| Author | Message | ||
     Dave Citizen Username: Dave Post Number: 8090 Registered: 4-1998  |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60580-2004Sep3.html | ||
| court07040 Citizen Username: Court07040 Post Number: 137 Registered: 8-2003 |
Frankly, if I were Putin I would escalate. These fanatics only understand one thing: Brute force. Aren't these the same people that said they'd kill 50 kids for every terrorist that was killed? Putin's reply should be to retaliate against a couple dozen of their families' villages. I found it interesting that many of the captors reportedly fled in the mayhem. Not exactly the work of "suicide" bombers. In the end, they were just cowardly men and women. Hunt them down and kill them. Kill their families, too. | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1727 Registered: 6-2001 |
Isabel Hilton, in today's Guardian, points out how children and other civilians are further endangered by outmoded militaristic responses to heinous acts of contemporary terrorism and why those who beat the drum of total war for political gain shouldn't run be allowed to run the show if we care about protecting civilian life: "In asymmetrical warfare everyone is involved and anyone is a potential victim. To promise that security in such conflicts will result from the deployment of large military machines is a sham. To fight asymmetrical war with tanks makes as much sense as trying to shoot mosquitoes with a machine gun. The result is counter-productive. "As the drama of Beslan was entering its final hours, George Bush was bidding for re-election on the promise of security to the American people, a security premised on the willingness to use overwhelming military force. It was the same promise that Putin gave to the Russians and Ariel Sharon to the people of Israel. All three have used violence freely in pursuit of electoral reward: Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple of the Mount that triggered the second intifada, Putin's reckless adventurism in re-launching the Chechen war in 1999, and the Bush invasion of Iraq. None has produced the peace or security that was their justification; all have generated more violence and widened the circle of killing far beyond the formal engagement of armed men on both sides. Now the most likely victims are the poor and the helpless, as collateral damage, bombing casualties or hostages." http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1297180,00.html | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1594 Registered: 3-2003 |
Naturally, harpo quotes an ahistorical, idiotic windbag from the Guardian. What Russia suffers from in the Caucases, aside from having fought the Chechens too indiscriminately, too early on, is extremely lax security combined with corruption and the basest, most intractable of ethnic hatreds. Sort of like in 1960s Cyprus, or Palestine. Nobody--not even al Qaeda--captures and tortures young children for purely political or nationalistic reasons, nor only for the sake of G-d. That is what these pigs did. They ran a bayonet through a young boy who asked for water. They pissed in the shoes of children who begged for water. They prevented children who had had nothing to drink for two days from drinking from a tap in a bathroom. They told the children to drink their own urine. They fired guns to silence crying toddlers. They shot fleeing children in the back. They told one mother she could leave with her two-year old son if she abandoned her six-year old daughter; and she did. The little girl survived by pleading with an older boy, as she had pleaded with her mother, not to leave her behind. She held onto him and refused to let go, and they escaped during the mayhem after the terrorists' bombs began exploding during the f-cking negotiations. The notion that there is any such thing as perfect security among such people as these extremists is a straw argument used by peace-preachers to claim that no military response can be effective. But that is a lie; our choices anymore are not between peace and war, but between some war and more war, some security and no security at all. Obviously, military responses and greater vigilance have produced some security in countries like the US and Israel, and they have done so in part by taking the fight to the enemy's territory and by making it tougher for the enemy to get to civilians at home. The Russians have done the former (wrt Chechens, not Arabs--yet), but they have not accomplished the latter, and they may not be equipped to do so. It is quite possible that, in addtion to the Arabs who were reportedly involved in the Beslan atrocity, some of the terrorists may have been Ingush. Ingush are of the same ethnicity as Chechens, and both are different