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Lebed: I never defended the White House. I defended common sense. They tried to push me, a Russian general, to shoot my own people in the capital of my own state. No such force exists that would compel me to do this. I'm not a policeman. My job is to deal with external enemies. Build up a national guard or whatever you want to deal with domestic problems, but leave the armed forces out of it!
TIME: Is the army in danger of splitting apart?
Lebed: Yes, every regional ``prince'' now has his own troops. He pays them, and they are ready to unsheathe their swords. This is totally abnormal. All armed forces must be under one single command. This is the way it used to be. Now everybody thinks he can have his own private army.
TIME: Let's suppose you were Defense Minister in Moscow, and a general out in Tiraspol was always criticizing you. How would you react?
Lebed: Positively. It's my ``porcupine'' theory of command. No commander can know everything. He must rely on deputies, competent in the narrow areas assigned them. His responsibility is to make sure none of them tugs the blanket to one side of the bed. A deputy who answers ``Yes, sir'' to every stupid thing his commander says can get his boss into serious trouble. He must have the courage to take a stand and be able to defend it.
TIME: Why do you make so many public statements, as if you were a politician?
Lebed: In a normal civilized society, you would have to force the army into politics with a stick. They should not be concerned with who is in power today, be it Czar, General Secretary or President. Presidents come and go, but the motherland always remains. We are not in a normal state. The Commonwealth of Independent States is, in fact, an alliance of abnormal states. That is why all this madness is going on.
TIME: Would you be prepared to assume power?
Lebed: I joined the armed forces 25 years ago and still love military service and want to carry on. But these are troubled times, when everything is so confused you can't tell military issues from political ones. So I do not rule out the possibility that I might be forced to it out of necessity. But I don't really want to. If I get carried away in this direction sometimes, it is only out of gloom and desperation, not because I have some overwhelming desire to prove my political mettle.
TIME: Would you do it in a constitutional way?
Lebed: Only in the constitutional way. I've had more than my share of war and have come to the conclusion that it doesn't resolve anything. Even the longest wars, lasting a hundred years, still end in peace talks. So why not talk right away and cut out the military fighting stage? There can't be a victor in the kinds of war they are waging now in the former Soviet Union, only throngs of defeated.
TIME: If you did feel that your involvement in politics became inevitable, how would you go about it?
Lebed: This is not a proper question to ask me. Do you want me to put my cart before my horse and tell the whole world on the pages of TIME magazine what my plans are?
-QUOTE-
"They charged like a bull at the Chechen fence and got their horns stuck. Now they are going crazy out of their own incompetence."
--Alexander Lebed