Reply #48: Wow! I was not aware of American Committee for Peace in Chechnya.

[robertpaulsen]

It wouldn't surprised me if an organization like this was contributing to Iran-Contraesque subterfuge in the region:


The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) describes itself as "the only private, nongovernmental organization in North America exclusively dedicated to promoting the peaceful resolution of the Russo-Chechen war(1)

ACPC's activities include organizing public education programs, developing policy recommendations for lawmakers, and collaborating with activists, journalists, and scholars. It also works closely with a range of nongovernmental policy groups and think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Jamestown Foundation. The committee distributes Chechnya Today, a daily email news service, and Chechnya Weekly, an online news magazine produced by the Jamestown Foundation. ACPC's web site contains a news archive; policy papers relating to the U.S. role in Chechnya; and academic papers, maps, and photos of the conflict. Similar to Jamestown Foundation's founding objective of working with Soviet defectors, ACPC also plans events that feature Chechnyan dissidents. (2)

snip

ACPC's board of directors is cochaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Steven J. Solarz, and Max Kampelman; and the committee's more than one hundred members reflect a wide range of political tendencies, including such figures as Richard Gere, Morton Ambramowitz, and Geraldine Ferraro. On its membership rolls are many high-profile neoconservatives, including Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, Elliott Abrams, Midge Decter, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, and James Woolsey. (5)

snip

ACPC says that the rebel forces don't have links to al-Qaida, and that the U.S. should support their efforts to create an independent Chechnya. Whatever the facts about connections between the Chechen rebels and the al-Qaida terrorist network, the rebels certainly include Islamist fundamentalists, including those affiliated with Wahhabism. Nevertheless, ACPC supports the Chechen rebel movement, apparently as a strategy to weaken Russia and establish better U.S. ties in the region-one of increasing geopolitical value and which has vast, unexploited natural resource reserves-including rich oil, gas, and hard mineral deposits.

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1429.html