from Ossetians, who are essentially Russified Iranians. In 1992 there was a civil conflict in N. Ossetia between Ingush and Ossetians in which, I'm told, the Ingush were "ethnically cleansed," and driven out to Ingushetia--a province of ethnic Chechens that, unlike Chechnya, has long accepted Russian rule. Note that the terrorists were reportedly demanding the release of Ingush insurgents held in N. Ossetia, not Chechnyans per se. You comfortable pontificators who like to think all Putin has to do is negotiate and make peace with Chechnya might want to put all your profound thoughts in writing and send them off to the Kremlin. I'm sure the Russians are dying to hear just how they're supposed to cede Chechnya (which they tried already, and which generated more terror). To whom, exactly, do they hand it over? Aslan Maskhadov? Oops, he's no longer in charge of terror there and he can't end it. The assorted competing radical Islamists 80% of Chechens want nothing to do with? No, that would simply provide them a beachhead from which to continue the war against the "west," ultimately adding Ingushetia to the Chechen republic. [I forgot to add that we should also expect another Chechen invasion of Daghestan.] Frankly, I can't guess how one makes "peace" with child torturers. But I'm sure you folks have all the right pacifist answers. Get them in the mail! They're sure to be appreciated in Beslan. | ||
| sbenois Citizen Username: Sbenois Post Number: 12039 Registered: 10-2001  |
and I just love how they worked Israel into this. Anything in the article about Israel having to fight war after war to remain in existence? | ||
| marie Citizen Username: Marie Post Number: 1128 Registered: 6-2001 |
Why aren't the papers reporting that Chechnyan Rebels sp? are Radical Fundamentalist Muslims? | ||
| sbenois Citizen Username: Sbenois Post Number: 12042 Registered: 10-2001 |
Because it would blow apart the entire load of crap about how terrorists do these things because they hate the USA, our policies, Israel, etc. Hey, maybe we're not the problem??? | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1595 Registered: 3-2003 |
Marie, An online acquaintance of mine (he goes by the moniker Pseudoerasmus) happens to have addressed that issue succinctly in another forum, so I'll simply quote him by way of an answer: "The main separatist movement in Chechnya is not Islamist; in fact, it's not even religious. But during Chechnya's de facto independence in 1996-99, the Islamists, both native Chechen and mostly Arab foreigners, ruled little enclaves within Chechnya and created all kinds of trouble, the final stroke being the invasion of the neighbouring Daghestan and declaration of an Islamic state. Moscow had grown resigned to the idea of a seceded Chechnya, but what it would not tolerate was the Islamist Chechens' agenda for "liberating" all of the Muslim republics of the Russian Caucasus." Some of the school terrorists were apparently neither Chechens (the ethnic group) or Chechnyans (the nationality--there being Chechens who do not live in Chechnya). The region has been beset also by Russian and Ossetian mercenaries, and one source has claimed that the terrorists at the school included, in additon to Arabs and at least one African, both Russians and Ossetians. | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1596 Registered: 3-2003 |
However, my bet is that this thing was indeed directed by Chechen or Arab Islamists. It has certainly been disavowed as barbaric by Chechen moderates. | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1729 Registered: 6-2001 |
I think the description of Isabel Hilton as a windbag is an extreme case of projection. These are among Hilton's accomplishments: Daily journalist for the Sunday Times and the Independent in the UK, covering China, Latin America and European affairs. Her tv documentaries include: Petra and the General, about Petra Kelly; City on the Edge, a documentary about economic reforms in China; Condemned to Live, a report about the after-effects of mass rape and genocide in Rwanda, and The Caravan of Death, about the case against Pinochet. She authored The Fourth Reich: Klaus Barbie and the Neo-Fascist Connection, 1984 and was co-author of Betrayed, Abuses of the Rights of the Child, 1986. She contributes regularly to the New Yorker, the Financial Times, The Times Literary Supplement and The Economist. Member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and has a seat on the editorial board of International Affairs. She is also a member of the British Association of China Scholars and is part of the advisory committee of the Latin America Bureau. She is currently assembling a book of her past writing on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet, India, and the Middle East. She speaks fluent Chinese, Spanish, French and German. But no. She doesn't post a lot on MOL. Sbenois, She referred to Ariel Sharon, not Israel. Marie, Today's papers have hostages' eyewitness accounts of the seige, which are emotionally hard to read, but the hostages say the terrorists spoken in Chechen-accented Russian or in Chechen. Don't trust the answers you get on MOL. | ||
