Apollo

Won't disagree on that ,they have made good money out of this case before.Remember the time of the Dutroux crises when it just came out ,and the many month's of searching for little girls body's afterwards?For over 4 month's every other news was just dropped ,with extra special's after the days news even if their was nothing of news on the case itself. That were some tormenting month's for the Belgian people ,but maybe we needed that coverage to pshychologicly endure those events. Latly i seen a interview with Sabine Dardenne ,one of the 2 girls that were kidnaped by Dutroux but who survived it.It was a very emmotional interview ,i'm sure it deeply touched any Belgian who saw it. I don't know why AArlon has been chosen ,but as long as it isn't Chalerroi i can live with it.

I do not believe in the death penalty ,but as Belgian i know that should Dutroux be ever seen on the streets ,he would be killed by the first pedestrian that sees him ,even a 70 years old granny would atempt to kill him if she could get the chance.

There is truth in what turns tries to point out.Indeed ,the Terrrorist attack in Moskou that sparked the second Chechen war was highly dubious. -First of all ,no chechen group ,even not the millitia of Shamil Basayev that are the more terrorist like segment's of the Chechen millitia's ,have claimed that particular bomb attack. -Russian goverment argued that they had evidence that this action was organized by the Chechen goverment ,however none of that evidence had been made public. -The attack came at a very dubious moment ,right before the Russian presidential ellections. -Claims were made about insurgencies ,however actual proof of such opperations were non existing or scetchy ,in any case such insurgencies can't have happened on a big scale IMO Russia just didn't had solid evidence to blame the Democratic ellected Chechen goverment for that terrorist attack. In a way , i wonder what the Chechen deffinition would be of terrorism ,having had a history of brutal occupation with mass deportation and numerous bloody wars with Russia. Russia is fast to cry wolf when a bomb explodes in some Russian city ,killing a relative minor amount of people ,allegedly by Chechen terrorists.However the way Russia treated Chechnya in the past ,the way how it bombed Chechny resulting in substancial civilian kills and an exponational amount of pillaging ,that has to be all forgotten. The real problem is that Chechen social culture has never been compatible with Russian culture.Other etnicity's have trough the century's assimilated easier into Russia than Chechnya ,because Chechens social culture demands a very decentralized goverment with space for compromize between various group's/Klan's/religion's.Russia tends to be the opposite ,Autocratic and highly centralized.

Russia has lready found a number of way's to go around SDI ,not hard neither as most analists knew that such a system would be rather unnefective before the project even started. The simplest of Russian sollutions was to sipmly fire a number of nukes toghether accompied of a shitload of dud rockets.Basicly a few 100's to 1000's of ICBM's of the same type's at once and the SDI can decide wich one of those rockets to shoot down ,quite a dim chance that the Nuke get's downed even given the system's own failure chance.And to think it's only designed to stop ICBM ,not Nukes fired from a Nuclear submarine. (wich is a delivery system that is unpossible to stop at this date) And to think how much SDI costs ,what a waste...

The Region of my hometown (Ypres) has been a major battlefield center in WWI. Up to this date ,yearly a number of farmers die because the plow over some shell still left from WWI. Makes you wonder though ,while modern landmines kill a lot of people ,old shell roaming in the ground from previous wars on historical battlefields kill to.Now in America i doubt that they have much shell's in the ground as not many modern battle's have been waged on American soil ,But big Part's of Europe are full of it ,and i'm sure that most of the country's that have seen WW2 or WW1 warfare on their ground still have a yearly death toll of people that have accidentill set it off. The point is was wanting to make is that most probably you will find those landmines on the same places that youll find such shell's ,namely places where battle's have been found.Any place that have seen major battle's will as such always be a hazzard for farmers who plow trough ground that can contain anny form of ecplosive.And not only afterwards ,such places are obviously also a hazard for civilians when the battle's are on-going. So given the incentive for such a ban ,i would rather propose that from now on any modern battle is fought on some unimportant uninhabited (desert) island where the army's can fire away as much as they like rather than in inhabited places ,it may be much more effective in preventing civilian war casualties.

