no single main coordination center could ever have gathered such giant amounts of people; only a combination of so different groups could".



Yes, and some of the main speakers on the demos, and some of the main parties organising the protests (in Holland the Green Left, for example) had pleaded and voted for military intervention in Kosovo to stop Milosevic, and reminded us about it, too.



Let's just suggest, for this tiny moment, you're right about the choice of date. You say even the demonstrators "had no idea whose birthday they were celebrating". The media covering the demos certainly didnt. In fact, not once have I ever heard this mentioned anywhere. What impact, then, whatsoever, can the Trotskyites be said to have effected with their proposed success in picking the date? Of what consequence was it, at all?



This is just plain nonsense. Anti-war activities have been organised here and in other countrues by different organisations, separately from each other as well as in various co-operations. The Green party hasnt needed authorisation from some Trotskyite splinter group to set up a platform in town and appeal to its members to come demonstrate.

I'll leave it at this, except for this one bottom line and one or two sidelines:



Every demonstrator represents his own opinion. The one opinion we have come to collectively express is : we are against this war. Different people and organisations express their individual motivation & argumentation on their own banners etc. The guy to my left may carry a Che flag, and I'll shake my head quietly and move on to where four people are carrying a Green Party banner saying: "Make law not war". That's my motivation, and hell, I'll take one of their balloons. Some Arabs chose to yell out: "Go Saddam!" - and they were yelled back at by the demonstrators ("**** you"). That's how it works. We are all adult people, we know why we have came there, we are well able to distinguish between the various fractions present and the different propositions that are presented. Of course its annoying that the Communists tend to carry bigger flags, and that the Trotskyites are always best in distributing placards. And if I were in a demo with only those people, I would quit. But that's not the way it was, and thats not the point that got across.

The bottom line is that we represent our opinion, and make sure it gets across. Hell, I joined a march of mourning after Pim Fortuyn was killed. I have nothing up with the Fortuynists, but we can't just have politicians killed in the street, and thats why I was there. And that message came across, too, in the press, in the politicians' remarks afterwards, not just the "Oh-Pim-we-loved-you-so" one. This time, the press and the politicians spoke of the messages of the demonstators as of messages for peace; for international law; against Bush; against war; for Arabs - different messages that got across. Mine did too. None was "for Saddam" or "for North Korea" or "for Communism". By acting as if that was the case, you are not just giving Communists too much honour, but in fact playing in their hands. They would only too much like to have people think that this was a demo for communism.



I know. Did you see that tape where Zhirinovsky, in a speech, promised the people that had gathered in the street during the campaign: "I promise you one thing! If you vote for me, you'll never have to vote again!"



Doesn't mean he was a pacifist at all; just meant he opposed that war. All Bolsheviks later would - not out of pacifism, but just because they were yearning to fight another kind of war.

Hey, I oppose this war and I'm no pacifist.

I do have great respect for those who are, though, and examples like this, however gruesome, say little against them, because they're a case of mistaken identity.



The New Communist Party pulled 0,1% of the vote here last elections. In Germany, the ex-communist PDS dived under 5%. In the UK, the CP is practically non-existent. In France, the once-powerful PCF also dived to a mere 3%. In Spain, the "United Left" in which the Communists have submerged, has around 5%.

Listen, if this was 1948 or 1956 and the Communists were still polling 20% - not to mention having all the might of the Eastern Block behind them to fund and support their intrigues - I would perhaps share a little more of your fear and be a little more apprehensive in walking in a demo that could conceivably be seen as promoting the Communist case. But they don't, and this demo wasn't.

I thought this over and came up with an analogy. Suppose you'd live in L'vov, Ukraine, rather than in Russia. Your president was Kuchma. Kuchma is a crook, of course, a gangster; but worse than that, he's turned to having independent journalists who reveal his dealings kidnapped and decapitated. His voice is on tape ordering the like. Demonstrations appear, in Kiev, but also in your town.

Now L'vov is the heartland of W-Ukrainian nationalism, of course. Parties like the extremist Ukrainian National Assembly are well organised here. Of course, within the spectre of political hues united in opposition to Kuchma, militants like those of, say, the UNA or the Ukrainian Self-Defense Units are but an extremist minority - but you know they'll be very visibly present in the demo, among the many others who don't subscribe to their ideology but also want Kuchma out. Would you still go - or would you be cowed into remaining silent about Kuchma's excesses, out of fear for being associated with the crypto-fascists?

***

I mean to express no disrespect in my responses, by the way. I always enjoy talking with you. You are very knowledgeable and articulate about your country's politics and culture, and your strong personal preferences in the matters.

I also think we might actually share many of the same fundamental values. We definitely seem to agree on most things re: Russia (barring whether "Brat" was an enjoyable movie, perhaps . In fact, my guess is that, would I live there, I'd probably be voting for the same parties as you, presupposing you still go to vote (let me guess - Democratic Choice (DVR) rather than Yabloko or NDR in '95, but Yabloko rather than the Union of Rightists last time round - ?.

It's on things concerning my part of the world that we seem to fiercely disagree. In part, I think that might be a question of diverging frames of reference more than anything else.

On the meaning of "leftist", for example. I come from a leftist family, which, however, has always refused to have anything to do with the communists. My father once stepped out of a socialist students movement when he discovered his peers were, in fact (you guessed it ;-), covert Trotskyites, and took their orders directly from the Fourth International. Yeh, stories . He didnt give up on politics though, and neither did my mother - and there was no reason to; the Trotskyites sank back into oblivion, and meanwhile there was work to do, in the regular left-wing parties, on keeping this country a sane place to live in and opposing the logic of the new Right.

There is no reason to buy into the monochrome world view of those at either end of the political spectre, who would have us believe that the only way to disagree with their opponents is by joining them. I do not have to join the communist party if I want to oppose fascism. I do not have to stand with George Bush Jr on everything he does in order to oppose communism or muslim fundamentalism. In fact, it is only by refusing these monochrome, fake dilemmas that one can really subvert the logic of extremist ideologies - they thrive on each other.

Among my heroes are still people like - though not exclusively, of course - those Hungarian social democrats who refused to sign up when their party was forcibly merged with the smaller, but Soviet-backed communist party in '48 - knowing they could be sent to prison or worse for their refusal. Or like Alfred Mozer, the Jewish Socialdemocrat who first opposed nazism, then, after having survived the war, as Labour Party prominent did what he could to bolster the party's anti-communism and aid for E-European refugees.

To someone with my frame of reference, the insinuation of leftist=communist is hurtful. So would be the statement that you'd rather do without any support at all than with that of someone like me (yes, I'm in the Green Left). But then again, I think I might know whereabouts you're coming from, so I've suspended taking offence .

It seems the US is courting the Russians to take part in Post War Iraq. c.i.