Excerpt from F. Wiliam Engdahl, Oct 7 2006:

The Emerging Russian Giant Plays its Cards Strategically

The first act of post-war occupation by Washington was to declare null and void any contracts between the Iraqi government and Russia, China and France. Iraqi oil was to be an American affair, handled by American companies or their close cronies in Britain, the first victory in the high-stakes quest, `where the prize ultimately lies.'

This was precisely what Cheney had alluded to in his 1999 London speech. Get the Middle East oil resources out of independent national hands and into US-controlled hands. The military occupation of Iraq was the first major step in this US strategy. Control of Russian energy reserves, however, was Washington's ultimate `prize.'

De-construction of Russia: The `ultimate prize'

For obvious military and political reasons, Washington could not admit openly that its strategic focus, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, had been the dismemberment or de-construction of Russia, and gaining effective control of its huge oil and gas resources, the `ultimate prize.' The Russian Bear still had formidable military means, however dilapidated, and she still had nuclear teeth.

In the mid-1990's Washington began a deliberate process of bringing one after the other former satellite Soviet state into not just the European Union, but into the Washington-dominated NATO. By 2004 Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia all had been admitted into NATO, and the Republic of Georgia was being groomed to join.

This surprising spread of NATO, to the alarm of some in western Europe, as well as to Russia, had been part of the strategy advocated by Cheney's friends at the Project for the New American Century, in their `Rebuilding America's Defenses' report and even before.

Already in 1996, PNAC member and Cheney crony, Bruce Jackson, then a top executive with US defense giant, LockheedMartin, was head of the US Committee to Expand NATO, later renamed the US Committee on Nato, a very powerful Washington lobby group.

The US Committee to Expand NATO also included PNAC members Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Hadley and Robert Kagan. Kagan's wife is Victoria Nuland, now the US Ambassador to NATO. From 2000 - 2003, she was a foreign policy advisor to Cheney. Hadley, a hardline hawk close to Vice President Cheney, was named by President Bush to replace Condoleezza Rice as his National Security Adviser.

The warhawk Cheney network moved from the PNAC into key posts within the Bush Administration to run NATO and Pentagon policy. Bruce Jackson and others, after successfully lobbying Congress to expand NATO to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in 1999, moved to organize the so-called Vilnius Group that lobbied to bring ten more former Warsaw Pact countries on Russia's periphery into NATO. Jackson called this the `Big Bang.'

President Bush repeatedly used the term `New Europe' in statements about NATO enlargement. In a July 5, 2002 speech hailing the leaders of the Vilnius group, Bush declared, `Our nations share a common vision of a new Europe, where free European states are united with each other, and with the United States through cooperation, partnership, and alliance.'

Lockheed Martin's former executive, Bruce Jackson, took credit for bringing the Baltic and other members of the Vilnius Group into NATO. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 1, 2003, Jackson claimed he originated the `Big Bang' concept of NATO enlargement, later adopted by the Vilnius Group of Baltic and Eastern European nations. As Jackson noted, his `Big Bang' briefing `proposed the inclusion of these seven countries in NATO and claimed for this enlargement strategic advantages for NATO and moral (sic) benefits for the democratic community of nations.' On May 19, 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania, these propositions were adopted by nine of Europe's new democracies as their own. It became the objectives of the Vilnius Group.' Jackson could also have noted the benefits to US military defense industry, including his old cronies at Lockheed Martin, with the creation of a vast new NATO arms market on the borders to Russia.

With the risk of being accused of too pro-Russian, I don't think that Chechens had any valid reasons for their rebellion aside from the greed of their leaders. I am still to see evidence they were being oppressed in some way as a part of the Russian Federation before the conflict started. And I am still to see what would happen in US if for example Texas formed unofficial government that decided to declare independancy so that the same government can make good money of the oil flow from the Gulf.

Historically Russia is no more good or bad than any big country with some empiristical ambitions. What truly matters is how much they are playing by the rules. I would argue that in violating international laws, interfering with internal affairs or invading sovereign countries they stand far behind US (if comparable at all), not to mention the past performance of Germany or say France on those.