Oops sorry about that ,i didn't mean to offend or imply that he was a bad prime minister ,i just stated that i never read anything on him before and presumed most people on this forum didn't knew anything of him ,hence i searched up a profile on him so that people had some information on who he was. Though i must mention ,etnicity's is not the only problem for Europe in that region ,a number of Balkan country's among them Macedonia are major narcotics transit country's ,having high amount's of crime in their country's (Albania ,ouch!) I don't know what this man's policy has been on organized crime and drug traffic ,but given the region a very tough policy would be dangerous for his own life. And the UCK ,Albanian millitia's that fought in Kossovo as well ,actually being the starters of the Kosovo war and the short Macedonian civil war that happened afterwards ,i don't think theyre fight is ultimatly over.

It was not a very famous man this Macedonian prime minister ,i definatly never cared to learn much of the current Macedonia anyway.Just to press a face on this report i dug up a profile of this man on BBC:

The succes of these system's is dependant on technological evolution.Mankind has seen it's lifequality in conjunction with the speed of overall technoligical evolution ,wich it's incremental in speed.The pace of technological evolution has already become very fast ,and is probably going to go even faster in the future.A person of the middle class in Europe these days has a better life quality than a rich man 100 years ago.If the speedy technological evolution of mankinf continue's ,then we will ultimatly come to a point that we will be so advanced on the industrial and productional level that the mass of human labour will become irrelevant ,and that a system like capitalism and communism won't be advanced enough to fit our needs. It is my oppinion however ,that many of the ideals of Communism will survive trough the future technological advancements ,however capitalism might die out.Since capitalism has been shown a relative weak system towards sustainable development ,because of individualist nature ,when the future will want true sustainable development they will understand that they better join forces in mututal development instead of out-competing eachother in a cluttered economy.

200.000 men to the current Iraq war? More like 20.000 ,even the U.S only deployed about 250.000 men at the onset of the war and an x percentage of that force were supporting troops rather than all combat troops.And that was the force used to take Iraq ,much of that force already left Iraq.

Some Australian news source: Seems Putin is more and more forcing out his opponents.Well Berezovsky fled and is sitting with a decent amount of cash somewhere in Monaco probably toghther with Yeltsin his family living of International monetary funds given to Yeltsin in his presidential terms.i can't say i have much symphaty for the oliarchy in general ,however Putin seems to be efficiant in filling up the power vacuum that removing those oliarch's provide...

Yeah ,sounds fishy... ,was it an ellection stunt?

Euh ,they reachrd their oliarch status more by political connection's.Afcourse after the fall of communism the state owned company's had to transform in private owned company's.However strategic family members of key politicians at that time managed to buy most important industry for really a rediculous prize. Besides ,the form monopoly position's ,like Berezovsky was the only car reseller before Putin ousted him out.

I have a different oppinion of it in some way though.i'm also against these oliarchy ,however Ivan Rybkin not a oliarch himself ,he was a presidential candidate that was supported by an oliarch.Still could be dangerous if he would collect enough vote's ,however it was known from the start of this ellection campaign that Putin was to win it anyway.Normally Rybking wouldn't be a problem ,if it wasn't for the fact that innitiated a very aggresive ellection campaign heavily critisizing Putin and a lot of the Political top.If Putin is behind this dissapearance then it's yet again a sign of how Putin treat's free speech and press. Btw the Kgb is now Fsb....

