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People with diplomatic immunity can still be arrested. They just can't be prosecuted. The most that a host nation can do is expel them and send them out on the next flight home.

Case in point: Andrey Knyazev was arrested for drunk driving after causing a crash that killed a woman in Ottawa, Canada in 2001. He claimed diplomatic immunity, and returned home after Russia refused to lift immunity. He then stood trial in Russia, and was convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison. A *Russian* prison, mind you, not a comparatively cushy Canadian one.

Apparantly, the soviets worked this out for the Goodwill Games in 1994.

Dunno, the Mafia seems to have trouble with computers. I'd be most worried about the KGB or NSA, not the Mafia.

This guy really should've been on the list.

If you want to hurt Putin, it is easiest to do so bt proxy. Gazprom, the state gas and oil company is effectively an organ of Kremlin policy. The company is publically listed and even allows foreign shareholders, but the Kremlin retains control through their majority holding. They already supply a lot of gas to western europe and they are looking to buy up the supply chain, in particular RWE in Germany and Centrica in the UK. As both companies are publicly owned and Gazprom is run by the Kremlin, I'm sure that any such purchase could be reasonably blocked by their respective governmen ts or even the EU. That's unless Blair or Merkel are looking for a Gazprom directorship like Markel's predecessor.

Gazprom still needs access to foreign capital and expertsie. As a state organ, there is much corruption and it is run very inefficiently, as evidenced by its failure to develop fields. Sure the company makes money, but at the same time, it is losing it, with no outside help, this is likely to continue.

I am not going to respond to everything to try to keep this from ballooning into a gigantic post, but I'll respond to some of your points.

Our involvement in that area was nothing more than an excuse to follow the rules of McArthiesm.

Why don't you ask the South Koreans if they feel the same? Or maybe they prefer scraping bark off of trees for dinner like their counterparts to the north?

Communism is a great theory, however no one yet has managed to implement it correctly.

That's about the same thing as saying "A perpetual motion engine is a great theory, just nobody has implemented it correctly yet." Sure- the ideas behind communism are great, but there is a reason why nobody has been able to implement it correctly (on a large scale, at least).

If we had kept our noses out of their business, perhaps there would be a few hundred thousand people enjoying life today.

Perhaps if we had ignored it, there would be hundreds of millions of people living under oppressive totalitarian regimes without basic freedom of speech or freedom of religion.

If we're out to take out dictatorships, why is Cuba still around? Putin has repealed most of the democratic reforms in Russia and implemented some highly questionable practices. Why aren't we marching our armies through Moscow?

We are not out to "take out" dictatorships- we are out to address threats to our security. This really isn't very hard to understand.

I don't know if you missed it, but the US invaded Iraq without the approval of the UN.

Wrong. The US invaded Iraq using the direct authorization for military force that was unanimously granted in resolution 687 and reaffirmed 16 times after that, including resolution 1441 that gave Saddam one final chance to comply.

You see a country that doesn't like you threaten and beat the shit out of another country and you expect them to NOT TO DEVELOPE DETERRENTS?!?

I expect countries to live up to their international obligations. North Korea has had a secret uranium enrichment program for the past decade in violation of both the NPT and our 1994 bilateral framework.

If Iran is also developing nuclear weapons, it is in violation of the NPT as well.

Now, I believe that our action in Iraq will help resolve these situations peacefully for several reasons:
- The Shia majority in Iraq (led by Sistani) is very pro-democracy, and they are also friendly with Iran. This will have a big influence on the pro-democracy movements inside Iran. Just look at the number of reformist candidates that are running for President in Iran's July election to see this. There will be big changes in Iran this year!
- Iran, Germany, France, and the UK are VERY motivated to succeed in their talks to resolve these issues.
- North Korea is also motivated to resolve this crisis. Their comments this week were a transparent attempt to get back to bilateral talks with us because they feel this will give them legitimacy and prompt concessions and aid from us (like we gave them in 1994). The 6-party talks are the most likely way to resolve this peacefully.

Ah the Washinton Post. No that's an unbiased source of information right there.

What a weak-minded response. This was widely reported last summer (1, 2, 3, 4).

Are we talking about the same country? Even if they had plans, their infrastructure was so wrecked they were barely maintaining electricty and clean water.

All I can say is, read the ISG reports, because it is obvious that you haven't.

PLANS!= WMD. We have thousands of military plans to inva

Someone heard about of this device and nixed on the grounds that it used the Soviet Starwars technology, which is restricted and secondly, you don't really want to be in the way when it fires.

I quote a student and team coach from the article:

"A large part of their talent was due to very good basic mathematical knowledge given in school," Alexeyev said. "That is one of the strongest points of Russian education. Michigan University, for instance, may have stronger technical facilities, but the smartest guys come from Russia."

What does this mean in reality. Well they very good mathematicians, but unfortunately they learn very little about non-computer related stuff during their education. Their current business education is one acedamic hour per week for just one semester.

Eventually, this will be fixed, (I would guess about five years or so) but not for some time, as education in Russia will not be the fastest to modernise. However, there are some excellent software houses there and they, at least, seem to know something about s/w engineering and running a business.

Oh, yes, I speak about this because I have been working with programmers in St. Pete as well as small and medium sized technology companies. Also, the Mrs, used to help run some educational aid programmes there for Soros.

I quote a student and team coach from the article:

"A large part of their talent was due to very good basic mathematical knowledge given in school," Alexeyev said. "That is one of the strongest points of Russian education. Michigan University, for instance, may have stronger technical facilities, but the smartest guys come from Russia."

What does this mean in reality. Well they very good mathematicians, but unfortunately they learn very little about non-computer related stuff during their education. Their current business education is one acedamic hour per week for just one semester.

Eventually, this will be fixed, (I would guess about five years or so) but not for some time, as education in Russia will not be the fastest to modernise. However, there are some excellent software houses there and they, at least, seem to know something about s/w engineering and running a business.

Oh, yes, I speak about this because I have been working with programmers in St. Pete as well as small and medium sized technology companies. Also, the Mrs, used to help run some educational aid programmes there for Soros.

Of course who can forget the classic example here (or a working link to the article here).

Thought I would provide a link for this. BTW, I was mistaken, it's not Microsoft Beer, it's Windows 99 beer :)


Enigma

Actually, it isn't "Microsoft Beer" but Windows 99(TM) Beer. Read the article from St. Petersburg Times and the Slashdot discussion.