Firstly, I want to say to those of you sceptics out there...this is how it's done. If a large country desires the natural resources of a smaller country (read as oil) then that larger country needs to sway it's citizens to support the venture (read as attack). In Kosovo, the US and Britain did that by exaggerating and misrepresenting "genocide" in Yugoslavia in order to demonize that country. There is another way...simply, create a horrendous terrorist act that makes your populous suddenly frightened and unsure of everything around them, then pin the act on the guys you want to attack.

For instance, there is much historical proof that the U.S. had plenty of time to respond to the on coming attack of Pearl Harbor. But, we wanted to get the American people to "rally for war" (something they WERE NOT doing). As soon as it happened, everyone was screaming to go to war and seek revenge. (note: here we did not "create" the act, we just ignored warnings that could have prevented it)

Lastly, for those that have not studied the issue, The Columbine High school massacre is surrounded by a considerable amount of information which points to ....a terrorist act (which involved adult factions that groomed and brainwashed the two teenage boys to be at the right place at the right time. Furthermore, the boys were not the only ones taking part in the killings by any means). The purpose? Gun Control. There are groups here in the US and abroad that will go to ANY length to disarm the American people. Here is the article on Russia: News | World | Russia http://www.independent.co.uk/news/World/Russia/rusagent060100.shtml

Russian agents 'blew up Moscow flats'

By Helen Womack in Moscow

06 January 2000

The Independent has obtained a videotape on which a Russian officer, captured by the Chechens, "confesses" that Russian special services committed the Moscow apartment-block bombings that ignited the latest war in Chechnya and propelled Vladimir Putin into the Kremlin.

On the video, shot by a Turkish journalist last month before Grozny was finally cut off by Russian forces, the captured Russian identifies himself as Alexei Galtin of the GRU (Russian military intelligence service). The bearded captive acknowledges as his own papers displayed by the Chechens that identify him as a "Senior Lieutenant, Armed Special Services, General Headquarters for Special Forces of the Russian Federation".

The Ministry of Defence was checking yesterday whetherthere was indeed such a GRU officer. "Even if he exists, you understand what methods could have been used on him in captivity," said a junior officer, who asked not to be named.

Colonel Yakov Firsov of the Ministry of Defence said on the record: "The (Chechen) bandits feel their end is near and so they are using all manner of dirty tricks in the information war. This is a provocation. This is rubbish. The Russian armed forces protect the people. It is impossible that they would attack their own people."

On the video, Lieutenant Galtin said he was captured at the border between Dagestan and Chechnya while on a mine-laying mission. "I did not take part in the explosions of the buildings in Moscow and Dagestan but I have information about it. I know who is responsible for the bombings in Moscow (and Dagestan). It is the FSB (Russian security service), in cooperation with the GRU, that is responsible for the explosions in Volgodonsk and Moscow." He then named other GRU officers.

Nearly 300 people died when four multi-storey apartment blocks were destroyed by terrorist bombs in September. The attacks provoked Mr. Putin, appointed prime minister the month before, to launch a new war in Chechnya.

Sedat Aral, a photographer with ISF News Pictures, said he shot the video in a bunker in Grozny, where he met Abu Musayev, head of Chechen rebel intelligence. Mr Musayev said the Chechens could prove they were not responsible for the apartment-block bombings.

The Russian public backs the "anti-terrorist campaign" in Chechnya, which has so boosted the popularity of its author, Mr Putin, that Boris Yeltsin has retired early to make way for his chosen successor.

However the war started, the beneficiary is clearly Mr Putin. The former head of Russia's domestic intelligence service is now poised to realise his presidential ambitions.

News | World | Russia Up ) 1999 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.

-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), January 06, 2000

Answers

different area of russia.

-- tt (cuddluppy@nowhere.com), January 06, 2000.

One thing you have to give to Chechens -- they know how to torture.

-- Brooklyn (MSIS@cyberdude.com), January 06, 2000.

"For instance, there is much historical proof that the U.S. had plenty of time to respond to the on coming attack of Pearl Harbor. But, we wanted to get the American people to "rally for war" (something they WERE NOT doing). As soon as it happened, everyone was screaming to go to war and seek revenge. (note: here we did not "create" the act, we just ignored warnings that could have prevented it)"

No, there's much (now rather old) conspiratorial nutjob crap that's been effectively debunked over and over and over and over again. Read the end of Gordon Prange's authoritative book. Nobody takes it serioualy anymore (well, no one whose opinion matters.)

I do realize you aren't promoting the especially silly stuff like "Pearl Harbor was attacked by British planes with Japanese markings" real looney-toon stuff and that's not what I'm talking about...I'm talking about the "Roosevelt/Churchill knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked" crap.

The problem is that people were expecting attacks on Indonesia and the Phillipines and had tunnel vision about it. And Short and Kimmel were idiots (much of the conspiracy stuff was driven by people who had an axe to grind, mainly in defending Kimmel and pinning the blame on the very top.....but as Prange says.."There's plenty of blame to go around.")

There were errors in judgement and failures in communication all the way from Short and Kimmel to Washington. But not intentional...

The Russkies did know a lot which they didn't bother to tell us.

The surprise of the Pearl Harbor attack was due to an incredible string of awe-inspiring incidents of stupidity and incompetence.

The easiest point is this: Had the gunners been locked and loaded, the battleline at sea, and all the airplanes in the air over Oahu when the attack rolled in......Americans still would have been killed, though obviously not nearly as many, far fewer ships sunk, etc.

Do you think that people would say "Hoh hum, well, we got attacked by Japan without a declaration of war, out of the blue. But it's not really that bad. I don't see the point of fighting them. Let's just let them have Hawaii?"

Regarding the Chechen stuff...well, everything needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis :-) Considering how nutty Russia is now and has been in the past, it would take very little to surprise me.

Those bomb explosions were AWFUL convenient, weren't they? (Putting on my own tinfoil hat now :-).

I'm not even going to bother commenting on the Columbine stuff...

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 06, 2000.

How about Kosovo. The British and the Americans might have exagerated the deaths in Kosovo, but remember what preceded it. The Serb initiated mass graves, murders, rape camps and force migrations were not exagerated in Bosnia. Western attention on these attrocities caused the Serbs to change strategies and lighten up in Kosovo. It wasn't bunk.

-- Downstreamer (downstream@bigfoot.com), January 06, 2000.

I was on a train from Budapest to Belgrad, drinking and shooting the shit with Serb soldiers and citizens the same week their offensive against Bosnia started so we're not just talking erudition here.

-- Downstreamer (downstream@bigfoot.com), January 06, 2000.

Hurt someone enough, and they'll say anything you want them to. If this isn't the case, the Chechens should release their prisoner to the red cross/red crescent for an impartial medical examination.

I'll reserve judgement on "the Independant" until I see the full paper, but you might want to cast your minds back to the "confessions" that captured British pilots made on Iraqui TV, or the even more nonsensical and obscene confessions obtained in countless thousands by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

-- Nigel (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), January 06, 2000.