This is a very different situation from what you describe.First of all from what you first stated i had the impression that you wanted to say that those 300.000 that you claim to have immigrated directly and after Doedayev came to power left voluntarely since they were ethnic chetchyans who left because they disagreed with the seperate goverment.In Serbia we had ethnic Albanian's forced to flee for the Serbian army ,you paint a picture Of Ethnic chetchyens leaving chethya (where Ethnic chechyan's live) voluntarely ,this because you want to porve a poin that the majority of Ethnic Chechyans are opposed to a seperatist Chechian state. In this sense ,if you can prove that 300.000 people left chechya when the chechyan seperatists goverment under Dudayev came to power because of difference's with that goverment it would be interresting to mention if their are Ethnic russians among those people ,as clearly it's easy to understand why ethnic Russian's would oppose a sepperate Chechyan goverment if they happened to live in that territory claimed and controlled by that sepperatist goverment. Besides ,i already counter argumented the 200.000 figure from the 2nd Chechen war as mainly etchnic Chechens displaced by the russian troops rather than left by free will and eventually planning to return to the region ,in fact only a minority of those 200.000 refugee's claim to have left voluntarily becuase of difference's with the Seperatist Chechen goverment and even this minority consisted mainly Ethnic Russian's ,and a few anti-whahabist elements. Take tibet for ex. ,you to mention a point on ethnic russians that may have lived and left Chechnya.These days the capital of tibet Lhasa has an actual Chinese majority.Tibet was prior to chinese occupancy a country with a rather low population.I wouldn't be surprized if the chinese these days are the majority in the whole of tibet.Should this Demographic evolution undermine the casius belli for a seperatist Tibet should it try to arise? I very much doubt that the whole system that makes the Chechen society is compatible with the russian way of goverment.Chechen society has always wanted to progress to a sort of highly decentralized democracy ,there socio-political structure of "teip's" ,clan and tribe like group's that live and work toghether trough concensus with eachother is very different from traditional Russian politics.In fact chechens have  trough history taken every little opportunity to brake away from russia when the were occupyd by it often with severe reprecussion's for the chechen poppulation. (Stalin?) In this sense i doubt that the majority of chechens wouldn't prefer an stable independantly recognized chechnya. Oh you edited youre post and somehow it contradict's my reply now. Ok to edit mine then: And doesn't it widly breaks down youre argument, While it's indeed true that about 400.000 Chechens fled chechnia in the first Chechen war ,it's says that these people were forced to flee by Russian troops due to bombardment's and displacement.The amount that actually fled due to the Decleration of independance was 100.000 ethnic russians!Let me quote the source: It's perfectly conceivable that would the first and 2nd Chechyan war had never happened then only 100.000 ethni russian's would have left Chechnya because of disagreements with the goverment.The other 600.000 left because theyre homes were flattened and they had to flee for a rampaging army.

From the 200.000 chechen who moved to ingushetia after 1999 about 90% were displaced by the russian millitary as a result of war ,and not due to discontent with the Seperatists Chechen goverment.From those 200.000 people only 10.000 people claimed they left Chechnia because of muslim millitants ,and it has shown that these 10.000 were mostly ethnic russians.In addition ,Applications based on allegations of mistreatment by federal forces were rejected on account of the antiterrorist campaign.From those 200.000 people only those 10.000 people have taken an application to having the forced migrant status as the federal authorities restricted the forced migrant status to those displaced who "did not intend to return". source: http://www.db.idpproject.org/Sites....047E738 So most of these 200.000 were forced out by te Russian millitary and would return if possible. In addition ,i would like to see youre sources for the claim that 300.000 people left Thechnya after Dudayev came to power ,in addition to the ethnic breakdown of those migrants. In any case ,youre claim that an additional 300.000 to 400.000 people would migrate if chechnia would become a sepertatist state (again!) can be counter argumented by the fact those who wouldn't have left in the few years that Chechnia was actually a seperatists state wouldn't leave now when the Chechen seperatists goverment would return. So if youre going to claim such number's ,back it up with sources please.

That may have been the case in the first Chechen war ,but i was talking about the siege of grozny in the second Chechnya war. Can you proof that figure? Ive seen nothing of such number before.Are these figure's from Russian media? As far as i've seen it ,the current situation is that the chechens still control an amount of x territory in the Chechnyan highlands be it conceiled from where they have theire base of opperation's from wich they wage a war in attrition.I can believe that the Chechens may have lost a lot of theyre conventional troops in direct confrontation's with Russian troops in the onset of the 2nd chechen war when they were forced to retreat many times.However when it comes to guerilla opperations like rpg or "bomb on road" attacks i doubt that they loose much men. In any case ,to me it seems that they manage to keep the region unstable for russia at the moment withought the loss of much manpower at the moment ,though they may have lost many men before. The Chechen situation is still one of grave concern for mr Putin for his position sake ,although he has managed very well to put the media to his hand. (Decline of such oliarch's like Goerzinsky ,ex-boss of "med tv"?) But in the end Russia still hasn't won the 2nd Chechen war.