| sbenois Citizen Username: Sbenois Post Number: 12050 Registered: 10-2001 |
The "answers" didn't come from MOL. They were broadcast all day yesterday throughout the media, most notably CNN. | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1597 Registered: 3-2003 |
"I think the description of Isabel Hilton as a windbag is an extreme case of projection." Everything you write is an extreme case of projection. | ||
| Montagnard Citizen Username: Montagnard Post Number: 1013 Registered: 6-2003  |
Was this just nihilism, then, like Columbine? And if it's political, why does it matter that the bombs were carried by people as opposed to being dropped from airplanes? The net effect seems to be the same. | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1598 Registered: 3-2003 |
It turns out that a number of the terrorists were, in fact, Ingush--thus Putin's speech yesterday warning against ethnic violence and introducing a law to criminalize its fomentation. So far we have Ingush, Arabs, and even Ossetians. Apparently not many Chechens. | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1599 Registered: 3-2003 |
CNN: "ITAR-Tass quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying that the school assault was financed by Abu Omar As-Seyf, an Arab who allegedly represents al-Qaida in Chechnya, and directed by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev." | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1600 Registered: 3-2003 |
Moscow News: Chechen Separatists Say “Third Force” Behind Terrorist Attacks Created: 02.09.2004 15:58 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:15 MSK MosNews Akhmed Zakayev, a special envoy to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov has said that “a third force that brought Russian President Vladimir Putin to power” is behind all the terrorist attacks committed in Russia over the past two weeks. London-based Zakayev said this in an exclusive interview with the Caucasus Times newspaper, printed in Prague, Czech Republic. Zakayev said that “Chechen resistance forces led by Ichkeria President Aslan Maskhadov have nothing to do with the hostage crisis in North Ossetia”. He called the events a sad fact and condemned actions against Russian children and civilians. Zakayev believes that the twin aircraft crash last week, the blast near Rizhskaya metro station on 31 August and today’s events in North Ossetia are links in the same chain and that “the same power that wants to destabilize the situation in the North Caucasus region” is behind them. A militant Muslim group called the Islambouli Brigades earlier claimed responsibility for downing two passenger plains and for the bomb blast in Moscow. The legitimacy of the group and the authenticity of such statements have not been verified. | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1601 Registered: 3-2003 |
"Was this just nihilism, then, like Columbine?" No, it was apparently political and ethnic. Remember, the Ingush and Chechens are one ethnic group spread out into different states (of which Daghestan is another). Chechen radicals in Chechnya, aided by Islamists who spread to the Caucases from the mideast via Afghanistan, wish to reestablish an independent Chechen homeland out of not only Chechnya but also the formerly Chechen republics that are currently part of Russia. These include Ingushetia and Daghestan. There was recently an (underreported) attack by radicals on Ingushetia in which scores of people died. The attackers were apprehended and held in N. Ossetia, which has a violent history with the Ingush, as noted above. (N. Ossetia is also Orthodox Christian, while Ingushetians are mostly Muslims.) So it's not surprising if the school attack in N. Ossetian Beslan was perpetrated in part by radical Ingush, whose demands included the release of their brethren, as well as by Chechens and Arab Islamists demanding independence. | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1732 Registered: 6-2001 |
