In a message [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes that Jared misread the Moscow Times article he posted and that in fact: << this article shows that Minsk is NOT defending Borodin but is only criticising THE MANNER of his replacement. K >> I think you have misread the article, Mark, old friend. It says: "Media [this refers to the Russian media in general] say Lukashenko signaled his fury at Russia's inaction over Borodin this week by returning to Minsk from Moscow a day early, ostensibly to meet Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev." Isn't this clear? This was BEFORE Borodin was replaced. When Lukashenko returned to Minsk he immediately released a statement that he was "duty bound" to defend Borodin from THIS ATTACK. By the way, this does not constitute Lukashenko rendering a legal judgment on the Borodin case; the charges were already dismissed by a Russian court because a) Borodin said his signatures had been forged and b) the Swiss REFUSED to make original copies of documents available. Lukashenko's statement is not a LEGAL JUDGMENT ABOUT BORODIN'S AFFAIRS rather it is a LEGAL AND POLITICAL STATEMENT about the U.S. flagrant attempt to degrade Russia and attack the militants in Belarus, with whom Borodin was associated, by luring him to Kennedy Airport and having an army of FBI agents descend on him. (After which the idiot Bush went on Barbara Walters' show and tried to make clear this was a warning about "corruption" - Bush HATES corruption!!! Lukashenko is trying to defend Russian sovereignty and the MORALE OF THE RUSSIAN people from the outrageous condition of being fully colonized with greater and greater reductions of sovereignty. You are right that Lukashenko did object to the high handed method of Moscow's replacing of Borodin - but this was in addition to not instead of objecting to the lack of defense of Borodin. The Heritage Foundation in Moscow is quoted in the article. It represents the U.S. Republican Party i.e. the Bush administration. It makes clear the U.S. view when, as the article notes: "Yevgeny Volk of the Heritage Foundation's Moscow office also said that Borodin was too closely affiliated with Lukashenko." TOO CLOSELY AFFILIATED. That is the U.S. message. What could be clearer? By making this statement, this U.S. operative was signaling Russian politicians that if they got too close to Lukashenko they would be arrested or other bad things would happen to them. It is very significant that Heritage said this publicly because Heritage is seen in Russia as representing Bush's views (in so far as Bush has views or a brain...) - anyway, shall we say, as representing the current administration's views. Washington does NOT mind it if things are made very clear to Russian leaders and other targets. In Serbia, where U.S. operatives did and still do things more crudely (or maybe it's just that Serbia isn't nuclear armed...) the U.S. had people "too close too" Milosevich (read: Lukashenko) murdered - this while aggressively offering other leaders bribes. The message was: take our money and do our bidding or YOU WILL END UP DEAD. In Moscow the message is, for now: "Or you will end up in jail." That is an Imperial message and I repeat it comes from Washington and, as always, Washington's big brother and experienced adviser, London. And it is incumbent on those of us who are citizens of these two most monstrous criminal entities in world history (the U.S. and England) to denounce the hypocrisy of mass murderers (e.g., the serial poisoners of the world with DU - see emperor's clothes) - the hypocrisy of arresting leaders who are to some extent resisting Anglo-U.S. Imperial plunder - the hypocrisy of arresting these leaders as "corrupt." Jared _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