From Wikipedia: Also there is self-proclaimed separatist government not recognized by any state. The president of this government is Aslan Maskhadov, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister is Akhmed Zakayev. Aslan Maskhadov was elected in an internationally monitored election in 1997 for 4 years. Then it was a major force. In 2001 he issued a decree prolonging his office for one additional year; he didn't participate the 2003 presidential election. Maskhadov left Grozny and moved to the separatist-controlled areas of the south with the onset of the Second Chechen War. President Maskhadov has been unable to influence a number of warlords who retain effective control over Chechen territory, and his power was diminished. Most probably, any actions of Maskhadov's government or even its disappearance would not change current situation in the Chechen Republic. Profile of Shamil Basayev: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev He came to prominence in 1995 during the first Chechen war when he led a hostage-taking raid at Budennovsk, Russia. Around January 1, 1998 he was appointed prime minister of Chechnya by president Aslan Maskhadov for a six month term, after which he resigned. During the rebel withdraw from Grozny in January 2000 he lost a foot after stepping on a landmine, but eluded Russian capture together with other rebels by hiding in forests and mountains. He welcomed assistance from Islamic groups including the Taleban of Afghanistan and was accused by Russia of organising suicide bombings of Russian apartment blocks in September 1999. Around November 2, 2002 Basayev said on a rebel website that he was responsible for the Moscow theatre siege. He also tendered his resignation from all posts in Maskadov's rebel organisation, apart from the reconnaissance and sabotage battalion. He defended the operation but asked Maskhadov for forgiveness for not informing him of it. (however as thus Basayev opperates beyond any concensus with other group's) Profile on Aslan Mashadov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aslan_Maskhadov Aslan Maskhadov (born 1951) is a Chechen general and chief of staff during the 1994-1996 war against Russia. Maskhadov is a silent, organized military leader whom many credit with the Chechen victory in the mid-1990s. In January 1997, Maskhadov was elected President of Chechnya on a platform including demands for independence from Moscow. Maskhadov was born to Chechens in exile in Kazakhstan; his family returned to Chechnya in 1957. He soon joined the Soviet army, serving in both Hungary and Lithuania. After helping to end the Lithuanian nationalist movement in 1991, Maskhadov became the Chief of Staff for the Chechen army. After fighting the war with Russia, which did not result in independence in spite of multiple victories, Maskhadov became a candidate for President, running against Shamil Basayev, a field commander with a popular following. After Maskhadov's victory, he worked with Basayev until 1998, when the rival established a network of military officers which soon devolved into territorial warlords scattered around Chechnya. With the arrival of this opposition, Maskhadov found himself the target of assassination attempts and his country suffered through multiple terrorist attacks which reduced his popular support. Maskhadov's attempts to stifle Wahhabism and other fundamentalist Muslim groups, coupled with his inability to keep Chechens from trying to drive Russians out of neighboring Dagestan, made him appear incompetent and incapable of controlling his country. And to go a bit further on the torture bit etc. : again from Wikipedia: According to Chechen rebel sources 60,000 civilians have so far died this war. During the initial months of the war, Russia made effective use of air power instead of immediately rushing in massive numbers of ground troops. Thus, the Russians have avoided the first war's extremely high casualties. Russian forces later resorted to heavy carpet bombing and ballistic missile strikes against Grozny and other major cities. Though corridors were made for civilians to exit the cities when the attacks occurred, rebels sometimes blocked their escape. There are also reports of chemical weapons being used against rebels, though this is yet unconfirmed. Some Western countries have criticized heavy-handedness of the Russian military in dealing with the rebels, and both sides are charged with substantiated claims of torture, rape, looting, smuggling, and embezzlement.

Actually in globel international relations it surely makes a big difference.After 9/11 terrorism has gotten a very distinct position in the world ,ever since the president of the worlds most powerfull country by far has declared a global war on terrorism.If you look to cases like the Israeli/Palestinian case you can see that terrorism might be determinal for the justification of a war or resistance.Cazling a certain country or faction terrorists often mean's "kill them of ASAP" ,while there may be much nuancations to their situation that would almost ask for new labels to be invented. On the point of torture: I think there are a numberinternational laws that might prevent most torture ,depending of wich laws have been signed by the individual country's.In the case of Chechnia ,since they never gotten internationally recognized they probably never got the chance to sign such accord's ,in the case of Russia they might also have avoided certain laws.In any case it happens over the world even in democracy's. (Guantanamo anyone?) I would also doubt if there arn't cases of torture commited by russian troops ,knowing a bit of the nature of the institution that is the Russian army.