Was pseudoerasmus subbing for Wolf Blitzer? The reason I responded as I did to Marie was that her question was dead on. These people people are Islamists and, as Jcrohn has suddenly discovered, they have ties to al-Qaeda. As for quoting Chechen separatists saying that Putin was behind the attacks . . . well, you might as well believe Putin on this subject. At the moment, nobody knows exactly what group is responsible. What we do know is that Bush ostentatiously blessed a policy there that greatly enhanced the likelihood of this. This is the wrong approach to dealing with national security and there is a bit of urgency about realizing this, I think. Montangnard's remark is also dead on. Contrary to the belief that al-Qaeda isn't capable of this, it is. And when explosives blow up children, the vileness of it is just the same no matter whose names are on the ordinance. | ||
| Ed May Citizen Username: Edmay Post Number: 2135 Registered: 9-2001  |
Marie - Point well taken - hope your sign wasn't taken again. | ||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 1602 Registered: 3-2003 |
Harpo, your reading comprehension seems to have been at a low ebb this afternoon, even for you. Otherwise, why would you say something so bizarre as, "These people people [sic] are Islamists and, as Jcrohn has suddenly discovered, they have ties to al-Qaeda"? Virtually any Islamist group operating in the Caucases can at this point be assumed to have "ties to al Qaeda". What you seem to be unaware of is that Moscow routinely claims al Qaeda is behind every Chechen attack, in order to deflect criticism of its human rights abuses in prosecuting the Chechnyan war. So when CNN reports that Russian intelligence officials are saying anonymously that al Qaeda is responsible for a particularly nasty atrocity, one takes note but reserves judgment as to the motivations behind the attack. Personally, I figure al Qaeda-linked Islamists supplied manpower and financing, but the planning behind this thing appears in a sense to have been more personal, more local. It isn't even a certainty that all the terrorists were Islamists. If Basayev* was behind this, as CNN's Russian intelligence claims, then Islamism played only a supporting role. Note that this represents an alteration of my assumption at the start of the siege, and which I said here repeatedly, that the Beslan assault was chiefly an al Qaeda operation. IOW, the attack, if it was motivated significantly by ethnic strife between Ingushetians and N. Ossetians, Chechens and Russians, might just as well have occurred in the absence of participation by al Qaeda. "Contrary to the belief that al-Qaeda isn't capable of this, it is." No one was speaking to the issue of capability. Al Qaeda does not ordinarily target children. Breaking that taboo suggests extreme ethnic hatred, which is where the Ingush come in. Perhaps you're slow to catch on to this distinction because of an overreliance on Wolf Blitzer, but people who follow these things more closely are not. For instance, this Russian editorialist writing on September 2: Hostage-takers have arrived in Beslan, North Ossetia, from Ingushetia and are demanding the liberation of those detained on charges of raiding Ingushetia in late June of this year. That raid — rebels attacked local interior ministry officials and prosecutors killing dozens — was quickly forgotten. But the Kremlin was not in the least bit interested in public discussion of what had happened in Ingushetia and why. Why did the rebels target only police officials and prosecutors, and where were all the other special services and security forces in the meantime? Just a few web-sites, covering the security sweeps in refugee camps, reported how Ingush policemen who raided the camps in the aftermath of the rebel attack, shouted: “Why didn’t you attack the FSB?” The latest horrendous events in North Ossetia are the echo of the crisis that has been developing in Ingushetia over the past year and that the authorities failed to handle over the past months. http://www.mosnews.com/commentary/2004/09/02/countop.shtml _____________________ *A backgrounder from the Beeb: The end of the Chechen war left [Chechen warlord Shamil] Basayev without a role. He stood for president but came second to the winner, Aslan Maskhadov. He was Chechen prime minister for a while but did not, as he had promised, manage to crack down on crime and kidnapping. His popularity in Chechnya waned. So it was perhaps inevitable that he would turn to his favourite profession, warfare, again, this time in Dagestan and in alliance with another full-time warrior, the Saudi-born fighter Khatab, a man from a completely different fundamentalist Islamic background. Basayev is an exceptionally fearless and cruel warrior, but increasingly that seems to be all he is. Before the war in Chechnya he apparently showed little interest in Islam and his self-declared ambition to form an Islamic state is perhaps less important to him than a desire to fight the Russians at every opportunity and whatever the cost. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/460594.stm) |
