Russian Front

RUSSIA An instant cult of personality has been created for the newly anointed Vladimir Putin. Putin was "put in" by a sordid amalgam of KGB apparatchiks, Yeltsin's mafiosi and sundry phony reformers. They are all crooks, but that is nothing new. The sad thing is it shows just how easily the Russian electorate can be manipulated. No one will investigate the reasonable suspicion that the bombing of apartment houses in Moscow (blamed on Chechen rebels) was actually the work of the KGB, following the example of Hitler's Gestapo when they torched the Reichstag and blamed it on the communists.

Yeltsin's gang recognized the war to crush Grozny might not maintain its popular momentum until the fall presidential elections. The solution was easy: Boris backs out and Vladimir fills the vacancy. This would move the elections forward to March. What remained of the opposition could not mount a significant campaign in that time and the Kremlin reckoned it could hold out against the unconquered Chechen guerrillas until then. Maybe.

The Kremlin was itching for a war in Chechenya to avenge the humilation of defeat four years ago. Clinton's campaign against the Serbs in Kosovo was all the excuse Moscow needed. Wholesale slaughter of civilians was seen to be in vogue. Carnage followed. Grigory Yavlinsky, a reluctant reformer, was put down by Putin for daring to denounce the switch in goals from anti-terrorism to an all out war. Putin's sudden popularity depends on how well he rides the crest of a war wave. When that wave dissipates so will Putin's prominence. He is depending on his generals to crush the Chechens before March 26 - election day.

That won't be easy. In spite of press censorship the toll of Russian army losses is beginning to effect civilian morale. Moms are on the march. Babushkas man the barricades. The "Committee of Soldiers' Mothers" provides casualty figures ten times greater than Kremlin disinformation. The Russians were surprised (and embarrassed) at the degree to which the Chechens exploited the use of cell phones, Motorola radios, improvised TV stations, lightweight video cameras and the internet to win the information war. The most common response by the Chechens to the aerial firepower was hugging the Russian unit. If the artillery and air fire ceased it became a man-to-man fight and the Chechens were well equipped to win it. If the bombardment didn't cease the Russians suffered as many losses as the Chechens, and the morale effect was much worse on the Russians.

Chechens are tough fighters. Russian wounded and dead are hung upside down in windows of defended Chechen positions so the enemy had to shoot at the bodies to engage the Chechens. Russian prisoners were decapitated and at night their heads were placed on stakes beside roads leading into the city, over which Russian reinforcements had to travel the next morning. Sherman said it: "War is Hell."

AMERICAN HOLOCAUST Perhaps the final word on whether or not abortion is murder has been logically articulated by a group of ethicists called the Ramsey Colloquium who argue it this way: "The embryo is a being; that is to say,it is an integral whole with actual existence. The being is human; it will not articulate itself into some other kind of animal. Any being that is human is a human being. If it is objected that, at five or fifteen days, the embryo does not look like a human being, it must be pointed out that this is precisely what a human being looks like - and what each of us looked like - at five or fifteen days of development. Clarity of language is essential to clarity of thought." But it's too late for the 42 million already slain.

AMERICAN ELECTIONS For the remainder of this year you can expect from your 'friends' in the establishment media a never ending cycle of "speculation" about what the candidates will say and do, followed immediately afterwards by a never ending round of "analysis" of what they said and did. This is not news. I'm tired already and there are ten months to go. G2 will focus on other things going on in the world - things you might otherwise miss from the talking heads as they speculate and analyze. (Argus Hamilton said, "Bill Clinton personified the problem of global warming before he finished his State of the Union address.")

KOSOVO in RETROSPECT Now that the dust has settled we can examine dispassionately the most recent Balkan adventure. In addition to frustrating our European allies by pushing them prematurely into the conflict (to divert attention from the Commander-in-Brief's nuclear treason with China) the Clinton administration succeeded in outraging Russia over perceived NATO expansion, offending China by bombing their embassy in Belgrade and depleting US military strength to dangerous lows. The US Navy is down to approximately half the ships deemed necessary for defense; cruise missiles are in short supply and the USAF must cannibalize a significant number of planes to keep the minimum number in the air. We have not been so ill-prepared to fight a real war since the late 1930s. Remember Pearl Harbor!

A realistic assessment by a (now) retired US Marine Corps Lt. General described the Kosovo exercise as a "technically proficient pursuit of a militarily irrelevant strategy on behalf of an unrealistic political objective." Translation: "We should have stayed out of that mess." Clinton's high altitude, indiscriminate bombing of Serbia (resulting in the death of hundreds of innocent civilians) was the military equivalent of a drive-by shooting. He should be tried as a war criminal along with Milosevic. Now the Russians are involved in a copycat crime in Chechenya.

Bill Bathman