@Toadeater: The point that i was trying to make is that the Chechen millitia's and army's that fought the chechen wars and still fighting them are not longer unified in opperations and no longer controlled from a central command.And the interrests of independant factions that control certain parts of these troops may vary.Ever since the decapitation of the top of the Chechen goverment structure certain faction have gone their own way in using the men that they have at command.Afterall ,a country is never composed of fundamentalists alone ,there are enough lets call it entrepeneurs in the country who will gladly finance those militia's or troops that are fighting for their cause ,while their might be also millitia's that fight for religious causes.The chechen society has a diverse class system and ethnic structure that may provide for many difference's within the country.They all fight for Chechen independance ,and in the case of the religious fundamentalists they might be fighting for more ,nevertheless they are all fighting that war in their own sepperate way.Surely you must understand that those Chechens fighting youre daily guerilla warfare in the Chechen mountain's are different from those that place bomb's in Russia. This "loose" alliance between various Chechen faction's in fighting of Russia can be very flexible and coorperation's between certain groups may happen on very different levels. You could compare it to the Northern Alliance after the death of Massoud ,basicly a number of different faction's pressed on a little mountain range that they can still defend barely having lost the person that bounded the alliance strong toghether. That all these factions still present a minority in total chechen population is probably true ,but that is actually pretty reasonable ,as they present different layers of their society and have much influence in this.I can understand that many chechens are tired of the war ,however i doubt that their arn't many nationalists in Chechnia. The troops that fought the first Chechen independance war with Jeltsin were by no mean's terrorists.The were controlled by the democraticly ellected Chechen goverment.They were a composition of conventional and guerilla troops.They won that war purely by conventional means.Surely you can't deny that it was their nationalism and patriotism that made them win that war.Many parts of those troops still exist and are still active ,with the loss of the central command they are now part of some faction within the Chechen alliance.

I am not a fan of terrorism.I do not admire their terrorist attacks on civilian targets for sure ,however in the context there i stated that i had once a admiration of Chechen guerilla tactics.Torturing soldiers that invade youre country ,as gruesome as it may be ,is not terrorism but war.Only when civilians are targetted we can talk about terrorism.Besides i don't recall the russian's being pantsies when it comes to torturing Chechens really ,the russian army is not exactly very clean and surgical in their opperations ,artillery bombardments on towns and cities were plentifull when Russia re-invaded Chechnya.The russians made it a dirty war from the start ,and the Chechens adapted themselfs to that ,and how.To think how low they were in manpower ,material etc it was really a wonder that they could hold out so long eventually. I think it would be hard to tell what exactly the agenda of the Chechen militia's are ,in any case i'm sure their are a number of Chechen millitia's opperating tottaly sepperate from others.With the fall of central command over the Chechen millitia's with the current puppet president the Chechens got now the millitia's are much more devided with some having connections to local warlords ,others probably engaging in terrorism ,... They still all hate the russians though so they probably still fight them often.But i wonder ,should Cechnya be set free today ,wouldn't it collapse in a civil war emmidiatly? And to talk about terrorist attacks.I'm not a conspiracy theory thinker but the bomb in the Russian appartment bloc that killed a small amount of people just when Putin had become PM was to me quite dubious.It came on such a strategic moment ,and prior to that date the Chechens never had done such attacks on Russian soil.

Thing's are more complicated than that.The millitary command of the chechens have certainly changed from a very direct control by the ex-president to a shared control by a number of remaining generals.But their definnatly not the lapdog of international terrorism ,even if they spew ifundamentalistic propaganda on their site. More or less ,since the demise of the Chechen goverment structure ,the chechen militia's have allied themselfs with Al-Quida rather than obbeying them.They are in fact a crucial part of Al-Quaida in the way that Al-Quaida is actually dependant on them.The 9/11 terrorists for ex. probably got their training by some chechen millitiamen.In Afhanistan several Chechens fought alongside with the Taliban. The reason i think why Al-quaida and the Chechens found eachother was because they were each mastering their field of war ,the Chechens are specialists on vertical warfare ,Al-Quaida the specialists in terrorism.And i can bet you that the relation beween the Chechens and Al-quida is much deeper than the relations of Al-Quida with other terrorist groups. In this sense ,i would doubt that the Chechens really believe all that muslim-extremism bull ,however under the terms of an alliance Al-Quaida can be a valuable partner to Chechnya by providing funds ,arranging weapon imports and probably most importantly provide mujahedeen manpower ,while the Chechians are important for Al-Quaida to provide training and if needed supply highly veteran insurgents in time of war. And i think we can admire the Chechens for one thing ,their persistence and their combat skill's.Even a few hundred men, defending Grozny could keep a multitude of Russian troops and material out of the city for a long period.And with considerable losses for Russia ,that while they already had practicly leveled the city with artillery. The Chechen people want independance ,that's all.Even if it's an non secular goverment leading the country i think they would be preppared to live in it.That the current chechen leadership is preppared to go very far to find aid for their cause is probably because the chechen militia's lost control of 95% of Chechen territory.

I'm not a fan of terrorism ,but it's for a big part Putin's fault that the situation escelated this far. After defeating Jeltsin's troops out of Chechnya the Chechen politician had made good work of organizing their goverment.It had a very strong and able president at the time (doedajev) and it's overall poliical structure was very well organized for a rebelious province.Even today peace negotiation's between Chechnya and Russia would be possible to organize ,afterall Chechnya still has a lot of ellected politician's. But then Poeting became PM and about his first order was to return and take Chechnya back as a promotion stunt to the upcomming ellection's. (after he let Jeltsin away with a shitload of $ stolen from monetary funds given to Russia by the West ,but now he's takeing on the oliarchy allright) Terrorism has never been a hallmark of Chechen resistance fighting.Chechens gennerally are very experienced in vertical warfare ,even groundbraking if you will ,many expirenced chyechen officers are by time to time exchanged to other rebel groups to educate them actually.Think of Al-Quaida's training camps they were full of chechens edducating the new mujahedeen. But why have they gotten to use terrorism those Chechens who were so effective in vertical warfare? What i know is ,that Doedajev died 2 days before the first terrorist attack in Moskou.Doedajev was widly respected and honoured in his country ,for Chechens he was ia Hero.I respected him to ,he did the almost imposible ,beating in all classes a superior Russian force out of his country.How did he die?Russian millitary had at one point found out what the telephone number of Doedajev cell phone was at some point after he had made a call to some associate.They simply picked up the coordinates of Doedajev's phone by sattleite and typed in the coordinates on a scud launcher.Only minutes later Doedajev was killed ,but not only Doedajev ,if you can believe the Chechen officials on Kavkaz.org at that time many more Chehen ellected politician's died in that attack ,in addition to a shitload of innocent civilians.Since then ,the Chechens more and more began to use terrorism ,while in Doedajev's time no true terrorists attacks were commited. One has to put it all in perspective.Chechniya was a rebel province with a political structure at that time ,not just a terrorist bulwark.Russia could have easily got a permanent peace treaty with Chechnya.Poetin chose to stirr up nationalistic pride in his country for ellectoral reason by declaring war on the Chechyans.And Russia has been more than dirty in this war ,Grozny is as good as levelled these days as the Russians didn't dare to enter the city when the Chechen resistance was still in the city ,so they bombarded the city continually for several month's.There are no official figure's of how much innocent civilians have been killed in this war with many bombardments ,but i wouldn't be surprized if the number of that exceeded the death toll by terrorism in Russia by far. That said ,the Chechens are very dangerous now ,and essentially must be rooted out now.Russia should have never decapitated the Chechens of their upper command ,by cleaning out the moderate leaders in the organization now only the extreme millitant leaders are left.

Well personally i'm not relegious ,i'm a die hard atheist who more beliefs in the power of nature like Darwin decribed. To add something to the equison however ,is that some relegion's have a church leader who usually is instrumental in defining how their lower clergy interprets their teaching's.People like the pope ,the Daila Lama and in lesser order the bishop of Canterburry more or less decide for their whole religion how their teachings should be interpreted.That make's it easier for worldly power's to contain them somewhat if needed ,as they have just one man to adress. If i'm not mistaken although their is no upper body in Judaism Judaist Rabbi's often consult other's in theoligy ,write books and spread their interpretation.Usually ,that interpretation is a product of so many debate's between Rabbi's ,so it's more or less a plurocratic way of building a general interpretation. Islam lack's concencus in interpretation however.Interpretations of the Koran can be very different according to what place in the Middle east you are ,and for the so many divissions and sect's in Islam not one of them has an structured international body with one church leader heading it. Maybe it would be interresting to have a number of "pope's" in Islam ,church leader's who's interpratation is determinal for their sect/devission of Islam.Their interpretation might still be very different from other sect's and might even lead to conflict ,however it would be much easier for worldly powers to influence that interpretation as they can addres a single leader instead of having to check on the teaching's of every different local islam preacher.

North Korea is an odd society stuck into a continueing "cultural revolution" China style with a personality cult for Kim Jong ill ,it's pretty messes up altoghether ,it's an elitetist society where family hereditry is of fundamental importance ,1 mistake made by a distant family member can make youre average North korean's life hell.It's such a tyranic country that the people are so used and indoctrinated to it that they actually accept it as normal.People are so used to the hardship of living there that they actually truly want one thing: to sacrifice themselfs for Kim jong ill ,it's maddnes but for people that ever learned of China's cultural revolution it will sound pretty similar. The country has become an economical armpit.The North korean convential army is hughe and expensive and as such sucks up a majority of the BNP.Apart of Pjongyang wich is a sort of PR "model city" packed with the "elite" of the country the country has few basic means of transport ,no elictricity (check a sattelite picture of North Korea at night ,most of surrounded Asia is tottaly lit ,while the whole of North Korea is a black blob) ,not much infrastructure ,... In times of the cold war North Korea was economicly supported by the communist powers ,however after the fall of the USSR North Korea had to look elsewhere for cash. Extortian is a good way ,towards South Korea ,Japan and the U.S.A if nessecary ,and it has worked to a certain extend.But afcourse they need more cash ,and if the can't extort it ,then theyll sell weapons to third party's for cash. From this perspective are ballistic missile's and nuclear warheads a good base for extortion.They build 10 or 20 nukes and they can extort any democratic country around them for the nessecary amount they need to get their economy out of the shambles. An Invasion of North Korea with conventional weapons would be a bad idea.First of all consider that Kim jong ill has about 2.000.000 troops immensly loyal by indoctrination and trained ,even prepaired to fight the Americans.America's invasion force in Iraq was only 250.000 and already enourmesly expensive.To be on the safe side counting that an amount of troops providing 3vs1 odd's against an enemy are favourable the U.S would need 6.000.000 troops to invade North Korea.And that is provided that China wouldn't aid North Korea ,because China knowing if it would support North Korea it would easily drop of a few million of well trained and equiped "militiamen" to fight the U.S under the command of North Korea ,just like they did in the 50's.With other word's ,it would probably be much cheaper to give in to the extortion than actually try to invade the country directly withought a deep consencus with China. And then China is the determinal factor.North Korea was and is protected by China as a buffer to their region of influence.A concensus must be found with China to force North Korea to disarm ,when China would force them they would obviously give in in no time.Since there is no official peace treaty beween S. and N. Korea and since this border is a faultline between 2 distinct ideoligy's and power-bloc's it can be accepted that North Korea maintain's a large conventional force ,however it shouldn't have a nuclear arsenal and ballistic rockets able to strike distant country's.Only China would be able to force North Korea to to disband their WMD project's ,we must make it worthwile for China to do that ,there are thing's i presume that China needs wich the U.S or Europe can provide. And with this in mind ,The U.S might think of aiding S. Korea somewhat more for their security if needed. But the question still remains ,what to do with a psychopatic society that is facing bankrupcy and has dangerous but valuable weapons at hand?Maybe the biggest threat woud be the scenario in wich N. Korea sell's a nuclear device to Al-Qauida.Maybe it would be in the best interrest to finnancially support the North korean goverment ,dispicable leaders as they are ,in favor of North Korea disbanding a large part of its army and finnaly build up it's economy.But then i don't think that fit's his godness Kim jong ill.

Thx to Col. Kilink for this very cute little addon. I love the detail on youre addons.